Berlin

Originally we were going to catch a bus from Prague at 10 in the evening which would have meant an arrival time of around 5 in the morning but decided that we had had enough of night time travelling and opted for a bus at around 3, we were glad we made this decision as the journey ended up only taking about 5 and half hours and we arrived at a reasonable 8pm, it did mean an extra nights accommodation needed to be booked but it was worth it just to be able to get a solid nights sleep something we had got use to in Prague. Once arriving at the coach station we spent a good 20 minutes looking for the S-Bahn as our hostel was the total opposite side of the city, in the end we found the S-Bahn and realised that it was pretty much visible from the coach station and should never have taken us 20 minutes to find.



We found our hostel once we got off of the S-Bahn with no trouble whatsoever, it was called the Sunflower Hostel and not only did have a massive neon sunflower out side it but they also have leaflets with excellent maps on them too which made wandering the tower block estate less threatening. It was a really welcoming hostel and despite being in a 10 person dorm it was really really comfortable. The hostel also had it's own bar which proved to be a really handy place to hang out, next to the bar was the Internet cafe and the worlds quietest washing machines next to the worlds worst tumble driers, the Internet cafe also appeared to be the hang out place for all of the tower block estates kids but that just seemed to add to the atmosphere. That night we had a few drinks in the bar and finally realised that we had been playing backgammon to the wrong rules, since then the games have got a lot lot closer which means Nina enjoys them more and I find it all a lot more stressful and hard work than before.

Browsing through all of the leaflets that were at the hostel and also looking through the Lonely Planet we quickly realised that we had no where near enough time to do everything we wanted and that we would have to be pretty motivated to get to see a much as possible. If possible we would have changed the booking to stay for longer but as we had rooms booked in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and travel booked as well we decided we would have to make the most of the time we had and stick to the schedule. The first thing we did the following morning was purchase a Berlin Tourist card each for the cost of 19 euros, this was valid for 72 hours (pretty much the exact amount of time we had in Berlin) and not only did it allow free use of the transport system throughout central Berlin but it also entitled us to discounts of up to 40% and many of the main attractions. The first place we decided to head to was probably one of the most famous and that was Check Point Charley.

We found it with no problems what-so-ever, like most of the sights in Berlin it was just a short walk from a near by S-Bahn Station, we knew we were at the right place as soon as we saw the 'Check Point Charley Cafe', the 'Check Point Charley Restaurant', the shop, the ice cream vendor and I'm sure if we looked hard enough we could have seen the 'Check point Charley Public Conveniences. Further down the road it the white hut that sheltered the border police, to the right of that stands a sign which in English, German and Russians warns 'You are now leaving the American Sector'. Along side the hut stood to guys dressed up, one in the American Uniform and one in a Soviet uniform, the both hold the respective flags and for 1 Euro you could take a photo with them, we passed up that opportunity however the guy who stands under the sign and stamps your passport with Check Point Charley Border stamps was to good to pass up. Nina went first and in his best American accent the guy went about explaining whats what, asking what kind of name is Nina etc, all very funny, the humour was increased when he proceeded to mess up the stamps several times which now means Nina has about 10 Check Point Charley stamps scattered through her passport, when it came to my turn he was far to busy laughing at the passport photo to really get his full banter going but still it was fun and is probably about the best novelty gift for yourself that you can get in Berlin, unless you like fake bits of Berlin Wall or have a passion for Soviet style hats.

Asides from all the various Check Point Charley tourist attractions along the street there is also a really in depth informative museum, the museum itself has a great history, it started shortly after the wall was fist built and was simply a collection of details about murders on the border, escape attempts etc, at the time it was housed in two tiny rooms just on the right side of the border, from that it has grown and grown and now the museum is housed over 3 or 4 connected buildings and across two floors. One of the buildings used to be a key look out on the western side of the border where helpers would look out and assist those attempting to flee from the East. Some of the stories you get to here about in the museum are truly amazing and some truly horrifying the same can be said for the footage and the various artifacts they have. The museum not only focused on the wall though, there was quite a large exhibition on the man made famine created by the soviets in the Ukraine's in the early 1900's along side this was a smaller exhibition on Pablo Picasso and his works against the Spanish regime of the mid 1900's. We ended up spending around 3 and a half hours in the museum and like a lot of the places we have visited came out wanting to learn more and more. The whole Check Point Charley area is flooded with tourists and there are certainly more than enough street vendors looking to cash in this, however it is not over baring the area is obviously a very sensitive place for many people so you do not get hassled.

A short wander from Check Point Charley was the Topography of Terror exhibit which is situated on the old grounds of the Secret Police alongside which is a large stretch of the Berlin Wall. The exhibit itself details many of the atrocities carried out not only by the secret police but the Nazis n general including the slaughter of whole villages, the rounding up of random people to be hung publicly as a revenge for attempted rebellions etc, along with lots and lots of writing there are many many photos which certainly made this not one for the feint hearted. The exhibition is only temporarily located in the open air, many years ago they held a competition for someone to design a building that would go on the sight and would house the exhibit, a winner was chosen but due to many problem financial and logistical the government decided to scrap the project and run a new competition, so far the building if the exhibition centre had run in to millions of euros and the foundations have not even finished being laid yet, German efficiency hey???

It was getting on a bit by the time we had finished at the Topography of terror so we decided to grab some food (which is pretty affordable in Berlin) and go for a wander, there were still plenty of museums to go to but several hours of information receiving was enough for one day and whilst it was all very interesting we were feeling somewhat numb. That evening we got back to the hostel feeling absolutely shattered but decided to take advantage of the laundry service and have a few beers I headed of to bed relatively early and left Nina chatting to a Latvian girl, a Polish street artist and another guy who could have been dutch but I'm not sure, all i knew was he was the same guy that had been serving beer all evening so we liked him. The following morning I was woken by a very pale Nina who informed me she didn't get to bed until 5am and feels knackered, never the less she was determined to make the most of the day, this point had been raised several times since and usually goes along the lines of 'You spent a whole day recovering in bed in Slovenia whilst I had to walk around Berlin all day'.

The first place we headed to was the Jewish museum which talks about the Jews of Germany before, during and after the war, once again some of the documents that they had were fascinating. The museum is in a purpose built building which was designed by an artist who had it in mind that the building should represent the journey Jewish people have had to go on. The building there for is made of jagged hall ways, only very small slit windows, uneven ceilings and floors. Both internally and externally the building looks unlike anything else I've seen before and once you understand what the artist was trying to achieve you can be nothing but impressed. We ended up spending around 4 hours in the museum, some of it was bit too heavy and this we only skimmed over but if any one wants or needs to learn more about Jewish culture and history this has to be the place to come.

From the Jewish museum we headed over to the Brandenburg Gate where there was a silent demonstration in support of the Burmese Monks and the Reichtag which you can actually enter if you fancy queuing for 3 hours, we didn't. Instead we moved on to the DDR museum, this was slightly more lighthearted, not in subject but in approach. It was very hands on and appealed to every age group, the museum basically is set up like a house from the old East side and explains about the various contrasts between living standards, entertainment, education etc. It is really cheap to get in and is a much more bearable size compared to many of the massive museums we've been to. The best part of the museum is being able to sit in a Trabi and take a drive along a project screen showing Eastern Germany, pretty sure that despite the fact they were renowned for being unreliable and impossible to fix they were probably still better to drive than my banger.

After spending an hour or so in the museums we decided to head over to the Fernsehturm (T.V tower) which you can see from pretty much anywhere in Berlin, every big city has it's tower and the T.V tower is Berlins. It was built in the mid 60s and stands at 368 meters (including the antenna) at around 200 meters there is a viewing platform and just above that is a rotating restaurant. We decided to go up it to look at the views over Berlin as the sun set our budget wouldn't stretch to a meal at the restaurant but we did enjoy and overpriced cocktail. The view showed us that Berlin is certainly a city where it's history in the attraction rather than its beauty, which is somewhat lacking, that being said though the City does have a nice feel about it and is nice wander around at night time. Unsurprisingly Nina sloped of to bed very early that night and left me watching football and indulging in a few quiet beers.

The following day was a our last in Berlin so we got up early enough to grab some breakfast at the hostel and then headed to the bus station to drop of our bags at the left luggage area before heading back to Berlin to catch a few last sights. We headed straight to the Berlin Wall Memorial. The memorial itself I found really interesting although Nina was initially a bit underwhelmed, it basically comprises of a stretch of the wall which you can look over from a viewing platform nearby, on the other side of the wall is the 'Death Strip' within which is an old radio transmitter, there is then another border wall. There is a large metal wall at both ends so the it is not possible to enter the 'Death Strip' you can simply peer through cracks in the wall, view it from the platform and walk around it but that's it, I think it acts as a perfect reminder/memorial.

Also at the memorial sight is The Church of Reconciliation whose simple structure is built on the same spot where the original church which was built in 1885 stood, when the wall went up the church found itself on the death strip and in 1985 it was blown up by the GDR who had become frustrated with western tourists taking photos from west Germany of the chapel in the 'death strip'. There is also an excellent mini breakdown of key wall events on the stair well up to the viewing platform however many of you will be disappointed as Nina was to find no reference to the Hoffs performance on the wall!!! After a bit more wondering around it was time to head towards the station taking a brief stop at the Sony centre to stare at a few public transport employees that were on strike, this did encourage us to get a move on as we did not know how there antics were effect the S-Bahns running. We got to the station at about 4:30pm which which was pretty good considering our coach was due to leave at 5pm, however shortly after arriving a sign flashed up in German which had us reaching for the phrase book, after a while we were able establish that the coach had been delayed by 50 minutes, for us that put the final nail in the coffin as far a German efficiency goes.

