Back in London - Lyn and Kevin arrive

We arrived back in London with packs full of clean clothes thanks to the hostel in Brasov having a washing machine in our bathroom. This was lovely as it usually is a mad rush to get everything clean so I have clothes to wear. We also arrived home to left over pancakes! I love Sundays! That night we headed out for dinner with Damien’s friend from Melbourne Stacey and her sister Alison who had come back from their Contiki tour. It sounded like they had an amazing time and we tried to talk them into getting their UK visa’s and move over here for a couple of years. We’ll see what happens.

On the Monday we did something very cool that is only available for UK residents and important people. We climbed up the 326 steps of the clock tower and saw the bell Big Ben. This was very interesting and it told us about the history of the clock tower, how it was designed and modified with the introduction of electricity. The clocks are still mechanical to this day and keep time to within a second each 24 hours. This was considered impossible by clock makers at the time but they managed. With seasonal fluctuations in temperature the workers who manage the clock add or subtract old fashioned pennies to the pendulum to add or subtract mass to keep the time consistent.
The rest of the week has been pretty lazy. We are preparing ourselves for the next trip, Portugal with Lyn and Kevin Damien’s parents. They are arriving on Friday morning and Damien is starting to get a bit excited about seeing his mummy.
Damien actually got a couple of days work which was nice, just through one of his temping agencies. It means we will get paid this week, although not much, and the second half of the week went very quick.

Lyn and Kevin arrived on Friday, and were at the hotel in time to see Damien before he ran off to work. After a walk in Hyde Park and settling into their room, it was time to head down to the Shepherds Bush Walkabout. We were hoping to see the St Kilda game, however the dodgy AFL changed the draw at the last minute, so we ended up seeing Carlton and Freo. It was a good game and we had a few drinks to catch up on the past 18months gossip. Turns out the Saints game the following day was a shocker anyway. Saturday after a big English breakfast, we all headed to Oxford Street. This was via Hyde Park and Marble Arch. We did a spot of shopping in Primark (discount central) and were looking for someone to repair Christine’s broken glasses. After a coffee we headed to London Bridge and the Borough Market. This is the food market that we like so much. We looked around, bought some bread, olives and Turkish delight and then had some lunch. We then walked home, a long walk, along the Thames past the Tate, the Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and St James Park. Exhausted we chilled out at home and ate and drank the night away. Sunday was the first day of the Notting Hill Carnival. After a lazy morning and hanging around the hotel until the rain stopped, we headed out to have a look. The Parade was a bit disappointing, much of it were just people sitting on trucks, although there were some good costumes. The heart of the festival was in the side streets where there were heaps of DJ’s on the street, thousands of people, stalls and markets. After the craziness we retreated to Hyde Park for a quiet drink, before having leftover pasta for dinner. Our last day in London before we headed off to Portugal was again spent walking. This time along the canals, past Little Venice, Lords, Regents Park to Camden Markets. The park was very nice and we got a few photos outside Lords. Lunch at the markets was good, we saw the Camden Loch in use and enjoyed the colorful side of London, one of our favorite suburbs. We took the train back to the hotel before getting packed and having dinner and drinks.

One more sleep and were off to Portugal!

As mentioned earlier check this Blog out, quite interesting, similar food to what we have been munching on for the past 18 months!
http://mediterraneanmastication.blogspot.com/

Brasov - Romania

We arrived in Bucharest at 6am and were a little overwhelmed by the train station. It was packed with people and no sooner than leaving the platform we had tiny Romanian people asking for money. The first ATM we came across had a scruffy looking little man studying a scruffy little bit of paper (looked dodgy) so we went in search of another one. It wasn’t fun negotiating the crowd with a wheely bag that has a mind of it’s own. I was also trying to make sure Damien was no more than two steps behind to watch the day pack on my back full of all our valuables.
Finally we got money, got train tickets and were on the way to Brasov. The journey was nice. We passed through the city and entered the picturesque Transylvanian countryside. Romania is amazing in the sense that it has cars and espresso machines whilst people still use the horse and cart and stack hat bales by hand. The farmland gave way to rolling hills which in turn became beautiful rugged mountains.

