We just past in Zagreb for a day trip, it has really the cachet of a capital, nice big and modern while keeping a trace from the past, but since we were there only one day we didn’t see that much. We basically walked in the city and looked at the buildings. As usual, while we were there, there was an impeccable weather, sunny, without a cloud. The only one thing that I could had is that you’ll need to go discover it by yourself!
I don’t know if you remember but once, when I was in Prague, I talked about a girl that I met in a Club called Futurum. It was at the beginning of the fall semester. Since that time we were in touch from time to time, sending emails. When I decided to make this trip I contacted her to see if I could visit her. It turn out that, she was very happy and so it was decided. So now we are at her parent place near the Slovenian border, her father has a bar close to the border city and my friend is often working there. But her, she is studying in the capital Ljubljana where she has an apartment with her sister. So we arrived and left our luggage in our room and then we left to visit a little bit around her town, Dobova. We went to a castle where the history of the region was told. We then went to see some of her friend in a café. We also had a lunch with her parents and grandparent at her house, they made for us traditional food. It was amazingly good and since their grandparents weren’t speaking English we had to use our imagination to communicate with them. We also pass one day at the pool, where we enjoyed the sun and conversation with their friends. The next day me and Max decided to go see Zagreb the capital of Croatia, it is quite close and then we came back to Dobova before leaving the next day for the capital, Ljubljana, and to stay at her apartment.
Today we visited the small town of Novy Sad. This was the place of the Eurovision contest. It is a nice picturesque city. It as a castle, but not really well maintain but the point of view is amazing. Well you know it is a small town, calm, nice small streets, nice house a nice church at the beginning of a pedestrian street. It was relaxing, really. We made only a one-day trip and it was really enough. Next we go see one of my friends in Slovenia.
After all what happen in Romania, I realize, that my mobile and my old watch are not there anymore. The guy at the left luggage stole them probably, it was almost valueless so it is not really important, but still. In Belgrade we were staying in a youth hostel, which was situated in a high school dorm. Beds were small and funny stuff was written on the walls, girl stuff. We visited the city, the old part and the fortification. It is really amazing. On the city walls we had such a nice view over the Danube and the landscape. It has a nice pedestrian street too, a lot of small outside stand and shops. It is really a big city, the capital. We also walked for hours, to go visit the tomb of Tito. We made a small trip to Novy Sad, this year the Eurovision contest was taking place there. Only one building was still partly destroyed, they repaired almost all the damage that the war and the bombing caused.
After Sinaia, we tried to leave. Yes, we tried, here is the story; and I think it will be the best story of my trip. We left Brasov by train to Belgrade. We had to make a train change at Timisoara. We arrived there at about 21h and our train was leaving for Belgrade at 6h30, something like that. So we didn’t bother to find a hostel, we left our luggage at the left luggage in the train station and we went visit the town buy night and we decided to sleep in a park a little bit as we could. Unfortunately I didn’t really slept, first I didn’t to be robbed and second there were a lot of mosquitoes. Anyway, after a while we went back at the train station and played chess and waited, waited, waited… So finally the time to take the train arrived. We went to take our backpack and went to buy the train ticket. It was mark that the train would be on the track 6. We waited there until 6h45 and still no train to Belgrade. After sometime a guy came and ask us if we wanted to take the train to Belgrade we said yes and he told us that it passed on track 2 instead. They always do that write a track but it never pass on that one we have to ask. This guy is living of that “helping” tourist and carrying the luggage of people for some money. He helped us a bit he told us how to get to Belgrade, by the fastest way, instead of taking the next direct train to Belgrade the day after… We took a small train to the border city. It left us in the middle of a field and fortunately for us a lady got off. She wasn’t speaking any English but somehow she know we wanted to go to the border so we followed her. We walked for about 1km and we arrived in a really really small town. Where farm animals were all around the town and birds on top of electrical post. Anyway, we walked across the town until we met policeman. They stop us and asked our id we showed our passport. They only wanted to see our passport for fun. They asked us, what is that, pointing at the Czech visa. They never saw, I think a Canadian visa. So we continued to walk toward to border. It was very funny to walk to the border by feet, when usually it is cars that pass there. After the border, there was a taxi. Hum what a coincidence a taxi at the border. We are not the only one to fall in the same trap. We took it to the next city, then the bus to Belgrade, finally!!!