Back to Prague

The metro stop that the bus had dumped us at was conveniently on the right line for our hostel and 20 minutes later we were out side Florenc station studying our instructions on how to find the new hostel we had booked somewhat apprehensively as the reviews were pretty damning, in the end though the price and location had swayed us, we were planning two day trips to other towns so being right next door to Florenc coach station was ideal. Finding this hostel however turned out to be nothing like the drama that was finding the first hostel we had booked in Prague and within 15 minutes we were checking in with a slightly strange host. In the end though the ice broke nicely as he advised he was annoyed with his colleagues who had worked the morning shift as there were 20 people who were meant to check in and none had turned up so far which meant he had a very busy evening ahead of him, how this was his colleagues fault I'm not sure.

We had ideally wanted to get a private room for this second visit of Prague as we knew prices in Germany and Holland were going to be much more expensive and that we would definitely have to do dorms there, unfortunately though the hostel had booked out all their privates so we opted for a 3 person dorm instead which was a good 3 or 4 euros cheaper per person per night. As it turned out for the four nights we stayed there we did not get a third room mate so in effect we did have a private room for a fraction of the cost, highly recommend booking small dorms if you travel as a couple on a budget quite often you'll find you have the whole dorm to yourself.

The day we arrived at the hostel Nina was still feeling a bit under the weather due to the bite on her chin and the pain it was causing so we opted to stay close to the hostel and after continuing with the Back Gammon in a nearby bar which closed at 10pm! er went on the search for some food, it turned out that there really aren't that many restaurants near Florenc station so we ended up heading to McDonald's, it wasn't healthy but it certainly hit the spot, we then went back to the hostel for a relatively early night as we wanted to head to Kutna Hora the following day, the Lonely Planet guide advised coaches went every day of the week but were slightly reduced on the weekends, there for the next day being Saturday we figured we get up early and just wait until a coach was due to leave.

We woke at 8:30 and was at the coach station by 9:00, the board showed no signs of a coach to Kutna Hora so we asked at the information desk who promptly told us that there were no services to Kutna Hora at all at the weekends, it appears once again the Lonely Planet had let us down, therefore we shifted our plans and decided to spend the day exploring Prague castle and that side of the river. As we knew we were staying in Prague and as the weather had turned pretty chilly we decided we would pay the 80 crowns (2 pound) for a 24hr tram pass we fumbled around for coins to put in the machines but found that we had no where near enough money in change so we decided to purchase something from the nearby Relay store to break up a note, sadly the change we got was still no where near enough, so i then went in to another nearby Relay store and brought something else and asked for the change to be given in coins to which the girl serving me said no, and her colleague said "for the machines" i confirmed her assumptions and she then told me that they actually sold the tickets there. We learnt 2 valuable lessons that day if you need change ask for it rather than buy random stuff you don't want (including CocaCola Black which is there version of cold coffee, Yuk) and secondly Relay stores in the metro stations sell tram tickets, use them if you don't have change for the machines it saves time and you don't end up with pockets full of stuff you don't really want.

We headed first to the Jewish quarter which simply had stunning architecture all around right from the synagogues to the shops to the overflowing cemetery and we are pretty sure the interiors of the buildings would have been beautiful too but as we had cleverly ended up doing this on the Jewish Sabboth everything was closed (duh!), still we learnt about the the Gollum who protected the Jewish community back in the 1700's and the trouble he caused when he wasn't shut away one Friday night and we also found a really great Pizza place to grab lunch. After covering the Jewish sector we headed across the river towards the Metronome, something that isn't really recommended in any of the guides, after climbing hundreds of steps we soon found out why the graffiti covered still structure was not working and from the looks of things has not done for a long long time, still the walk from there to the Castle is amazing, the whole way there are amazing views over the river, all its bridges and the New Town and Old Town areas of Prague, we also came across a beautiful pond side monument which was so peaceful.

After finding our way to the castle we headed straight to St Vitus cathedral and managed to get in there for free, we were pretty sure we were suppose to pay but some how got surrounded by an Italian tour group and just went with the flow, after looking around for a bit we decided it was time to tackle the tower, I believe there were 299 step in total although I maybe mixing this up with another tower we have scales (we have done quite a few and both our calfs are steel like now). The steps our spiral all the way up and allow another space for one and half people which means each time you pass someone coming down you get quite close and personal, also half way up one of the bulbs had blown so not only were we competing with a spiral stare case and people coming down but also being totally blind as well, eventually we made it to the top and were really appreciative of the day light and fresh air at the top and eventually we could also appreciate the views over the castle and it's grounds, we weren't in a major hurry to go back down but eventually decided we should make a move, the journey down was just as perilous and was not helped by the Muppet's with huge back packs on their bags heading in the opposite direction.

When we had been at the top of the tower we had seen what looked like a wall of faces and decided this would be our next sight and started guesstimating our way there, eventually we found it in the grounds of Waldstein Palace (seat of the Czech senate), and upon closure inspection discovered that in fact it was just a fake cave/wall with the occasional animal face carved into it, there was a board explaining the concept behind it but we didn't really get it, we were more entertained by the pictures of the grounds when they were flooded a few years back and also the peacocks and peahens that strolled around the grounds and popped up from various bushes, by this time we were starting to get a bit nippy so we decided we were try and find somewhere warm to hang out and you guessed it play Back gammon.

The following day we headed back to the coach station this time to have an attempt at getting to Plsen (Pilsen) this time we were a bit more successful and after grabbing some breakfast were on our way to the town, on route we drove through a snow storm and a hail storm which woke us from our doze, made me appreciate my recently purchase coat and Nina rue the fact that she had not yet seen one which she liked, we also knew from that point our shorts will be left firmly at the bottom of our back packs. The journey to Pilsen took about 2 and a half hours which meant we arrive there at about 1:40pm, the main reason we had headed there was to hit the brewery so we asked in the coach station for directions but sadly absolutely no one spoke any English, we even tried saying Beer and Pilsner in different languages but even this was received with blank looks, this did have us wondering what else tourists could be looking for in Plsen. In the end we decided to go it a lone and headed towards what we guessed was the town centre, luckily we were right and we soon located the tourist information place.

After telling them we were looking for the Pilsner Brewery they were really helpful and gave us a map and told us that there were tours at 12:30 and 2pm in English, the time was now 1:57. Resigned to the fact that we would never make the 1km walk in 3 minutes we checked to see if there were bits and pieces you could see without a tour guide and the tourist info guys hesitantly said yes so off we set. We ended up getting to the Brewery at 2:10 and decided to see if there was still a chance of catching the tour, luckily they had just sat through a 10 minute introductory film so we were able to join with no problems at all. It turned out to be a really good tour, it was amazing to see the production line in fall flow, apparently 60,000 bottles were filled and sealed every hour. Along side the packaging plant we also got to see the actual Brewing centre and also the old cave system where everything used to be done, the price of the tour also included a free unfiltered beer which despite its yeasty taste was really nice and made the cost of the tour well worth it.

It turned out that other than the Brewery and a few beer related museums there isn't much else to do in Plsen (apparently though there is a Zoo) so once again we ended up in a pub drinking the local delicacy and playing more of our new favourite pass time still to the wrong rules with me still whooping Nina big time. we then took a slow walk back to the bus station and had a look at the old town hall and the massive church that is in the centre of the square, when we got to the station we still had an hour to kill eventually though the bud came and after a doze we woke to find ourselves back at Florenc station, by this time it was about 9pm so we decided to call it a day and did a bit of work on the Internet before hitting the sack, Nina was feeling much better and her bites luckily had cleared up quite nicely.

The following day we finally got to Kutna Hora, it is only an hour and a half away from Prague and since my first visit to Prague a few years back and after watching "The Long Way Round" I had always wanted to go there and was glad we had finally made it after the disappointment of a few days previous. The main draw of the Kutna Hora and my reason for wanting to go there is the bone church (Sedlec Ossuary), located about 2 km from the city centre this church is basically an open grave of around 40,000 people, the bones of which have been used to make chandeliers, pyramids candle holders and even a coat of arms and the sight is simply awesome. Despite being a relative small church we spent a good 45 minutes in there, you have to pay an additional fee to take photos but I was more than happy to do this, the only thing that had come close to being a similar experience was a visit to the catacombs in Paris I did a few years back but even that was dull compared to this.

Unlike Plsen though Kutna Hora has plenty to see including a cathedral that holds it own up against the magnificence of St Vitus cathedral in Prague although currently it is about half way through an 8 year renovation and restoration project. The cathedral is dedicated to miners (Kutna Hora developed as a major city due to its near by Silver mines) and this theme runs through out the interior. After visiting this we had to head back to the bus station as the last bus for Prague left at around 5pm and we simply did not have a clue how to get back if we missed this. We got back to Prague for about 7pm and headed into the city for a bite to eat and a last gland of the square at night time as the following day we were heading to Berlin.

