Slovenia

We arrived in Slovenia and went straight to the capital, Ljubljana (pronounced Lubyana) where we were meeting some friends. Slovenia is a small country but it has a lot going for it. At the break up of Yugoslavia it was up there in terms of economic stability and productivity so it quickly adapted. It made its currency from the same materials as the Euro so when it came time to join it could easily re-mint its money.
Most of the country is covered in forest and Slovenia is well known for its outdoors activities. Ljubljana has a rich architecture and the old town is full of cobbled streets, 300 year old buildings, decorative bridges (a river flows right through the centre) and a large market place. Give its proximity to Venice, there is no wonder looks as if it has been influenced by the former city-state.
It is also close to Vienna and you can see the Austro-Hungarian influence here, just as the rest of the area. The city is dominated by the old castle, perched upon the hill that overlooks the city. It doesn’t take too long to walk up, zigzagging through more narrow cobble streets, and once you get to the top the view over the city it spectacular, if somewhat fuzzy due to the pollution, a common sight in the Balkans. We were lucky it wasn’t too bad on the day we were there.

Our friends that we stayed with don’t live in Ljubljana but in a small town just outside called Kranj. In a country as small as Slovenia this is a town, in other countries it might be considered a suburb of the capital. It was a good jumping off point to see some of the countryside of Slovenia. We made our way to Bled which is famous for its lake, castle and monastery.
It is favoured by hikers and nature lovers and its reputation didn’t let us down. The castle itself wasn’t really a great castle when you are in it, but its real grandeur comes when you look at it from afar. From across the lake the castle looks grand, especially with its monastery neighbour not too far away.
You could easily while away a whole afternoon, if not a whole day, just hanging out at the lake there, sitting on a bench, maybe swimming (bring a wetsuit though, the water looked cold) but only in summer.

Just past Bled, driving through some traditional villages that cars look out of place in, there is another lake called Bohinj. The lake runs a long way and right into some mountains that you can climb. The climb can go on for days if you want it, but most people will climb as far as the waterfall. We had the intention of seeing the waterfall, but once we got so far up, it was getting quite cold and we did not have the right clothes.
Still, seeing the lake and the surroundings was worth it. According to our friends people often go hiking for several days in this area and there are rest cabins where you can stay the night and/or an hour or two and recharge. They are usually run by old ladies who will stay for the whole summer in these cabins, waiting for hikers to come along. At this time of year though, they are rarely open.

I think that for Slovenia, it is another case of the pictures telling the story. There is only so much you can describe in writing, so here are lots of photos. It is also the end of our journey by car. From Slovenia we will drive straight across Italy to Nice where we will spend one night and return the car. It is a shame because it is such a cool little car and it has not let us down once. From Nice we will go to Milan by train, and there again we will pick up the travels.

Croatia - Zagreb

You can be under awed, and you can be overawed but can you just be awed. Never was a phrase more pertinent than in Zagreb. It has some nice parts to it, some nice buildings and nice streets, the people are mostly nice, its just nice. It doesn’t blow you away, you wouldn’t really want to go back there, but you didn’t dislike your visit, that’s about it. There is not really much to write about here to be honest, so I will write about what I usually do in a place where nothing really stands out, the food.
We found a restaurant (after much searching mind you) that was not too expensive and had food we could both enjoy. It turned out to be a brewery restaurant that made its own beer and that really was something to write home about. They had five different types and over two days I tried them all. Real, honest, well made, local beer, you cant go wrong. The food was pretty good, also local fare. Unfortunately we didn’t take any photo’s in the restaurant so you will just have to take our word for it. We did take some ‘souvenir’ place mats and drink coasters which will be just as good as a photo. We didn’t stay long in Zagreb, just long enough. On to Slovenia, our last stop on the road.