We arrived in Brasov and were surprised at how flat the area was, as we had been told it was in the middle of some mountains, we couldn’t see any! After a 10 minute bus ride we arrived at the happy hostel and collapsed, until hunger woke us around 5pm. The 15min walk into town took us around 40mins and we finally arrived at the suggested restaurant Sergiana. We had a beautiful meal but were both extremely full on the waddle around the old town and back to the hostel. I’ve asked Damien to remind me not to eat a full days food in one sitting. Thurs 19th
A girl we met in Nis (Connie) Serbia, told us about the hostel and how she went paragliding. This sounded like a good idea so we got ourselves organized and were picked up early to head to the mountains. It was a 10 minute chair lift ride up the mountain then we got geared up. I had a very sexy jump suit and hot pink helmet whist Damien got a more subdued purple helmet. We looked very pretty. Then it was time to run, quite literally. The slope we were on was very steep so the instructor told me to run when the breeze was just right then before I knew it we were airborne. It is an amazing feeling. I expected the wind to be ripping past but it is really quite gentle. That is until you hit a thermal and spiral up a couple of meters a second, that felt more like a rollercoaster, especially with an upset stomach. The view was wonderful and it was fun to watch Damien’s progress as he glided down gently, then spiraled up in a thermal. All too soon it was over and we were dropped off at the hostel where I am ashamed to say we collapsed into bed again. When we woke we headed into towards old town again, walked along the old city wall and found a nice viewing point. We listened to the old church bells chiming over the valley, checked out some old towers and then called it a night.
Fri 20th
We will blame it on the fact that we have both had upset stomachs, we think it’s viral, but we slept in. By the time we were ready to head out it was quite late. We had hoped to travel to some mountains but the bus was full so we headed to Bran Castle instead. We were both pleasantly surprised by how much we liked it. This is the setting for much of Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula. We wandered through the castle, stopping every now and again to let the hordes of pushy tourists past. Bran Castel was built in 1378 and is a maze of rooms, passages and windows overlooking the countryside and courtyard. Finally we left the Castel but went for a walk to try to get a better view of the Castel from the outside. Up a mountain we were rewarded with great views.
Sat 21st
Our agenda today was to get up early, head to the mountains, get back to Brasov in the afternoon and then travel the 3hours to Bucharest where we stay the night before heading back to London on Sunday. We did get up early, made it to the bus station at 8:40 in time for the 9:10 bus, only to discover that it’s a Saturday timetable and the next bus is not until 10:10. Bugger!
We finally got on the bus, but only just. The Romanians pack onto the coaches so that the aisle was crowded with people. One lady even bought a beer crate to sit on, we stood. The hour and a half to Fagaras was eventful with people getting on a off and one woman fainting. Luckily her children were sitting on strangers laps, the Romanian children are very friendly and climb all over you at the slightest invitation.
When we arrived at Fagaras we discovered another blunder in our planning, or lack of. The bus into the mountains from the town did not run on Saturdays. Very annoyed we found a nice park to eat our packed lunch. Silently we watched to locals passing by. Our park bench was on the bank of a river and on the opposite bank was a large impressive building. When we finished eating we decided to have a walk around it as the next bus back to Brasov was not for 2 hours.
The building turned out to be Castle with a moat which happened to be open to the public for a medieval festival. We did a lap of the stalls then discovered that we could do a tour by following some arrows. This led us through a series of hallways, huge rooms with vaulted ceilings and exposed beams, spiraling staircases and basement tunnels. This was very cool, as there were not really any tourist, so we could pretend we had the place to ourselves.
Feeling a lot better about our trip, we headed back to Brasov, happy to have seats for the whole of the journey. We collected our bags from the hostel, said goodbye to Simona the lady who runs the hostel and headed to the bus station. We were very happy to get the first bus to Bucharest and arrived in the city around 9pm. This didn’t leave much time to see the city which was disappointing but you can’t do everything, something we are slowly coming to terms with.

(Note, our bus was full when they let another guy on, no seats, no problem, heres a fishing stool mate, ahhh... Romania!)

