Euronoryoko

2007-12-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

Evening all, the post which is about to follow may not be very interesting, up to date or even carbon neutral but it will, unless future events contradict this, constitute the final and penultimate blog entry on the subject of mine and Kelly's European adventure. For the record and here I am speaking in hindsight I did not make any navigational errors during our journey, despite what the following picture may suggest...I hope all your lives are thus blessed.
Either side of seeing this sign but on the same side of the sign we spent amongst the best 2 (plus) hours driving of the entire trip.
So well, when I last graced this blog I like to call mine it was before we motored off leaving these petty bourgeoisie ladies eating their ice creams and talking about it in the dust. And believe me there was allot of dust, so much dust..

So where was I? I have just gone and got myself a drink and gone and lost my train of thought. Actually now I have three drinks in front of me; tea, whisky and water. Perhaps that needs explaining. It is all to do with our lack identity these days, no what rot! We have too many conflicting identities. OH I don't know, all I know is I couldn't decide which drink I actually wanted to drink. First I though 'it's late I need some tea if I am going to stay up and write this blog', you know for the caffeine. But then I though 'no I want to write a create, quirky post, I need to be more bohemian, I need alcohol', so I poured the whisky. By this time the kettle had boiled and I made my tea. Then I though no I need water, keep my self hydrated you know. So who am I, the hard working go getter who can't rely on his circadian rhythms and needs cAMP to keep up his overachieving? Or am I the bohemian type who eschews societies stereo types and drinks alcohol to do something or other and not just to get drunk, or am I am I aware of the needs of my body and living an enlightened and healthy life, possible in tune with 'nature' or something? I probably should have just gone with my first instinct and stayed with the tea and not over analysed it. Maybe that is the best tack to choose on life, give your subconscious some credit and go with that gut instinct. Or actually maybe just have it all, as I seem to have done, although come to think of it there may be some orange juice in the fridge too. Also notice I am British so I drink tea and Scottish so I drink Whisky. Anyway, ROMANIA, jeez get with the puh-rogram!
So we got the car and due to me taking what I though would be a teeney weeney little scenic detour we ended up driving on some seriously rough roads up in the middle of nowhere in the mountains where the only traffic was logging trucks whose drivers looked at us strangely. But we saw a nice sunset from up there:
And then the fog came down and we decided getting adrenaline rushes from dodging big thundering trucks on a road that randomly went from two lanes to one was not best done when tired and we finally decided to just pull off the road and sleep. One of the least comfortable and generally downright awful nights of my short life. Well at least the company was good...(and by the way sleeping in the car was my idea - sorry Kelly!).
What you see above is the small and seriously uncompromising bedroom we slept in on a very, very cold night. 'Slept' is also too strong a word to use in this situation. Moving on: ON a new topic Romanian houses are better than anyone else's, including the Turks. Here we have one entirely roofed in silver. Everyone know that silver repels werewolves, not everyone knows it has the same effect on vampyres.
I am deadly serious about their houses by the way. If you ever thought having cars and not being subsistence farmers was necessary to having a wicked house you were very much mistaken. The Romanian people have much the best houses I have ever seen AND each village had different ones. I kid you not, all different and all great. If that's what superstition gets you then sign me up baby! (I've started drinking the whisky now by the way).
So, if you were wondering what happens after everything that will happen to you does then here it is dramatically and unequivocally portrayed in pictorial form. (see below)
Where was this lurid and graphic depiction depicted? Well on a wall of a monastery run my nuns. As all monasteries in Romania seem to be. Maybe I am missing something, because the Lonely Planet is never wrong. So yes these are the famous painted monasteries of buchovenia or someplace sounding much like that depending on your ability to pronounce Romanian which is nigh impossible, I hear. I read in the ineffable guide book these paintings, painted to educate the illiterate pheasants on what happens if they don't do what the monks (or nuns) say. It was rather nice of them, here in Scotland we just shoot pheasants. Anyway it mentioned that the paintings have remained remarkably bright after all those centuries.