Hungarian? Yes, lets eat

Hungary is the central-est of all central European countries. It has borders with lots of other central European countries and so it is the base for lots of international companies with interests in the region. This means that Hungary thinks it is a little bit more important than those other central European countries,
mostly. This also comes from being the second part in the Austro-Hungarian empire, although I always wondered why Austria needed Hungary and it turns out that it was just a name, something to put on the letterhead and business cards to keep the Hungarians happy, at least this is what the Austrians told me.
Having been part of a superpower (just like Italy was a part of the Nazi Germany superpower), they now suffer from dillusions of mediocrity. In the post communist eastern Europe, where almost every country is super cheap, Hungary has decided that it is important enough to be a little bit more expensive. I guess this is the reason that we have put off staying here until now. Our first stop was in place called Pecs, which is pronounced paish and has nothing to do with Arnie's chest.
It has the now familiar old town square, with the now familiar old town buildings. This part of the world is becoming a bit here a church, there a church, everywhere a church church. It does look nice at night, as almost all the buildings have lights. Its kind of how you would imagine a European town to look like, if you have never been to Europe and have only seen them in movies. Walking the streets at night does have a somewhat romantic feel about it.
Interestingly, the same as Vilnius, Pecs has the tradition of placing a padlock on a fence in the city when you get married. Romantic indeed (I call it a lock Pecs...). As much as I dislike 'check box' tourism, this was one to say you spent a few days there and move on. So move on we did to one of the big 3, Hungary. (Prague and Krakow are the others, I know you were asking).
I have been to Budapest before, for a new year celebration in 2005. Then I thought the national sport was firecracker throwing, but this time not a cracker was seen. Budapest deserves being a part of the big 3, it has a wonderful collection of palacial buildings,
hotels that look like royal residences, museums buildings that belong in museums and of course it has the Blue Danube coursing through its centre. Budapest is actually two cities, Buda and Pest, one on each side of the river and in something akin to a corporate merger, they combined to form one city. the city is strewn with statues and monuments, artistic sculptures and it has some famous hot spring baths. The baths are best in the cold I think.
Nice hot water combined with freezing air temperatures is invigorating. When you get really cold and then jump back into the warm water, you get all tingly. The other good thing about Budapest is the food. It is a crossroad of eastern and western influence and goulash galore.
Goulash you can get all over eastern Europe, but it was hard to find in Hungary, except in Budapest. Last time I was here, I found a great little pub that served the best cheap food. I still had the business card so we found it again for our last meal in Hungary. Sometimes, when you revisit a restaurant, the food just doesnt live up to your own memories. This was not one of those times.
The food was as good, if not better than before. A great way to end our Hungarian experience.

2010 – The year of the scaffolding

Prague


Most places in Europe are old, they have been inhabited for thousands of years. In that time people have been constructing buildings, and after a while these buildings become, well old. Sometimes it is necessary to service, restore and generally fix some of these old buildings. But for some reason 2010 seems to be THE year to restore a building. EVERY place, without exception, that we have visited so far, has had at least one building that has been covered in scaffolding. So we must assume that 2010 is the European year of the scaffolding. In honour of this prestigious occasion I will be regularly posting pictures of these scaffolded buildings. Enjoy.