Varna - Bulgaria

We arrived nice and early at the hostel and were greeted by Dave, the extra friendly owner/manager of Flag Hostel. We told him we were heading to Bucharest next then onto Brasov which he approved of as he said Bucharest was an absolute hole. He advised us to take the overnight train and to get our train tickets early as all the Russian tourists take the train through Bucharest back to Moscow. This proved harder than we thought as the ticket sales office was quite difficult to find. Finally we had our tickets so we headed to the beach. Due to the fact that our bag contained our new train tickets, all our local currency, wallets, credit cards, our passports and we had been warned that the beach was often targeted by thief’s, we took turns to have a swim. The water was much cooler here than down South in Burgas so we were actually able to cool down which was nice.

We headed back to the hostel for showers and got ready for dinner. Dave the owner organizes to take everyone to a local Bulgarian restaurant each night. This was great as it meant we weren’t walking around trying to find somewhere to eat and we had company. The restaurant was in the basement of a building and was decorated with an array of traditional Bulgarian ornaments including deer skulls, stuffed ducks, pigs hoof coat hangers and a huge boars head. After dinner we headed down to the beach to sit in the sand and have a few more beers.

The next day we took advantage of the free bike hire and headed through the park and along the coast. We stopped on the way to buy some pastries’ for lunch at a bakery and then ate these in the park, watching the feral dogs enjoy rolling in the grass. All around Eastern Europe there are heaps of feral cats and dogs that really want to be your best friend, if you have some food. They are not threatening but it always makes me sad that they don’t have a family to look after them properly.
The coast line was lovely with lots of sandy beaches. Dave had told us earlier that morning that the local Mafia had built a road along the beach and controlled many of the bars. You could see that the area was dripping with money. We stopped at one part of the beach with was lovely with lots of beautiful wooden lounges and palm trees full of fruit. The thing about the 50 or so palm trees was they looked too perfect, on closer inspection they were in fact made of plastic!

Spirit of Burgas - Bulgaria

After the bus ride we arrived at Yonat Hostel around 11pm. We were a bit disappointed to discover that our 2 bed dorm was actually a converted lounge room and also a thorough fare to a 4 bed dorm and therefore gave no privacy. The beds were so old and uncomfortable that they felt like you were sleeping in a hammock. It was also pretty hot, which didn’t make it easy to sleep. One good thing about the room was it had a double window over my bed but this opened inward. This meant I had one window pane just above my head and the other one across thighs meaning that if I woke up suddenly I was likely to bang both my head and my legs. Good times.

In the morning we headed out to breakfast with another Aussie Emily. She was meeting a couple of friends later in the day and the three of them would camp in the festival camping ground. Breakfast was at one of the many cafes along the main strip and we had salads which were a nice respite after all the beautiful meat we had been eating. After breakfast we had a swim to cool down but discovered the water in the Black Sea is surprisingly warm. It felt like it was around 25˚C so you didn’t actually cool down until you got out and the breeze hit you. Then of course the sun would also hit you and you would start to get hot again! Once we were done at the beach we headed to the Seagarden for a nap. The Seagarden is a park that runs alongside the beach front which has many trees and is nice and shady making it a popular place for naps as I’m sure many hostels including ours, and all the tents were far too hot during the day for sleep. A combination of the heat and lack of sleep over the past few days meant that I had a migraine. I was determined to head to the festival but after nearly falling asleep in my dinner, and making next to no sense when chatting to Damien, decided that bed was a better option.

Damien headed out to the festival after dropping me off at the hostel and tells me the Prodigy was awesome! He has been trying really hard not to rub in the fact that I missed a really good show, but as soon as someone asks him how it was, he gets all excited, sees my reaction then tries to tone it down.