Here is one of those great monasteries (with nuns). I think I might know why the paint was still so bright. The clue was the nuns with the paint and brushes redoing any paintings which were faded or chipped. Another curious detail which did not escape my sharp eye was that while the front of the monastery which all the tourists walk past and admire before entering was brightly painted in stark contrast to the back of the building where the paint had long since disappeared leaving only a few blotchy marks on a dirty white wall. Curious.
Please excuse my cynicalist tendencies and renew your faith in humanity and the glory of creation with this stunning photo of a monastery viewed through some Virginia creepers taken by Kelly. The next thing I did was wash my feet in a mountain stream and dry them by a camp fire. I won't sully the memory with maladroit attempts to describe the immense pleasure this gave me.

And then we totally gate crashed a Romanian wedding and it was totally awsome! And I got told off by some nuns for taking pictures of them....stupid proletariats.

And no dramatically out of sequence we went to some national park and saw some equally dramatic rock formations. But instead of showing and boring you with endless picture of rocks I will not. I will show you one.
Here is my singular and singularly dramatic rock in a canyon of which name I have in all my great wisdom deemed forgettable and in doing so forgotten. Enjoy.
So Rural Romania! What is it like I hear you think (out aloud)! Well, what are the stereo types? It's like that, no seriously! Look! Cloves of dried garlic hanging from the fronts of houses!

And people getting fresh milk delivered in pales in the morning. Pales of fresh milk, oh how I envy these people! I do, not only do they have brilliant houses they eat better than us. I don't want some exotic curry made in a factory out of reprocessed high fructose corn mush with a ton of added salt and evil E's! No I want the bounty of the earth, apples and pears from trees groaning under the weight of all the fruit and fresh milk in PALES and eggs from chickens I can see happily scratching in the dirt outside and a lovely piece of beef from Daisy the cow I slaughtered yesterday! And that is what the people of the Romanian countryside had. In abundance and how I envy them for it!

They deserve it all though, as far as we could see all farming was done by honest toil of man and beast. Here is a man plowing his field. Horses are the main engines of the Romanian countryside, once we got out of the towns horse and carts greatly outnumbered international combustion jobs.
What a fine figure this lady cuts. Look at her forearms as she tirelessly gathers in the hay. If I was Stalin I would have a statue made of her as an example of a good solid proletariat type.
And look how thick this man's belt is, you can judge the measure of a man by the thickness of his belt. Yes they cut the hay by scythe! And it is not hay as we know it, no! It is rich in flowers and herbs and all sorts, you would pay a pretty penny for such rich hay here, no wonder their animals are so strong. In fact I wouldn't mind a bowl full it with milk still warm from the cow for breakfast before I went out and worked the fields with my massive forearms. Is it coincidence our multicultural society produces monoculture hay and their monoculture produces multicultural hay...yeah I don't know where I am going with that.
And here we have it, a Sheppard. A real life Sheppard with a green felt had. A green felt hat ladies and gentlemen. I really wanted one of those but I never did find one. It hurts. It hurts.

So the roads in Romania are incredible. You go from perfectly smooth asphalt with markings to dust, to rough rubble, to smooth rubble, to perfect asphalt with no markings, to mud with deep ruts, to cobble stones with patches of asphalt, to dust with ruts to asphalt with huge pot holes and all in about half an hour. All the while switching from two lanes to one and back again! keeps you on your toes. The Romanian construction worker is a creature of habit and his habit is thus, choose looong stretches of road to work. Then dig all the holes needed and take up all the surface to be replaced along the whole length of the road making most of it tricky going for anything less than a SUV. Then slowly, and I mean slowly, start to work on filling in those holes and resurfacing the road. Also never ever use any safety gear, not even safety glasses, never!

And then we came tooooo Maramures. Oh Maramures how I remember you so fondly. Oh I was wrong to doubt you! This is when we had out greatest time, truly, but it is late, I will finish this blog tomorrow. If you have read my ramblings this far stop and think how you could have better spent your time. Have you thought? OK good I will see you back here tomorrow for the final section of this post. Goodnight!

