Anyway, today was lazy. I walked quite a bit but that was about it. I pretty much fully explored both the old and new towns of Lucerne, walked along the battlements and up some towers and enjoyed the view of the Alps. Not a lot to report. I took a bunch of pictures and they should be up shortly (I'm actually in the process of uploading them this second). Enjoy!
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]]>Anyway, I arrived at the train station physically okay but feeling a little out-of-touch style-wise, discovered I had to pay .50euro for the toilet, discovered that I had only .29euro and resigned myself to sitting in mild discomfort while I waited for my train. After a few minutes it arrived from Vienna and I boarded, thankful to be able to relieve myself.
The train was much a degree nicer than what one typically encounters in the former-Communist countries and I guess that's to be expected because Austria is a good deal wealthier and invests a good deal more than the average country in its rail system. Of course leave it to a German speaking people to leave and arrive on the exact minute printed on my ticket (depart at 10:31, arrive at 4:20 ON ZE MINUTEN!).
Arrival in Switzerland was strange. It was very pretty from my window with impossibly beautiful lakes surrounded by impossibly tall mountains everywhere but unfortunately, because of windows, I declined to take photographs. Oh well, photos abound of Swiss nature. Anyway, on to the odd part - I switched trains in Zurich for Lucerne and upon arrival in Lucerne I stepped out into a train station that appeared to be IDENTICAL to the one I left in Zurich. Never have a I seen such a phenomenon. Anyway, not THAT weird but the rest of Lucerne is quite strange. It's the most sterile city I've ever visited. It's painfully clean. However, there seems to be no coherence to the city. It doesn't caress the soul in the least. It has some very pretty architecture, yes, but that architecture also seems freakishly sterile. It's like I stepped into some hyper-modern late 1970's sci-fi film. That feeling was augmented by the fact that there are very strange cars here - while walking back to the hostel from the grocery store I was passed by a woman driving a white angular... something. It had all the grace of a stretched out toasted. It appeared to be a one seater though there may have been "room" for two and it had three wheels situated as one might imagine they would be. The woman was wearing aviator goggles - this despite the fact that the vehicle was entirely enclosed - and other than that appeared to be wearing sharp business attire. Moment after this spectacle passed me I was passed by some great roaring hot-rod thing that I had never seen before and then by a LADA NIVA which I've never seen outside of a former-Communist country.
Then there's the architecture. Most of the architecture that isn't old looks like all of the sketches I've seen of to-be-built Seattle structures. What's the deal Seattle? Where's the originality? Most of these buildings I'm assuming aren't brand new and many might date back 10 years (though they may have originated in the future). Really freaky place, Lucerne. Tomorrow I will photograph but I'm not sure if my photos will do justice and perhaps it's just me.
Lastly - Switzerland, or maybe just Lucerne, is PAINFULLY expensive. I tried to find a restaurant and after finding nothing of (what I considered) reasonable value decided that I might as well stop off at the Burger King next to the grocery store (I would have just gotten groceries but was really hungry from 7 hours of train travel and another hour of hostel business plus I didn't get on the train until 2 hours after I ate breakfast!). I canceled that idea as soon as I saw the price of a meal: ~$12. At Burger King. No force on earth would get me to pay that much for a crappy burger. So I bought a $9.50 kebab roll. What a rip-off. But it was good. Tomorrow I'm going to eat some legit Swiss food regardless of the cost. I just couldn't justify it tonight. I bought some groceries too so, despite their ridiculous cost too, I can save some cash.
See (some of) you all soon!
At the End of the Line remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>My favorite thing about Salzburg is its setting. The old town is built mostly on the south bank of the Salzach river. On the south side is a large flat area backed by impressive cliffs upon which the city fortress is situated. On the north side of the river is a flat area where the new town was built in the mid and later 19th century and to the east is a massive wooded hill with a narrow band of buildings against the river. The approach toward the Salzburg fortress from the southeast takes you along switchbacks. Parts of the walk are absolutely fantastic and provide a surprising sense of seclusion despite the massive throngs of tourists.
Tomorrow I'm heading to Lucerne, Switzerland. It's my last stop in Europe this summer. I've heard great things about Lucerne and I'm really just looking forward to lounging around the city.
MEIN FÜETEN!!! remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>I basically spent my time in Ljubljana walking. I walked a total of about 20 miles during my two days in the city, maybe a bit more. My feet are in pain now but I have a lot of ground to cover in Salzburg - no complaints!
The only sight (at least of the sights that I might care to visit) that I hadn't made it to last time I was in Ljubljana was the National Museum of Contemporary History. It tells a sometimes-contradictory story about Slovenian and Yugoslav history but it was well worth the 3.50Euro entry fee.
I met up with a nice American guy who's going to school at Whitman in Walla Walla and we walked through the former-Yugoslav-army-barracks-cum-artists-commune of Metelkova.
That's about the extent of my experience in Slovenia this time. It was pretty, as usual, and it remains about the most comfortable city in Europe for me. I really love it there. I noticed that while Serbia is a country under construction NOTHING seems to have changed since I was in Ljubljana in 2006 - even the construction sites appeared to be the same...
I'll check back in soon with Salzburg thoughts. I'm definitely getting ready to come home but I can't pass up an opportunity to see the last two towns remaining on my itinerary.
