The best of the West of the East... think about it!

Hey again!

Just going to write a few brief updates about some of the places we've been before we see too many places and forget all the details.

After our last post we spent a few more days in Croatia, checking the islands and the local cuisine, they even have the vanilla slice here!! Then I headed north from Croatia to Slovenia, while Jo made a brief detour through Venice and met me in Ljubljana... it was a shopping thing.

Sunset in Split

The Island of Vis

The Island of Vis

The Amphitheater in Pula

Rovinj on the Istrian Peninsula

All up we spent about a week in Slovenia and saw the capital, Ljubljana, and the towns of Bled and Bohinj. Lake Bled was amazingly picturesque and the best thing about it is you can actually hire a row boat and row out to the old monastery that is on an island in the middle of the lake! Very amusing as neither of us have really ever done any rowing before, serious or otherwise! We spent another day hiring bikes and cycling up to a huge natural gorge which was fun though Jo did seem to have trouble sitting the next day thanks to her re-acquaintance with bike seats. The town of Bohinj was an odd little town made even odder by what had drawn us there in the first place... The Alpine Dairy Museum! Maybe it's just because I've had my fill of history and art museums that my mind literally buzzes with excitement at the prospect of going to something as obscure as a museum related to the dairy practices of the Julian Alps... unfortunately it was closed. Though my need to see something different and unique was thankfully satisfied when we came across a small country fair where they were roasting an entire cow on a rotisserie... that's it I have now seen everything! Slovenia was fantastic! Honestly out of all the countries I've been to so far this would be my perfect choice of country to live in! It's small, It has great food, it has great wine, it has Alpine mountains and plenty of hiking and it is about 85% covered in forest, the country also has a thing for dragons, what more could you want?

Dragon Bridge in Ljubljana

Skateboard shop in Ljubljana

Rowing out on Lake Bled

The Island in Lake Bled

Slovenian festival at Lake Bohinj

Slovenian festival at Lake Bohinj

Lake Bohinj

Bike riding to Vintgar Gorge, Bled

Vintgar Gorge

From Slovenia we caught a train into Austria, to a little place in the Alps called Bad Gastein, Funny name, I agree. Thankfully the town didn't smell, though it did rain for the entire first day so we had a rest-day with our books, which we really needed. We attempted some hiking but then abandoned that in light of a chair lift (it was going there anyway) for some cloudy views of the Austrian Alps, but made up for it later by relaxing in the towns thermal spas (I better clarify that we were making up for the cloudy views not our laziness). Next it was on to Salzberg which was nice, but nothing special, and have now spent the last few days here in Vienna. We've spent a lot of time here just walking around trying to soak in all the grandeur of the buildings and the city. Last night we went to the State Opera theater and saw the famous opera "The barber of Seville" you know the one "Figaro, Figaro, Figaro... etc" rather funny actually. The tickets were only 3.5 EUROS, which is good. But you have to stand for the entire performance, which is bad. but you get subtitles for the opera so you know what is being said, which is good. but you have to stand for the entire performance, which is bad. funnily enough these weren't even the cheapest tickets you could buy, but they were the cheapest tickets if you actually wanted to see what was happening on stage. And although you do have to stand for the entire performance, which is bad, at least when it is over and you start clapping you are already giving a standing ovation!

Bad Gastein

View above Bad Gastein

Salzburg

Vienna

Well that is all, you can go now. Next we are off to the Czech Republic!

Bye :D

Just keeping you all up to date!

Hey Everyone!

(Apologies in advance for any dodgy spelling as I'm using a Croatian keyboard and they tend to give surprising and unexpected letters at times čžćšđ etc.).

Well, after our recent posts which should have caught you all up to speed from when we left London, we've now been traveling for over a month and probably should give you a few more updates!

Our first country was Ireland, and unfortunately it was a real whirlwind trip! We flew into Dublin for a couple of days checked out Trinity College and the Book of Kels. Then headed down to Killarney where we hired a car and drove to Galway via the Dingle Peninsula and The Burren. Once in Galway we went out on a day trip to the Aran Islands (we walked a lot that day) then after two days had to catch the bus up to Belfast where we spent some time familiarising ourselves with the conflict there including going on one of the popular Black Cab tours. Our time in Ireland was far too short in our opinion to really get to know the place and the people but we did our best!

Gap of Dunloe near Killarney

The Dingle Peninsula

Just another summer in Ireland!

