Blood, sweat and cheers!

Once upon a time, for a short period of time, there was a direct bus from Kars in Turkey to Tbilisi, Georgia. Nowadays the recommendation is to head west to the border town of Hopa and cross to Batumi in west Georgia before heading east to Tbilisi. We were not having that so we researched hard to find a way to cross to the capital, there really isn’t much information about this route at all; it appears that people do just take the longer easier route! Not us though, we were determined to find a way and it appeared that way would involve 3 buses and a couple of taxis!

We first needed to get to the town of Ardahan – this was easy, we got the first bus at 8am and said to our driver that we wanted to go on to Posof so he kindly dropped us at the next bus station in Ardahan. From there we took a bus to the border town of Posof, this minibus was absolutely packed to the rafters of bags, suitcases and boxes. It looked like one woman and her two children were using the minibus to move house! Once you were in your seat there was no way of moving! It was a very light hearted journey though and just as we left the bus station the woman realised half her stuff was still in the bus station so we stopped and went back for it. Then about two minutes later she realised she’d left another bag behind so phone calls were made and we pulled into a petrol station and waited for someone to bring the bag. Once we got to Posof we got out the minibus and asked about where we could get a taxi to the border and luck was on our side that day as the woman with all her possessions was heading to the border so we paid an extra couple of pounds and hopped back in!

We all piled out at the border and we offered to help her with her belongings over the border but she said her sister was coming so we left her there. We walked over the border to some amusement, it’s mainly a truck border point and I don’t think they get too many backpackers crossing by foot but the border guards were very friendly and laughed as I tried to say thank you in Turkish. The Georgian guards were equally friendly but asked a lot of questions about our plans. They were really helpful though when I asked about money exchange and said it was cheaper to do it at the petrol station rather than at the border. We had to walk about 10/15 minutes to a petrol station and we asked them to call a taxi for us to take us to the nearest town and to change our money and it was very efficient! The taxi driver was great, I asked how much the fare was, he told me, I said I didn’t have that much and he said ‘no problem!’ He stopped right in front of the minibus that we needed to Tbilisi, blocking it in so we could make it! I made a quick dash across the road to the ATM and we were on our way! The days when we improvise our travel, especially when it involves a border crossing, are some of the least stressful, there’s no worries about missing a booked bus and there’s always someone willing to help you.

On the first bus to Georgia surrounded by boxes and bags

We had a very quick one night stop in Tbilisi, just having enough time to orientate ourselves and plan onward journeys. When we arrived in Tbilisi we realised our time there coincided with the Euro Under 21 championship so we immediately booked tickets for the first game that we could attend the following weekend when we would be back in Tbilisi.

For now though we were heading east to Georgian wine country! We arrived into the town of Telavi and immediately arranged a tour through our guesthouse, our guide would be a fellow long term Russian guest. The next day we planned to visit two wineries, but first we stopped by a monastery. It was interesting to see but we were all about the wine that day! The first winery we went to offered a tour into a cave where all their wine is stored, but there was a power cut that day so we had to take a golf buggy and torches to complete the tour! Georgian wine is traditionally made in huge pots called Qvevri with everything left on – stalks and skins. We tasted four different wines, all of which tasted pretty good to us! We headed to the next winery and the guide made a suggestion that maybe we didn’t want to taste any wines as we had already tried some. Imagine how that suggestion went down with us! The grounds were lovely though and once we’d shaken off our guide we sat down to a large tasting menu which involved comparing wines made using the traditional method and some using the non traditional method, we ended up preferring the traditional method on this occasion. Our guide definitely was no Vuk from Montenegro but we did get driven around to drink wine so it wasn’t all bad!

The town of Telavi has a small fortress (and I mean small) so we also visited that and a plane tree that was over 1000 years old – very impressive!

After Telavi we headed up to Kazbegi, a town in the mountains that’s only around 12km from Russia. Kazbegi is surrounded by beautiful mountains, but most of the time they are surrounded by clouds! Mount Kazbegi is apparently also known as the bride of Kazbegi as she’s often hidden by a veil of cloud! There’s a church high on a hill to climb up to – you can climb up a very steep hill or you can take a taxi or car up to the church. We obviously walked. It was worth the climb up but as is always the way it was way harder coming back down! The church itself was a little underwhelming with the best thing being a carving into the stone apparently showing dinosaurs. The church was built in the 14th Century and it was definitely worth stopping to contemplate the effort that went into building it and carrying up the materials required.

We did a couple of other walks in Kazbegi, one we were told about by a Polish couple we met on the way down from the church, where you could reach another church behind some forests and we agreed that we preferred that walk to the famous one.

We headed back down to Tbilisi, the road to and from Kazbegi is busy with trucks heading to Russia and the driving can be a little crazy as there are a lot of bends, on our way back we met an accident where a car had crashed into a lorry – it didn’t look like anyone was hurt, it was just trying to work out how to move the car and the lorry! Our minibus driver had the crazy idea of trying to go round the back of the lorry and of course it didn’t work!

We had another night in Tbilisi, arriving back in time for the Euro U21 match – Netherlands v Portugal. We were staying in the same accommodation as we had previously, it was a great location and clean, it was set up so there was a mezzanine level with a bed and the stairs were in the middle of the room and were perfect for storing my bag under. Unfortunately I forgot about those stairs whilst rooting around for something, stood up with great force and cracked my head on the edge of the stairs! It really hurt! I thought I would end up with a headache for a bit but when I took my hand away it was covered in blood – not what i was expecting to see and I definitely went into shock! Thankfully the bleeding stopped and I didn’t need stitches but I didn’t really fancy going out after that though so we skipped the match. We did however immediately book tickets for the quarter final the following weekend!