We then went to Sinaia, to see the Peles castle. In fact there is two castles one beside each other and a Presbyter. You all know that the world is a village, or a small place, well at the Peles castle, I saw a friend of me that was with me in Prague as an ERASMUS. The castle is the most beautiful that I saw in my life. All in wood whit a lot of different types of wood and hand crafted. Sincerely it was amazing, so much better than the fake Dracula castle. Just look at the picture and see. The Presbyter was nice too, there was an orthodox church really nice inside. I can just recommend you to go see it.
Bran is the Dracula castle for tourist because the Romanian character on which the book is based never lived in this castle. He maybe had visited it but not more. But, if you go there you will see hundred of tourist stands with Dracula artifact and a recreation of a typical village of the time of Dracul. The castle is not that great, it is all white and not a lot furnished. Just look at the picture and you’ll see. What is more breath taking is the scenery that you can see there. We went in the woods behind the castle and walked a lot up-hill, the last days were a little bit rainy so it was slippery. There we met other students that were also staying in Brasov. After that we went together to a bar in Brasov to drink and talk.
After a train trip, in the scenery landscape of Transylvania, we arrive to the city of Brasov. It is a nice city, medieval like, I would say, in a way, it is more a feeling than really the reality. It has big pedestrian street, with a lot of shops, we walked this street a hundred time at least. The street ends on a plaza, with a church that make me think of the Stefan’s Dom in Vienna, of course it is nothing like it, but it remembered me it. Here again we saw a Canadian car, from Ontario a mustang again. When we went to Bran, the touristy Dracula castle we met some people that were also traveling, they were in Romania for some kind of humanitarian help, teaching English. We went back together to Brasov and went to some bars that night. We had quite a lot of fun. We slept all the time in Brasov, so the next few post are about the trips that we made close to Brasov, Bran castle and Sinaia.
Bucharest, the mighty, the… the too huge city… Chauchesku who was a megalomaniac mostly made the city what it look like now. After a public speech, he had to evacuate because the population was uprising. He left in a helicopter, but the population was waiting for him at his landing site and killed him. But he had already destroyed most of Bucharest to build it in his image, a gigantesque image. The parliament is the second biggest building in the world after the Pentagon. There is a huge street, 6 meters longer than the “Champs Elisee” of Paris, on purpose. This is a very beautiful city too, but too huge, you need good legs to walk that city. It also has a Triumph arc and a kind of Obelisk. In that city we decided that we would go in a youth hostel, since we didn’t that much people, well we had but, and we were feeling like going in a hostel with a lot of young people. We found one, it was hard to get there, it is close to the train station and not that far of the center but like I said it is relative to the size of Chauchesku. When we got-up and went to eat breakfast, an old lady of 83 years old was in the kitchen, and no she was the keeper of the place, she was traveling. Max and her had an argument because she was saying stupid thing and were really close-minded and everybody was disagreeing with her. Any way, we went on our day and went to visit this capital city. We are still playing chess and Max is still beating me, grrrr… I’ll see on the picture, while we were walking we saw a mustang with a matriculation plate of Alberta. We basically visit the touristiest place that we could walk to. Then we took the train to Brasov where it will be our central point to visit TRANSYLVANIA!!!!!
So again after a little bit of train, we arrive in Veliko Tarnovo. A while ago, this was the capital of Bulgaria, it as a big fortress that we visited and a very beautiful church. Inside that church the walls are all painted in a very modern way and the hotel is also a very modern one. Hard to describe but look at the picture and you’ll see. When we arrived we found a place where to stay, the guy was kind of shady. But nothing happened, we are happy for that. After we had unpack we were hungry so we went to a little restaurant, of course, first a beer and then order. We were talking what we should do here, where should we go that kind of stuff. Then I thought, always the best way to visit a town is to get to know a local person and ask her. Our waitress was very nice, we were talking about that we should talk to her and get her to sit down with us and talk. But unfortunately, her shift was finish and we saw her leaving. So I said to Max, wait here and I ran to go talk to her, five min later we were talking. O.K. she is only about 17 year old, but the same day we were out, us with a beer and her with some juice. Together we went to see a nice cathedral, small for a cathedral but still and we had a nice view over the fortress. What else can I say, it is very picturesque, by that I mean there is a river flowing in the city in a S way and the city is build up the steep bank of the river so you have an amazing view down on the river or if you look to the horizon you don’t see the river. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful city….