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]]>I'm a major proponent of travel - specifically travel that takes you outside of the bounds of well-traversed cities and countries and forces you to interact with locals in ways that aren't explicitly tourist-business related. Such travel has been incredibly rewarding to me and has provided me with some very good friends in Serbia.
On of my favorite things about the trip was how hospitable the average Serb was to me. Mateja, Andreja and their parents Bratislav and Mirjana did everything in their power to show me the best possible time. I met a great number of new friends. I visited places and experienced things that the average tourist to Serbia would never get the chance to do, let alone the average tourist (who doesn't typically visit Serbia). My experience with Slavic hospitality is highlighted by the fact that when we drove to Subotica in the northern province of Vojvodina we were put up by a girl who had only met us the previous day in Belgrade. Additionally, her boyfriend Vladimir (who had been an exchange student in Ohio the previous year) spent the following day showing us around. Slavic hospitality cannot be overstated. I was laughed at for offering to help pay for things and had I the gall to do so I'm sure that most of my friends would have given me the shirt off their back had I asked for it (which in the case of Dusan would have been quite the feat). It's very hard to pay back such kindness. I'm hoping that the people who gave me so much in Serbia will have the chance to visit America one day where I will do my best to return the favor.
So, for now - a very heart-felt thank-you to the Stankovic family, the Kitanovic family, the Kostadinovic family, Maja, Milica, Vladimir, Milan and so many others. I wish you all the best and hope that one day I can show you around my country.
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]]>Being back in Ljubljana is nice. It's a very comfortable city that I know very well. It's comparably tiny at only 300,000 people and is very walkable. In the afternoon yesterday I walked from my hostel on the south-west side of the old town far to the north-east to catch a film that I've been wanting to watch. After all was said and done the trip was about 4.2 miles and I nearly traversed the entirety of the town.
Today I'm going to see some other bits of the city that I haven't seen before and probably walk close to 10 miles in the process.
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]]>By the way - Some plans have changed: Originally I was going to head straight to Salzburg from Serbia but transportation options have become more difficult. So, instead I'm going to stop off in Ljubljana, Slovenia for a couple days. Ljubljana is one of my favorite cities (if not my outright favorite) in Europe. Over the past week I've been trying to figure how to get from southern Serbia to Salzburg and whenever I did so I ended up looking at Ljubljana on a map. Additionally, Mateja's got to get back to studying because he's got a major exam coming up in late August. So, this coming Friday morning (really, it'll still be Thursday night for me) at 1am I'm getting on a train in Nis bound for Ljubljana. I'll be staying there for two nights.
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]]>We started our trip cutting west toward the Croatian boarder from Belgrade before turning north to drive through the "mountainous" national park of Frus(h)ka Gora. (I put mountainous in parenthesis because it's a very long hill of about 600m which gets it's dramatic look from the fact that it rises suspiciously from the otherwise flat plain of Vojvodina) Fruska Gora is very pretty and reminds me of the drive toward Sol Duc in Washington. There are many Serbian Orthodox monasteries throughout Fruska Gora and it, along with Sremski Karlovci on it's northern edge, has played an important role in the development and maintenance of Serbian cultural identity.
Our first major stop in Vojvodina was in Sremski Karlovci. It's a small town with some very nice baroque buildings in its main square. It was the center of Serb culture for a period and was a very important political center. The facade of the Serbian Orthodox church looks much like the catholic churches in Budapest and Krakow but inside its features are much more obviously Orthodox. Incredible icons in gold and ebony cover one wall and the rest of the walls and decorated in deep greens and reds.
Before leaving Sremski Karlovci we ate lunch/dinner in the main square which consisted of typical Serbian fare - grilled meats, shopska salad and bread. The shopska was easily the worst that I've had. The cheese was horrible and faaar too sharp.
After dinner we headed to Petrovaradin Fortress. It's a very large fortress that was built by the Austrians to defend against the Turks and was never captured. In 2000 growing discontent with the Milosevic regime led a large group of artists and musicians to hold the EXIT Festival on the grounds of the fortress. Initially it featured only domestic musicians and lasted for 60 days but the following year, in 2001, EXIT became international. It's now widely regarded as one of the best international music festivals gathering popular acts from all over the world and few (if any) can claim a setting so dramatic as the grounds of a massive fortress far above the Danube river.
Across the Danube we stopped in Novi Sad. Novi Sad functions as the seat of the Vojvodinian provincial government. Serbia doesn't have a lot of beautiful architecture south of Vojvodina (though there is some!) but Novi Sad, with continued investment, could (and probably will) be a solid tourist attraction. There are some great baroque pieces and a fantastic catholic cathedral built during the time that Vojvodina was under Austro-Hungarian rule.
As the sun started going down we jumped into Mateja's car and made for Subotica, a city in the far north of Serbia and right on the Hungarian border. I had read a little about Subotica but wasn't prepared for the beauty of the small city.
The destruction of World War 2 largely bypassed Subotica and left it's array of baroque and art nouveau buildings intact. Among the more impressive buildings is the modern art gallery which errs on side of Gaudi but is less superficial and superfluous and seems to follow more natural lines with certain Mucha qualities. At one side of Trg Republike (Republic Square) is the huge Subotica town hall - also in the art nouveau style. Oddly, at the base of the town hall is a McDonalds. Also in Subotica is one of the best cafes I've been to in Europe (which, much like the rest of Serbia, has freakishly awesome prices) called Cafe Boss. Apparently the owner invested 1 million euros in the remodeling which left it looking fantastic. It's also located on the back side of the modern art gallery and shares a beautiful setting.