Our minibus tried to go round the back of this

The next day we headed to Armenia, we had heard that there were two places you could take a minivan from so we headed to one we had been to before and were told that there wouldn’t be one for three hours so we headed off to the other one and were lucky as it filled up quickly. We were impressed as well, it was a lovely Mercedes minivan, very comfy and with loads more space than all the other minibuses we’d had in the area. We arrived quickly at the border and the border guards seemed to have some sort of problem with me; as we left Georgia they kept me waiting for ages, for no apparent reason! I was eventually let go and eased into Armenia. Once we crossed the border our driver seemed to think he was an F1 driver and needed to drive at twice the speed limit and overtake 5 cars at once. I think he spent more time on the wrong side of the road than the right side and he was beeped at more than once. His driving was honestly the worst we have experienced and we were both genuinely terrified at points.

We did eventually make it to the capital, Yerevan, where we spent 3 days walking round and catching up with admin and laundry etc. Yerevan had a lovely cascade – a set of around 500 steps leading to a great view of the city. You can also take an escalator which is inside an arts museum so that was worth doing.

From Yerevan we headed to Dilijan, a national park where we planned to do a hike from a lake 17 km back to the village of Dilijan. We got a taxi to the lake which was the start of the trail and on our way up there we saw a stray dog in the road who upon seeing our car looked very happy and excited! He headed to the car park and bounded up to us. We tried not to encourage him too much but he decided that he would accompany us. So we set off through some woods which were really muddy, you needed to climb pretty much continuously and the dog headed off in front of us taking short cuts but he kept coming back to check on us and keep us on the right path! It was really reassuring but we kept saying to him, it’s ok you can go back but he kept on with us. We were about two hours in those woods, climbing and trying to avoid mosquitoes and we didn’t particularly enjoy that part, but it was great to have the dog to guide us in the right direction! We eventually reached a beautiful wildflower meadow that we climbed through. We’d been walking for about 8km with the dog at this point and decided he needed a name and so ‘Woody’ was named, we had taken some leftovers with us for lunch and we ended up giving most of it to Woody to say thank you to him. Still he kept on with his as we entered more woods, eventually after about 12km we bumped into a group of German hikers and Woody decided to go back with them. We speculated that perhaps Woody did that every day, and we were glad to have his company, especially when we kept seeing signs warning us of bears, wolves and snakes!

We headed back to Tbilisi, arriving back in the middle of a torrential thunderstorm! We had a full day in Tbilisi and had saved the cable car to the last day but as luck would have it, the cable car was not operating due to the wind! If we ever return we will definitely do it then. That evening we did make it to the football. It was Georgia vs Israel in the quarterfinals and the record was set that night for the highest attendance at an U21s match. The crowd was highly partisan and booed every time the Israelis touched the ball. Georgia had a goal disallowed for offside and the match was 0-0 at full time. After extra time it went to penalties and I so admire the Israelis for keeping their cool and managing to beat Georgia on penalties amongst the booing and general noise. We needed to leave quite sharpishly, as it was almost 11pm and we had to be up at the crack of dawn to catch our first flight of the trip.

Confirmation of the record attendance at the Euro U21s

Georgia and Armenia were an interesting chapter and they both have some stunning scenery, they are both relatively small countries with something for everyone. We had managed to travel overland all the way from the UK to Georgia, a total distance of 10,218 kilometres. We would have liked to have continued overland but the land border to Azerbaijan from Georgia is still closed so the only options were overland via Iran or Russia and we didn’t really fancy either of those options! We will continue to travel as much as we can overland, we love slow travel and the encounters that we have with locals along the way.

July 21, 2023 0

Turkish delights

We arrived into Istanbul in the early evening so all we did was grab some dinner (kebab obviously), and have a wander. We were staying really close to the blue mosque and we found ourselves there around sunset. The mosque itself was closed for prayers but the courtyard was open so we just went and sat down and had our breaths taken away by the beauty of the building in the darkening sky. It really is a stunning building and we were very happy to just sit and look at it. The next day we went to visit the inside of the building and found it equally beautiful inside and in the daylight. We also visited Hagia Sophia, this was not much to look at from the outside but was stunning inside. The Haiga Sophia has had its usage changed a few times, it was originally constructed as an Orthodox Church, before being converted to a mosque in the 15th century before it was museum and then finally reopened as a mosque in 2020.

Istanbul was a very enjoyable city for two people who aren’t massive city fans, we did the obligatory ferry ride over to the Asia side and wandered round there. I was fascinated by the number of fisherman on the side of the Bosporous strait with huge buckets of freshly caught fish. We were also in the city a couple of days before the Champions League final and when we arrived at Taksim Square the city was really gearing up for the game with a giant cup and match ball in place.

Obviously we went to the Spice Bazaar and the Grand Bazaar and we actually preferred the Spice Bazaar, not least because we managed to find a replacement fake engagement ring for me!

We also decided that I should experience a traditional Turkish Hamman and massage, I don’t know if you’ve ever had one but it was an experience! I started off with 10 minutes in the sauna and then I was shown to a large marble slab where I had to lie down and had dinner bowl sized bowls of water thrown over me. I then received a very thorough wash and scrub including my hair. After all this I was taken to another room where I had my massage. It was very relaxing and I did thoroughly enjoy the whole experience. We’d heard that hairdressers were pretty cheap in Turkey so I nipped to a hairdresser to get my haircut and it was the most efficient haircut I have ever had! He had washed, cut and dried my hair within 20 minutes!

We spent every evening at the Blue Mosque just admiring the building, watching the sky deepen and people watching. We visited it 5 times in total I believe, going into the building twice. It was definitely one of my favourite things that we have done.

We took a ferry to Bursa – Bursa is a popular day trip from Istanbul, but not exactly on the backpacker route. It felt very much like ‘real’ Turkey, we went to another bazaar which felt very local. Bursa is the end of the Silk Road so there were many silk shops. We only spent one night here and got up early the next day to visit a vast complex of Mausoleums. Some were very ornate and some quite plain, but they were all very old. Bizarrely in the centre of the town is an exact replica of the Ottoman fountain in Sarajevo.