The following day we slope right up until our check out time before hastily packing our stuff and leaving our back packs at reception before heading to Wencelas square to kill some time before our 3pm coach to Berlin. After taking a few pictures of the statue of St Wenceslas and the nearby commemorative plaque to the victims of communism including Jan Pallach we decided to head into the museum which is house by the magnificent building at the top of the square. Sadly though the interior was no where as impressive as the exterior, the main highlight being a huge taxidermy collection, however if you like rocks you could spend several days in there as they had hundreds and hundreds of different samples, the slightly boring subject matter was not helped by the fact that all the info was only in Czech. Still it kept us out of the cold and we did manage to kill a good few hours, at least one of these was spent trying to find our way out of the rock collection.

It seemed strange to be moving country again having spent so long in the Czech Republic but at the same time we felt it was time for a change so were pleased to bored our coach and start our journey to our penultimate country and third from last destination, it really had sunk it that our trip was very very close to its end...sniff sniff



TTFN

Daz

Cesky Kromlov Czech Republic or is that Slovakia

We got a bus at around 12 from Florenc station Prague which offer numerous destination both in and out side of the Czech Republic, the bus was old but comfy and regardless of the no drinking and no eating signs we successfully stunk the place out with yet more sandwiches purchased from Subway, 2 hours later we arrived into Cesky Kromlov and it was freezing. Having learned from various hostel encounters on our way Nina had taken down all the directions to the hostel, however once again these were some what lacking in detail, they simply said we are 50 metres from the town square, given the size of Cesky Kromlov this meant the hostel could be pretty much anywhere, however we successfully found the hostel in record quick time and all seemed pretty nice, the Host was a little short (in manners not size) and there was a bit of a funky smell but the hostel over looked the river so this was to be expected.

We managed to check in, dump our bags, find somewhere to eat later in the evening and locate a pub playing the football all in time for the kick off off the England Russia European qualifier, two hours later we wished we hadn't off bothered, after going to the carefully chosen restaurant to grab a bite to eat our defeatist moods were not improved when we saw that it was now shut, however we quickly found some where else and had relatively decent bite to eat, that evening we some how manged to find another themed bar this time it was called the Horor (Horror)Bar. On the outside of the bar was one solitary red candle below a poster advertising the place, we then entered a nearby door and followed more red candles down a flights of cold concrete steps into what was either basement of a crypt (I'd bet on the latter) inside there were zombies. skeletons and other demonic images all over the place, the drinks were cheap and the atmosphere was great, we ended up continuing our back gammon games to corrected yet still not correct rules and I continued to win.

The following morning Nina woke up with a fair few bits, we were a bit miffed as we hadn't seem any mosquitoes for some time as the climate had severely dropped, we headed out to Cesky Kromlov's main highlight which is the magnificent fortress which over looks the whole of the town. We took the steps up the ornate clock tower which you can see from everywhere in Cesky Kromlov and saw some awesome views of the town and the surrounding area we then spent a good few hours just wondering around the fortresses gardens with Nina giving me a few more Italian phrases to learn, one of the most amusing sights we saw on our wanderings was a group of Japanese tourist that were stood completely in the way of a group of builders just taking loads and loads of photos, I know its a cliche but it was so funny. We later wandered round to where the builders were and could not find anything whatsoever worth photographing. The gardens looked simply gorgeous due to the onset of Autumn there was such a beautiful blend of colours all around. All in all we spent about 4 hous wondering around the fortress and its grounds so after grabbing a bite to eat we still had a lot of time left.

We found three museums of note in Cesky Kromlovs centre there were the Torture Museum (again, woo hoo) the wax works and the puppetry museum, having both admitted to a fear of dolls and puppets we bypassed that one and hit the torture museum and was museum instead for which you can get a multi access ticket which saves you a few crowns. The torture museum was a bit different to what we had seem before, it was more like a cross between the scary walk through ghost thing in Bran (Romania, with Mr Satan) and the torture museum in Prague (and English comparison would probably be London Dungeons), I would love to give a more detailed account of this but given that the whole thing was under ground in gloomy poorly lit cellars, was accompanied by groaning was figures and just random screams I was dragged through at quite a speed by Nina who just completely freaked out, I think we did the whole museum in maybe 10 minutes.

After absorbing the daylight for a little while we decided to use the second half of our ticket and head to the wax museum, sadly this was also underground and for Nina just as scary, by this time I have to admit she had also managed to freak me out a little and again we sped through the museum in record quick time and vowed that we were done as far as underground museums were going. That night we headed first to a random cocktail bar before going for a bite to eat. After asking for and getting Englidh menues the waitor still attempted to speak to us in "German", however eventually we over come this little set back and ordered our food, ten minutes later two plates were plonked in front of us, we both looked at them puzzled and this caught the attention of the restaraunt manager who came over to enquire if there was a problem. We advised him that this ws not what we had ordered, after a bit of conversation between him and the waiter he came back and said "Can't you just eat them" we said sadly not due to the fact Nina was vegetarian, slightly put out by this the manager then said "Well have you got time to wait for the correct meals" we cheerily advised him we had nothing else planned that evening, in the end we did get are correct food and it all turned out to be really delicious and cheap. After letting the food settle we headed back to our new favourite haunt (he he) the Horor bar and drank cocktails until late in the evening, as we left Nina was complaining about her bites and me in my usually sympathetic way told her to stop scratching and moaning all in one breath. When we got to the hostel I looked at her chin to see blisters appearing in front of my face, not nice and I did feel pretty guilty though of course I didn't let on. That night I received constant up dates as the blisters kept coming an popping.

The following morning we checked out of the hostel and hit the Internet cafe nearby for a good few hours just to kill time before we had to catch our bus back to Prague, Nina was not in a great way she had got more bites and her chin looked minging and painful. We put the bites down to bed bugs but it did seem strange that she had been covered where as I received non whatsoever, that along with the shirty attitude of the host meant that Hostel Merlin in Cesky Kromlov got a less than favourable review from us. the bus journey back to Prague was comfortable enough because we were lucky enough to get seats however we also found that coach drivers really don't understand when they are full and as more and more people crammed in we half expected a ladder to be pulled out so people could sit on the buses roof as well, unexpectedly the bus dropped us right on the outskirts of Prague how ever their rail network is so good that this was not a problem at all.

Cesky Kromlov turned out to be a really nice little town and we glad we had taken the time to go there and it had certain given the motivation to visit a few more towns in the Czech Republic over the next few days. A few days later I was reading through a travel magazine and found that Cesky Kromlov was used as the filming location for the movie Hostel. This I found amusing for a few reasons the first being that I though I recognised a few of the roads and the second being that shortly after deciding to go travelling me and Nina watched Hostel which was in fact based in Slovakia and Nina decided there and then that she would veto Slovakia as a place to visit, I had great delight in telling her this information and she vowed that had she have known we would never have spent 2 nights there.

TTFN

Daz

x

Czech out Prague

After a while we finally decided to tackle the metro system to get to our hostel, we had the name of the station we needed and the name of the building the hostel was located behind, unfortunately though as we emerged from the underground the big department store which the guide advised us we could not miss appeared to be missing, we spent a good hour looking around before finally asking some street cleaners, I left this to Nina mainly because she spoke one more language than me (no that's a lie, i just could not be bothered and was in a bit of a mood), turns out neither English nor Italian was any use and they ended up pointing at words and streets, 30 minutes later we arrived at our hostel and after waiting another 10 minutes for the host to answer the door were finally able to down our back packs and realign our spines.



Check in was not until 2pm in the afternoon so we decided to head into Prague and see what was about, some say Prague is a City that never sleeps due to its masses of clubs and stag groups, me and Nina however decided that morning that Prague was a City that never wakes up as wondering around at 8:30 the place seemed like a ghost town. I was hoping to catch sunrise from Charles Bridge but the stupid hidden department store had put pay to that idea, however strolling across Charles bridge when it is pretty much deserted was really nice and really peaceful so it wasn't all bad news, once we reached the other side we decided to grab some hot drinks and Breakfast, turns out the Czechs serve a pretty awesome bacon and eggs although they only seem to serve Earl Grey which just does not work, with a greasy fry up it has to be good old PG tips or Tetley at a push, I did have this discussion with Nina but not being a tea drinker she didn't fully appreciate what I was saying.


By the time we were done with breakfast it was still only 9:30 and nothing seemed to open until 10am so we wondered back across the bridge and located the torture museum hoping to erase the memories of the one in Sighasoara, finally at 10:15 the doors opened and in we went, this time we had 3 floors of all kinds of crazy devises to look at and were really impressed with the collection, we were also pretty chuffed that things had moved on slightly since the dark ages as I'm pretty sure Nina would have been burned at the stake for being a witch or something (seriously 9 weeks and you'd understand). The torture museum allowed us to kill a good few hour and a half but we still had a long time to wait until we could check into our hostel so we decided to head to the old square where we sat outside a cafe with mauled wine watching the astronomical clock as it hit the hour. Each hour on the hour the bell chimes, some characters pop out of a window, death turns the sand timer (a bit depressing), the cock crows and then the big bells chime, as you can imagine this really draws the crowds and inevitably a round of applause always greeted the end of the clocks functions so automatically that it could be mistaken for an extra part of the mechanism.