Going to the Maramures area was Kelly's idea, as was going to eastern Europe. Full of good ideas that gal! I first became aware of the area when Kelly showed me a touristic brochure on the area showing the predictable photos of Happy Romanian in their tradition clothes (frilly white shirts, fur waist coats, head scarfs and colourful skirts) doing dances and other traditional community based activities. Typical tourist bumph I presumed. In short I was wrong and it was really like that and what's more there weren't even many other tourists there, certainly much less than any other area of Romanian we had been to. They really did still live like that, not for anyone elses benefit but just because that was the way they lived. No doubt it will change as more tourists come and some locals notice the money they bring and start to cater for the tourist hoards. We noticed it starting to happen but it was still a very undeveloped area in terms of tourism. Go soon if you have the chance, although perhaps it is already too late.

When we first drove into the area it was foggy, here is a wooden church rising majestically through the fog. Wood based crafts are big in this area. All the churches are built of wood and houses had large ornate, carved wooden gates.

We arrived on a Sunday and as we drove along we noticed many old folks dressed in their Sunday best walking along by the side of the road. Likely they were going to church or into the big town for business or social reasons (car ownership was low to non existent in the smaller villages). Many were signalling they wanted a ride so after some faffing we stopped and picked up this guy. He spoke no English but sat very quietly and politely in the back of our car. We gave him some chocolate which he graceiously accepted. When we got to the big town he signalled where to let him off and offered us some money, we accepted a photo with him instead. Here he is:
Next on the list was the Cheerful graveyard. Two generations of woodcarvers (just two men, a master followed by his apprentice) created this unique graveyard. The wooden grave markers were carved and painted in bright colours, on each there were one or two pictures represnting the person as they were in life (if they liked drinking it showed them doing that) or perhaps at the moment of their death (for instance being hit by a car or in one case rollerblading next to a train). They also had written on them a humerous poem about the deceased but those were in Romanian so we couldn't partake fully. I liked it though, it was far from crass and came across as rather tender and certainly more personal that the usual sombre affairs. This lady it seems had two men as lovers? On the other side she is shown as a repectable house wife.
As we drove our charge to his destination we passed this mounted procession. Oh how I yierned to give them a good drive by photo-ing.

However we did return this time armed with a Swiss. The parade has been in honour of this man, Brian Blessed the King of Romainia!

Did yah thing he was a king, did yah? Just for a moment? Silly! He's an orthodox priest (and not sir Brian), but yes he does have a rather kingly attire. As far as we could tell the whole village was out in their Sunday best to hear him speak.
Here I am with some smartly dressed youngsters. And below walking past some smartly dresed mademoiselles. I wore my kilt so that they would have something to look and point at so I wouldn't feel so bad looking and pointing my camera at them.
Another of our sything insights was that what people mostly did for most of a Sunday was sit on benches (which they all had outside their houses) and talk and drink (bootleg acohol and coffee liquer). All the women wore skirts and head scarfs and the men all wore hats too. How civilised! Here are two hatted men in action.
Kelly I must say was quite taken by this bench sitting, so we approached this group and asked to have our picture with them. You could not imagine what trouble and down right fun that got us into!

For instance it led to this:

The following picture partly explains how the above came about.
The above also led to the horrific scene you see below, viewer discresion adviced.
All I can say is that Romanian hospitality is legendary. That guy is the Swiss backpacker we picked up btw. As he was single our Romanian host felt bad for him and took us all to a bar to try and get a girl for him, that's hospitality! There was only one girl at the bar, the bar maid, but he made her come talk to him for ages which was cool. We ate and drank and laughed with his family and stayed at their house. We payed but by the amount of food and especially the amount of acholhol they threw at us they did not make a profit (we left a little extra when we left the next morning). It was great and all done with NO common language at all. Although I did try to use my pictionary skills to limited effect mosty what happened is we talked to each other and then laughed at our mutual lack of understanding! And then drank some more alcohol. One memorable moment was when the father gave us some napkins with our food but they were scented ones so not really appropriate for use around the mouth. As a result the mother gave him a good yelling at and sent the little boy running to the shop to get some normal ones. She did allot of yelling at the father after which she would always turn and smile sweetly at us. He would do the hurt puppy dog look and drink some more. We figured they were drinking so much because it was a Sunday but when they rocked up at 7am the following morning with our breakfast the father has some beer.
Here we are in the glorious Romanian countryside.