Replica of the Sarajevo Ottoman Fountain

Bursa’s bus station is 13km north of the town and we treated ourselves to a taxi there, our driver thought he was in a race for sure, and as he was hurtling along he was also adjusting his seat with a pair of pliers!

We were heading for Selcuk, home to the famous Ephesus ruins. We arrived early evening again and were planning on visiting them the next morning straight after breakfast. Breakfast was quite the farce, the poor woman at the hostel seemed to panic as everyone arrived at once and it was 45 minutes before anyone got any food! There were a family with young children staying and the daughter was banging her knife and fork on the table demanding her breakfast and I think everyone wanted to join in! We did eventually get fed and were grateful for the really adorable kittens to entertain us whilst we waited.

The ruins were spectacular, we arrived at the lower gate, the opposite to where all the tour groups start from so we had the first few ruins almost to ourselves. As we went further on the place got so packed, it’s been a while since we have been anywhere as packed as that! The famous sights were incredible though, and standing in the grand theatre and stadium made us feel tiny. There are a few very interesting things to see, such as the row of lavatories and the footprint and what looks like a credit card etched into the ground, marking the way to the brothel!

The thing that we liked most about Selcuk though were the stork nests. If you have ever seen a stork’s nest you’ll know that they are huge! They are so big that other small birds actually nest in little corners of them. There were lots of these around, often on giant ruin pillars. It was cute to see them in the nests, sometimes flapping their wings to cool their chicks down. We saw one land and it was amazing, the stork just floated down, almost like it was wearing a parachute!

We took an early morning train to Denizli, completing all modes of transport in Turkey! We think we were a bit scarred from our time in India as we weren’t really sure what to expect from the train, but we were allocated a seat when we booked our tickets and it was comfortable, cheap and on time. We arrived around lunchtime and were catching a night bus from Denizli that evening so we dumped our bags and caught a bus to Pummukale. Pummukale means cotton castle in Turkish and it’s not hard to see why, the site is on a hill and there’s lots of small pools in the hill, surrounded by white landscape.

We got dropped at the northern gate and walked down through the Necropolis ruins which were fascinating. Most people start at the bottom and walk up through the pools and don’t make it that far, so again we had the run of the place. We paid extra to swim in ‘Cleopatra’s pool’ – the only place where you can really submerge yourself in the hot springs. This was off the back of a tip from our old neighbour (and I know he reads this so thank you Dave!). It was worth paying extra for as the pools have several Roman columns at the bottom. We then walked down through the famous white pools. The pools are really shallow, and get cooler as you go down, some are really slippery and others have loads of clay at the bottom! It was a great way to spend a homeless day.

We had another nightmare night bus journey. We’re really not having much luck with these at the moment, I long for South American buses when I would get on and sleep all the way through! This time we had a baby directly behind us who wailed for the first few hours. I think the whole bus was giving this baby dirty looks. It was classic us as we thought we’d booked really good seats with loads of leg room, but instead we were kept awake.

We arrived into Goreme, Cappadocia around 7am, we made our way to our hotel and they actually let us have our room on arrival. We resisted the urge to just go straight to sleep and we headed to the Open Air Museum. Cappadocia is famous for its hot air balloons and weird rock formations and the Open Air museum is a series of churches cut into caves with intricate frescos and definitely worth an early visit as it’s another place that gets packed during the day. That afternoon we set off for a hike through Love Valley, so called because of the shape of some of its rocks! The hike started off brilliantly, we got up close to these rocks and didn’t really see many other people. It then started to get very undulating and some of the paths we had to traverse were near vertical. One of them I decided that the best way down was with a controlled slide on my bum, I wasn’t particularly happy about this and was on the verge of tears but it was the only way I was going to get down without breaking my leg! The rest of the hike continued in much the same way! We both agreed at the end that the first half was much better than the second half!

The next day it was our fifth wedding anniversary and we decided to mark the occasion with a hot air balloon ride. We ummed and ahhed about doing it as it was quite expensive, but we decided it was such a once in a lifetime thing we couldn’t not do it. Balloons take off just before sunrise which meant we got picked up from our hotel at 3.50am. I was really nervous about the whole experience. I’m not great with heights, bit scared of flying (although much better than I was) and when I’d peered down into the Tara Canyon in Montenegro I did think there was no way I could get in a hot air balloon. I surprised myself! It was really relaxing and peaceful. As the balloon moves with the wind you don’t notice yourself going up or down or floating along and I really enjoyed it! It was beautiful watching the sunrise from the air, looking down at the beautiful scenery and seeing all the other balloons was magical. It was definitely an incredible experience that we won’t forget and is currently the best thing we’ve done on this trip so far.

Later that day we went for another hike, much gentler this time and generally took it quite easy given our early start. The following day we took a local bus to the underground city, a complex of houses built in caves under the ground over 7 floors! You have to admire the sheer determination of people to build these in times when there was no electricity. Some of the passageways were very narrow and you almost had to crawl through, again it was packed and there were lots of queues in these narrow passageways. They had thought of everything though and there were plenty of places for wine storage and even a graveyard!

The following day we caught an early bus to Ankara where we were picking up the Dogu Express train, this train journey takes 26.5 hours from Ankara all the way to Kars in Eastern Turkey. It meanders through mountains and valleys with spectacular scenery along the way. It left Ankara at 5.55pm, we had booked our tickets through a travel agency as they are incredibly difficult to get hold of and as we are a mixed sex couple we had to book the entire cabin. This was good for us as it meant we had our own space. We met a guy on the platform who was seeing off some friends who were in the cabin next to us and they were so helpful and friendly towards us the entire journey, they kept bringing us food and the next day they even invited us for traditional Turkish coffee which they made on the floor of the cabin with a gas stove! Despite neither of us speaking the other’s language we were touched by the kindness of these strangers.

