Hi everyone!
I have been concentrating on travelling again recently. It all started with the August "Summer Bank Holiday" weekend in the UK. Having 3 days off work meant that I had to go and visit the continent otherwise it would be 3 days wasted by staying in England. Flights to everywhere were very expensive so I opened a backpackers magazine and booked the first interesting coach tour I saw. So very early on the Saturday morning I headed off on a bus to Germany. It was a boring bus ride but it was a perfect opportunity to catch up on sleep and even read up on German lingo in my phrasebook.
Upon arrival in the small town of Bad Salzig in the Rhein Valley (a picturesque German wine making region) in the evening, accompanied by a random selection of people on the tour, I drank some local wine, followed by drinking some more local wine, followed by eating, and then drinking some more local wine, more local wine and then some local beer. (The drinks were included in the tour price, the company was good, and the wine was OK - what else could I do?)
Later that night it was interesting using the German I learned earlier to talk to some non-English-speaking locals in a pub. Not surprisingly, I woke up the next morning with a bit of a headache, but that was soon forgotten about thanks to an early morning stroll around the small city of Boppard and a river cruise up the Rhein Valley, underneath the countless medieval castles, green forests and abundant fertile vineyards. We overlooked the beautiful green region from the famous Loriley cliff, and then walked around a local city and attended a wine tasting, presented by a winemaker called Adolf. I've attached some photos from this beautiful place! Back at the hotel the theme was again local wine.
On the bus ride home we stopped off in the beautiful Belgian city of Ghent. That was the third Belgian city I'd been to and the third one I loved, making Belgium grow in my heart as one of my favourite places.
The next few weeks were spent working and partying the last few weeks of Summer away in London, counting down to my 2 weeks of annual leave in the 2nd half of September.
So half way through September I flew out of London to the city of Ancona in Italy. The flight was full of Aussies and Kiwis all heading to sail Croatia (flying cheapo RyanAir to Ancona and catching a ferry across the Adriatic Sea seemed to be the most cost effective way of getting to Croatia.) Ancona wasn't particularly interesting as it was really just a port city, but the overnight ferry ride to Split in Croatia was quite luxurious and fun. Getting to Split was a bit of a disappointment because instead of finding warm Croatian weather, I was greeted with rain, rain and more rain.
I boarded the boat that I would spend a week sailing the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia in. It was the smallest and oldest boat in the fleet of about 17. I was a little bit shocked about the cramped conditions (and the fact we only had 1 toilet/shower for 19 passangers) but luckily I was the only one on the boat who got a room to myself, making it much more bearable. The first three days of sailing were quite bad on account of the weather. We hit some storms and really rough seas. One on occassion, our crazy captain took us head on into a storm the other (bigger and more stable) boats did not choose to brave. The main way of making time pass was balancing out on the deck trying not to vomit. Or fall overboard. Despite the bad weather the water was still warm, and we even managed to go for a swim when we found a tranquil bay.
We saw some beautiful coastal towns and when we got to the southernmost point of the tour, Dubrovnik, the sun finally came out. Immediately the whole place looked so much better – amazing how a bit of shining sun can really bring a place out. Walking around the old castle walls of Dubrovnik was great. It also proved to be a great place for a night out.
The rest of the tour was spent sailing from island to island during the day while we sunbathed on the roof and every now and then anchored in the beautiful clear water for a swim. I swam in some amazingly picturesque locations, each time in crystal clear water. In the evenings we would moor up in a port and explore the village or city we ended up in, explore the streets, eat the local cuisine in great outdoors restaurants among scenic old town ruins and party in the local bars and nightclubs (or on the roof of our boat with our sleazy alcoholic, yet lots of fun, chef). My favourite of these places was Hvar, an amazing, hilly, old town, surrounded by castle walls, overlooking a peaceful marina in a bay surrounded by green hills.
The sailing tour finished with a night back in Split. The highlight of the night was getting a local with a small zippy electronic baggage trolley to drive 16 of us (it felt more dangerous as it sounds) to a huge outdoor nightclub on a hill just out of town overlooking a beach. The next morning I wasn't quite ready to leave Split, so I hired an apartment with some people from the sailing tour and stayed an extra day. That day was spent walking around the local markets before going on a white water rafting trip in the hills about an hour inland from Split. The most dangerous part of the this, unfortunately, was being driven up in a car by a speeding, chain-smoking, non-seatbelt-wearing, Croatian soldier in his early 90's Audi that I WISHED had seatbelts in the back. Luckilly we did make it to the lovely clear river where we boarded some rafts and went down a beautiful forest valley. The rapids were fun but nothing too extreme. The highlight was when we came to a waterfall and stopped to get out of the raft and go through the waterfall. Behind the waterfall we found a small cave that we went into, but to get across had to swim through a small cave lake of 7ºC cold water and then climb up a rock face in the dark. It was fun!