And here we are being respectful travelers and not ruthlessly drive by photo-ing inocent babushkas.

We left Romania after seeing some more splendid scenery and me having a day of violent food poisoning.

Here we are in one of Budapest's famous spas. All very nice except I was pretty grossed out by being in water with all those other people. I won't be doing that again. Communal bathing is not in my cultural heritage.
Kelly looking lovely in Budapest, that is the Hungarian parliment in the background. Oh Hungarian food is excellent by the way, if you are in Budapest eat at a restaurant called 'Mensa' or 'Menza'. The best meal of the whole trip. But don't try Polinka the local booze, worst stuff ever.
Out of order, but here we are in an ice cave in Romania (underground glacier).
A day spent energetically walking in the lovely hills of Romania, the day after my food poisoning day. It was an intense experience, eased by Kelly's skillful nursing.
Just look at this old Romanian Lady's face! Don't you just wanna pinch it and go 'oh your such an adorable little babushika, yes you are!'

After all that we went to Germany to visit my relos whome I have shamefully neglected over the past few years. This is my grandparent's house there, they live in half and my uncle who runs the farm lives in the other half. Just as it looks it is a very old house.

This is the house we got to stay in. It was so nice to have a house all to ourselves, THANKYOU Uschi (and Uschi's father). Es war schon ein hause fur uns aleine zu haben, dankeschon Uschi und Friederich.
If you look down to the bottom right of this photo you see a church, but what are we looking down from, what could be so much higher than a church tower?
Cologne Cathedral that's what! It is big, very big. Too big to really take in.
A sleeping pussy. Nuff said.

We spent some time cycling around the german countryside, here is kelly mid cycle.

And the best thing about Germany aside from seeing my relos? Fresh Brotchens! Little bread rolls which are the best thing. Nothing is quite like them especially when they are delivered fresh. Here is the delivery Van. German food is not really famous for being amazing or anything but it is the only food that I can just eat and eat and eat. That may be allot to do with Meine Omas cooking but if I were living in Germany I would be fat, no doupt.
Soest the nearby town where my father went to school is very picturesque, my favourite church is this one which has a warped spire.
Here is my Father and Kelly.
This is the oldest house in Soest.

And then we were off to London! The BIG city were your money mysteriously evaporates. Aside from the siteseeing I got to meet up with many old friends which was really great. Thanks Ed and Sahra and Ellen for having us to stay!

Here is a big crack in the floor of the Tate modern what people call art. It is called Shiboleth. Actually I quite liked it but only after I read what it represented. I was kind of cool because it made use of the whole building (not just the floor).

Oh lovely British weather! How I missed you!

Back at the Kelvingrove gallery in Glasgow, what a wonderfully evocative machine this is!

While visiting my Uncle and Aunt in Wiltshire and while having a lovely time there (Thanks for having us!) we managed a day trip to Bath for Kelly's birthday. Actually it rained all day but hey it's Britian!
The guerkin, I spotted it in the distance while we were hunting for a Market and had to get a closer look. It is the first building that has ever made me stop and audibly utter 'woah,'.
The London eye. Didn't ride it, too expensive.
Some other well known London sights.

And that's it! It has been lovely having you, I expect my next blog will be about volunteering in Peru! That is the plan from Feb to July next year. After that I hope to study Environmental science/ conservation in the UK, fingers crossed I get accepted and hopefully get some funding!

Take care!

Craig

2007-10-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

Archaeological blog (just for you Elina!)

A few days ago I Kelly and my dad went to see some old stuff. To be honest there is plenty of it around here culminating in the facinating Scara Brae on Orkney. Which if you don't know (shame on you if you don't) is a nigh on perfectly preserved neolithic village. It is wonderful to be able to look back over 5000 years ago and literally see how people lived then. It is terrifically interesting to see how all the houses have a similar layout and impressive that they had an effective waste water handling system. Well back to our wee trippy. We took a walk along the Yarrow archaeological trail which neatly combines an iron age site and three neolithic sites on a easy 2 mile hike. Please note this is not an area I can boast much knowledge about in the slightest so please don't quote me on anything, I am mostly working from a pamphlet and small guide to ancient Caithness.