The cabin seats turned into flat beds so we managed to get a decent nights sleep and spent the time just gazing out the window at the spectacular scenery. We were about an hour away from Kars when we were looking at a particularly menacing looking cloud when Joey spotted a baby brown bear. It was incredible to see it lollop along just like they do on TV! It moved far too quick to get a photo of it but just seeing it was so special.

As we were approaching Kars we saw a very spectacular thunderstorm and we’re grateful it had stopped by the time we arrived. We arrived at 8.50pm, only 20 minutes late which I think is a miracle given the length of the journey! The Dogu Express was definitely another highlight, Turkey gave us loads of highlights and amazing memories. Unfortunately for Turkey it has been suffering from hyperinflation and the Lira crashed whilst we were there. We found the whole country to be comparatively expensive to other places we have been. You’d look at Google maps to find somewhere for dinner, check out a picture of a menu from 6 months or a year ago only to get there and find that prices have quadrupled since then! I feel for the Turkish people living with these price increases and really hope things settle down for them soon.

July 5, 2023 1

The one where we nearly got arrested

We hadn’t originally planned to go to Greece but with the change of route to visit Kosovo and North Macedonia earlier it made sense to cross from the south of Albania into mainland Greece. We opted for Thessaloniki as a good point between Albania and Bulgaria. There wasn’t a great deal of information about getting between the two countries (unless you wanted to get the ferry from Sarandë to Corfu). I thought we may end up having to cross the border to a small town and then try and find an onward connection. I spotted a travel agency next to where the bus dropped us in Gjirokastër and as luck would happen they ran one bus a day to Thessaloniki at 6am so we booked ourselves onto that.

There was a guy to greet us in the morning who kept us up to date with when the bus was expected and it was all very smooth. We arrived quickly to the border and had to take all our luggage out before crossing into Greece. The border officials were physically searching everyone’s bags and when we arrived to them they asked if we’d got our stamp, asked where we were from and then just waved us on. I later found out that this was a popular route for local drug smuggling hence the checks and probably why we, as ‘foreigners’ were waved on.

We arrived into Thessaloniki around 4pm, the bus had emptied out by this point and it was us and one other person left on it! We dropped our luggage at our apartment and went for an orientation walk to get some supplies and just check out the city.

We spent our time in Thessaloniki exploring the ruins, checking out the famous white tower, the fortress (we just can’t get enough of them) and many churches. We also spent more time than we should have sheltering from a torrential storm in a church porch! We did something In Thessaloniki that we wouldn’t usually do, and that was pay for a nights accommodation that we didn’t use! We’d booked a night bus to Bulgaria that didn’t leave until 00.30 and we couldn’t face being homeless until midnight so we kept our accommodation and honestly, it was the best thing we did! If we were leaving that late again I’d do the same.

We knew we were due to reach the border of Bulgaria around 2am so we didn’t think there was much point trying to get any sleep before then. This was a very efficient border crossing, with the exit and entry windows actually being next to each other! The Bulgarian border guards were pretty tough though and wanted to know where we were staying, how long for and where we were going after that.

We eventually got a couple of hours sleep at around 5am when most people got off the bus at Sofia and I stretched right out, legs across the aisle! We met a really nice Greek guy on the bus who was off to Istanbul and insisted on feeding us lots of snacks.

We had another unexpected bus change and eventually arrived into Burgas at 12noon. We stepped off the bus and we’re greeted by the sound of air raid sirens. This was a little concerning to us and everyone around us stopped and stood still. We had arrived on 2nd June which is the day of Botev, who died for the freedom and independence of Bulgaria.

We had to walk to another bus station to catch a bus to Sozopol and I think i experienced a bit of a culture shock as we walked between the two stations as we were greeted by a completely different alphabet.

We went to Sozopol purely for the beach and it was nice to hear from a few people who when they found out where we were, said that they loved Sozopol! The beaches were sandy and it was great to have a bit of relaxation time and not do anything. One of the days was overcast and very windy but we used that day to check out the old town and catch up on a few things.

We had booked a 12noon bus to Istanbul from the nearby town of Burgas and we’d been trying to get some Turkish Lira in Sozopol to no avail. We changed our leftover Lev into Euros with the plan of trying to get some lira in Burgas. We left our bags at the bus company office and headed off to the exchange office and got what we needed, we headed quickly back to the bus station when we were shouted out by a Public Officer. He motioned for us to come to him and in broken English said ‘red man, no’ it turns out we’d broken the law by crossing the road on a red man! We had checked before crossing and it was clear, but we were obviously in the wrong. He had a colleague with him and we apologised profusely. He then demanded to see our documents so we had to hand over our passports! I was getting worried at this point, would we have to pay a fine or worse, would we have to go to the police station and potentially miss our bus? He glanced at our passports we said sorry again and promised not to do it again and thankfully he let us off. Definitely a lesson learnt there!

We arrived to the Turkish border and I think we were there for over two hours. We were behind a huge bus which had come from Ukraine and was full of women and children. It was noticeable how many vehicles at that border crossing were from Ukraine. I tried not to mind the delay too much knowing what they were fleeing. We had to have our bags x-rayed and they insisted on putting ours through twice. Mine passed second time but they were very interested in Joey’s and gave his a thorough search. They seemed to think that he had two cameras so we had to open up packing cubes to show that we didn’t. Unpacking and repacking your backpack at the border isn’t ideal and we were conscious that we were holding up everyone else on the bus! I really felt for Joey having to repack his backpack under pressure, with the incident in Burgas we were not having a good travel day!

We thankfully arrived into Istanbul without further incident and I had ticked off my 44th country before I am 44! When we were in India we came up with the idea of visiting 40 countries before we were 40 but Covid put paid to that so we set a new goal and I reached that with a year and a bit to go! I need a new goal now, 50 before 50 is probably too easy, as maybe 60 before 60 so maybe I need to aim for 80 before 80?!