The second day it was pancakes for breakfast then the same routine of a swim then a sleep in the park. Today I was feeling a bit better so managed to head into the festival to see Unkle and DJ Shadow. The best part about the festival is that it is actually on the beach. This also meant that it was really hard work to try to dance along as you were dancing on sand. I didn’t last long dancing, but found a good spot in the sand to watch the stage and enjoy the show. I really liked the local stage although I couldn’t understand what the band was singing about as it was in Bulgarian. I think the band was called ‘Pizza’ and it was a bit of a fusion between jazz, rock and punk. Everlast was meant to be playing tonight but cancelled in the last week and were replace on the main stage by a Bulgarian band called Wickeda, who were good and had a decent following.
It was the last day of the festival and I was feeling pretty good so we jumped on a bus and headed to ‘Sunny Beach’. This is Bulgaria’s equivalent to the Gold Coast. There were tacky hotels as far as the eye could see and it was actually difficult to find a spot to put your towel as the beach was covered with umbrellas and lounges for hire. We had a swim then got yelled at for using the shade of one of the unoccupied umbrellas. There were hundreds of these set up and most of them were free, so I’m not sure why the guy got so agro.
When we got back to the hostel we showered then headed out for dinner. By chance we met Emily and her friends for dinner at the same restaurant we had eaten at the first morning. We all then headed to the festival for the final evening which had a solid line up of Serj Tankin, Gorillaz and some DJ ‘Grand master Flash’.

The Festival is really cool, the main stage and many of the smaller stages are on the beach in the sand. The lineup of artists isn’t as strong as we would have liked it to have been (a few late cancellations didn’t help), but it has still been well worth the 60 euro we paid for the 3 day ticket. The bars in the festival were also a bit crap, taking 10-15 minutes just to get a beer that is half full of froth is not a great way to spend time at a festival!
The highlights were the Prodigy with great sound and an amazing light show. They also played a range of their older tracks and were excellent on stage, at one stage they had the whole crowd crouching in the sand during a pause in the music. Our other favorites was Serj Tankian (singer from System of a Down), who was probably the best from a musical point of view, although his preaching on stage was bit of a turn off between songs. Apollo 440 and Unkle were bit of a pleasant surprise, both putting on good performances. Of the Dj’s we were a bit disappointed by most of them. Gorillaz were a bit sedate, much of the crowd left half way through their performance and the other main ones (Andy C and Grand Master Flash) had good special effects and some decent music, but had annoying MC’s with a mike yelling ‘come on’ or ‘lets go’ every 30 seconds for 2 hours (alright mate so someone gave you a microphone but you’re not really that important). We actually enjoyed hanging out at the local stage which was quite small, but the artists played some good music and everyone was partying having a good time.

Sofia - Bulgaria

We were super keen to get to the hostel in Sofia as Kate and Phil from ground crew in Spain were going to be there. Sure enough when we walked in they were sitting around not doing a lot, Phil with his big red beard. We headed out for dinner to some Bulgarian restaurant. It took ages for the beer to be bought to the table, but the food was good, ‘boned lamb’ and the ‘wolf’s satch’ (mixed grill) and a side of eggplant with grilled feta. Since Spain Kate and Phil had been traveling through Croatia, Montenegro and Kosovo and were heading to Turkey next.
After dinner we couldn’t find an inviting pub so instead got some takeaways and headed back to the hostel. At about 2am we saw the clock on the wall, 3am, and realized we had crossed another time zone earlier, late night! The Hostel Mostel is a good one, an old Greek halfway house back in the day, converted into a hippy commune/hostel. They do free breakfast and dinner (but we were too late) but the staff were the best bit as they were super helpful. After breakfast and fare welling Kate and Phil we went for a walk around the city. Some parts are very old and run down but others are very nice and clean. We wandered past the court house and then down the yellow brick road, past churches and fountains. In a little old Russian church we saw a ceremony, a baby being christened which was nice and then headed to the big grand Alexander Nevski Cathedral. The Cathedral was as big and nice as some of the churches in Italy and France but much darker as the fresco had not been restored to the same level.

We headed back to the hostel via some markets and a pizza shop, we were about to leave when Damien found out we could get our ticket to ‘Spirit of Burgas’ festival in Sofia. The festival is the reason we are headed to Burgas, in such a hurry, so we bought our tickets, in case we got there and they were sold out. Then it was back on the bus for the last leg of our 26 hour journey on the road, from the west coast of Croatia to the east coast of Bulgaria.

Nis - Serbia

From Sarajevo we had a long bus ride (11hours) to Nis (pronounced Nish). We left at about 8:40am, crossed the border into Serbia and arrived in Nis after 7pm. The driver didn’t speak English, and it felt like if we were 5 seconds late back on the bus after a break, he would have left without us. We were the only Australian’s onboard, but there were a few equally confused English. We were very grateful to Jasmin for packing up our dinner as the lunch break was only about 20 minutes or so, not long enough to order and eat when you can’t even read the menu.