Cliffs of Moher

The Aran Islands

Which Way?

The Netherlands was next on the list and we were really grateful to be able to stay with some of Jo's relatives while we were there. We spent the first few days in the east of Holland in a place called Hellendoorn with Rob, Henriette and Rob's boys Davey and Robin. Checked out the local area and got to see some of the local festivities including a Credence Clearwater Revival cover band from Belgium. Headed up to a castle in Germany for the afternoon and basically spent the couple of days drinking coffee and beer whenever the opportunity presented itself... which was often! But this suited me just fine!

Robin, Henriette, Rob and Davy

Rob, Joanna and Andre

Next we headed west to Rotterdam and spent a few days with Mirjam and Dimitri. We got to meet some more of the family and a few of their friends and also the new house they've just bought. We took a day trip to a few places in Holland like Delft, Den Haag and the Rotterdam Zoo. Then on another day headed down to Antwerp in Belgium where we stuffed ourselves with beer and chocolates!

Rotterdam

Scheveningen

Relaxing at Scheveningen

After we left the family we headed to Amsterdam for 4 nights. It is such an amazing city and one place I would love to go back to already. We had a great time checking out the canals, the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh museum, the red light district, the sex museum and the odd coffee shop ;) What a great city!

The canals in Amsterdam

Well that was the end of our time in The Netherlands, but we just wanted to say a really big thankyou to all the people who looked after us while we were there, who gave us a bed and fed us poverty stricken backpackers... Cheers! :)

After leaving Holland we flew down to Palermo in Sicily with a 7 hour stopover in Milan (cheap flights have their drawbacks). Wow what a change! The weather was actually hot! that real baking humidity that truly means that it is Summer! Like I said this was a change as up until now Europe has had, in my opinion, the worst Summer ever. It has been more like the 1st week of Spring for the past 3 months, which you can imagine is a little disappointing. here is a brief bullet point of the things we got up to in Italy:

• Walked around the old town of Palermo.
• Paid a fortune to get to the top of Mount Etna (Europe's most active volcano).
• Spent a day trying in vain to get to the Aeolian islands... only got to Vulcano and pretty much hated it (strong words I know, but it wasn't a good day).
• Spent a day checking out some smaller towns like Letojanni and Forza Da Gro (where they filmed some of the scenes in 'The Godfather') with some Swedish friends we made at the Hostel.
• Hated the bizzare and inconvenient transport connections.
• Visited Amalfi, Positano, Capri, Sorrento, Pompeii and Naples (where we had some damn good pizza).

Overall Italy was great and the weather was even better!

Palermo

Mt Etna

The view down the Sicilian coast from Forza d'Agro

The fort at the top of Forza d'Agro

Capri

Capri

Pompeii

Positano on the Amalfi Coast

Now it was time to catch the boat across to Dubrovnik in Croatia. Spent a couple of really good days here, checking out the ultra-touristy old town which has been pretty much completely restored after it was shelled in 1991. We also spent a day on the island of Mijet where we went for a nice walk around the national park. From Dubrovnik we caught a bus up into Sarajevo in Bosnia and Hercegovina, which was such an amazing city. It hasn't yet fully recovered from the siege it was subjected to from 1992 to 1995 by Serbian forces, and as a result is such an eye-opening experience. A real war that has happened in my lifetime and that I grew up with on the television in the background. We were able to visit the tunnel used to get supplies and even managed to talk to the odd local who was there during the siege.

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik

Mljet National Park

Sarajevo

Sarajevo roses

Mostar

The weather in Sarajevo was unfortunately a bit of a shock after Dubrovnik. We basically went from sunshine and about 27 degrees to pouring with rain and all the way down to 7 degrees. We were not ready for summer to be over!

After Sarajevo we came back to Croatia and spent a couple of nights on the island of Hvar. We caught up with some friends from London who were holidaying at the same place. Then spent the rest of our time reminding ourselves that we were in Croatia and not back in Australia despite all the Australian accents we could hear. (to be honest I'm a little sick of bumping into Aussies these days and they probably make up about 70% of the travelers we encounter, we certainly love to travel)

Hvar Town

Well that's all for now, tomorrow we head out to another island called Vis then spend some time checking out Split before making our way North to the Istria Peninsula and then up into Slovenia.

Hope everybody is well, we can't wait to see you when we get back!