With the mauled wine sitting warm in our belly's we decided to head towards Wenceslas square and had wonder through a few of the shops, there were still plenty of sights we wanted to see but we were simply too shattered to take any of them in so we figure window shopping would be preferable, it killed quite a bit of time and after we had grabbed a bit to eat from one of the numerous food booths located on the walk way (really cheap, tasty yet unspectacular grub, Nina had fired cheese in a bap and I had 4 sausages in a bap) it was just about time for us to head back to the hostel and crash, this time as we had the code to the door we were able to get straight in and within 10 minutes we were both dead to the world in our 8 person dorm. After dozing for 3 hours or so we were woken by some newly arriving room mates, 2 Americans who were "just like sooooooo excited", after exchanging niceties for 5 mins sleep beckoned again and we didn't wake again for a good 3 hours, by that time it was 7:30.

We had decided earlier in the day we would take in another museum in the evening as many of them were open late into the night, given a choice between the communist museum and the much more light hearted Sex Machine museum both of which we wanted to go to, we opted for the light hearted option one of the noisy excitable Americans joined us. You can find the Sex Machine Museum down an alleyway just opposite the Astronomical clock and I would recommend it to all, it is simply hysterical, the velvet red curtains you have to pass to enter makes the whole affair seem a lot more seedy than it actually is, its hard to give much more of a description of what you will find but put it this way the horny people of the past were certainly very creative and some would say slightly warped. After spending and hour or so simply dying of laughter and cringing at the descriptions of the uses of some of the objects we decided it was time to head for a bit e to eat we had already got a recommendation off of the hostel workers as to where to go to.

We didn't mean to be unkind but both me and Nina were slightly peeved that the American seemed to want to accompany us to the meal as well but being to kind to object we just allowed her to tag along, the restaurant we were going to was close to our hostel and served mainly traditional Czech food ( meat, meat and more meat), luckily as we arrive at the door the American decided she was continue wandering which allowed us to enjoy are meal and discussed how narked we were at the fact that the two Americans were so loud when they first arrived earlier during our nap (we're so bitchy). the food was pretty good and the service was cool too, however Nina was beginning to realise that if you are vegetarian in Czech Republic you need to like fired cheese. After a couple of beers it was time for us to head back to the dorm to get a proper nights sleep, unfortunately that night we had to complete with a snorer and the American girls loud objections to the snoring, they were really beginning to grate.


The next morning we were again woke by the two Americans and their friends who were having a full scale conversation in the middle of the room with no concern as to who was sleeping and who was not, eventually one of the guys at the far end who had been out partying all night and whose damp slightly vomit stained shirt hung over the radiator voiced his objections and finally the shut up for a while. Included in our hostel price was a breakfast which you could either choose to eat in the hostel or you could grab a sandwich and eat on the move, we decided on the latter and headed onto the streets of Prague once again.

Prague has started to get a bit of a reputation for being a haven for stag parties and overly touristic but to be honest we found it very easy to avoid these supposed trappings, its simple really if you don't want to hit Irish bars or run into stag do's just avoid Wenceslas square after about 6 pm, in truth other that its history (the attempted revolution in the 60's with Jan Pallach setting fire to him self) Wenceslas square is probably the most disappointing part of Prague, the streets are lined with McDonalds, Subways and Marks and Spencers and as Nina kept pointing out it is simply not a square. By all means it is worth a look but time in Prague is definitely better spent around the old square (actually is a square) and across Charles Bridge on the castle side of the city.

On our second day in Prague we headed to the Communist museum and spent a good two hours there, it was so well done, lots of reading but very very interesting, there was also a brilliant subtitled video documenting the attempted revolution and the various forms of oppression the citzens had to suffer when ruled by the soviets under the guise of a puppet government, much like the tour of the Third Reich in Munich and the various bits and pieces in the former Yugoslavian states the Museum left me wanting to learn much much more about the whole situation ( i am going to be doing a lot of reading when I'm home). After grabbing a Subway (see the touristy side of things does come in handy) we head over to the Bodies exhibition, obviously this is totally un-Prague related but I had wanted to catch this when I was in London, it is basically and exhibition set up by the scary German guy who did the live autopsies on Channel 4 a few years back, the exhibition was amazingly well done and you had to keep reminding yourself that you were actually looking at real people (bodies), Nina admitted to feeling a bit queasy at certain points but we both found the whole thing fascinating and would recommend it to anyone should you get a chance to go.

That same evening wanting to avoid spending to much time at the hostel we decided to head to a bar which was just across from the cheap restaurant we had chosen to eat at, the bar was called O'Che's and was a weird mix of Irish stroke revolutionary bar, but beer was cold and the atmosphere was nice so we were happy, we spent a good few hours there with me giving Nina a hiding (albeit using the wrong rules) on our backgammon set we had recently acquired. Eventually we decided to call at night and headed back to the Hostel as the following day we were leaving Prague for a couple of days and heading to Cesky Kromlov about 2 hours south west of Prague, Nina had booked a private room at a hostel which looked really sweet there so we could get some much needed proper sleep, unfortunately we ended up having a few extra guests who were definitely unwelcome.

Don't mention the war

We arrived into Munich at about 11:30pm, the driver had put his foot down and travelling through Austria was nothing but a blur, a quick short cut through the train station and we were on the door step of our hostel, which happened to be located down what could be pretty much renamed Hostel Street, there were at least four or five right next door to each other. The Munich Hostel (Jaegers) was to be the first large dorm we had stayed in since Verona, it was mixed and had 40 beds, it was also in a basement, the stair well to which stank or regurgitated beer, other than that though the first impressions of the hostel was that it was pretty nice.

Feeling the drain from the travel we decided to hit the hay pretty much straight away but not before sussing out our exact location with the use of the abundance of tourist maps that the hostel had available, we also decided that as Munich was pretty big and had a lot of history we would try and plan a little as we were only there for 2 and a half days (we were guessing it would be easy to travel out of Munich, it being such a major city and all), so we decided that the following morning we wake up early enough to get to the main square (Marienplatz) to catch a tour which took in notable sites with connections to the rising of the third Reich. The following morning we got up slightly later than planned but knew we could get the S - Bahn to the walks meeting point, what we didn't know was that the S-Bahns staff were taking industrial action causing a significant reduction in the amount of services available (for once there were no signs of that famous German efficiency), in the end we were about 5 minutes late for the walk but managed to catch up with them just around the corner from the Glockenspiel.

The tour itself took about 3 hours and was well worth the money we paid for it (around 12 euros I think), we had a really knowledgeable guide (Franz) and the group was small enough for us all to be able to hear him properly above the hustle and bustle of Munich. As well as showing us the site where Hitler started life in Germany as a street artist, sites where he first infiltrated political parties, sites where he made his first party speeches, marches etc, Franz also gave good info on what was happening else where in Germany and the world to allow us to fully understand how someone who came from such a meagre background could become chancellor in such a short amount of time and ultimately lead a nation into a battle against pretty much everyone else. We learnt that he was pretty cleaver but that his luck seemed to carry him along way. We also learnt that it took Germany along time to face there history but they do it now in an apologetic but understanding way, they do not see themselves as a country defeated in a war but more a nation liberated by the allied forces, they do not forget the atrocities committed but they do separate the German people from these and highlight the damage that a dictator can do, the war came at a time when the German people needed a strong leader and they certainly got one, he just led them in a very wrong direction.

After the Third Reich tour we planned to grad a bite to eat before catching a second tour which would take us to the Dachau concentration camp, this was set up in 1933 as soon as Hitler came to power, the main reason was because the increase in political enemies that were being incarcerated were causing the regular prisons to overflow, the camp was originally built to hold 6000 inmates, by the end of the war it held over 30,000. This concentration camp was the first of so many set up by Hitler and the Nazi and was said to be the one that all others were based on. However our guide did not show up, we waited with a Canadian couple for a good half an hour before admitting defeat and heading of to find something else to amuse us. We ended up staying in the square to watch the Glockenspiel as it chimed, there are a number of characters that pop out on the hour along with a cock that crows, it draws quite a crowed and was pretty cool to see. We then indulged in hot chocolate and tea in a nearby cafe before deciding to tackle the nearby Tower of St Peters Church, all 302 steps of it. From the top the view was impressive but not really for its beauty but more because it gave a fuller idea of just how big Munich actually is, from above we saw a nearby market area and decided to head there to see what the local tradesman were selling, unsurprisingly the stalls were made up of left over Oktoberfest souvenirs and lots and lots of German Sausage, although there were quite a few cool little wood calving stools too.

We wondered around the market and the nearby vicinity for some time before deciding to grab a beer before going for some food, getting food was a bit of a mission at first as I wanted something traditionally German and Nina needed vegetarian food, not that easy to find. In the end though we did find a quaint little restaurant close by and decided to give it a try, I ended up with a selection of sausages and pork (including belly pork, urgh) and Nina ended up with melted cheese over Gnocchi, we getting tucked in in the rather rammed restaurant when we were joined by 4 Germans from Dortmund, after a little while and a few beers the conversation got going and we had an hilarious few hours. The main highlight was the German guy telling us in very drunk, slurred broken English of his recent trip to the Scottish highlands stag hunting in the rain (the worse rain ever apparently), the story seemed to go on for ever and involved many disappointments but safe to say it ended with him getting his stag and it being a particularly rare one with antlers with 10 or 12 branches (or something), sadly he did not have the trophy with him to show us but he has promised Nina a job in Oktoberfest next year and also cheap accommodation in Dortmund should we ever be passing, eventually it got to the stage where his drunken speech was just impossible to understand and rather than smiling, knodding and laughing in all the wrong places we decided to head back to the hostel to chill out, it was getting late and we wanted to be up relatively early the next day so that we could give the Dachau tour guide another chance.

