Into Romania!

Me in one of europe's narrowest streets in Brasov, Romania.

Kelly at the wondefully gothic Bran castle
Kelly looking lovely in the castle courtyard.
Kelly in Brasov's central square. Behind her is the house where they used to tourure people, now home to the tourists information. We learned quite a bit about medieval life in Brasov, for example how the various guilds (tanners, locksmiths etc.) where in charge of defence of the town and each manned their own tower or bastion along the town walls.
A view of Brasov showing the Black church and the Hollywood style Brasov sign on on the hill.
The Black church.
Inside Pele's castle in Sinia, Romania. This was a summer holiday home for Romanian Kings and perhaps Hapsburgh kings if I remember correctly. It was shockingly opulent, really!
I and Kelly outside Pele's castle.
Belgrade in Serbia, I am not sure if the damage to that building was due to NATO planes or not! We did have a pleasant time there and it is a very nice city.

Hello all. I hope you are all well. You find I and Kelly about to leave Romania for Budapest where we will stay until Sunday when we fly to Germany. It has been an amazing time in Romania, although each place has offered something special and unique Romania has to be my favourite destination so far. It has been a worthy adventure on it's own. Our brief stay in Belgrade was actually very nice, the people were very nice and friendly and the place had a pleasant feel. It is nice to have it confirmed that Slobidan Milosivitch (however his name is spelt) and his Serb nationalists wholely misrepresented this country. We also spent a facinating few hours in the Nicolai Teslov museum, the guy truely was a genuis of the highest order. We are in dept to him for much of the aspects of our modern life, most famously electricty. It was his work not Edisson's which allowed the first power stations built and electricity to be supplied over long distances. I knew this already but it was nice to see him honoured with such a nice musuem which involved a number of live demonstations. After a lovely 13 hour train ride to Bucharest be didnt wast time and rushed on to Sinia in Romania where we took in wonderful mountian views, experienced romanian home cooking and visited the amazingly opulent Pele's Palace. Which amung many other wonders had a set of teak (sp?) chairs and tables made in India which took 100 years to make! Then we went to Basov which is a lovely medieval town from where we took a day trip to the gothic to it core Bran castle. Basov was a very nice, clean and modern feeling town. Everyone was well dressed and it could have been anywhere in the EU. What a difference it was when we rented the car and discovered rural Romania! It just finished out 6 day car adventure today and my goodness what a time! I can't wait to tell you about it! And of course show you the pics!
OK, back to time wasting....time wasting you wonder! Well, first I would like to point out so far EVERYTHING on our trip has gone perfectly smoothly. However today before dropping off the car we dropped by the train station in Cluj (norther Romania) to buy our train ticket to Budapest. I went in to buy the ticket, Kelly is wholely inocent in the matter, and asked for the next train to Budapest. The lady told me 3.22, I asked how much, it seemed reasonable to I baught them, the time was 12 noon by the way. We then returned the car and spent the last of our Lie (Romanian money) on food and a book and caught a taxi to the train station with 50min to spare. The train wasnt up on the board so I asked and that is when I discovered that train was at 3.22 AM! Yes! In the morning! I was only 12 hours early! Oh boy! And to boot there was no left luggage or toilet at the train station. So in the end we found the old security gaurd was running a left luggage on the sly, he agreed to take out bags and while Kelly when to change some money to pay him and keep us going I hung out with him in his little office. He was a friendly guy! When he discovered I was British (englaisee) he gave me a hug and a kiss! He was pretty funny and even gave me a bag of pumkin seeds when I told him yes they were nice (only out of politeness). Hopefully it all works out!

All the best

Craig and Kelly

Dumitor National park in Montenegro

Kelly with the mountians and Jack, plus one of Jacks dodgy looking friends
They stack their hay into real hay stacks here! In fact we saw hay stacks all through the Balkans
An old man and an old tree sharing a moment
I and Kelly at the glacial lake we walked to.
Kelly walking along the lake shore
The low foothills before the mountians reminded me of Scotland

A man and his dog, the man being yours truely and the dog our faithful Jack.