June 26, 2023 0

Bobbing around the Balkans part 2

Our border crossing to Albania was very uneventful although the border point was right alongside Lake Skadar so we did have some beautiful views. We had two nights booked in Shkoder and had been hoping to done a 3 day / 2 night trek from nearby Valbone to Theth but the terrible weather that we’d had in Montenegro was following us and the ferry that we needed to catch wasn’t running so we’d agreed that we’d have an excuse to return to Albania in the future.

We borrowed a couple of bikes from our hostel and cycled to the fortress. It was a pretty hairy bike ride along a really busy road with lots of double parking. The fortress itself had amazing views over the lake and town and was a pleasant way to while away a few hours.

Our plan had been to head south in Albania and hit the coast but as the weather was so awful we had a rethink and decided to head east straight away to Kosovo, down into North Macedonia from there and then head back into Albania. Prizren in Kosovo looked to be pretty due east on the map but there are no direct buses from Shkoder. We asked around at a lot of travel agencies and most of them just shrugged their shoulders at us. We went to one which turned out to be shut but the girl next door who was working in an aesthetic beauty place was one of the more helpful people that we met! She called the agency for us and told us to go to Milot, a town halfway between Shkoder and Tirana. We’d heard differing opinions about whether we should go to Tirana or Milot. The tourist information person wasn’t that helpful either but did tell us where we could get a 5.30pm bus from in Milot. So the next day we ummed and ahhed and as we left the hostel we were aiming for Tirana. We even asked a taxi driver if he wanted to drive us (we were often asked if we wanted to go to Montenegro, but he seemed no one wanted to take us to Kosovo!) but he just told us to go to Milot so at that moment we changed our mind and decided that’s what we would do.

The conductor on the bus must have checked about 5 times that we definitely wanted to go to Milot and not Tirana (we were getting the impression that backpackers don’t really ply this route) and after about an hour they left us on what felt like the hard shoulder of an Albanian motorway and pointed us in the direction we needed to go. So not for the first time on this trip we found ourselves walking along the hard shoulder, only this time for 3km with our rucksacks. I had the intention to head for the gas station that the tourist information place had said the 5.30pm bus left from and hope for the best. Worst case scenario we’d only have to wait 8 hours for it. We stopped at another gas station for a coffee and to check we were heading the right way and they seemed to confirm it so we continued our path. We arrived, spoke to the attendant and he confirmed we were in the right place, he pointed out where we should wait and said that the buses would pull in so we just sat and waited. We actually didn’t have to wait too long, probably only 30 minutes until we saw a bus with Pristina on the front, we told them we wanted to go to Prizren, and they ushered us on! We arrived at the border and they took our passports for us and took care of all the formalities for us, we didn’t even need to leave the bus! There was short comfort break after that and everyone took care of us and ensured we didn’t miss the bus. We reached the outskirts of Prizren and we found ourselves again being thrown out at the hard shoulder, only this time the bus company had arranged and paid for a taxi for us to take us into the centre! We had such fun doing this journey, and sometimes we actually find it less stressful to not have anything booked!

Similar to Bosnia the phrase ‘the Kosovo war’ was relatively fresh in our minds, and we weren’t really too sure what to expect. The people were so friendly and helpful always having a smile and saying hello, although we did often get mistaken for being German! The city of Prizren was in excellent condition with hardly any scars. There was a monument to freedom and a Serbian Orthodox Church which was behind barbed wire, but those were the only obvious sides of conflict that we found. Prizren had another fortress which we visited early in the morning for free- it’s open 24 hours a day and we had it to ourselves at 7am.

After Kosovo we headed to North Macedonia, we hadn’t planned on going to Skopje and Joey was almost anti going there as we’re not massive city fans, but Skopje is the birthplace of Mother Teresa and given that we’d visited her grave in India I really wanted to make a quick stop to see her birthplace. We only spent the afternoon there visiting the old town, her Memorial house and around the corner from that there is a plaque and some trees where her house used to stand. It was quite moving to visit and we’re both glad that we did. We also visited the Alexander the Great Statue which was huge, very impressive. We left the next morning on an early bus to Lake Ohrid. One thing we noticed in this area is how poorly signed and named accommodation is here! Our apartment in Skopje was called ‘lovely condo next to Salt room’ on booking.com but luckily the owner had given us excellent directions otherwise we wouldn’t have stood a chance. Ohrid wasn’t quite as clear, the address didn’t have a number, I didn’t think too much of that until we were walking down the road (which had several offshoots) trying to find the unnumbered, unnamed place!

Lake Ohrid was beautiful. The Macedonian side of it is a UNESCO World Heritage site and it’s not hard to see why. The lake water is so clear and it’s surrounded by beautiful hills and mountains. It was definitely tempting to stay longer than we’d planned for but we had to press on.

We spent our time walking around the lake, sitting watching the sunset and exploring the old town. We took a bus out to Sveti Naum monastery and walked around the lake and grounds there. There were several peacocks there determined to put on a show and they even gave chase to Joey when they deemed that he got a little too close! By far our favourite thing though was when we hired a guy to row us across the lake to some natural under water springs. The lake water was so clear, in places it’s as deep as 3.5 metres and you can see the bottom. He explained that in that area motorboats are banned and no fishing is allowed in order to protect the lake. He rowed us out to the middle of the lake and pointed out the bubbles in the sand at the bottom of the lake where the natural springs are. We saw lots of tiny ducklings, including some which must have been only a day old. We paid slightly extra to have the boat to ourselves and we were so glad that we did as it really enhanced our experience and we agreed that was definitely one of the best things we have done so far.

From Ohrid we took an early morning bus to Tirana, Albania with the aim of catching an onward bus to Berat. There were two minibuses leaving for Tirana, one left slightly ahead of us but the driver had forgotten to shut the back door, where all the luggage was before driving off at speed. Luckily enough people shouted at him to attract his attention, before any luggage was lost. If we were thought we were in the right minibus we were mistaken. We had driven about 20 minutes before a guy right opposite us, who was dressed in full army fatigues, asked the driver to stop so he could be sick. We could hear him retching at the side of the road and I was not looking forward to him getting back on in case he was sick again. There was quite an intense conversation between him and the driver, the road between Ohrid and Tirana looked windy on the map and I was very fearful. Luckily he disappeared at the border, which I was very grateful for – I am not good around sick, or the sound of someone being sick, or the smell of it.