We had decided to catch the tour from a different guide in the morning, for two reasons, one the first guide had let us down and two this guide left from opposite our hostel which meant and extra ten minutes in bed, however once again we were let down and the guide did not show, we checked with a guide who was going else where and they too were unsure where this person was, in the end we decided that we would ditch the guide idea and go it alone. Dachau is about 40 minutes by public transport from the centre of Munich, you need to get the S Bahn and then a bus, the signage is really good all the way so it was really easy to find. The other thing worthy of a mention is the brilliant way in which the Munich Travel system allows you to by a single ticket that will cover the whole day for up to 5 people over the age of 14 (people under 14 only count as half a person) this meant for 11 euros me and Nina could travel all around Munich all day if we so wished, this along with the fact that we new entry to Dachau was free of charge meant that as the day went on we were getting more and more chuffed with the fact that the guide had not turned up as they would have charged 20 euros per person.

When we got to Dachau we also found that for 3 euros each we could hire an audio guide, the content of which was brilliant, you got given a map of the camp and at certain points were numbers which you entered into your guide to get information on that particular site. The guide was divided into bold and italic numbers, the bold numbers gave basic information and the italics gave more detailed information including translated prisoner recollections of the camp, this meant you could freely choose how much you learnt and how quickly you made you way around the camp, we ended up being there for around 4 hours and both agreed that the trip could easily be split over tow days to prevent mental burn out. The camp is pretty much divided in two, there is the camp itself which you can walk around and see various memorials, prison house, punishment chambers etc and then there is the museum which is held in one of the main buildings, we found it a bit heavy going doing both in quick succession and the film that forms part of the memorial was truly horrifying although we agreed that for some reason the fact it was in black and white somehow seemed to thankfully take away some of the cutting edge, maybe we were subconsciously able to separate it from reality slightly (later in the museum I saw the same clips in colour and then they became people not just images, Nina couldn't bare to watch).

Dachau was just a fraction of the size of the two Auschwitz camps but every bit as horrifying and the way its history from start to present day has been documented is truly amazing, we found it particularly disturbing that some of the buildings that were used for the administrative duties of the concentration camp staff are still used today by the riot police, prior to that they were used by the Americans up until the late 70's, it just seemed strange that anyone could work there knowing the tragic and grotesque part the buildings played in history. If anyone goes to Munich Dachau is a must much like I said for Auschwitz.

That afternoon we decided to relax and watch the football on T.V but missed all the goals, we then dived out for a quick bite to eat before returning to watch England sneak past the French in the rugby whilst drinking beer by the litre, turns out us English still aren't that well likes as there were hardly any french in the hostel but the whole bar seemed to be supporting France, in the end though me, Nina and one other solitary English guy had the last laugh, it was all good natured though, that night we regretted sleeping in a 40 person dorm, it is just impossible to sleep, you have 10 people snoring, one person coughing and sneezing (Nina) people leaving at all hours of the night and slamming the doors to their metal lockers and the dorm and people arriving in various states of drunkenness, still in the end sleep did come and we ended up making our 10 o'clock check out by about a minute.

The previous day we had found out that Munich didn't really have much in the way of a international bus station and the only bus that did happen to go to Prague in the next 3 days was leaving at 23:45 on Sunday evening, due to budget constraints this was to be the bus for us, there were trains but these took longer and were much more expensive. I felt sure that there would be more buses than just the one so I suggested we took our bags with us and headed straight to the bus stop, this was located right out of town by the Allianz Stadium, we got there to find 28 separate bus stops and only one office which did not open until 4pm and absolutely no reference to and bus departing for Prague whatsoever. Luckily however they did have left luggage lockers which were just the right level for people to pee on, still we decided to risk it, we dumped our bags and headed off to the nearby arena.

Nina decided it looked like a Jelly fish I just thought it looked awesome, they did do guided tours but we opted against this instead taking a sneak peak from the hot dog stand from where you can see the whole pitch and most of the seating area, we then took a stroll round the two club shops before heading off to Olympicpark (1972), we got on a train and immediately saw how popular Olympicpark was as the train was absolutely rammed, however upon alighting we found out that the Munich Marathon was being run on that day and we had decided to go just as the hobby runners were predicted to arrive in there masses at the finish line. We decided to take refuge in the sea life centre, turns out German fish look just the same as English fish but still it killed a couple of hours. We took a stroll around the lakes before heading back towards the station, we passed a big map of the grounds and I expected to see a memorial for the Israel Team members that were murder during the Olympics but strangely I could not see any reference whatsoever to the event. Arriving back at the bus stop we saw that there was a bus to Prague at 5pm and as it was 4:30 we though we might be able to get on that and get on our way to save hanging around the station at 11pm, unfortunately though the ticket guy would not sell us a ticket for that bus so we had to go for the 11:45 which would arrive a 5:30am.

Still having a good 6 hours to kill we decided to do our classic time waster of heading to an Internet cafe for a few hours, before grabbing a bite to eat at a nearby Pizzeria, we got back to the bus station at around 10:30 and were relieved to see that our bags were still there and did not smell of urine, we also met an Australian girl who was heading the same way with us, we had a good chat but I lost interest when she said she was aiming to living in Liverpool for 3 months. Eventually the time came for our bus to arrive and pretty promptly we were on our way, for once I managed to get some good sleep on the bus and was delighted to wake up a 4:45 just as we were entering Prague, at 5 am the bus stopped in a station and after a bit of confusion found that we were in Prague Florenc, this was the correct station for us. We left just as the Australian Girl was kicking off because she didn't believe the driver when he said we were at Prague Florenc as it was only 5 am, our arrival obviously interrupted a nice dream because she was acting like a complete Muppet, not feeling ready to find out hostel straight away we decided to dive into a nearby bar and top up our caffeine levels before drawing out a battle plan and laughing at the sheer stupidity of the Aussie.


TTFN

Daz

x

Three nights in prison

We arrived at the Celica hostel and promptly checked into our dorms before reconvening with Nicky down stairs in the cafe, hungry from the trip we decided to order a bit to eat and ended up with the biggest burgers ever, not quite the snack we were expecting, but none the less very nice. Having already had our feel of Ljubljana we decided we would spend a few hours in the Internet cafe and meet up with Nicky later that even by the central statue and the triple bridge. A few hours later Nicky came and found us in the Internet cafe and had Jo in tow. Jo was a girl she had met in Mostar and she had literally bumped into her in the street whilst wondering.

Thirty minutes later we all met up and went for a quick drink by the river, quite close to where our original hostel, the Alibi, was. Getting served was a bit of an event. In Europe it is the norm for everywhere to be table service, so when you go to the bar to get served usually get greeted with a puzzled smile. So we sat down for a good ten minutes without getting served at all, we could see the waiters and they could see us, we tried waving but simply got no response. In the end I decided to go to the bar, only to be stopped at the door to the bar by a puzzled looking waiter wondering what I wanted, I gave the order and showed the Waiter where I was sitting, finally we got our drinks. But then paying was much the same situation, we had no bill, we tried waving, we even tried the international sigh for asking for the bill, you know the one imaginary pen and paper, but again no response, this time Nina went and asked for the bill again getting stopped by the puzzled looking waiters, she explained we wanted to pay and eventually a smirking waiter came over with the bill, so really as far as whether the place was table service or not we couldn't really tell you, we decided we prefer England where there is no doubting the system, you want a drink you get of your backside and come and get it!!!

Nina had been given the job of choosing somewhere to eat and from nowhere plucked a Mexican restaurant, we were all suitable impressed with the decision although I was still stuffed from my massive burger only 4 hours earlier. The restaurant we went to "Cantina Mexicana" was great food price and service wise and the atmosphere was as authentic as you can expect to get from Slovenians serving Mexican food to 3 Brits and an aussie. After struggling through some buffalo wings and a bottle of Corona it was time to move on to a bar for a few drinks. To be honest we were all flagging a bit from the previous night so nothing major was expected. Nina had done her research and told us about a Skeleton Bar nearby which sounded cool, so off we headed in the rough direction of the bar.

After a little hunt we found it, really it should not have taken that long as there a Skeleton in a cage highlighted by a green light hanging over the door and in Ljubljana there are not that many of those. We all shuffled each other to the front of the group none of us wanting to be first in eventually all taking the plunge en mass. Inside the steps is an eerie cavernous hall way which is down a flight of stone steps, either side of you are book cases with books and bones on them, I later discovered these were hidden toilets, above you are skeletons of all types of animal, once at the bottom of the stairs the room open out slightly, the place is gloomy, poorly lit and there are evil looking skeletons everywhere, the place was awesome. The only thing that lit the room where the odd candle and the brightly coloured cocktails which were all on a two for one deal.

After the first cocktail the effects of the previous night had pretty much disappeared for me and the pains of over consumption of alcohol were all but forgotten, sadly for Nicky her evening went the other direction, and she sloped off back to the hostel after saying her cheerios and wishing us well on the rest of the trip, we also made tentative plans to try and meet at breakfast but with no guarantees hences the good byes. That left me Nina and Jo deciding each cocktail would be the last, however we were soon joined by two guys one form Stockholm and another from Scotland who now lived in Camden, these two happened to be in a band that were playing a local bar in two days time, we chatted with them for some time and apologised for not being able to stick around for the gig, however as the night went on we continued having a really good time chatting about London, music bands we likes and band members they knew, all the time the cocktails continued to flow, by the end of the night I had convinced Nina that we should stay on and watch the gig, I had also managed to spill a whole cocktail, lose all co-ordination and decided that I had had way to much to drink, the walk home was a bit of a blur.