Tara Canyon, europes largest and the worlds 2nd largest, it seems quite a bit short of the magnitude of the Grand Canyon though
We stopped of during the rafting trip to see this waterfall, this is where is emerges from the bottom of a cliff after 70 hours underground!

Scotland won! Hurrah! Scotland beat Romania 42-0, pretty good performance although Scotland seemed a bit scrappy at times, the team will have to raise their game against the mighty New Zealand for sure! The Scottish pub was pretty interesting; run by a real live Scot it was festuned with Kilts, bits of tartan, pictures of Sean Connery and even a stuffed grouse. I had a Madras curry, which made a welcome change to bread and cheese. Actually we have managed to get away from the endless bread and cheese recently but a bit of spice was very welcome.

Well, so, where was I? Ah yes, Kotor, from Kotor we took the bus down to Bar but that place didn't really impress so the next day we pressed on to Dumitor national park (still in Montenegro). Hoping that some outdoors fresh air and mountians would refresh us and make a welcome chance from endless medieval buildings. First we had to take a bus to Podgorica the capital of Mont, which is a rather drabto say the least. It looks like it was pretty much completely built by communist architects....so we didn't dally there and took the next bus to Zabljak, the town nearest the park. We had to change buses on route to there and the 2nd bus for the last 2 hours or so was a tiny little bus with very, very little leg room. It also smelled very bad, or rather some of the older ladies on board were a jot on the wrong side of oderiferous, poor Kelly suffered during the ride. To compound things the ride was along a tiny and very twisty mountain road, at several points only a foot or two (it seemed less sometimes) from the edge of the road the ground punged away into a dizzying precipice. From the vantage point of the bus one could stare straight down the precipice and entertain oneself with the notion that if the bus did go over the edge there was about zero percent chance of surviving. When the precipice was tree filled I relaxed with the comforting thought that the trees would slow our decent. Well we made it in one piece and were picked up by a nice young woman called Vinka to stay at her house. I was nice and clean and her family friendly, hurrah! While up on the mountian we went rafting down the river and took a wee hike to a glacial lake. It was really a lovely place but we had to press on with our jounrney! We also made a good friend up there as well. Romania has many many stray dogs, really, they are just everywhere but seem mostly harmless. One which may or may not have been stray (he seemed clean but had no coller) decided he liked us and followed us up a hill on day one, he was most agitated at one point when he thought he couldn't follow us over a fence, trying to chew through the wooden posts and whining melodramaticaly! He was a happy little dog when Kelly called him over and showed him a gap he could squeeze through. On the second day who should be waiting to meet us but our faithful hound, whome we had named Jack after the town Zabljak, and two of his buddies who looked rather more, how shall I say this politely, stray. They again acomanied us on our short hike and even when the other two left Jack stayed with us, even waiting for us outside while we ate breakfast at a restaurant (a treat before the imminent 9 hour bus ride to Belgrade, Serbia). We finally had to say goodbye at the bus station, we both still miss you Jack! What is funny is he didn't seem that interested in other people not even a little kid and her mum who tried to play with him while we were in the restaurant.

Tonight we will check out a festival that is going on here in Brasov. And tomorrow we shall venture on the fields anew!

Take care all!

Craig and Kelly

Kotor, Montenegro
Kelly at the top of the fortress which towers above the town of Kotor (set in europes deepest fjord).
Kelly enjoying the view and a well earned rest.
Evening time down at the seaside of Montenegro

The crazy zigzag road leading up the mountain side next to the fortress.
Sorry, the pic is the wrong way up! Anyway, this is the little hole we found to we could escape to the mountain side behind the fortress.

The little chapel surrounded by the remains of a village

The Fortress winding its way up the mountian behind the outer wall of Kotor, it is a little hard to see the fortress walls as they are the same colour as the mountain rock!
A more zoomed in view of the fortress showing two of the walls that lead to the main fortress building.
Kelly again on our hike up the fortress wall.