The hostel in Nis (Downtown Hostel) was great, all new, small (only 11 beds) and the staff were very helpful. We met an Austrian couple, an American and two Frenchies. Connie (Chinese/American from Texas living in London) joined us for dinner at a small take away burger joint recommended by the hostel. The burgers were called Pueskavica, and we could see the ladies hand making the patties. After choosing beef you choose other toppings, we had mayo, homemade chili sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, onion and grilled veggies. We bought 2 pints of beer from a shop nearby and ate by a fountain in the main street. The food was delicious, and a steal for €3 for the both of us including drinks. We then ate choc jam donuts (the first we have seen since leaving Australia) from a bakery for dessert and walked down to the old fort, the main tourist attraction in Nis. It was great talking to Connie as she had come from where we were headed, and she was on her way to Sarajevo and Croatia. The night was a bit noisy, the hostel is next to a river bar that had loud music until 3am, on a Tuesday! At about 6am the jack hammers started, some street works making it a difficult night for Christine. Surprisingly Damien didn’t hear all this and had a great night’s sleep!

After breakfast the next morning we wandered around the town in daylight and then visited the Skull Tower, a monument built after the Čegar Battle (1809). It was built by the Ottomans using 952 skulls of Serbian Soldiers as a warning to the Serbian people. The Serbs view it as an inspirational monument celebrating the courage of their soldiers. These days it only has about 50-100 skulls remaining and a building has been constructed around the tower to protect the remaining skulls. It’s a bit gruesome but very interesting. Nis also has a WWII concentration camp which we didn’t visit as there is no English commentary. Instead our last few hours and Serbian Dinar was spent in a Coffee shop (€1 coffee or €1.20 for a liquor coffee, easy choice).
We then headed to catch our bus, 4 hours to Sofia (Bulgaria). The Austrian couple from our hostel were on the same bus so much of the trip was spent chatting to them.

Bosnia and Hercegovina

After a week sailing in Croatia which had been amazing, we were ready to get off the boat. Turns out that Michelle and Gerrad from the boat had also planed their next stop to be Sarajevo, they had hired a car and offered us a lift, rather than us taking a bus. This was a much easier and comfortable method of transport and also gave us the opportunity to stop at Mostar.

From Split we drove East, across the border into Bosnia and Hercegovina. The GPS (fondly named Valerie) was generally quite helpful, only getting us off track a few times. The worst of which was taking us off the freeway onto a ramp that actually ended, the ash felt finished and dropped away to a gravel track, not the best for an overloaded compact model. After about 3 hours we arrived in Mostar, we parked the car in a side street and decided to walk into town.

The reality of the recent conflict was apparent instantly. We had parked in a residential area of ten story apartment blocks. The walls of the building had hundreds of divots in them, ranging from golf ball to baseball sized, which was where an array of bullets and rockets had hit the building. Walking through the peaceful streets we saw the same divots in the pavement, the road and even trees.

The next street we walked along happened to be what used to be the front line. The street was lined, on both sides with building ranging from rubble to newly restored. These included apartment blocks, schools, churches and a hospital. Often you wondered how they could possibly still be standing due to the extent of the damage. As shocking and horrible as the street scene is, it is so interesting, like a living history book. Personally I hope they maintain some buildings in the post war state as a reminder of what occurred.

We continued on in amazement, it’s like nothing we had ever seen, apart from on TV. Once we found the old town, which had been restored to it’s pre-war condition, we sat down to our first Bosnian meal, mmmmm… meat! We ate Cevapi sausages and steaks in bread and a side of salad for the ladies!

The old town of Mostar has lovely pebble stone streets, but no cars, small stone buildings with small restaurants, art and tourist shops. Mostar is famous for it’s Stari Most or “old bridge” built in Medieval times. It is a very pretty bridge with a point in the middle that is 21 meters above the river that locals sometimes dive into to impress the tourists. Sadly no divers on our visit. The bridge was completely destroyed in November 1993, after surviving 427 years including both World Wars. Needless to say they have rebuilt it and it looks great. After a quick visit to the old Bridge Museum we headed back to the car and hit the road.