We slept at a girl named Milica's apartment. She works with ISIC (international student organization) and Kristina, who also works with ISIC, made the connection. Milica and her boyfriend, Vladimir, met us at the Boss Cafe. Turns out Vladimir was an exchange student in Ohio and spoke fantastic English (he's also been accepted to a college in Tennessee). We hung out with them for a while before going to bed.
The following morning we walked around the city before hooking back up with Vladimir and heading to Palic. Palic is a lake on the edge of Subotica which has a nice town featuring many art nouveau buildings. We sunbathed and drove a peddle-powered boat around the lake. The lake is pretty filthy owing to the fact that the Subotica sewer flowed directly into the lake for a long time. Thankfully there's a campaign to clean up the lake.
After leaving the lake we dropped Vladimir off at his place and drove back to Belgrade.
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]]>While in Mostar, Bosnia and Hercegovina we were given a bottle of wine to deliver to the hostel in Nis, Serbia. While at the hostel we met Vladmir ("Like Putin" as he is apt to say) who was the first to tell me of the Serbian "fear of the draft". While in Dubrovnik I recalled Maja yelling at me for allowing a breeze to cool me off saying something about me getting sick but I casually disregarded her. Anyway, according to Vladmir there are some that claim that various Serbian royalty have been killed off by the draft.
So, back in Belgrade. After taunting Kristina for her weird fears I finally found a site that explains it all. PLEASE read this because to an American it should be absolutely hilariously weird: http://german-way.com/blog/2009/02/13/german-phobia-killer-draft/
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]]>I was impressed by the significant changes Belgrade has experienced since I was here in 2005 (I spent one night here in 2006 but it doesn't count because I was a. ridiculously jet-lagged and b. I went straight from the airport to Mateja's apartment south of the old town). Evidence of investment in infrastructure and city beautification abounds. Much of the old town looks like any other major European city (though there are very few buildings that one would describe as groundbreakingly-beautiful). Serbia's GDP per capita has grown by about 40% since 2005 as well - a very good sign for their economy.
Unfortunately, most investment is happening in Belgrade and Vojvodina. The south's infrastructure is somewhat atrophied. However, there's a ton of potential down there so hopefully somebody will get it together.
Tomorrow morning we're setting off for Vojvodina. It's a region that I've now passed through twice without stopping off. We're staying with a girl who works with ISIC (the international student organization) who lives in Subotica (Su-bo-tee-tsa). Apparently Subotica is a very attractive small town and has a bunch of Art Nuveau architecture. Then, in the morning we're heading to Novi Sad. It also apparently has a bunch of cool architecture. When we get back to Belgrade I'm going to attempt to make Mexican food for Mateja and Kristina (and maybe Mateja's mom if she's in Belgrade but she might be in Eastern Serbia working on some economic development project...).
I might not check in for a day or two. Just letting you know.
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]]>Today we went to the Nis flea market - many people were there selling items that hold no value whatsoever and are basically just candidates for recycling. The scale of poverty in southern Serbia is more well understood from that vantage point. Hopefully somebody will invest something in the local economy.
Before lunch I stopped by a cafe with Mateja, Andreja and Andreja's friend for some espresso. While there some 40-something Serb at the next table overheard me and mentioned that his brother lives in San Diego. He continued on saying that every American is at least 20% Serb, the Potomac (River) is a Serb word and numerous other ridiculous claims. When Mateja laughed he said "Well, you might not believe me but it's printed in a very good source: The Third Eye". The Third Eye is a tabloid similar to the Weekly World News. Completely ridiculous.
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]]>Just my two cents...
In other news: It's hot hot hot here. Strange that a week ago I had to wear a sweatshirt outside and now I almost can't go outside lest I begin to melt. We've been spending the bulk of the day indoors, usually only venturing out into the city after 5pm.
Last night was a lot of fun. We caught a few drinks with some of Mateja's friends - Dusan (Dushan) and Darko. Darko is a low-level official for the pro-Europe center-left Serbian Democratic party, the current ruling party of Serbia and the party of Boris Tadic. Mateja and I have a more distinctly left-wing perspective so it was interesting to get the take of a member of the Democratic party on the development of Serbia. One nice thing is that the right wing Radical Party imploded following the last elections and now the leading right-wing party in Serbia is a center-right pro-European integration party. Serbia seems to have officially left behind it's history of isolationism and embraced democracy. It's a very impressive fact.
After that we bought some beer and headed down to the banks of the Nisava (Nis river) with a few of Milos's English-student friends. I engaged in a very interesting debate with one of the students. He repeated the line I've heard many times before: Yugoslavia was an "unnatural state" in which "people who never wanted to live with one-another were forced to".
I have a hard time swallowing that take on Yugoslav history. One thing to note is that during World War 2 it was the communist and multi-ethnic Partisans, led by Josip Broz Tito, who beat back the Nazis, Croatian fascist Ustashe and Serbian pro-monarchist Chetniks, among other groups. The partisans attracted people of all Yugoslav nations in full knowledge that they were working to establish Yugoslavia. This was in the face of the fact that the allies initially supported Chetniks and the Nazis supported the Ustashe. Who, then, appears to have garnered the largest amount of public support during the war? The partisans.