The following morning I woke feeling rough rough rough and rolled over to ask Nina what time we had to check out, the answer I got was very familiar, at the time seeming more like a dream.

"We are not checking out dear, you made me change the reservation to an extra 2 nights, we are in this room tonight and a different one tomorrow. I now need to try and move our Munich booking"

"Oh, that actually happened"...

With that Nina set about reorganizing everything, luckily the hostel in Germany move our booking free of charge, whilst Nina was being an absolute legend sorting this all out I just slept trying to figure out why something that tasted so good could do so much harm. The funniest thing that morning was the aussie guy we were sharing with waking up in the morning and whistling jolly tunes as he got ready for his day. It appears that whilst I was relatively quiet and considerate in my own mind I was still pretty noisy in everyone else's, not to the scale of the people in Belgrade though thankfully. That evening after heading out for pizza me and Nina sat in the cafe at the hostel drinking Tea and vowing against all forms of alcohol only to be joined by our aussie room mate, we ended up having a real good laugh about everything the rugby, my efforts at being quiet, the fact I was now sipping tea and best of all he had a kiwi in tow and she turned into the butt of every joke.

As it turned out staying for the extra two nights ended up being a really good idea, on the day of the gig we bumped into a shocked Nicky again and explained our story, we all went to the gig together and had a really great time and had another chat with the band who were sincerely appreciative of the fact we had stayed on. The following day we did actually manage to meet up with Nicky for Breakfast and exchanged emails and such and went to the Internet cafe together before seeing her off on her way to catch a plane to London before catching her flight home to Sydney, Jo and the Aussie guy were also coming to the end of there trips and for the first time it hit us how close we were to the end of our trip, still we were still having an awesome time so it didn't get us down too much, after a quick bite to each we got to the bus station and caught the 6.20pm bus to Munich, this was due to arrive around 0030.

Ljubljana although small turned out to be a really great place, I guess this was maybe because we hit the right combination of company and atmosphere, we liked it when we had originally planned to leave because it was beautiful, quaint and friendly and we loved it when we eventually did leave because it was all those things and a lot lot more.


Oh I guess I should talk about how we ended up spending 3 nights in prison







Celica means Cell in Slovenian, the hostel we stayed in was in fact a renovated prison, you can even book a cell to sleep in if you want, they are a bit more expensive but are private and are each decorated by a different artist, at 2pm each day you can take a tour of the hostel and see a few of the cells, we did decide to do this and it was really cool to see how they had made such gorgeous rooms from something that used to be so dull.

Bled and a new buddy

We took a relatively early bus to Bled and arrived there about 2 in the afternoon, are next mission was to find the hostel, at this point Nina decided to tell me that whilst she had memorised the directions to the hotel (roughly), she had pretty much forgotten the name of the hostel. She knew it was 'Travel something' or 'Travellers Something' or 'Something Travel'. So as you can imagine when we had been looking for a hostel that was meant to be located just 100 meters from the bus stop for over 30 mins we started to get a little narked. The locals were ice enough at asking where we were looking for, but answering them with 'a hostel but we don't know the name of it' really wasn't much help. Eventually Nina decided she would dive into an Internet cafe and print of the name from her email account, this led to the next problem of where the hell is there an Internet cafe.

Leaving me outside a shop Nina strolled across the road to ask, in what looked like an adventure day retailers, where the nearest Internet cafe was, 30 seconds later she came back smiling. Turns out the thing we mistook for the adventure day retailers was in fact our Hostel, after that we loosened up a little.

The host sowed us to our room, a nice compact 4 person mixed dorm which appeared to be empty, we then got the fright of our lives as we were unloading our bags when out of nowhere came a 'Hell0', spinning round we saw Younni a Finnish guy laid up in bed looking a bit pale (but then he was Finnish), we apologised for waking him, and he said he was more than happy for someone to speak to and thank God we weren't Australian. Two minutes later we decided to leave Younni to his own devises (he was tackling a nasty bout of man flu, or over exposure to sunlight, not too sure which) and head down towards the lake.

Lake Bled itself is absolutely gorgeous and so so peaceful, knowing we only had a day in total there we decided that we would squeeze as much as possible into our first afternoon. So after purchasing some roasted chestnuts we took a gondola to the tiny island that sits in the middle of the lake upon which stands a church and a tiny little museum that seemed to house a selection of different Nativity Scenes (what with roasted chestnuts and all it was a bit festive). The boat trip to the island takes about 45 minutes, yo then get 30 minutes in the island before making the trip back. The outbound journey was pretty uneventful, however the return was a totally different affair. When we boarded initially to go to the island the last people picked up were 3 Slovenians, one of which happily toasted the boat with his bottle of Sljivovica before boarding. On the return journey the same Gentleman had obviously been toasting every tourist, church, tree, chestnut, bird and step as he was completely wasted much to mine and Ninas amusement and initially the Americans who shared our boats concern.

As we set sail the toaster continued with his Sljivovica and tried his best to get the oars man to indulge, he politely decline advising, much to every ones amusement, he was driving. The toaster then put the drink away and proceeded to pull out another bottle, this one was even bigger, he took a long swig before letting out a howl, this had the Americans puzzled and maybe being slightly over inquisitive they set about finding out what it was. The next thing we knew was the toaster had taken out a set of plastic cups and was explaining via the oars mans translation that this was wine that he had made and that he had 500 litres of it at home. This got the Americans very excited and they were all taking there sips before gagging, it appears the wine was nowhere near ready to drink. The rest of the journey involved the Americans also getting to sample the Sljivovica, the toaster trying to get the oars man to drink some, the toaster pulling our more alcoholic beverages from his bag and me and Nina wondering whether wetting ourselves in these circumstances meant we lost any dignity at all.

We landed save, sound and sober and went for a quick drink just to allow what we had experiences to fully sink in and then decided to take the walk around the lake. Nina did initially try protesting advising that it would be getting dark soon, but as it was only 5pm and the walk was only 6km I was pretty sure it would be fine, in the end I tempted her with a meal at the fish restaurant which reportedly was cheap and tasty, that did it and of we set. The walk was absolutely gorgeous, the lake on one side and woods on the other. We took a leisurely stroll round pausing to much more chestnuts and take photos, there were plenty of others doing the same and we really enjoyed being able to just chill out. about two thirds of the way around the lake is the boat house and a plaque which highlighted the achievements of the Slovenian Olympic Rowers team, turns out they aren't half as bad, but not as good as Redgrave and co.

We got back to the main part of Bled by about 7:30 and were ready to eat so after little struggle we found the fish restaurant, the temperature had dropped so I was stunned when Nina asked to sit outside. I did try a meagre attempt at protesting but lost we ordered our drinks and once they arrived Nina had cooled down from the walk and was ow shivering away, I got to say ' I told you so' and we moved inside. We had opted for the soup to warm us up as a starter and when it came we were delighted with our choice, it did however mean that our mains went relatively untouched. After the meal we decided to head back towards the hostel and to the local 'George Best Inn' (not sure what connection he held with Slovenia but hey).

After a few drinks Nina went out for a smoke (they have the smoking ban too) and shortly came back with a new friend Nicky the Aussie, she told us there were a group from our hostel around the corner so we decided to tag along. We spent the rest of the night drinking pints of Union beer (which is too easy to drink), discussing travel experiences and plans and shouting at the blind dog as it constantly walked into our dog head height table. We had a really great night eventually we decided to head back to the hostel (actually the pub was closing so we didn't have much choice) only to find that Nicky was our other room mate, we opted to refrain from sharing Younnis aussie comments but did spend a good hour or so ribbing her about the recent humiliation of her boys by Wilkinson and crew.

The following morning after waking up with a stinking headache we decided we would head up to the mountain to castle before catching an early afternoon bus back to Ljubljana and then onto Munich. We went down to the reception and explained our plans to the host who helpfully looked up bus times back to Ljubljana, he then noticed we were having a trouble finding accommodation in Munich and offer to do a ring round for us. Turns our because the beer festival had only just finished pretty much everywhere was full (best laid plans and all that). Nicky joined us half way through our dilemma and we got talking and found she was actually heading to Ljubljana in the afternoon too, we decided therefore that we would hit the castle and then catch a bus with Nicky back to Ljubljana and stay there for one night before going on to Munich.

The walk to the castle did wonders to get rid of my hang over and the view from the top was spectacular, you could see mountains (some snow capped), the lake,and even the toboggan (its a very popular winter ski resort), whilst at the castle we visited Ye Olde Print shop and picked up a few gifts, we also went to the castles own wine cellar where yo can bottle and seal your own wine (we also did this). There is also a museum of various artifacts found around Lake Bled, which to be honest was a bit dull but the views them self make trekking up the hill to get to the castle well worth while. We got back to the hostel just in time for or host to give Nina, Nicky and I a lift down to the bus station so that we could head back to Ljubljana, Nicky advised that she was staying at the Celica Hostel which was the one we had wanted on our initial trip to Ljubljana so we decided to see if we could also get a dorm there, for one we had a bit of luck and set on our way. The plan was one night at the Celica, a cheap meal and night out with Nicky and then a midday bus to Munich for which Nina had managed to book us a hostel for 3 nights, as it happens things didn't really work out as planned.