Here we are at the first and Iron age site. This is a Broch, something unique to Scotland. These are stone, circular towers built in the late Iron age (200BC to 200AD). Up to 12 meters in height with 4.5 meter thick walls (at ground level). Brochs have a single low doorway which can be closed with a single slab of stone and is guarded by a guard cell. Further up the walls became hollow and there was access to the top via a stair case. Ruins of Brochs are found all over the north of Scotland and the Northern and Western Isles. It is obviously a defensive structure Brochs do show evidence of regular domestic habitation. The other ruins surrounding the Broch at Yarrows however were built by the Picts a few hundred years after the Broch was first made. Brochs are made without motor or anything except rock, drystone as we call it here. It is also the method which many garden and farm field walls are made of in Scotland and is by no means a dead art. It is still actively practiced, we had a drystone waller come and fix the drystone wall in front of our house. If you want to say it in something more of a Scots accent it would be 'dry staene-dyke'.
You can see it was quite a small tower, perhaps the inner courtyard is 5 or 6 meters in diameter.
The low doorway, one would have to crouch low to get through making it easy to defend.
Some dramatic light looking south to the hills there.
Me crouching in the entrance way to a Cairn, I will get to them in a moment.
I and Kelly on the Yarrows trail at Cairn of warehouse (a round Cairn).
This is Kelly standing in front of the Long Cairn of South Yarrow South. Cairns are chambered tombs from the neolithic times, the book on ancient Caithness dates them from 4400 to 2000 years ago. The pamphlet for the Yarrows trail dates the building of the Cairn of Warehouse to 5800 years ago and says it was still in use until 4000 years ago! Anyway they are old.
Here is the entrance to the the south yarrow south Cairn. It is also low and small. Cairns are mostly found in the West of the UK and in some Eastern places such as here in Caithness. The older Cairns are circular and the later design is the long Cairn with two 'horns' at one or both ends, a sort of stage for rituals? It is seemingly not clear if these were tombs for burial or a storage place for bones which were used in ancestor worshiping rituals.
Dad standing beside the Cairn of warehouse.
Me standing in front of a windmill (last used 60 or 70 years ago) about 6km from where I live. It is next to a town called Castletown which used to be a major site of the flagstone industry. It might be a little boring but briefly: the North of Scotland has lots of a particular type of sandstone which breaks in even, smooth, flat slabs. Before concrete slabs were made they were an ideal building material especially for paving. Slab stones from Caithness were used as far away as Argentina! It is this useful buildings material which allows dry stone walls to be made and allowed our ancestors to construct Brochs and things like that.
Now we are at the Camster Cairns. This is the Long Cairn at Camster. These are two large and largely intact Cairns that have been reconstructed. This Long Cairn is in fact two circular Cairns which have been modified to make one long Cairn. The great thing is that you can crawl down the narrow, dark and claustrophobic tunnel to the burial chamber in the center. That explains the picture you have already seen.
Here is the Camster round Cairn which was the most intact, the tunnel and chamber had most of there original roofing intact! It lasted thousands of years!
A profile view of the Long Cairn.
Kelly and Dad walking to the round Cairn at Camster
Ah, now here we are at Avebury! Which is not in Scotland, it is in Wiltshire (England). We had a excellent guided tour of it and the other near-by sites from my Aunt. Thank you! The stone circle at Avebury is the UKs largest stone circle (bigger and older than Stone Henge) dating to about 5000 years ago. Just thinking of the logistics of getting something of this scale built 5000 years ago is mind boggling. It is a truly fascinating to wonder about the purpose of it all and the meaning behind it (fascinating and futile?), especially the stone which are quite obviously asymmetrically which my Aunt pointed out. Why make a perfect circle and then stick several stones in very asymetrical positions within it?
This is a Long Barrow of which there are a number in the area around the stone circle. It seems to be similar to the Cairns of Caithness but with a larger space inside. The fact which blew my mind about this was that is had been continuously used to about one thousand years! That sort of continuity is incredible. Really, we are luckily if something is constantly used for a few centuries now. Sign of a very stable society or merely of stagnation and a lack of progress?
The stones, which are huge by the way.
This is the other site in the area. An oddly symmetrical hill you say...it is artificial! Yes it is entirely man made, made around the same time at the stone circle and long barrow. This is Silbury hill, 40m high and made of almost half a million tons of chalk making it Europe's (perhaps the worlds) largest neolithic artificial mound. It is now covered in grass but being made of chalk when it was constructed it was brilliant white. Quite striking I think you will agree this 40m high cone of dazzling white in a landscape that contained few man made structures and very few of this scale. And consider it was made with no other tools than antlers from deer and elk to use as picks and shovels!
And finally here is a white horse, this one is not old but the neolithic types made similar things. Much of the ground here is chalk so if you cut away the turf you are presented with the white chalk.