In addition to that fact most of the resistance movements started by Croatians and Slovenes living under Austro-Hungarian rule and Serbs and Macedonians living under Ottoman rule were created with the explicit goal of uniting the south Slavic people.
Also, Ante Markovic, a professed Yugoslav and pro-unionist, was the most popular politician in 1980's Yugoslavia. Milosevic used dirty tricks to destroy Markovic's political future. Milosevic did not, in general, enjoy popular support. It's also worth mentioning that Serbia had an ~80% military desertion rate during the 1990's (and in larger cities that rate was closer to 95%) which tends to suggest that there was not popular support for the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, nobody had the political capital to resist Milosevic and his cronies and Yugoslavia became the victim of shock-capitalism and warfare. Serbia lost more than a decade of potential economic growth. Had Yugoslavia remained a unified state they would have walked straight into the European Union, been on the Euro by now and been one of the largest voting blocks in Europe. As it stands now they are a fractured group of small states with economies still trying to figure out how to catch up with much of the rest of Europe. Such a different story from the post-WW2 era Yugoslavia which experienced the fastest rate of industrialization and economic growth in the world. It's a very unfortunate story.
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]]>Poverty in the Balkans remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
As has become tradition when I travel to Serbia I arrived late. Not nearly as late as I was when coming by bus in 2005 or by air in 2006 – both of those arrivals occurred at 3am and considerably later than the originally scheduled arrival time, and both of those times Mateja was patiently waiting for me. This year my train pulled into Belgrade's central railway station at 10:30pm, only two hours behind the time stamped on my ticket.
Upon arrival I was greeted by Mateja, his brother Andreja and their friend Maja (FYI – in the Yugoslav language the letter “J” is pronounced something like the English letter “Y”). It was a relief to see them and we set to work planning the next week of travel. The leg of the journey from Belgrade, Serbia to my companions' home-town of Nis was to take a 6-day sidetrack through Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia and Montenegro. I was eager to venture back into the parts of Yugoslavia that I hadn't seen since 2005 but was especially grateful to do it with three Serbs. The plan had originally been to head straight to Sarajevo upon my arrival but Mateja, being wise, held off on the purchase of the tickets because of the proclivity for trains to be late in the Balkans. Instead we were to catch the 6:15am bus which left us little time that evening to eat and sleep.
In the morning we headed out of Serbia via Vojvodina – the northern province of Serbia that is comprised of the south Hungarian plain. The Bosnian border is a very dramatic one – the Drina river, which provided the geographic boundary between the Eastern and Western Roman Empire, is flanked on one side by the hills and mountains of Bosnia and on the other by the perfectly flat farmland of north-western Serbia.
After passing across the Drina our progress slowed as our bus navigated the hilly terrain. This was the first time that I had been inside the political entity known as the Republike Srpska which accounts for roughly 49% of the territory of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Both Sarajevo and Mostar lie inside the Federation of Muslims and Croats. It is in the Republike Srpska that one can find the most nationalistic Serbs – not in Serbia proper but in the regions of Bosnia that have a Serbian majority. Similarly, the most nationalistic Croats one is likely to find live in Hercegovina and not in Croatia. It is the Muslims of Bosnia and Hercegovina that tend to be the most liberal, open-minded and friendly.
The bus, coming from Serbia, let us off in the Serb-dominated suburb to the east of Sarajevo's downtown core from which we had to catch a tram back into downtown Sarajevo. By the time we neared the terminus of the tram in central Sarajevo there was hardly room to move inside and the heat was stifling. It was in these close-knit circumstances that Maja committed the first multi-cultural faux pas of our trip in Bosnia by announcing loudly how scary it was to hear the Muslim call to prayer – a comment which drew sudden strained looks from numerous, obviously Muslim, tram passengers. Mateja made quick work to silence Maja before she managed to incite an international incident.
For Mateja, at least, the trip was as much about exploring pieces of his former country, Yugoslavia, from a historical standpoint as it was about relaxing and sight-seeing. I count myself lucky to have been able to be a part of and bear witness to his reaction to these places that I can only experience as a cultural outsider and casual observer. One of the more potent moments was while in the Sarajevo Tunnel which originates in a pock-marked house just south of the Sarajevo airport and was used to ferry food, supplies and weaponry beneath the Bosnian Serb lines in the 1990s. We were unfortunately too late for the tour of the tunnel and museum but when the proprietor (likely a Bosnian Muslim but one can't be sure) heard the Serbian accent of my companions he opened the door of the museum to us and allowed us to see it for ourselves. As we were leaving, Mateja opened the guestbook and wrote “I'm so sorry”. Of course Mateja had nothing to do with the horrors of the 1990s but nationals carry the banners of their most extreme compatriots whether or not they want to and it was a nice gesture.
Later that evening we ate dinner at the Sarajevo brewery. During the war the brewery continued to operate and was a meeting place from time-to-time of multi-ethnic resistance fighters. Some weapons were sneaked into the city under the guise of brewery equipment. The food and beer were fantastic.