A Short trip to Slovenia

So once again we found ourselves arriving into a country with nowhere to stay and much like Zagreb there were no friendly locals present to offer us digs. We decided to head towards an Internet cafe to see what we could work out, on route we stumbled across the centre square of Ljubljana where we decided to stop for a breather so that Nina could use the public conveniences. In the mean time I took a look through the Lonely Planet, despite the farce that was Sofia we had decided against binning it.

For once the book came in use and we soon had two beds booked in the Alibi hostel which was just a short walk away, never the less we still took about 40 minutes to find it, turns out it was neatly tucked away in the corner surrounded by bars, what a shame. We decided we were only going to stay for a couple of days in Ljubljana as it really was pretty small.

It was still only early afternoon when we were done with checking in so we decided we would make the most of the day and head out and explore a little. We had an ideal location right next to the river and about five minutes walk from the main square where a statue of one of Ljubljana's most famous people, the poet France Prešeren stands looking across to a building upon which is a statue of his desire peering from the window. The monument is surrounded by cafe-bars on one side the huge pink Franciscan Church on another and the famous Triple Bridge which was designed by another, and possibly the only other famous Slovenian the architect Jože Plečnik.

On our wonders we soon found the huge market square and also the very modern and awesome funicular which we took up to the castle which over looks the whole city, we were a little disappointed with the castle itself as although it looked awesome from the out side it had actually been heavily renovated and thus lost much of the historicity you would tend to attach to castles. Nether the less we went up the tower to take in some of the views and found that Ljubljana is a far prettier city from ground level, that being said it wasn't as though it was ugly, it was just not as impressive as some of the other tall views which we have seen on this trip.

We wondered around a bit more and found a few craft stalls along the river and managed to pick up a few bits and pieces but spent the rest of the day just exploring the various side streets off of the main square whilst Nina gave me Italian lessons in preparation for my up coming debut as a ski rep, we have also managed to hit every shop selling ski and board equip in most of eastern Europe without spending a penny. That evening we decided to check out the night life a little, this was after realising that we had barely had a proper night out since Varna, after hunting around a bit we found a club-bar-restaurant called Bachus and the bouncers looked just about threatening enough for it to feel like home so in we went absolutely drenched and in no mood to socialise due to the down pour which had found us at about 6pm that evening.

We approached the bar and promptly found ourselves in a cocktail bar, which was a bonus, we took a look at the list and found that they also did 1 litre jugs of Long Island Ice Tea, another bonus. Two things we learnt that night was that Slovenians like to load there cocktails and like to charge high prices for that benefit. We also learnt the following morning that 2 jugs between us and a 1 am bed time makes us both pretty grumpy, my God we are getting old.

Despite the hang overs we decided that we would still take an early bus to Postojna to go see the famous Slovenian caves, however having not realized that as it was a weekend we had missed all the early buses and there wasn't another one until 2pm our moods plummeted further. We opened the door of the hostel to head out anyway just to kill some time and were greeted by torrential rain, we headed out and got as far as the tourist information office where we were going to see the easiest and quickest other way to get to and from the caves before I yielded and finally brought a replacement umbrella for the one i broke in Romania when hitting Nina with it. The only choice of colours were bright yellow or bright red, since then I have been carrying my trusted bright red umbrella with me every where I go.

Not wanting to wander the streets in the rain we decided to find a restaurant and have an early lunch, we thought it would be best to head towards the bus station so at least that way we were not prolonging our time in the down pour, turns out that the only restaurant on route was directly outside the coach station, we managed to squelch our way into the restaurant and not for the first time this trip found ourselves ordering Pizza well before noon. We managed to stretch out meal over two hours assisted by tea and hot chocolate before heading over to catch the bus. The journey to Postojana only took an hour and when we arrive the rain had significantly lessened.

From the bus station the caves are about a 20 minute walk, we got there about 3.30 and had time to go into their exhibit of cave life before catching the 4 o'clock tour of the caves. The cave life exhibit was a bizarre experience, we were basically given a guide leaflet and a Duracell torch and spent time looking in buckets and beetles and other minuscule insects, however they also had a few large tanks with the Blind Salamander in them, these awesome little creatures are a weird pink colour, have no eyes and grow to be about 45cm long, they are better known as Human Fish, which is amusing considering they are neither human not fish, the cave guide later told us that they were given the name as despite being amphibious they spent most of their lives in water and lived for about 70-80 years, thus they lived like fish and lasted about as long as humans.

The cave tour itself was awesome, it started by boarding a train which resembled a runaway train ride that you would find in many a theme park and at certain points you felt you were on a runaway train too as it whipped through 8km of caves at high speed. We then disembarked for a 2km guided tour of the cave system where got to see their so called Spaghetti cave where the stalactites were so thin they resembled the pasta from which they borrowed their name, we also saw many beautiful curtains, which were basically where the cave had formed curtain style stalactites. Finally we got the the concert hall where Nina did her best wolf impression to check out the acoustics, it was much better than all the yodelling that was being done. Finally we boarded the train again for another 8km journey back to daylight and emerged absolutely soaked, i would recommend hiring the rain coats for 3€ however we didn't, to discover two things, one the sun was finally shining again, and two we had beaten the Aussies in the rugby, woo hoo.

That evening feeling pretty shattered we decided to stay close to the hostel as we were moving on the next day to Lake Bled and had to be up early, still as I said our hostel was right next to a load of bars so it wasn't really a major hard ship. We spent the evening drinking 1€ Slovenian Red Wine and watching the Kiwis get bashed by the French. Despite the weather and not doing too much we had really enjoyed Ljubljana but felt that 2 days was just about enough time to see everything and were excited about moving on to Bled for the day before heading on to Germany, for once we had a slight plan that covered more than a day ahead...


Sorry for the poor punctuation, i am using a keyboard upon which the pictures on the keys look nothing like what appears on the screen.....

Croatias second chance.

The journey from Budva to Split was beautiful, pretty much the whole of the route was on coastal roads, we had asked for a bus that went on a ferry as this would have cut an hour out of our journey but this was misunderstood, however the journey we so gorgeous that it really was not an issue. The actual journey had to be done in 3 parts, we had to travel from Budva to Herceg Novi and from there we could pick up a coach to Dubrovnik and then from there we could get a third and final coach to Split, quite complex to plan, do basically we didn´t, we also hadn´t bothered booking accommodation as we weren´t sure if we´d actually do the trip in one day.

As it happened though we were really lucky, we had a two hour wait in Herceg Novi and at Dubrovnik we only had a ten minute time gap, which turned out to be just enough time to get cash, buy tickets and pop to the loo. All the buses were comfortable and all the bus drivers seemed to run two side businesses, the first is there discretionary charge for carrying your luggage, which generally got slung next to the spare tire and therefore got covered in oil, and the second seemed to b e a courier service. We`d stop out side a market place, a bloke would come and hand a bag overflowing with vegetables and a few Kuna to the drive and we´d then set off and the bloke would phone the recipient. Two hours later we¨d pull over in a random lay by and another chap would take the bag and give the driver some more Kuna before calling the initial bloke to confirm delivery. Think the service they offered is probably a lot better than Royal Mails at the moment.

As we got close to split we decided it was a good idea to flick through the Lonely Planet and try and sort a hostel our, we had absolutely no luck there, the hostels were either full or two far away from the centre, we were therefore left with the daunting prospect of arriving in Split at 9 in the Evening we nothing sorted in the way of accommodation whatsoever. We need not have worried though, when we got of the bus there were at least 10 people offering rooms, including one amazingly polite local who spoke perfect English, he told us his room was 5 minutes away, we through caution to the wind and went with him, and yes amazingly we landed on our feet again he basically had only just finished renovating the place, on route he gave us a full low down on where to go and the room itself was totally self contained and very cheap, we even got a discount for staying 3 nights, bonus!!

Split itself was lovely, much like Durbrovnik it had marble floors every where and also had its own walled city, however unlike Dubrovnik it lacked the mass influxes of tour groups and it had sunshine constantly, we decided that one day will definitely have to be a beach day and were both delighted when we found a proper Beach as we knew this meant unlike Dubrovnik I could get in and out of the water without the risk of ending up crippling myself again.

As we arrived so late on the first day we only really had energy and time to go to a restaurant and went direct to one (Bufet Fife) helpfully pointed out by our host, who advised they had the cheapest prices, best fish and largest portions in town. Sadly by the time we got there half the fish had sold out however what we had was still divine and we knew this would be a regular haunt for us whilst in Split. On the way home we also found another place we decided would be a regular haunt and that was Cocktail Bar which had a terrace over looking the entire Harbour and Cocktails that were loaded, suddenly we found a bit of extra energy from some where and stayed for a few.