We made it to Tirana international bus station without further incident, and just needed to change bus terminals, another 2km walk in the searing heat but we’d rather that than pay for a taxi! Once we reached the regional bus terminal (I say terminal; it was just a massive melee of buses) we got spotted, and swept up by a conductor who obviously thought we looked like two people who wanted to go to Berat (we did in fact, want to go to Berat) and 10 minutes later we were on our way to Berat! The terminal at Berat is about 3km outside the centre so we waited for a local, bus, I found some WiFi and messaged the apartment owner to tell him our approximate time of arrival and he messaged straight back and said he would come and pick us up! The hospitality that we have been shown in the Balkans has been second to none, and we’re so grateful to everyone that we have met who has helped us and shown us kindness.

Berat is another UNESCO World Heritage site and is known as the city of windows. It’s not hard to see why! There’s another lovely fortress you can climb (again it’s open 24 hours- people live there!) but if you visit outside the core hours of 9-6pm you don’t need to pay. We climbed the ridiculous hill and arrived around 8.30, beating the crowds and the need to pay! We spent most of the morning walking around a few times and visiting the museum which has a large, impressive iconostasis. Iconostasises are quite the thing in this neck of the woods, and we’ve seen a lot now.

We wanted to head to the beach after Berat, there are a lot to choose from in Albania but we didn’t want to go to beaches that were really touristy so we looked at where we could get a direct bus too and then just picked one. We opted for Vlorë, it wasn’t in the Lonely Planet guide book, but I found a blog that mentioned it had sandy beaches which was good news for us! We were waiting for a local bus to take us to the bus station when we saw a bus approaching to Vlorë so we flagged it down for a free lift to the bus station and the onward journey! Upon arrival at Vlorë the driver asked a local girl who spoke some English to help us with where we wanted to go and she went out of her way to take us to the bus stop. She was training to be a nurse and was on her way to university and at the speed she was walking us I think she was going to be late! The bus arrived, we got off where our host told us too, but again there was no signage. We went into the first place we saw and asked for directions, and would you believe it was actually the right place! Some days travel days are great and work out well and other times they’re a bit rubbish. The good ones definitely leave you on a high.

Vlorë was a great place to relax for a few days and we did nothing but lie on the beach. It was bliss! The sunsets over the sea were beautiful. We decided to head to another beach, called Ksamil, I’d seen an article describing it as the Maldives of Europe so we decided we should go check it out. Our host called the bus station for us and arranged for the bus to stop near us rather than us going all the way back into town to catch it so we stood on the side of the road and flagged the daily bus to Sarandë down. The bus was full, we got on and prepared to stand for the two hours we’d been told it would take. Luckily for me the conductor said something in Albanian and a young man got up and gave me his seat. Joey wasn’t quite as lucky and had to stand. Although the man I was sat next to didn’t really speak any English he motioned that he would move up so I could move up and Joey could have half a seat. The journey was really winding through the mountains, I admit to not knowing that Albania had so many mountains, I obviously knew about the accursed mountains in the north which we’d wanted to hike, but I didn’t realise that most of the country seemed to be covered in them. We stopped after about an hour up a mountain and Joey was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to nab the one spare seat.

Becca clearly not convinced that the bus is going to turn up

Our journey ended up taking four hours rather than two. We were about 20 minutes outside of Sarandë when someone at the back of the bus started to be violently sick. I’m not sure why the locals travel by bus so much if they’re just going to be travel sick on buses! I was really not happy about this so I tried to shut my eyes and hope for the best. The conductor seemed to just be worried about his bus, but someone had handed her a bag in the nick of time. At one point I think I did catch a whiff of it and I was worried it was going to set me off so I whipped out my jar of Vicks that I always carry with me (I find a slather of it under my nose will get me through smelly toilets) and stuck that under my nose. I was glad we were nearly at Sarandë and I made sure we were quick off the bus. After we’d collected our bags we saw the lady walking down the street casually carrying her back of sick and almost swinging it. We had one more bus to Ksamil to catch, and we arrived late in the afternoon. Ksamil was beautiful, lots of hills and clear waters. It’s been a joy to swim in such clear waters and see little fish swim around. Ksamil has several beaches, we decided to aim for one called ‘The last Bay’ purely because it was the last beach and we determined that it wouldn’t be as busy, and we were right! You had to walk down some dirt tracks to get there but it was glorious. We spent two long days just chilling again, we’d been on the go for about 7 weeks at this point and needed a rest as the next two months will be intense and hot with little respite as we venture inland towards Central Asia.

We took another couple of buses to Gjirokastër, another UNESCO world heritage site, also known as Stone City. We only had one night here, but we made the most of our time, we dropped our luggage at the hostel we were staying at and headed straight out. In the Balkans we’ve been using pure WiFi and relying on downloaded Google maps to get us places. We wanted to head to the Cold War Tunnels and Google maps was sending me the most ridiculous way down roads that didn’t seem to exist. It was really hot, the hills were steep and I’d only had one coffee that day so for the first time I lost my shit (good going for 8 weeks in – if you read the India blogs you’ll know how much I lost my shit there!) and wailed ‘I hate this town!’ luckily Joey knows what to do in these situations, he took me into the shade, got me some Pepsi and all was right again.

We did make it to the war tunnels, which were really interesting. Albania’s leader was really paranoid about nuclear war and attacks so he basically bankrupted the country building bunkers that are dotted about all over the country (there’s apparently one bunker for every four people) as well as this secret nuclear bunker that could hold up to 200 people. The rooms that you can see include include the generator room, the conference room, the kitchen and two rooms for the general and the mayor. There’s also a water tank which you can climb a very rickety ladder to peer into- the water naturally pools in from the mountains and the room has stalactites!