Hi all, now after a train trip we are finally in Plovdiv, a small town in Bulgaria. The biggest attraction here is a roman theater that was amazingly preserved. Nowadays there is still plays and show there. We could have visited it but it was kind of expensive, and we could see it from a terrace. The theater is build in a hill, so the seats are on the slope of the hill and the terrace was just up, beside the seat, even if there was a fence we could see the seats and the scene. We went to that terrace twice, since beside the nice roman theatre we had a nice view of the city. Plovdiv has still historical part, close to the theatre and a more modern industrialist part, with communistic like building. So like I said there is the historical part on one hill, but there is a second hill facing this one with a belvedere and a monument to the First World War. We climbed this hill on the second day. We stayed only two days so we visited most of what we could in that short time. I almost forgot, there is two roman theatres one more in the city but that one is not used anymore, since most of it is ruins, but around it, there is a lot of small shop with hand made jewelry and painting, ya hand made painting, unique right! On a big place there was a festival with a lot of big tents and very cheap beers. One evening we went there and somebody had a Canadian hat!! Yahoo! So after two days, we are leaving for Veliko Tarnovo, from what we read and heard, it is the gem of the gems most hidden and unknown here.
My dear Sofia,
Of course I mean the city, the capital of Bulgaria. Mighty as a capital, interesting, as cheap as other eastern Europe city, just sad that we didn’t stay longer. Sofia, I never really heard of it. Notthing really happen there, I think, but it is still beautifull. When we arrived by bus, we arrived from Sarajevo. We did Sarajevo, Nis in Serbia then an other bus to Sofia, I think that was the longest bus ride we have done. When we arrived there, nobody was really waiting for us, here it is more organised. We had to go to an office were the people that want to rent places have to register and the office call them and we can bargain a little bit on the price, but when it is 7 or 8 euro why bargain. We ended up in a backyard house, you can see it as a big garden house where the grand parent of the guy lived it was in the back yard of a multiple story apartment close of the train station and close of the main street. The funniest was the shower in this house, where we had a room and that’s it. The bathroom was a bathroom/shower all in one. What I mean is that up the toilet was the shower that was plugger in the sink, we had to be careful to not put water on the toilet paper, and if you would go the the toilet after somebody that took his shower the toilet would be full of water… I guess the advantage would be that you could take a shower at the same time of going to the toilet, which I think is really gross. An other thing is that when we arrived their was a strike from the garbage man and the city was full of garbage, huge pile pack of garbage, but even with that the city was quite lovely. We walk a lot, we saw nice church and nice parc were we took a beer with nice view. There their is also a big sculpture and a big plaza where a lot of people are doing skateboard of bike. We then moved to Plovdiv a small but promising town.
We are now in Sarajevo, … I am sad that I only get to see the Sarajevo destroyed, from what I heard and I see, it must have been a very beautiful city. We arrived there and somebody was waiting for us… In Mostar the person where we were staying had family in Sarajevo. So even if we didn’t ask, he called and she was waiting for us at the bus. She is making it a business of it. She has different apartments that she is renting and things have to roll. She became a tourist guide for us, we went with her to see what is left of the tunnel that was used to supply the city while it was siege. She even brought us breakfast every day, some Turkish pastry with a kind of cheese, it was good! So we are in a flat relatively close to the centre and really close from sniper were is the famous Holyday inn. What is the most troubling with this town is the way they preserve their past. What I mean is that some holes that were made by mortar, were filled with a red plastic, and those that were with asphalt, you can still see the scar. In Sarajevo, we met a guy from England, he is now travelling a lot because he is an “electrical engineer for embassy”. We had great time with him. We went out in clubs and bar, it was quite refreshing to talk with him, he was really open-minded and had an opinion to share on about anything. Talking about people that we met. I can’t talk about everybody that we met, but I remember two other a guy and a girl from Australia, to say that a lot of Australian are travelling. Later, other people arrived in our flat. A group of American arrived and were in an other room. They were really nice. In fact some of them were working in Prague, teaching English and writing in a magazine. So we went out in Sarajevo with them, we had also nice time with them in our flat. Also in Sarajevo we discovered Turkish coffee, so delicious, but don’t drink the end of it, it is full of grinded coffee. Some bad stuff happened to us in Sarajevo. We were attack buy stupid teenager defending “their” territory. We happen to cross the river and we were going to see a stage were later will be performing some musical event. We were on our way to leave when a small boy arrives and try to talk to us in Serbo-Croatian, of course we didn’t understood. Then other teenager that were on the stage arrived and starting to say that we hit the little boy and they even called us “Nigga” which on the spot I found really funny, I was than but not that much… and then they started to fight, we fought back a little bit as we could they were outnumbering us and we manage to fled without being harm. We then saw soldier from the UN and we ask them if this was an area were tourist are not welcomed. They were from Germany and they were with an interpret, but they say no, it should be all right. So we were fine but a little bit shock. I decided to shave, I was letting my beard grow but I decided, I am better to shave it… It put some shadows over our stay but generally we liked it. Now the post war effect. It is incredible how those people are putting back what started the war and now are working together to build a new Bosnia & Herzegovina. Especially young people and even more girls, I don’t know why but I could feel still the man angry, walking in the streets and you could see that they are still preoccupied and that the scar of the war, only from five years, is still open a bit. But usually, the attraction of European union, I think, is driving them to make big steps to put the country back on its feet.