The following day after waking quite late we decided we were explore the town a bit, this turned into a bit of a Market fest, on our doorstep was the mane Market in Split, known as the Green Market where hundreds of Croatia women vie for your business at there carefully chosen pitch (this cleared up the confusion caused the previous night when we walked past 4 or 5 women sitting next to dozens of crates of lettuces), we ended up going to this market every day we were in split, mainly because it was such a nice way of getting into the walled city. At the opposite end of the town is the fish market which we spent ages looking around, a particular highlight of mine was a Croatian man who was cutting a recently arrived Tuna into steaks and in the process of one big chop manages to spray Ninas arm with Fish guts, safe to say Nina was less impressed. We later got the fright of our lives as we continues browsing and was having a good look at a pile of dead fish on one stall when once of the fish (clearly named Lazarus) suddenly flipped himself over, we both let out audible gasps much to the amusement of locals, we took it as our cue to leave. That night we went back to the same restaurant as the previous night and both ordered the grilled and fried fish dishes we wanted knowing exactly how fresh the fish were and stabbing them once they arrive on our table just to make sure they were dead.

The following day was our beach day, we rose late and hit the beach around 2 oćlock after having a bite to eat. The beach was busy but not crowded and there were dozens of games of hand ball going on, great to watch but there was no way we were going to get involved these guys were way to good and seemed to have built up a resistance to getting salt water in their eyes. We also saw what we have both voted the funniest moment of our trip so far (yes even funnier than the Russian lady, and my personal favourite of when Nina advised me ´1984´was written by Roald Dahl), basically it was this guy that seemed to us to be pretend swimming on the shore side, he was doing it for some time until we realised he was actually warming up, he was doing it for a bout 10 minutes whilst his mate was already in the sea pretty much begging him to get in. Eventually it was time for him to get in the sea, we couldn´t resist watching, expecting some major swim, but no he was in for about 5 minutes and swam about 20 meters his action as along with his ridiculous speedos, had us looking out for a hidden camera, but no this guy was for real.

On our last day we decided we would go and visit the city towers and vaults before leaving, both were pretty impressive and the views from the top of the tower were as ever beautiful although the steps virtually killed us and had Nina sliding down on her bum. That evening we took a bus to Zagreb which was a 5 hour journey, we again didn,t bother with booking accommodation as we knew there would be people at the bus station offering rooms.

At 9:30 that evening we arrive at the deserted bus station, tried our hardest at looking like helpless tourist but not a single person was there offering rooms, turns our Zagreb is a very different kind of City, we decided to stop for a drink and figure out a plan of action, be it sleeping in the train or coach station or chancing are luck and heading into the City to find a hostel. We decided we would do the 1.5 k walk to the station to see what was available there, on our way we walked through the bus station one last time but still there was no one with a room. After about 2k we found the station (i apparently had taken the scenic route), at about 10:30 we found a hostel right by the station and shuffled in and asked if they had any beds expecting the worst. However they did have beds and they were very very cheap, we thinks this was because whilst the beds were comfortable the hostel itself had the feel on a metal institution and was pretty creepy, still it meant we could put are bags down finally. We decided to book just for two nights and if we liked Zagreb we thought we would move to another hostel and stay for a little longer.

As it turned out whilst we liked Zagreb and it was very pretty we knew we only really needed a day there. Unless you really liked Museums Zagreb needs no longer that around 8 hours to fully explore and after seeing the stunning Cathedral and going up what seemed like the worlds smallest and most pointless funicular we found ourselves twiddling our thumbs a bit, we had both had enough of Museums so ruled those out and it was too miserable to go to any of the parks. We ended up spending about an hour and a half in a book store and another hour in a Lord of the Rings themed bar which was actually pretty naff, it simply had a few swords on the walls and some posters of Lord Of the Rings.

We left for Ljubljana the following morning, the train Journey was only two hours long and was just enough time for me to ring the hostel we wanted to stay at to find that they were fully booked, Oh joy this all sounds very familiar.

The Magical Mystery Tour

So any way up we got at 5:30 which felt strange as usually when we´ve been up at that time it has been because we`re on a train and panicking that we have missed our stop, a quick look outside told us that the weather was going to be pretty nasty and knowing that we were going to be visiting gorges and mountains, flip flops were quickly ruled out as suitable foot wear. This meant squeezing back in to our trainers that still had half of the previous days rain in them.

It was about a 30 minute walk to the meeting point for the excursion and after some searching we finally found the right place, a few luxurious coaches pulled up but we were repeatedly advised that they were not for us, eventually our minibus did turn up and we were quickly on our way. As soon as the bus was in motion that was it both Nina and I were out cold, sleeping to the soothing sounds of a very high pitched talkative Russian lady who was irritatingly lively for that time of the morning.

About 2 hours had passed and we were back up on the gorgeous mountain roads, this time in full on daylight and they were just as beautiful, we then pulled into what looked like a lay by and everyone disembarked, we didn´t initially realise it but this was our first stop and where we had actually stopped was perfectly located to look down into the gauge and see an unfortunate rusting wreck of a car that had obviously fancied a bit of rally driving through the mountains and failed to judge the road quite right, either that or it was simply blown off by the winds which had Nina clinging onto me for dear life as I perched over to get some photos.

After 5 minutes or so everyone started boarding the bus again and we took it as meaning our time here was up and again we set off onto our next destination, we didn´t have a clue where it was going to be, turns out that it was CetinjeMonastry. As we went to get off they told us how long we had there in Serbian, we asked if they could tell us in English and suddenly every one was just staring at us. Turns out the mini bus was full of Serbians, Russians and Ukranians and that there was in fact a tour guide who had been talking pretty much constantly since we boarded, we were totally clueless to this fact and promptly felt guilt for sleeping and me in particular for listening to my MP3 player. They all thought it was hilarious though and did there best from then on to help the guide, who understood English but did not speak it, as much as possible, a notable star was the bus driver who had a passion for Only Fools and Horses and kept quoting his favourite lines.

By time we had got to the monastery the rain had started and as we entered the grounds it got heavier and heavier (clearly we were not wanted there), our 30 minute stop got condensed down to 15 minutes and by then people had taken the snaps they wanted, doused them selves with holy water and seen the church where St Peters remains are and were now in the minibus seeking shelter, the bus driver found it hilarious that we came from England but did not have water proofs with us.

On we carried through the mountains be for coming to what was billed as a spectacular lake where you could take walks around and look out for the local wildlife, (eagles, bears, Lynx etc) the Lake itself was more like a large puddle (we did judge it a bit based on Lake Garda) and with the rain teaming down like it was neither man or beast were up for spotting or being spotted so once again the obligatory snaps were taken and we were back on the bus within 15 minutes.

After more winding roads we reached the Tara Bridge which spans the gorge which at up to 1300m is the deepest in Europe and I believe the second deepest in the world after the grand canyon. For once everyone seemed to forget about the rain and walked across the bridge taking in the amazing views all around, it was truly stunning and Nina actually managed to make it across without crying, although she did stay well away from the edge. I had been hoping they did bungeeing from the bridge, it would be an awesome launch pad, but sadly they don,t and my feet remained firmly on the ground.

We headed further up the mountains after the bridge to the 2nd highest town in Europe, as we were making our way up the rain got heavier and heavier, the drivers vision got worse and worse and Ninas grip got tighter and tighter, when the first bit of thunder sounded I thought my are arm was going to get ripped off, this town was to be our lunch stop (nit inc.) We parked up in what we guess was the car park although it would easily have passed as a river and dashed across to the shelter of the restaurant. Hear the leaky roof problem was evident again, the rain was literally pouring through at certain points, however in the middle was a roaring log fire and that provided enough warmth ans we ended up staying there for a good few hours. The restaurant (Javorovača) was in an amazing setting and the food was even better, Nina had some cheese pie concoction where as I had the best lamb i have ever tasted (Lamb cooked under rocks), it was also at this restaurant that the irritably lively Russian decided we were her new best friends and she chatted away constantly, luckily a Ukranian couple were able to translate for us and basically we found out she was 70 and had been white water rafting a few day previously and before that she went water ski. We were in fits of laughter on hearing this and the fits of laughter quickly turned to tears of laughter as she got up from the table did a bit of a dance and then walked around in a circle patting her backside shouting Ruski Ruski Ruski, she was great!!!

The was one more stop after the meal and this was at the Black lake which due to the weather was not really any different to any other lake, but the bus driver did advise us that on every other trip he had done it had always been glorious sunshine and the lake does look really black, we took his word for it, took a photo and got back on the bus quick sharp, it was time to head home.

The bus journey home was a white knuckle ride comparable to those which you find at Alton Towers or Thorpe Park. The mountains that we had drove along earlier were now virtual water falls, the tunnels we went through all began with a sheet of water pouring down in front of the opening and once inside there were even more waterfalls on both sides of the road and down the middle, I had images of the rusting car that we had seen at the bottom of the gorge earlier in the day flashing through my mind and was grateful that our driver had enough skills to keep the bus on the road.

We had one rest break on the way back to Budva, I sought refuge in the smelliest toilets ever whilst Nina got harassed by the Russian lady, there were Pomegranates growing on the road side and the Russian lady was pointing at them saying ´granite´, Nina would then say ´Pomegranate´ the Russian would reply ´Granite´and so on and so forth for some time, eventually though Nina had the woman saying (in between hysterical Russian laughter) ´Pomegranate´, I guess you had to be there to appreciate it but i found it hysterical especially when the Russian women the punch Nina in the arm and walked off.

We were meant to get back to Budva at 9ish however we got back a 7:30 it was clear the trip had been curtailed due to the weather and although we saw all the sites listed many of the stops were reduced down however we did care one bit, we had loved absolutely every minute of it, the driver, the sites, the restaurants, the crazy Russian lady everything. However now when we here a squeaky Russian voice a flush of panic does come over us.