When we left the brewery Maja committed her second major faux pas. While posing for a picture in front of the brewery she threw up the hand gesture that represents, in a manner of speaking, the Serbian nation. During the war this became a very politically charged symbol and there are many horrendous photographs of Serbian paramilitary standing over corpses while making the gesture. Mateja and I were horrified and for a second just stared in disbelief before jumping on her. She hadn't been thinking about the potency of the symbol. In fact, prior to this trip Maja had been fairly unaware of the level of atrocity committed in certain corners of former Yugoslavia – especially the siege of Sarajevo.
In Mostar we had what would be the most fun and educational day of our trip. While in Sarajevo we met up with a group of travelers coming from Mostar who just happened to have slept at the same hostel we had a reservation with. They informed us of a not-to-be-missed 13-hour tour of Hercegovina – a triangular region comprising about 1/6 of the landmass of Bosnia and Hercegovina in the south of the country. Not being ones to miss a not-to-be-missed tour we made sure we arrived plenty early from Sarajevo.
After drinking coffee in the hostel, called Majda's Rooms and literally a collection of bedrooms in a Bosniak (Muslim) woman's apartment, a red-faced and exuberant man arrived and immediately started (pleasantly) shouting for everybody to quickly get in his van. This excited man was Bata (a nickname which literally translates to “brother”) and after squeezing 17 foreigners into his van we shot off into the streets of Mostar.
Among our crew of tourists were 20-somethings from the US, Canada, Britain, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and Serbia. Bata was pleasantly surprised to discovered Serbs in our midst and while he potentially toned down rhetoric about Serbs he was refreshingly honest about the war – a major component of the tour. He was also one of the few non-academic individuals that I've ever spoken to who accurately pinpointed the goal of the political leadership in the cruel wars of the 1990s – selfish economic privatization and not, as so many others have ignorantly claimed, the fulfillment of ancient ethnic rivalry and hatred (which didn't, and does not, actually exist).
The tour consisted of parts that elicited emotional responses from sadness and anger to hilarity and excitement. We visited an ancient Hungarian fortress, a holy Dervish (of Whirling Dervish fame) House, Medjugorje (where some Croat children claimed to have seen Virgin Mary in the early '80s and which now houses a catholic Megachurch and looks like it belongs in the American south-west) and an impressive collection of waterfalls. By the end of the day (11:40pm) we were thoroughly exhausted and my impression of what the best tourist experiences can be was forever modified, all for 22 Euros.
The following morning we made a quick tour of the actual town of Mostar and photographed the old bridge, now fairly new following its senseless destruction by the Catholic Croatians in 1993. Mostar was the most heavily bombarded city in former Yugoslavia and the scars are still plainly visible along the front line dividing the Croatian and Muslim parts of the city. In what is undeniably bad taste the Croatians constructed first a massive cross on the hillside overlooking the city and secondly a ridiculously tall tower on a Catholic cathedral (poetic justice – the tower was poorly engineered and is leaning heavily and may collapse).
The trip from Mostar to Dubrovnik is beautiful but due to some strange historical territorial holdings forces you to pass into Croatia, back into Bosnia and Hercegovina and into Croatia one more time. We were greeted by warm temperatures and a sunny sky in Dubrovnik which was in marked contrast to the atypically rainy and cold weather that we experienced while in Bosnia (note: there were torrential rain showers when I was in Sarajevo back in 2005 as well).
After checking into our hostel we walked to the old town, grabbed some food, walked around and toured the city walls. Since the last time I was in Dubrovnik prices have skyrocketed. It is now no different than visiting any sea-side Western European destination – both in terms of the cost of things and in the appearance of the city. It's a beautiful town that has benefited from extensive coverage on European and American tourism television shows and in tourism magazines.
For dinner I had an octopus salad which, much to my chagrin, left me very ill the following morning. We had planned to visit the island of Lapad which is said to have the best beaches in the region (no sandy beaches though, just rocky outcroppings) but food poisoning kept me in bed. Mateja, Andreja and Maja had a good time, though they got thoroughly sunburned. Both times that I have been in Dubrovnik I've suffered from some sort of illness . Hopefully next time I won't have the same problems.
The last day of our trip was marathon bus travel. We caught a bus from Dubrovnik to the Montenegrin town of Herceg Novi at 10:30am which got us to our destination in relative speed and comfort though the border provided a 30 minute hiccup. Upon arrival we quickly ate and purchased tickets for the 1:30pm bus from Herceg Novi to Nis, Serbia.
This was a freakishly slow bus ride. We stopped at every little town and every 40 minutes or so we pulled off on the side of the road to deliver suspicious looking black duffel bags to men in cars on the side of the road. The bus drivers refused to stop for bathroom breaks until they had to use the toilet and we didn't stop for any food until after midnight we arrived at a crappy rest stop somewhere in rural western Serbia. In the end it took 14 hours to travel the 560 kilometers to Nis. I'm glad that I will likely not have to travel like that again for some time, though when heading from Belgrade to Salzburg in a couple weeks I may have a similarly long day of travel.
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]]>I'm working on a post about our 6-day journey through Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia and Montenegro. I wanted to get it out while it was fresh but I didn't have the opportunity. I'll condense it into a manageable size for you all and upload it shortly.
We're off to Mateja's grandmother's house for lunch now. Serbian beans and more cevapi (fourth day in a row!).