Vienna

Romania Revisited

One of our favourite places we have been to so far is Romania and since we are so close we decided to see the other side, the western side of Romania.
First cab of the rank was Timisoara (pronounced Timishwahra) since it was so close to the Serbian border. We had a nice hotel booked just on the outskirts. At least I thought it was nice, and maybe it would have been, but after 2 hours of going up and down back roads in country Romania, asking for directions twice, we gave up and called the hotel. To our surprise another hotel answered the call and they told me that the one we had booked is closed until next year (and yet they still took our money and booking). They told us of another of their hotels we could use, for the same rate, next to the train station. It turned out to be one of those hotels you stay at if you are STUCK at the train station and have nowhere to sleep. It was the bottom of the barrel so we stayed one night and went somewhere else. That night we walked into the old town which was actually quite nice. We had dinner at a restaurant on the town square and the food was ok, but the entertainment was, well entertaining but not in the way they imagined I think. There was some kind of party going on inside as we ate outside and the restaurant must have been short staffed because there was a boy waiter who could not have been older than 13 and a girl about the same age or younger. Clearly they start work young here. There was also a woman singing and to this day I am not sure if she was a paid singer or someone from the party who hijacked the microphone. She wasn’t a great singer but to see her go round to people at tables and personally sing to them (and their reaction) was entertaining for us at least. She was left to sing to a small audience though, as most of the party goers gravitated to the TV since the local football team was playing. Unfortunately for the restaurant, the local team lost and most of the people left.
The next day, after changing hotels, we wandered about the streets in the daylight. It is a quaint town with some charming architecture, but not a huge amount to keep you interested for the whole day. So we went on a mission to find a bookshop selling books in English and a decent haircut. The haircut was easily fixed and luckily there was a guy who spoke English (I had visions of ending up with a Mohawk, or worse a bowlcut). He was curious and confused as to why we were in Romania since he didn’t like it and wouldn’t think it would be a good holiday destination. It really is a beautiful country with good food and friendly people, whats not to like? Haircut done, we went to four bookshops and a tourist information place before we found what we wanted, but we did find it. Our last adventure for Timisoara before we moved on was to find a decent place to have dinner. Not too far from our new hotel there was a medieval restaurant which turned out to be excellent. The wait staff were all dressed in period costume, the walls were decorated with swords, armour and banners and the food was served on wooden boards. Our waitress suggested something which looked good, so we ordered that. A complimentary appetizer came first, some bread and large pickles to go with three different types of lard. That’s right, you get a good variety of fat here and apparently that’s traditional. When the main came out, it was served on a board about the size of a small body board. It had 6 different types of meat including a huge piece of roast pork, 3 different types of potato and some other veggies. We ate our full and it really didn’t look like we had even started. The rest we took home and proceeded to eat over the next two days. All this, with two beers only cost $30. Whats not to like?
We ventured further in to Romania to a small town called Sibiu. It is another of the abundant old small towns that you see in this country. That is not such a bad thing though and this town had definite charm and appeal. It had a large, open square at the centre of the old town which was apparently good enough to film at. I don’t know what they were shooting but in the afternoon there were a number of vans in the square and at least one said BBC. My bet was Dr. Who but I have absolutely no basis for this deduction, although I will defend it to the death (I could be a cricket selector). The town gave us a spectacular sunset, especially over the large church that was supposedly the place where Vlad Tepes son, aka Dracula, was killed. Like I said, charming. It was a pleasant place to spend a few days but nothing exciting happened here. Just outside Sibiu was a well recommended village museum. We drove out to this place, which was on a large piece of land complete with lake and river, and it displayed old buildings used by villagers in times gone by. Lots of thatch and it seemed every second building was a watermill, or some other kind of mill. For something that was dubbed as a ‘must see’, it was a little underwhelming. The first five minutes were interesting but it became very much the same. The lake was spectacular though, and it would have been better if you could venture in to some of the buildings but that was not allowed, and for once I actually didn’t go in anyway.

It is a shame to turn our backs on Romania. It has given us some wonderful memories and is a place I would recommend to anyone and will for sure visit again. For now, it is on to Hungary and we get closer to the end of our journey by car.

Serbia

If only the war had reached Serbia and Belgrade in partilcular, I think the country would be rather different. The south i very Slavic, with Cyrillic the main written language, whereas the north is distinctly Austro-Hungarian and has architecture to match. Belgrade is almost a blend of the two, which makes it neither here nor there and you end up with a city that is "just ok". Its a little beige but there are occassional pockets of grandeur. The people are, well rude is a good way to put it. The seem to go out of their way to get into yours, they all look grumpy and they dont really seem to want to help others. Unless, of course, there is money involved and then they are your best friend. It had a real communist feel about it, with proud displays of old military equipment, and a mix of the new, money driven capitalist attitude, demonstrated by the tennis court next to an old castle wall, with tanks directly on the other side.
In all honesty though, if you break down all the facets of life here, you would think it isnt a great place, but all together they combine to make a city that is "just ok", but not bad. We had a bad experience with a hostel here. It had no identifiable marks on the outside to suggest that there was a hostel there. The address was written down incorrectly and the "directions", if you followed them, led you to a place across the street, with further instructions to "call if you get there and you cant find it". Well, I dont know of too many backpackers who take a roaming mobile with them, I think a sign would be a much better idea.
When we got into the place, the girl who 'worked' there wasnt much help and Im not sure if she really knew what was going on (she WAS blond...). There were a lot of things that went wrong with that hostel and I think they knew it because when the time came to write a review for it, my booking had been "cancelled".
We spent a couple of days in Belgrade and we were going to leave Serbia at that, but we changed our minds and went north to a charming town called Novi Sad. Im glad we did because this place was quite nice and gave Serbia a better name.
As I said earlier it is a more Austro-Hungarian town, very small but it had character and as they say, character goes a long way. Also, the people were friendly (and the hostel was great). There really isnt too much to say about Novi Sad, there is a festival here at a certain time of year and the inhabitants seem genuinely stunned when tourists visit outside of the festival period.
It is a very quaint little town with a large town square that you could while away quite a few hours if you wanted. We are now leaving the Balkans behind and making another salient into Romania.