The conference room in the Cold War tunnel

We also visited the fortress (i think in total we maybe visited 8 fortresses!) which was probably one of the best with stunning views and the ability to roam free.

Unfortunately our stay in the Balkans ended on the last night with a loss. Somewhere, somehow, in our room my fake engagement ring got knocked off a cupboard and couldn’t be found. It was very sad. Although it was fake, along with my fake wedding ring (I didn’t want to bring the real ones in case they got lost!) we’d bought them before we went to India and they travelled through India and Sri Lanka with us so they were special. Let’s hope that’s the only thing we lose!

We absolutely loved the Balkans and I’m sure there are places that we will return to.

June 15, 2023 1

Balkan adventures, Part 1

Arriving into Belgrade I first described it as being ‘gritty not pretty’. I’d also booked us into dorms again, and after our experience in Olomouc I was not looking forward to it. And to be honest our first impressions of the hostel weren’t great. We were told the hostel receptionist was currently busy and we could hear someone teaching English online in one of the two dorms. Yeah, that was the hostel receptionist sitting on one of our beds teaching! So before we’d even checked in I mooted the idea of finding somewhere but Joey put his foot down and insisted we stay.

The hostel wasn’t great but it wasn’t THE WORST place we’ve ever stayed either. Yes, there was a bloke in the room who appeared to be living there and just slept all day and disappeared in the evenings and filled the room with his stuff but he did at least open the window and showered so that was a massive improvement on Olomouc. Plus as he wasn’t there most of the night that was one less person to keep me awake with their snoring. Or, as it happened, for me to keep awake with my snoring!

Once we got away from the bus station, Belgrade itself turned out to be utterly charming! There was a large fortress (turns out that there a lot of fortresses in the Balkans) which doubles as a park and has several museums inside (including a military museum) and we spent a lot of time in this park just chilling. Belgrade also has one of the largest orthodox churches in the world, Saint Sava, which has a stunning interior that took our breath away. On one of our evenings there we decided to splash out and take a sunset cruise along the river, which was really enjoyable. We hadn’t been on a sunset river cruise since Phnom Penh on Valentine’s Day 2015. We were catching a night bus from Belgrade to Sarajevo so we took ourselves to the cinema on our ‘homeless’ day. We saw an English version of Super Mario bros which was shown on an imax screen. We walked in just before the start and had the place to ourselves! It was a such a huge screen – you can barely even see Joey!

The nightbus was an experience from start to finish, staring at the bus station. I always like to have a ‘nervous wee’ before going on a long journey (or any journey, or leaving our accommodation for the day) and I had my first encounter with a squat toilet. I always expected to see them along the way but I thought we’d be in Asia before that happened! The bus was full of inconsiderate people who talked really loudly the whole journey, couple that with a 3am border crossing (middle of the night border crossings are not the one, although probably when I most look like my passport photo) and then a unexpected change of bus at 5am and you can see why we didn’t get much sleep. Somehow we do manage to function the next day and just get on with it.

Joey and I grew up hearing the phrases ‘war torn Bosnia’ and ‘war torn Sarajevo’ so it was a surprise to discover how beautiful Sarajevo was. It had a delightful old town and was surrounded by rolling green hills that were often covered in swirling clouds. There are a lot of war scars with buildings covered in pock marks from bullets, and the most sobering details are what are called Sarajevo roses. These are memorials made from a mortar shell and filled with red resin to represent blood, these are dotted all around the city and mark places where more than 3 people died in an attack. There are over 200 of these in the city. We visited the Alifakovac cemetery, a cemetery unlike any other we have been too. Firstly it was Muslim so the gravestones were very different to others we have seen, and secondly the vast majority of those buried there died in the early 90s as a result of the war. It was another stark reminder of atrocities that happened in our lifetime.

Sarajevo is also where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated; that event is what ultimately led to the First World War.

After Sarajevo we headed to Mostar, a town famous for its stone bridge, where during summer you can witness people jumping off it into the river below. There are two ways to reach Mostar, a cheap, incredibly scenic train or a more expensive slightly less scenic bus which takes longer. So which do you think we chose? Yes, the bus! The train only runs twice a day, and for once we didn’t fancy an early start. We thought the bus route was really scenic and we enjoyed it, maybe if we return we’ll take the train.

Mostar was just gorgeous and one of our favourite places, it was timed with some great weather, a lovely apartment complete with washing machine and the King’s coronation! We did have to walk up an incredibly steep hill to get to our place but the views were worth it. We walked through the old town several times and down to the bridge at various times of the day, but our favourite was early one morning when there was a couple of minutes where we had the bridge to ourselves. The original bridge was actually destroyed during the Bosnia war in 1993 and then rebuilt in 2004. My favourite thing about Mostar though was when dusk was falling and we sat outside watching the town lights come on and listening to the Muslim call of prayer, it was so magical. As I say it was the King’s coronation, so we watched that from our apartment and celebrated with a cheap bottle of sparking wine.

From Mostar we took the bus to Dubrovnik. That was an interesting journey which again started at the bus station. I went for my nervous wee and was rather startled to discover that the toilets (which we paid for) DIDN’T HAVE A DOOR! I’m used to some rough toilets but that was a first!

I think there was a door once. Also, probably not the worst toilet I’ve ever been in.

We only planned on a couple of days in Dubrovnik as you pretty much have to go through Croatia to get from Mostar to Montenegro, and go through Croatia we did – twice! Leaving Bosnia we didn’t even need to leave the bus, the bus driver collected our passports and then gave us back to us. Without an exit stamp. Very disappointing. Then we entered into Croatia, with another Schengen stamp, and about 20 minutes later we were at another border leaving Croatia and getting an exit stamp. Then we re-entered Bosnia (no entry or exit stamp) for about 30 minutes (including a 20 minute stop) and re-entered Croatia with another Schengen stamp! Two stamps for the same country on the same day -lucky we got those 48 page passports hey?! I’d previously read a blog about a 6 hour bus journey you can do on the island of a Borneo which will get you 8 stamps and I’d been quite keen to do that but I’ve now changed my mind!