Evening all. You find me in a small internet cafe in Brasov, Transilvania. Yep that's right home of Dracula and the rather more historically real Vlad Tepes. It is a nice little town that bears little resemblance to the horror of Bucharest. Although we were only in Bucharest for about 2 hours we were there long enough to be scared by its stray dogs, dirty squat toilets and have my banana pinched by the train conductor. Well to be fair he sort of asked; he looked into our food bag and pointed quizically at the banana, I was too surprised to deny him and he was most pleased with the banana and gobbled it down then and there. We also visited another transilvanian town on the way but back to Kotor, we arrived there from glorious, meditiarian Dubrovnik and where greeted with a rather stinky and delapidated medieval town with none of the polished tourist charm of Dubrovnik. First I should mention the bus ride here, the Montenegran coast is stunning,really, the mountians literaly plunge straight into the sea. Small towns cling to small patches of flat land inbetween the towering mountians and the adriatic sea, the road itself wound along at the foot of the mountians only feet from the sea. Often it looked like the rock had been cut or blown away to make room for even this two lane road! However when we arrived in Kotor it was overcast and a bit gloomy. After our wonderful luck with the old lady who picked us up at the bus station to stay in her house in Dubrovnik we trusted another old couple who did just that in Kotor. However when we arrived at there house the price doubled and the bathroom smelled and the toilet lacked a flush. We decided to leave and set off down the road with our backpacks. We enquired at the first house advertising 'sobe' that we came to and it although it was the same price it was much cleaner (and also we wanted to put our bags down) so we took it. But then after we wondered around town our mood was not much improved, the gloomy weather accentuated the dourness of the delapitated medieval buildings and the not uncommon smell of wee did not add anything either. Still we found a nice restaurant and had a good pizza and salad and then retired hopeing for nicer weather the following day. Our wishes were forfilled and we awoke to a glorious day! We set out with the goal of climbing the vast fortress that loomed over the (itself fortified) town of Kotor. This fortress stretched over halfway up the moutianside that soared above Kotor. It comprised of three walls that zizagged their way up to the main fortress which perched ontop of a rocky outcrop. It took us about an hour to make it up there, with some exploring. Nothing was off limits and it was great to snoop up ancient staircases and in ancient rooms. I found one that was home to a colony of bats! Once at the top we were rewared with breathtaking views down the fjord that Kotor lies in, it is Europes largest fjord although it may actually technically be a submerged river valley...but be rest assured that did not detract from the panoramic view. Not satisfied with that after a quick lunch we went back down to were we had spotted a little hole in the wall which led out to the mountian side behind. There was a small chapel in the distance surrounded by ruins that I wanted to see. We then proceeded to spend a glorious day tramping around and up the mountain and were again rewarded with awesome views. We passed a little farm house halfway up the mountain which had a zigzag road leading upto it. We used that road to get down and it must have taken us about 40/50 minutes to get to the bottom. What a crazy place to live (there was no way a car could get up that road)! They seemed to farm goats and a few cows. Then again I doupt there are many places that have such a view. And now for a little bit of history; the town of Kotor has passed through so many hands I am very muddled up, it has been in Roman, Serbian, Ottoman, Bulgarnian, Austrohungarian, French and Itlanien hands, oh and also it was ruled by the city of Venice too. There are probably some more but really, enough is enough! It is now a town of the country of Montenegro (the world neswest country) and that is that! At its hight of power it was a trading city with power that rivalled Venice and venetian architecural styles are dominant. In the end we decided it was a very nice place and it didn't hurt that a young montenegran chap chatted to us as we started the hike up the fortress and was really excited about me being scottish. On that topic, tonight Romania and Scotland play rugby as part of the rugby world cup! It is quite the conicidence that I happen to be in Romania at that time with my kilt and here is the best bit....Brasov (the town we are in) has a Scottish pub! Perfect! We will be swinging on round that later!

All the best!

I will update the blog soon with detail of our trip to the Mountinous interior of Montenegro where europes (and the worlds 2nd) largest canyon is hidden.

Bye bye!

Craig and Kelly

The Baroque Church in Dubrovnik's old town.
The setting sun dyeing the hillside red behind Dubrovnik's old clock tower.
Apparently the washing in the old town (Dubrovnik) is the most photographed in the world!
A view looking down on Dubrovnik's old town.
Dubrovnik from Fort Royal.
One of the lesser known but important olympian gods Kelly showing her strength.

