I'm freezing my tits off in the former Yugoslavia...
We've spent our last few days bashing our way through the Balkans. Ljubljana was a cool town. Very chilled out, especially for a capital. From there we went to Split in Croatia via Zagreb and an overnight train. We had 3 hours in Zagreb, but didn't explore far beyond the station for fear of getting lost and freezing to death. We were kinda pissed cause we paid as much for a seat overnight to split as we did for a sleeper on our last overnight train. As it turned out the train was fairly empty so we had an entire compartment to ourselves and could laz across three seats each. I had a better night's sleep than I did in the sleeper..
The Adriatic coast of Croatia is beautiful and by some freak of nature never rains and rarely gets cloudy. The skies were blue, the sea was bright green and with the mountain backdrops and clay-roofed houses it all looked too good to be true. And it was. It was bloody freezing. I don't know how it was so cold though because just a week before we were in Cinque Terre where I thought it was warm enough to swim. Anyway, we were picked up as soon as we stepped off the train in split by a woman offering a room in her house for peanuts so we accepted. She also picked up another couple who we befriended - an irish-new zaland-australian girl and a chilean-spanish guy. We all caught the bus together the next day to Dubrovnik, a similar town to Split but more cliffs and less beaches, which was unfortunately irrelevant to us. The bus ride was a highlight just for the scenery. The great ocean road has nothing... In Dubrovnik we had a similar scenario to Split in terms of accommodation, except that the woman didn't live in the house so we basically had a private appartment between us for like 10euro each a night. It was even colder in Dubrovnik than Split so sitting out on the terrace with a bottle of wine was not as pleasant as it could have been.
From Dubrovnik we all got on the bus together for Bosnia (yes, motherland of our friend and team-mate Dario) but while we were going all the way to Sarajevo, Roisin and Christian planned to get off at Mostar (the capital of Hercigovina). However things didn't go to plan and they ran into trouble at the border. Christian was travelling on a Chilean passport and needed a visa so was told to go back to Zagreb. Grim. The last we saw of them was being led to a grey building by a surly Bosnian border guard... The rest of the bus ride was spectacular. We'd been told in advance about the road between Mostar and Sarajevo and it lived up to it (though I still preferred the ride between Split and Dubrovnik). Now we have absolutely no need to go to Switzerland.
Sarajevo's one of my favourite places I've been so far. Aside from the setting of the city - mountains rising up on all sides - it genuinely is a melting pot of east and west. We're staying right in the Turkish quarter and the call to prayer from the mosques makes the perfect soundtrack to the small streets of the old town (I should write travel brochures..). Mind you its still bloody freezing..
So we're going to stay here a few days then get the overnight train to Budapest where I'm sure it will be just as cold. The question is what would I rather - to be able to feel my fingers or be free from hoardes of tourists?!
We've spent our last few days bashing our way through the Balkans. Ljubljana was a cool town. Very chilled out, especially for a capital. From there we went to Split in Croatia via Zagreb and an overnight train. We had 3 hours in Zagreb, but didn't explore far beyond the station for fear of getting lost and freezing to death. We were kinda pissed cause we paid as much for a seat overnight to split as we did for a sleeper on our last overnight train. As it turned out the train was fairly empty so we had an entire compartment to ourselves and could laz across three seats each. I had a better night's sleep than I did in the sleeper..
The Adriatic coast of Croatia is beautiful and by some freak of nature never rains and rarely gets cloudy. The skies were blue, the sea was bright green and with the mountain backdrops and clay-roofed houses it all looked too good to be true. And it was. It was bloody freezing. I don't know how it was so cold though because just a week before we were in Cinque Terre where I thought it was warm enough to swim. Anyway, we were picked up as soon as we stepped off the train in split by a woman offering a room in her house for peanuts so we accepted. She also picked up another couple who we befriended - an irish-new zaland-australian girl and a chilean-spanish guy. We all caught the bus together the next day to Dubrovnik, a similar town to Split but more cliffs and less beaches, which was unfortunately irrelevant to us. The bus ride was a highlight just for the scenery. The great ocean road has nothing... In Dubrovnik we had a similar scenario to Split in terms of accommodation, except that the woman didn't live in the house so we basically had a private appartment between us for like 10euro each a night. It was even colder in Dubrovnik than Split so sitting out on the terrace with a bottle of wine was not as pleasant as it could have been.
From Dubrovnik we all got on the bus together for Bosnia (yes, motherland of our friend and team-mate Dario) but while we were going all the way to Sarajevo, Roisin and Christian planned to get off at Mostar (the capital of Hercigovina). However things didn't go to plan and they ran into trouble at the border. Christian was travelling on a Chilean passport and needed a visa so was told to go back to Zagreb. Grim. The last we saw of them was being led to a grey building by a surly Bosnian border guard... The rest of the bus ride was spectacular. We'd been told in advance about the road between Mostar and Sarajevo and it lived up to it (though I still preferred the ride between Split and Dubrovnik). Now we have absolutely no need to go to Switzerland.
Sarajevo's one of my favourite places I've been so far. Aside from the setting of the city - mountains rising up on all sides - it genuinely is a melting pot of east and west. We're staying right in the Turkish quarter and the call to prayer from the mosques makes the perfect soundtrack to the small streets of the old town (I should write travel brochures..). Mind you its still bloody freezing..
So we're going to stay here a few days then get the overnight train to Budapest where I'm sure it will be just as cold. The question is what would I rather - to be able to feel my fingers or be free from hoardes of tourists?!
posted by YT at 3:04 pm
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