Well I hope you like my old stuff blog,

Take care all!

ps. There is a blog I wrote yesterday below if you haven't read it yet.

2007-10-29T04:56:00.000-07:00

My humble apologies for not updating my blog for so long. Apparently I am better at keeping it up to date while traveling and not now that I am at home with a smidging more free time. I feel the best thing would be to update on our recent activities and fill in the gap from Romania to Germany to London to Scotland later. Very briefly we had a whale of a time with the car in Romania, undoubtedly the most adventurous and interesting portion of the journey and then we went to Germany. In Germany Kelly got to meet my German grandparents and other family members who I myself have not seen in 6 years? Shameful I know. We also had a house all to ourselves to stay in which was bliss. An absolute highlight of the time there (aside from seeing everyone again) was Oma’s cooking. We both, with our full and eager consent, put on a reasonable bit of weight in those 8 days. After that we flew with the orange airline to London where I had the great pleasure of meeting many friends again. Everyone seems to be ending up in London! London was pleasant with endless exciting and interesting distractions and most definitely lived up to its reputation of being horrifically expensive. After a tanoshii night spent with Josh, Charolette and Perry at Walten upon Thames we made out way across to Wiltshire to pay a visit to my Aunt and Uncle who live there. Lovely to see them and a delightful piece of the world. Then with funds rapidly diminishing we scampered up north with uncomfortable high bus usage and with a pit stop in Glasgow made it up safe and sound to the edge of the world, the for north of Scotland.

As I do not wish to bore you to tears by endlessly describing our doings blow by blow I shall post a great hunk of picture and intersperse this great hummock of photographery with veins of informative yet not exhaustive script. Perhaps I aught to split it into bite sized chunks; places, beasties, pairties, and ye olde historical stuff (for youuuuu Elina!). I will in the main cover only the oldest historical stuff though, prehistorical to be exact. We did visit various medieval and newer places of interest but really those are, being practically just beyond living memory such as they are, of limited interest and must be saved for a later post.

So off we go with places (around my home). And now that I have uplaoded the photos I realise I have made my usual mistake and uploaded them in the wrong order! So without further ah-do here are pictures of old stuff: Oh hang on this is taking ages, OK old stuff with follow in a specific purpose made post, sorry Elina.

So here are the first hummock of photos of parties:

Kelly and Mum enjoying a tea party!

On our second night back up north we had a little entertainment curtesy of the 'north coast jazz band'. And entertaining they were!

A couple of my attempts at arty shots of the Jazz.

I and Kelly spruced up for the Jazz at the Lyth arts center, a fantastic little place that brings a welcome bit of culture to our wee home up here in the lonely north. They host art exhibitions and performances of all sorts from all over the world during the summer months.
We went back to the lyth arts center for some big band and then this jazz jamming session with members of the Scottish youth orchestra together with the Caithness Big Band.