Well I have been neglecting this poor wee blog I am ashamed to admit. It has been rather hard finding interent at times and often the computers are too old and dont have usb ports or fast enough internet for picture uploading. Well a quick update then. We had a lovely time in Dubrovnik, we escaped the tourist hoards and went to an island near Dudrovnik. Half the island (the side with the good view of Dubrovnik) was closed due to fire risk. However the nice park ranger decided we looked nice, or something, and let us through. So we climbed upto the old French fort there (Fort Royal) and were rewarded with a splendid view of Dubrovnik and the surrounding hills all to our selves! The Adriatic light was beautiful as it was approaching evening bathing everything in a warm, golden light. The area there was quite your typical lovely mediteranian sort, lots of cyrpus tree, lemons, limes and olive trees. Oh and much to Kelly's delight lots of magnificent Bulgumvarias. Our next stop was Kotor in Montenegro, the worlds newest country! There we were treated to a old medieval walled town set in Europes deepest fjord with the most crazy castle I have seen perched on the mountain side above it, the walls went from the sea to almost the top of the mountian side. However that shall have to be fuel for my next post. I hope you are all well and safe!
Take care!

Craig and Kelly

The old houses on the river at Mostar
Kelly in Aladins cave, Mostar
The old mosque at Mostar

The view from the train from Sarajevo to Mostar
The Beautiful Kelly and the almost as beautiful Mostar bridge
Again the Stari Most Bridge in ickle Mostar

Heya! Greetings from Dubrovnic, Croatia! The old walled town here is as Byron put it the 'pearl of the Adriatic ', I don't really disagree with him except it is raining today so I will reserve judgement until tomorrow. No actually it is lovely and we just had some yummy pizza, itialien food is good here, in fact you could mistake this place for italy if it wasn't so much cheaper! We lucked out with accomidation too, we took an old lady at the bus station at her word and it turned out to be a good thing too! We got hooked up with a house at the lowest pice the lonely planet suggested paying and it is the best we have stayed in so far, very clean and with a wonderful view of the bay and a balacony to take the view in from. Anyways, we came from Mostar in Bosnia. That town was soso. We went to see the bridge, a sort of symbol of Bosnia as the Eifel tower is a symbol of France and it was nice but that was about it. Maybe I am being harsh, compairing it to Sarajevo and Dubrovnik not to mention Prague and Budapest, but it did seem a little dreary and lacking some vistality. That said we did pass a most enjoyable afternoon smoking hooka in a cave. Yep a big and very real cave. It was called Aladins cave and was decked out accordingly. We were lucky getting the bus to Dubrov today. It arrived late and at a different stance so we were towards the back of the 'que' (crush). However we popped around the side as I thought we might put our bags in first but it soon was apparent that not everyone was getting on the bus as it was already mostly full! Only about 5/6 of the 15+ people waiting get on did get on despite everyone having a ticket for that bus and time. We used our flanking position and Kelly deftly pressed our tickets into the drivers hands and we were on, almost. Kelly went in to grab two seats while I waited with the bags, but the driver was loading from the other side, I realised when I heard the slam of the cargo doors, I nipped around and had a job convincing the driver he has already taken my ticket and I was not just one of the many trying to protest and get on board! But I did and we safely got to Drubrovnik. Phew! Oh yes, also Mostar showed much more signs of conflict than Sarajevo, there is a whole street which is mostlz comprised of bullet ridden and derelict buildings. I hear it straddles the divide between the mostly Muslim and mostly Croat (catholic) sides of town, those are they who faught each other. It was quite depressing and also ran paralel to the main touristy street, the restored old centre of town. Even beautiful Dubrovnik here did not escape the winds of war, although did not suffer as much. The Iconic Mostar Bridge (Stari Most - petrified moon) was actually destroyed during the conflict (in 1993) and the current bridge is a reconstruction. Well anyway there you go, hopefully tomorrow is glorious sunshine so we can take some pretty pic of the old town and perhaps even chill out on the beach!

Ciao!

I have added tags onto the pic in the first post, I realise it might not be obvious to all what the pictures are of!

Yes this is the famous Bridge! The Latin bridge which saw Mr.Ferdinand assinated and of course you know the rest.
War damage is still evident around the city.
Decending into the bussling old Turkish quarter.