We decided that since we still have a lot of time, we will make a big loop, so we are going to Bulgaria, Sofia!
We took the bus from Kotor to Mostar. The road was going in the mountains, going around up, down. The scenery was breath taking. We finally arrived at Mostar: this little city that had known the war. The war there stroke hard and divided the city in two, on one side of the river Muslims and on the other side Bosnians. Both side were linked by a bridge. That bridge survived almost the whole war, but the last day of the war it collapsed. When we arrived there the bridge had been rebuild only months before and is now a symbol of the war. Mostar is a very small town, with its old part very beautiful, old and remembering a lot the Byzantine Empire (Turks). It as mosque that are very old and nice people. We stayed there only a few days. We were staying in a room where we think the man was illegal, at least that what our neighbour told us. Also something very funny we bought some beer at a grocery and the price for the bottle, you know for recycling his higher than the beer. I mean if you pay for example 10 convertible mark for a beer then you’ll get 7 convertible mark when you bring back the bottle that mean that the beer it self is 3 convertible mark!! Amazing right? Bosnia and Herzegovina is quite inexpensive, lucky for our tight budget… I think that what was the most surprising is that we could still see mark of the war, on the buildings even if it as been about 5 years. Finally I just can say that Mostar is a truly beautiful city like you don’t often see. It still has its cachet.
We enjoyed our stay there but we were happy to leave to, it is kind of a small town and the last two towns were also small, we were eager for some action, Sarajevo.
So now this is Budva. It is really like Kotor, at least that is what I think. But I must admit it is bigger and seam to have a better past. It looks less ghetto and it seem like they are preparing for big touristic time, or it is from the glory of the past, the good time of Tito, and they are renovating it. You’ll see from the pictures… The beach for now is really dirty and even the see is dirty, but it seem that it is a villegiature place for Serbian people. This city also has fortification and is really pretty. Like is said I think in the post of Kotor, those two cities are the next prime place for vacation. We only stayed there for a day. We came back the same day at Kotor, to take our laundry. We then head for Bosnia and Herzegovina, for the city of Mostar and its bridge.
So we took the bus from Dubrovnik and now we are in Montenegro, in Kotor. In Kotor there is the biggest fjord in Eastern Europe, that what the lonely planet was saying. I think Kotor was a beautiful city not long time ago with a lot of tourist but now it looks like abandoned and left to perish. But we can still see what used to be there. It is a strengthened city very nice and picturesque. It is at the bottom of a mountain where at the top is a big castle and the city wall go up to the castle. The castle used to protect the road to the country backyard a long time ago. It is the entrance to the inner land. When we arrive there, only one woman was there waiting for tourist that look for a room. So we didn’t had really any chance. We bargain a good price and we ask her if she had washing machine so we could do laundry, because you know we were starting to smell… She said yes. When we arrived there, her house is directly in the city, so it was nice. We saw the washing machine we gave her our clothes and went on to discover this beautiful city. When we came back, we discovered that she was washing our clothes all by hand!!!!!!!!! Even if she had a washing machine! We were really really feeling bad…
One day we went up the hill to the castle, we arrived there for almost the sunset, we had such a nice view and an amazing panorama. The castle is part of the UNESCO world heritage. We took a lot of picture and went back down. One night we were walking and we discovered an outdoor show. It was really nice and interesting. We listened to it a little bit and talked with some of the people there. It was interesting. In the port of the city was a lot of nice expensive yacht… One was called the “lady ship” and one night we saw the owner going out of the ship. With him was something like 7 old women. It was funny. He even had an onboard crew!!.
Finally the lady where we were staying she was a little bit strange. I think she was missing attention. She was over welcoming and since she knows we where from Canada she never stops saying Canada! Canada while smiling at us. ☺
We are now going for one day in Budva we will come back to Kotor to sleep then we are going to Mostar in Bosnia I Herzegovina.