It was 2 hours to Sarajevo and unexpectedly, an unreal drive. The whole country is scattered with ruined buildings, but what we were not expecting is how beautiful the country side is. Similar to Switzerland there are mountains and rock formations that follow rivers and lakes with bright blue water. Except for the shortage of time and the threat of landmines, we would have loved to do some hiking.
The first couple of hours were a pain in Sarajevo, finding a car park and accommodation (we hadn’t booked anything and most places were full) we did find a hotel so it wasn’t the end of the world. We met back up with Gerrad and Michelle for drinks, a look about town and meat platters for dinner. The next morning, after a big breakfast (inc sausages and fried eggs) after all the plain breakfasts on the boat, we met up with Gerrad and Michelle. We found out the ‘Times of misfortune’ tour was starting in 20 minutes. It cost €25 but was worth every cent.

Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Hercegovina and only 15 year ago was a war torn city of rubble. Today it has been 98% restored, looks quite nice, with only a few indicators of war. The tour was in a mini van, seven people in ours, and focuses on the recent siege which lasted 1992-1995. Our guide joined the army when the war began, aged 16. His parents spent their last 500 mark (€250) to buy him a gun so he could join. His uniform was a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He survived the war, just, towards the end he was shot in the chest and stomach and spent 6 months in hospital.

The war began when Bosnia and Hercegovina became independent from Yugoslavia. At the time Bosnia and Hercegovina did not even have an army. The Serbs surrounded the city, which is situated in the valley of a number of mountains and cut off all connections with the outside world. After days of air strikes the UN decided Sarajevo was a no fly zone.

Over the next 4 years, Serb snipers and rockets terrorized the city. Over 10,000 people died, mostly civilians including 2,000 children. They cut power, water and gas to the city and destroyed churches, hospitals, schools basically anything to crush the people. The locals managed to defend the city with the limited resources supplied by the police and local criminals, but were unable to push the Serbs back.

The tour drove us around town, pointing out significant buildings, and the city dotted with grave yards, as people were being shot during funerals so this had to be done under the cover of darkness in places that were formally parks, gardens and even a soccer stadium.
The tour also visited the tunnel museum. To survive the siege the Bosnians realized they needed to acquire aid and weapons independently of the UN. The solution was to dig a 800m tunnel 5m underground. This went from Sarajevo under the UN controlled Airport to another Bosnian held town. From here people could escape through Croatia and more importantly, weapons, food, gas and electricity was bought in.

The siege finally finished after NATO stepped in. The trigger was the massacre of 8000 civilians in a week in Srebrenica, a town that had downed arms with a UN promise of protection. Interestingly it was Bill Clinton who led the push for action to be finally taken, not what he’s remembered for! NATO hit the Serb bunkers with air strikes and within a week there was a peace agreement.

The Bosnian people cannot understand why it took nearly 4 years for the UN and NATO to act. My feeling is that they were nervous about Russia (and possibly other communist states) who were supporting the Serbs. Just my opinion but perhaps they didn’t want to get involved for fear of World War 3.

After the tour we grabbed a quick lunch and then said final thanks and goodbye to Michelle and Gerrad. Sarajevo is also the place where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, causing the start of WWI. At the site of this place is a plaque and a short movie recreating the scene. The afternoon was spent sorting some bus tickets, drinking Bosnian coffee, Christine did some shopping while Damien walked up one of the hills to an old well and fort with views over the city. He was pleasantly surprised to see a model doing a photo shoot in front of the sunset! For dinner we returned to the restaurant from the day before (‘Cevabdzinica Dzenita’ on Prote Bakovica). Our waiter, Jasmin, was happy to see us again and helped us to choose some more Bosnian dishes including a soup, a veal meat dish with paprika, tomatoes and champignons. We also ate the meat and vegetable platters again, which seemed a lot larger than the first night. All of this came with bread, and we didn’t finish it all so Jasmin packed it up for our lunch the next day. If your ever in town we HIGHLY recommend the tour and the restaurant. If you get to spend longer than us we would say head for the hills and do some walking, with a guild due to the possibility of landmines and say hi to Jasmin for us!