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]]>Milos b-day remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>Mateja and Andreja's dad, Bratislav, says "Hello!" and that everything is okay. We're just hanging out in Nis. Milos's birthday is tomorrow. In a few minutes we're going to go eat Chevapi and Shopska for lunch and then tonight Mateja and I are heading to a Rakija (brandy) bar. Should be a good time!
I'm going to be at Milos's house tomorrow night and maybe for a few days and he has a good internet connection. That might be my best opportunity to play catch-up with the blog.
All my best! I'll be in touch soon.
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]]>In other news - Mostar was really awesome. I hope to put up a post about it eventually but I just don't have time right now.
Illness remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>What happened?! remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>Let me preface the description of the things that I did with this: the entire city looks like this: http://www.elkhazen.org/vienna/uploaded_images/vienna-02-748789.jpg . It's quite impressive. Then there are the palaces that dot the city. Not to mention the monumental churches and various other buildings of state. It's a sublime city. I've heard many people say that if they could make their life in one European city it would be Vienna and I have to echo the sentiment. It's both beautiful and functional and that's a combination that you don't just find anywhere.
So, let me begin with yesterday: I caught my train after running all over Krakow Glowny, the central train station. Krakow's train station is a mess. It's ridiculously hard to figure out where your train is departing from and there are so many ins and outs you can easily get lost for 30 minutes.
Plus it's ugly so that doesn't help it at all. Anyway, after I caught my train I was sweaty and hot but happy that I was on board. The trip went smoothly and I arrived in Katowice in plenty of time to catch my train to Vienna. I whittled away my time buying an authentic Polish sausage and some sort of very tasty pseudo croissant with strawberry filling. Twenty minutes before my train was due to depart the station I made my way to the platform that it was supposed to depart from and waited.
And waited. Waited some more. And waited some more. I asked a few people around me if there had, in the layers of Polish gobbletygook that was being constantly spouted out of the loudspeakers, heard anything about the train to Vienna being delayed or having a change of track. However, it turns out that everybody waiting for the same train as me either didn't speak any English or didn't speak any Polish. At any rate, the train finally pulled into the station nearly an hour late. By that point in time I was on the verge of a heart attack thinking that I'd somehow missed my train.
Thankfully, upon arrival in Vienna I found the transit to my hostel incredibly easy to use. I hopped one tram from Sudbahnhof - the train station I arrived at - to Westbanhof - the train station I will be leaving via tomorrow morning and the closest tram stop to my hostel. I walked a couple blocks to my hostel and found Wombat's "The Lounge". I booked "The Lounge" because it had literally the highest ranking of any hostel in the world. I was a little stunned by what greeted me when I walked through the door.
"The Lounge", which incidentally is where I'm sitting as I type this, is less hostel but more a combination of a hotel, a youth center and the officers houses at Fort Warden (for those of you who don't know, the officers houses at Fort Warden basically feel like your average hostel). It's positively massive, very clean and made to be about as user-friendly as possible. Unfortunately, that means that it's relatively anonymous to be a guest at "The Lounge" and I never made any short-term friends.
After an excruciatingly hot night's sleep I got up and set out to tour Vienna. I found the U-Bahn very easy to use and after one transfer arrived at the Schoenbrun palace. Like most palaces and tourist sights in Europe I was forbidden from taking photographs so you'll have to look it up for visuals of the interior. Anyway, the inside was gorgeous. I toured through 40 rooms featuring some spectacular furniture, paintings and decorations. Many of the rooms are the same familiar rooms used to shoot the film Amadeus, which I had watched just a couple months prior to leaving for Europe. I then climbed through the gardens at the back of the palace to the Gallery which featured a nice view of the city and the palace grounds (see photos).
Next I returned to Westbahnhof to purchase my train ticket to Belgrade. Unlike Krakow, I found the process incredibly straight forward and easy - thankfully. I was in and out in less than 10 minutes, ticket in hand. Once again confirming that Vienna is a very easy city to navigate and deal with.
Train ticket stowed carefully in my hostel room I took the underground again into the city center. My first stop was St. Stephen Cathedral, which has been under construction for nearly 1,000 years. It was totally ABC (Another Bloody Church) and not really worth the time. Thankfully, entrance was free. However, entrance to the tower was not and I chucked out my 4.50 Euro to see the thing. It was horrifically underwhelming. Tip: if you go to Vienna don't bother going to the top of St. Stephen Cathedral.
Around this time I was starting to get a little peckish so I waltzed down the strasse to the original birthplace of the Sacre Torte - a rich chocolate cake with a filling of what I think was apricot? It was good but the price meant that it was also somewhat underwhelming: with coffee my bill was 10 euro.
My trip to the center was feeling a little weaker than I was hoping prior to arriving. Pressing on I strolled to the east side of the Hofburg palace and was floored by the size and power of the architecture. The only sight in the Hofburg that I was interested in paying to see was the Austrian Royal Jewels. The jewels exhibit covers many different eras in Austria's imperial history - Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Empire, etc.... They're frequently compared to the British Royal Jewels in terms of pure value and while I think they lacked some of the glittery aspects of the British jewels (the Brits had an unparalleled collection of diamonds and other precious stones) the Austrian collection featured the most ridiculously ornate royal costumes I've ever witnessed. And a ton of them. I didn't really take any pictures because you really have to see them with your own eyes - the gold and other colors just didn't translate on film. The other thing that Austria beats Britain on is the massive collection of religious relics. They were the head of the Holy Roman Empire for 400 or so years, after all.