The next day was my birthday. The 2 girls I was staying with took me out to an awesome birthday breakfast in a nice outside restaurant. I then said bye and caught a super modern German tilt-train from Split, winding through the mountain ranges to Croatia's capital, Zagreb.
It was a nice city that I enjoyed walking around in the afternoon, but I had a Croatia/Slovenia/Austria Eurail pass to utilise, so I continued on by rail to Slovenia the next day. Catching the train through Slovenia was great. The countryside was probably the most picturesque I have seen, with a great mix of lakes, forests and small quant villages, each built around a single church old tower. I made it to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia and was going to look around a bit, until I realised that the next train to Vienna was a mere 15 min away so I jumped on that. It was actually a train to somewhere called Maribor, at which I was meant to change to a Vienna train. The problem was that about 45min after we were meant to hit Maribor the train was still in the middle of nowhere. I eventually asked a conductor I saw and she told me in 30% Slovenian, 30% English, 40% German (that I somehow managed to piece together) that I was in fact not on a Maribor train, that the train split in 2 way, way back and that I was in fact heading to somewhere completely different. She ushered me off the train at a small village somewhere and directed me to run onto a small, old, rickety, local train that was about to depart. I followed her instructions. The train ride was an interesting experience. The train stopped at lots of little villages and at other places which didn't even constitute villages. Some of the stations were literally nothing more than a patch of gravel in a field. The passengers were all local farm people, the conductor spoke no English and had evidently never seen a Eurail pass in his life. I wasn't really sure where I was, or even if I was still in Slovenia, and was a bit annoyed that I was only seeing this beautiful sunny day through a train window, but an hour or two later, I did manage to arrive in this Maribor place. I looked around the town for an hour, and was impressed. It was a nice little city. I spent about 2,000 Tolars in a local supermarket and jumped on the next train to Vienna.
The trains distance trains in Sloevnia and Austria were great. I only had a 2nd class ticket but 2nd class was way superior to 1st class in Britain. It was all comfortable big seats in 6-seater-cabins. A great way to travel Europe, assuming you manage to find your way onto the right train. I arrived in Vienna quite late, and the hostel I wanted to check into had no space. I managed to walk to a few hotels near the Südbahnhof train station, picked the cheapest (nay, least expensive) and just crashed – I was exhausted.
I spent the next day just walking around Vienna. The highlight of this was finding the Gorilla in the Prater amusement park. I had been there as a 6 year old with my parents (just after we managed to escape from then Communist Czechoslovakia), 20 years earlier almost to the day, at which time I had a photo with the Gorilla much to my terror at the time, because I was crying, scared of the big ape. So I got a photo with same Gorilla 20 years later. Maybe I'll go back again when I'm 46.
That evening I caught a train from Vienna's Westbahnhof station to the beautiful city of Salzburg. Again, I arrived late and just crashed in a nearby hotel. The next day was the last day of my trip. I spent the morning walking around the Salzburg streets, marvelling at the scenery, which was a mix of great architecture and beautiful gardens, placed against a background of big green hills (which, of course, are alive with the sound of music).
In the afternoon I joined up with a tour group to the ice caves, right up in the Alps. That was a most amazing experience. It involved a super-steep bus ride, followed by an even steeper cable car ride, then a steep walk but all this was rewarded with amazing views over the Alps and valleys below and an even more amazing ice cave. The tour of the cave, aided by old-style open flame torches for light, was an hour long, and any longer would have been painful as the cave temperature is litrally 0ºC. The cave is full of walls of ice and naturally formed ice sculptures. After the cave tour we rewarded ourselves with frankfurters and local beer as we sat, thawing out, and overlooking the Alpine scenery.
Upon return to Salzburg it was a trip to the airport with one of the people from the ice caves tour that was on the same flight as me. At the airport, a last attempt to sample some Austrian cuisine (goulash and beer) and then waiting for a flight which was an hour and a half delayed, resulting in me getting back to London after the trains from the airport had finished running. A coach ride and night bus ride later, I made it home. At 3 am. And went to work the next day. Since then, work has been keeping me busy. I have been seconded to a large French Pharmaceuticals company outside of London so I'm constantly tiring myself out commuting to Surrey, but it's all good fun. Last Friday was my firm's annual party, which was a no-expenses-spared extravaganza, which I'm still recovering from.
Since October ticked over, the previously surprisingly sunny weather has taken a dramatic turn for the cold. So London winter, here I come. My next main holiday is not till December so the next couple of months will be spent trying to save some of these valuable British Pounds to bring back home, instead of spending it all on travel and booze. Wish me luck!
See you in January!