Beasties

The greatest hairy beastie of them all the Highland Koo.
We were lucky enough to spot of few seals at Gills bay, actually they are pretty common around these parts.
While at Johno'Groats we spotted a crab boat coming in so we bought a few from them. Here we are wrestling with the giant crustations, they proved most delicious, better than lobster in my opinion.
Some other Highland Beasties, the jump suited kind. It was Aarons Birthday, Habushuu was present - nuff said.
A pretty stunning sunrise, I am rather fond of the skies we get up at these rarefied latitudes. I ran down the road in my dressing gown to get this unobstructed shot and then just made it back in time to narrowly avoid a shower of rain.
Kelly peering into a rock pool, one of my favourite childhood pastimes.
A wee fishy!
So it seems it is still one of my favourite pastimes.

And so now we come to places:

Kelly playing chicken with the sea on Dunnet beach, it is a lovely long sandy beach about 5 or 6 km from my house. The dog gets a walk in Dunnet forest evermorning and a run along dunnet beach each evening. Lucky dog!
Looking at Dunnet head from Dunnet beach, Dunnet head is the most northernly piece of land on the Scottish (therefore British) mainland. You can see it quite easily from the back of our house, I guess it is 10 or 15km away.
As the sun gets low we turn around and make back towards our bikes, it gets dark around 5.30pm here! The long dark winter is coming!

Kelly and Mum walking along the cliff top towards the Duncansby stacks.
Kelly and my Mother at the stacks of Duncansby, the red sandstone here is full of faults which the sea erodes first forming an arch as you can see just behind the two of them and then the arch collapses and a true stack is formed.
Kelly standing at the viewpoint on Dunnet head
Looking at Dunnet beach from Dunnet head, it is about 4km long.

Kelly pausing as we walk over the dunes (which were all thrown up in one almighty storm a wee while ago)

And that has to be all for now, I will post a post about the old bits of rock we have been visiting. We are blessed with many piles of rock piled up or otherwise set in a variety of ways by those delightful neolithic folks who lived here all those years ago.

Toodles!

2007-09-27T07:14:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-19T07:17:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-13T09:22:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

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!

2007-09-04T09:03:00.001-07:00

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!

2007-09-04T07:57:00.000-07:00

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.....

2007-09-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-30T23:44:00.000-07:00

These pics bring you upto date with our journey so far! sorry I have posted in antichronological order just to befuddle you, I'm like that. We are now about to break our fast with bread and cheese (we are in europe what else!) and then set about thoroughly photographing the heck out of this place (cesky Krumlov - the cute medieval town). We will have a very comprehensive photographic record of this trip when we are done of intestest no no-one but our very worthy selves. Some of you lucky souls will be on the recieving end of said photographic record when we do return! Consider yourselves warned!
ps. the crazy bones pic are just that, we visited a chapel which had a crypt decorated with the bones of approximately 40,000 people! Decorations including the chandalier you see and also several huge bone pyramids and a bone coat of arms! Crazy!

2007-08-30T23:37:00.001-07:00

These are some pics of Prague and a random pic of a particularly energetic group of street performers in Edinburgh. We were lucky enough to be in Edinburgh in time to catch the end of the Fringe festival so we were distracted from our aching feet (much watching) by the constant shinanegens of performers from all over the world. We didn't manage to however go out at night to see a show proper due to my amazing 'look I am just like an old man falling asleep' trick. sigh....

2007-08-30T23:21:00.000-07:00

Kelly standing on Calton hill in Edinburgh.

Scotland playing the Springbocs (South Africa) at Rugby in Edinburgh.
A view down Princes street (the High street) in Edinburgh. The dark gothic pointy thing is the Scot Monument (to Sir Walter Scot).
Edinburgh castle in the evening sun.
I and Kelly enjoying some rare sunny Scottish weather below Authors seat (also in Edinburgh) before setting forth to climb it.

Here are some pictures of our trip so far. I havn't had much time to go through them but I think these are decent. Maybe I should start using the big lcd screen on my camera or maybe it is just this computer but alot of my pics seem much to dark on the computer screen. Ah well! We have been in Prague for 3 days and are now in Cesky Krumlov a lovely, almost entirely intact medieval town. Prague was wonderful of course, very beautiful and elegant and the beer naturaly was amazing. Oh the there are also pictures of the couple of days we spent in Edinburgh before we came here, we watched the Scotland vs. South Africa game, we lost booooo. Expect more pictures to be uploaded in the near future!