Those are the pictures of Mljet that I have talked about in the previous post. Like it said we went there with two Americans girls that rent the room beside us. We had a great time we walked around the lake and we also crossed it on his thinnest width. We had to swim and keep our bag out of the water it is quite an exercise with the current…. It was also nice to be in the nature and just walk and talk. The next town is Kotor in Montenegro we’ll see how it will look like after what happen in Kosovo. One last thing, for our entire trip in Croatia it was a beautiful weather, almost never any cloud and always burning hot. I never saw that. That much really good amazing weather. WOW!!!! Ciao ciao
So now we are in Dubrovnik. From Korcula we took a bus that took a ferry to get on the coast and then directly to Dubrovnik. In this region we had to pass 2 borders, because Bosnia & Herzegovina have a small access to the sea there. Then after some hours of buses we arrive. The bus station is just beside the port. Once there, there was not that much people to offer us accommodation, so we bargain as we could and found something really nice. Only 10min walk from the old town. It is with some old man, he is living up and we have the rooms on the first floor. It is a really old apartment, but I would say cosy. Also there is 2 Americans girls that are there. They arrive after us. They are really nice and we planed to go to the national park of Mljet. It is a nice park. Beside nature, there is a lake and on one of the island an older abbey, which they are starting renovation. And they are short on money so everything was more expensive… Well we had a nice time walking with the trees and talking. One of them, Mimi, she study in sociology and I had really great long talk with her. It was really interesting, about how it is to be an American, anti bush, and travel. We also talk about how American culture is everywhere and it is competing with local culture and how it is for a nice American to travel and always feel at home because of everything is so American. The other days we walked around the town. It is really a beautiful, amazing town. You can see the picture by yourself. I had a very great time with those girls. Max and me are playing a lot of chess since we took the game. He beat me all the time so, it is a little frustrating any way. I know it is possible to walk on the city wall but it is really expensive so we didn’t do it. This is really the most beautiful city of Croatia that I have seen.
Me and Max took the ferry to Korcula. It was the beginning of our big trip. We first arrive on the island and then we had to take a bus to the city. This time we were a little bit unfortunate and we found a “house”, we had half of it, but a little bit far from the town, we were almost on the sea shore… The owner gave us bicycle so that we could move around to the city. The owner was a young guy, about 30 years old he was doing this to get a little bit more money… Fortunately the grocery was close to the house so it wasn’t really a problem to get food. Korcula is a really small town, nothing really happen there, but I would say it is charming. We met some girl there, they brought us to a place were there was some musician but we didn’t stay very long with them. It is on a pier close to the house where we celebrated the “St-Jean Baptist” Our Quebecois national day. The day where every Quebecois celebrate. We also found a small chess game that we took… We will practice playing… hum I didn’t play for a very long time. It was said that Marco Polo was born here… Even if there is not a lot of proof.. anyway.. I have told you.
Then we took a bus that took a ferry to go to Dubrovnik… Gem of the Mediterranean Sea here we come.
Now we are in Hvar. Like we expected, when we arrive by the catamaran, a ferry, a lot of local were waiting for us tourist at the pier. We found a flat really cheap for the seven of us. This will be the last city with all the other, and then me and Max will go on our own to Korcula. The flat we found is in a duplex and we have the whole second floor for us all, almost. We have a kitchen, everything. Even a beautiful view on the sea. Even if it is, 20min away from the city centre kind of, but we have to climb up hill when we want to go back, but on the other side, we are 10 min from a small beach really unoccupied. The beach is beautiful, there is a small island without any tree, but only a house. Also a castle is watching the city up on the hill. There is an amazing view from there. This is like a little paradise and European tourist are starting to spread the word, already Italian are there, but more and more from everywhere, we saw a lot of big yacht and sailboat. It was pretty impressive to watch them in the port. One day we rent some boat to make a tour of the inhabited island close, there is several of them, we even had a deal because of the lady where we stayed, she know them so they made a price for us. We could find empty beaches, lagoon and “free land”. We didn’t stay there for a long time but I really appreciated this little town. Also lets talk a little bit about the food, well it is good, really good, and also a little bit cheaper, we can afford restaurant but we usually go to the grocery and buy food for the day. This time we asked to have access to a kitchen so we could cook diner and lunch and make great meal…
So after saying good bye to my good friend Gerd, the one I have share my room with in Prague for the whole stay and to the other we went on. The next step is Korcula on the island of Korcula. It is said to be a small Dubrovnik.