Leaving Hofburg I found my way to the Austrian parliament. I can't help but compare the capital to what was Europe's largest intercontinental empire, London, to the capital of Europe's largest continental empire, Vienna. The royal palaces of Vienna are prettier than their British counterparts but the Austrian parliament, while pretty, pales in comparison to Westminster. Inside I watched a 30-minute documentary on the history of the Austrian parliament (Wow! They didn't edit out the bits from 1933-1945! I expected those details to be glossed over....) and went on a guided tour. Of interest is that the rooms currently used for parliamentary debate were destroyed by Allied bombs in the Second World War. The reconstructed rooms are much less decorative than they had been. Oddly, the old House of Deputies, which wasn't destroyed by Allied bombs and was, in fact, completely untouched by WW2, is now almost never used. Surprising!
During the tour I also noticed that my knee was bleeding profusely. I still don't know why that was.... It stopped now!
After the parliamentary tour I returned to my hostel to do laundry in the knowledge that I wouldn't have another chance until after I get back to Nis, Serbia from my 7 or so day tour of former Yugoslavia. After I put my laundry in to wash I went down the street to a eatery that had been recommended to me by the name of "Mozart's Cafe" and ordered (what else?) Wienerschnitzel and a dunkel lager. Yum!
Now I'm waiting for my laundry to finish and I'm off to Beograd! Wish me luck! I might not be able to check in for a couple days. We'll see!!
PS - It was so freakin' hot all day today and within 10 minutes of me getting back to my hostel it was raining like it was Florida in hurricane season (which I guess it is hurricane season....). But unlike Florida the rain didn't let up for nearly 45 minutes. I guess that's why Austria's been experiencing record-breaking floods this year....
Vienna remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>Yesterday I visited the bulk of the sights in Krakow (didn't make it to Auschwitz or the salt mine, unfortunately) with Jason and his three college friends named Joy, Meg and Allegra. The best sight that we made it to, in my mind, is St. Mary's Cathedral which is in the north-east corner of the main market square (Glowny). Inside the church was decorated in a orthodox-cum-catholic style with the traditionally advanced architecture of a catholic church but featuring the highly decorative icons and painted ceilings so typical of orthodox churches. It is to color what Rococo is to texture. Unfortunately, not pictures were allowed but you can probably do a google image search for St. Marys in Krakow and find some nice shots.
It was nice having company while sight-seeing. I probably wouldn't have been as motivated to see everything were I alone. That's what I'm facing in Vienna but perhaps I'll make another short-term friend(s) to keep me company. Well, I have to get on the road. I don't want to miss my train! Wish me luck as I have to transfer in Katowice (Ka-to-vee-tsay) bound for Vienna. Habsburgs here I come.
I'm leaving on a diesel train remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>Upon arrival I quickly bid Laura adieu. I had hoped to spend more time with her before jumping our planes in opposite directions but a quick goodbye kiss had to do. I jumped on line to get through security and raced to the gate only to discover that I still had 45 minutes before the plane left. As it turns out the Stockholm airport, Arlanda, is much less hectic and intense than its American and British counterparts. I was left feeling remorseful that I could have indeed spent more time with Laura but I had opted to hang out in a room with a bunch of strangers.
The flight to Krakow was very uneventful. I had heard rumor of thunderstorms around southern Poland but thankfully they didn't materialize while I was inbound. It was rather overcast but the descent was smooth and easy.
When I stepped off the plane I was greeted by warm and humid conditions. Krakow airport is the most crowded airport that I've ever been in -- at least to my memory. It was difficult to walk through the immense crowd.
Thankfully, I found an ATM rather quickly and withdrew 300 Zloty (roughly $100). But when I went to buy a train ticket to the Krakow city center I discovered that the machine only took small denominations of Polish money. I walked on hoping to find a place to buy a ticket from an actual person but as I approached the little platform that appeared to be the Airport rail station I realized that I had no option but to return to the Airport and try to get smaller bills.
At this point I found another American in the exact same predicament as myself, Jason Burke. Together we walked back to the airports, bought some coffee, used the change to buy train tickets (less than $2! DAMN I love Eastern Europe and their reasonable prices!) and returned to the train JUST before it left (catching the train necessitated running and sloshing hot coffee all over my hand, but that's the price of rushing).
Once in town I checked into my hostel (Mama's Hostel which couldn't be in a better location from a tourist's standpoint) and together with Jason grabbed some lunch. We went to a very swank looking restaurant and in total, including drinks and tip, spent less than $7 each.
Now that I'm showered and rested I'm waiting to meet up with Jason and his three friends. Hopefully they'll keep me from being too lonely in the absence of Laura.
Krakow arrival! remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>We spent the day today at Daryoush's family's summer home about 20 miles away. We had a BBQ and went swimming in the lake. Now we're doing laundry and starting to pack up because tomorrow Laura has to head home :'( and I'm heading on to Krakow, Poland. I'm both excited to be moving on to Eastern Europe (it's been EXPENSIVE here in the west, plus I feel more comfortable there as a tourist) and bummed out because I won't be with Laura any more.