The Old Turkish Quarter, reprository of much oriental delight!
The view of Sarajevo from our accomidation. We got picked up by a big Hostel agency at the train station when we arrived at 10pm after 12 hrs on the train and that was nice of them, they had a minivan ready to ferry us all into town (13 people plus bags in one van!) but the room was not great and it was a little far from the center so we changed the next day and found ourselves a much nicer room in a private house. The owner was a charming old Bosnian and the house has a fanastic view! Notice you can see a Catholic and Orthodox church and many many Mosque minerats. The big chimney is the brewery which was so instrumental in keeping the city alive.

We are currently in Sarajevo and what a pleasure it is to be here! It really is a lovely city, the old Turkish quarters (Bascarsiji) is especially nice. As you wonder through its small bustling streets it feels like you have left europe and entered some more exotic eastern part of the world. There are numerous small cafes which seems to be constantly busy with people just sitting and chatting and watching the world go by as they drink thimble fulls of the strong black stuff. There are Persian rugs to buy and copper coffee sets. And best of all I found an aladins cave of a sweety shop which sold many, manz different kinds of Turkish delights! I am officially addicted! In not even two days I have been there three times! On my last (hopefully last!) visit I baught 1kg of the good stuff for only 7km (3.5 euros, maybe around 4 dollars). As you drive through the main road in sarajevo (dubbed snipers alley from when it was turned into an avenue of death by serb snipers) you pass from the old turkish district to elegant biuldings from the austro-hungarian empire to huge, ugly concrete communist buildings. This town of sarajevo has been ruled over by Romans, Ottomans, the Hapsburg Empire, Facists and Communists. It really deserves a break! We took a war tour today and it was both interesting and sobering. It is hard to reconsile (spelling!) the vibrant town we see today to the images of shelled out, bullet ridden buildings. We visited the tunnel, a 800m hand dug tunnel which was Sarajevos only safe route to the outside world during the siege. We learned of the horrific conditions the imhabitants endured for almost 4 years. It was as I said quite sobering and also gave us an insight into the hugely compicated and convoluted politics of the region. Bosnia and Hertcegovena at the moment has 14 administrative districts each with a parliment and prime minister! Yes! 14 prime ministers! And also 3 presidents (one serb, one croat and one muslim). It might not be ideal but as our guide said at the moment it works and there is peace and that is the most important thing. He himself was ten during the war and told of how he has to learn about lines of sight and how to avoid serb snipers on the daily trips to get drinking water and food. The only water in the city (after the serbs turned off the water) was from the brewery which has its own natural spring, but as serb snipers covered the whole of the city it was a dangerous task getting there. He also told us some Sarajevo serbs faught with the serb agressors while others faught with the defenders. Sigh....crazy! Tomorrow we will go to Mostar where there was also fighting but this time between croats and muslims (a few years earlier croats has been fighting serbs and in sarajevo the croats faught with the muslims against the serbs). The people here are very friendly and full of life though, I would recomend anyone to come here! If only for the Turkish delights.....

Budapest

Cesky Krumlov castle

Cesky Krumlov castle's baroque tower

Cesky Krumlov's church

Hey all, we are in Budapest now and what a change that is from Cesky Krumlov. Krumlov was a quaint little medieval town with tiny streets winding up, down and around and through the tiniest of gaps between houses. We had a very pleasant relaxed time wondering around and also learning a little about it's medieval past. And what a crazy, gruesome time that was. Sorry no exclaimation marks btw, crayz hungarian keyboard. The town's fortunes fell dramatically shortly after the enlightenment and thus it was more or less preserved it it's medieval state to the present day. After drinking our final czech beer and eating my final goulash we boarded the train to Hungary. Several border crossings (we went through Austria) and several changes of train staff (they change when you enter a new country) we are now in Budapest. I am somewhat envious of Kelly, she got a nice stamp when we entered AND left a country so she got 5 I think. I, having a silly EU passport, did not get any. Poopilydoops. Tomorrow we take the train to Sarajevo, in Bosnia. Hurrah, 12 hours of train based fun. Woopie.

Kelly in our hostel window