So, tomorrow I'm on a plane to Krakow at 9:20 and Laura's on a plane back home at noon. I'll be (probably) checking in more often now that I won't have to worry about ignoring Laura while I do blog stuff.
/Stockholm remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>Acting on the advice of Rick Steves, Laura and I decided to spring for the Smorgasbord - an all you can eat buffet. The quality has apparently slipped since Rick Steves took the Silja ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, Finland as the food was fairly bland. At ~$35 it was nothing short of a disappointment. Drinks also ran in the vicinity of $8 each. While traveling you have to let go of some of your frugality but it was very difficult to feel good about spending that kind of cash.
In the morning we awoke and disembarked the ship into the capital of Estonia. Tallinn was very pretty and incredibly easy to traverse by foot. The entire old town was only about 1 kilometer in length. Another unfortunate fact was that we arrived during the Midsummer holiday. It's Estonia's biggest celebration!... but it's celebrated by closing up shops, museums and government offices and heading out into the country for a 48-hour party. At least some of the sights were still open. Among the sights that we got to was the huge Russian Orthodox cathedral strategically built by Czar Alexander during the period of Russification of Estonia. Of note: Orthodox churches tend to be fairly plain in their interior architectural detail (at least in contrast to the detail of a Rococo Catholic cathedral). Instead, Orthodox churches invest their money in "icons" which consist of highly decorative "paintings" of saints and Jesus covered in gold, silver and jewels. They're truly spectacular to behold but due to the draconian photography rules in so many sights here in Europe I can't produce photographic examples. If you do a search for "Orthodox icons" I'm sure you can find some brilliant examples.
We ate lunch at a great Russian restaurant in the central square of Tallinn, Raekoja Plats. We were going to eat at an Estonian restaurant but the fact that it was another buffet turned us off and the Russian restaurant was highly recommended by our guidebook. The review was completely apt as the food was pure class - maybe even being the best meal we've had on our trip thus far. The rest of our time in Tallinn was spent tramping around doing some souvenir shopping and eventually we made our way back to the cruise-liner.
Back on board Laura and I decided to make the most of our cruise. We bought tax-free cans of beer and cider from the super market and drank them up on the deck while the sun set (which, due to our location up north didn't happen until well after 11pm and even after it set the sky never lost it's pink/purple hue). Then we caught the midnight show in the lounge at the back of the ship -- an unintentionally funny act called "Viva Las Vegas" which consisted of some impressive dance routines and some hilariously bad covers of American dance songs from the 70s. What made them bad wasn't the musical acumen that accompanied them but rather the Estonian or Russian accents of the people singing.
In the end we had a great time on the cruise and Tallinn made the trip totally worth it.
Tallinn! remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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]]>Our first day we arrived via plane, train and feet both tired and sweaty from the surprisingly warm weather in Stockholm. Following the previous two weeks of mediocre-at-best weather in the UK we expected more of the same but came in to bright, sunny days.
When I whipped my backpack off at the hostel Laura exclaimed something to the effect of "EWW GROSS!" at the fact that my back was virtually a pool of sweat. Needless to say, jumping in the shower was priority #1. (Of note: in Stockholm there tends to be no demarcation between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. The shower just drains into a hole in the floor.) After getting cleaned up we gave Anne, Daryoush and Ella a call and had a nice picnic with them at a park in the center of Stockholm. Then we walked through the old town and eventually back to the Hostel where Laura and I gave Ella the present we bought for her in London (a tomato that squishes when thrown against a hard surface and then regains its shape after a few seconds). It was great seeing them.
One of our top priorities upon arrival in Stockholm was doing laundry. To our pleasure and gratitude we discovered that our hostel offers complementary laundry service. The downside? There's only one washer and only one key. Throughout our first day in Stockholm we repeated checked back with the front desk to see if the key had been returned but by midnight we figured that it was a lost cause for the day. First thing in the morning we got the key and started our laundry. It wasn't the best timing but we figured that being a couple hours late start to our sightseeing wouldn't hamper our enjoyment too much - especially considering we'd have fresh clothes afterward. 7 and 1/2 hours later our laundry was finally done. Just in time for all of the sights and museums to close. Who knew laundry machines could be so slow?!
Anyway, we still managed to walk around the old royal hunting grounds (now called Djurgarden). It's basically just a huge green park in the north-east of central Stockholm that reminded us of the forests in the Pacific Northwest.
The following morning we checked out of the hostel and went to collect our tickets for the cruise to Estonia. Then we headed back toward central Stockholm to check out the Vasa museum. The Vasa was a massive warship constructed by the Swedes in the 17th century. Unfortunately, the sheer size of the Vasa was also its undoing - it only sailed for 20 minutes before sinking into Stockholm harbor. After 350~ years the Swedes pulled the Vasa from the bottom of Stockholm harbor surprisingly intact and spent 25 or so years restoring it. Now it's a fantastically preserved wreck of an incredible and old battleship. Among the rescued treasures were the worlds oldest surviving sails. While at the museum we stopped by the on-site cafe to try their "reasonably priced" (in quotations because Stockholm is amazingly expensive) Swedish meatballs which were great.
After the Vasa museum we headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags and made our way back toward the harbor to disembark on our voyage to Tallinn.
Stockholm remains copyright of the author DavidJFabe, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.
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