Dubrovnik was gorgeous and well worth the 48 hours we spent there. Those 48 hours absolutely blew our budget, but it was a beautiful city. We felt sick at the prospect of spending €35 each on the city walls, but decided to buy the Dubrovnik pass for the same price – which also got you free public transport and various other museums. That’s our top tip for Dubrovnik! We walked the walls at 8am, as soon as they opened, and we avoided most of the crowds which meant we could really take our time and take about 500 photos each. Although I think we still took less photos than the guy we passed who had set up his tripod and camera and spent A LONG time taking photos of himself posing moodily, never looking at the camera.

After our short stop in Dubrovnik we headed to Montenegro. We decided to base ourselves for the entirety of our stay in Kotor, it was nice to have a base for 5 days. We spent a couple of days exploring Kotor itself. We walked up to the fortress (I think that’s fortress number 3 for the Balkans). You can either pay and climb 1350 steps or you can go the free way and climb what’s called the ladder of Kotor – this is a steep path consisting of 65 switchbacks. We paid. The view was totally worth it, as you climb higher and higher the views of the bay (and the cruise ships docked) get better and better. We descended via the ladder, and to do this you have to climb through a small hole and drop down maybe 6 or 8 feet. There is a small metal spur to help with this but it’s still a drop. There is randomly a cheese shop at the top, but we didn’t buy anything. The walk down was hard on the knees with a lot of loose stones so I was glad we didn’t choose that way for the ascent. Kotor’s old town was gorgeous, full of lovely churches and beautiful buildings. Unfortunately the weather was not good. It was lovely and sunny when we arrived in Kotor and was dry when we visited the fortress, but the rest of the time it rained so heavily! We were going to explore the waterfront on our first evening, but we went about 100 metres when we met this gorgeous dog who decided to follow us, he had this big lolloping tongue and wouldn’t stop following us! We were about to cross a major road and were worried that this dog would get run over so we decided to retrace our footsteps and return him to where we found him and hope he’d leave us alone! Well we got back to where we were and the heavens opened! So we retreated and gave thanks to the weather dog for saving us.

We took a day trip along the coast to Budva, and guess what? It rained. We got caught in a thunderstorm on the way to the bus station and spent a fair bit of our time in Budva taking shelter in various places. Budva also has a fortress which gave nice views of the coast and mountains. The next day we did a day trip to Durmitor National Park with Vuk, who owns the apartment that we rented. This was such a highlight of Montenegro and the trip to this point. Vuk has a history degree and his passion for the subject was clear as we spent the three hour drive chatting about the history of Montenegro, communism and the war. It was so interesting chatting and hearing his views (and those of his dad) and learning more about the Orthodox Church. Communism discourages any religion so when communism fell his parents took their time choosing their religion and opted for Orthodoxism. He told us about the saint day that had been celebrated a few days prior to us arriving and how the priest comes to the house to bless it. We didn’t know an awful lot about Orthodoxism before but had noted the lack of seating in any church we entered and Vuk said that was part of it – it’s meant to be uncomfortable, your back is meant to hurt, your feet are meant to hurt – you’re meant to suffer!

On the way to Durmitor we stopped at Tara river canyon. This is the largest canyon in Europe and was so impressive. The river rushes below you if you have the nerve to peer down! Durmitor is a gorgeous national park with a lake which you can circuit (depending on the weather), it’s a little higher than sea level Kotor and we were surprised to see snow still on the ground in mid-May!

Kotor and Montenegro were definite favourites and I would absolutely return there. Plus they have hedgehogs so if I ever have to go into exile that’s where I’m heading and I’m staying at Vuk’s place! On our day of departure there was the Ocean Lava triathlon happening which meant a lot of roads were closed. Vuk gave us a lift as far as he could but we had to walk the last 2km which we don’t mind (to date we’ve only got one taxi which was in Dubrovnik) but that 2km also happened to be a stretch if the triathlon, so we were walking with our rucksacks alongside these athletes, there was no separation either so we were occasionally yelled at to move when a runner came along!

When I was thinking about the blog in my head I thought one blog would cover the whole of the Balkans. How foolish was I! When I jotted down stories and anecdotes I wanted to share (which incidentally I never do, I never plan, I just write) it became apparent I was going to have to do two blogs! So hopefully another blog will follow shortly!

June 4, 2023 2

Clocks, Popes and some smelly blokes!

We left Berlin on the morning of a public transport strike. This was announced only 2 days prior and we discovered it by chance and it was challenging trying to work out what was running and what wasn’t – god bless the U-Bahn!

We’ve been using Flixbus to travel around, we plotted out the initial three weeks so we were able to book these in advance for a good price. So far we’ve found them reliable, comfortable and the toilets haven’t been too questionable. We arrived into Prague mid-afternoon and we had booked an apartment outside the city centre but with good transport links so after a freshen up and costume change we headed onto a tram and into the main centre for our first explore. We were a little bit overwhelmed to be honest when we got back into the centre as the first thing we heard and saw was a bunch of very loud drunk British men on a stag do and it was very crowded. We arrived on a Friday afternoon which probably had something to do with it but we definitely needed to sit down with a Czech beer and mentally prepare ourselves!

Prague is a very pretty City with little cobbled streets and a very picturesque square that hosts the famous astronomical clock. We spent some time roaming around before figuring out the tram system and heading back to our apartment.

The next morning we got up really early and headed to catch a train back to the centre. We wanted to really explore the castle, the Charles Bridge and square before it got too busy. As it happened we arrived in the square just before 7am and there was a small crowd gathered round the clock waiting for the infamous chimes. If you don’t know then on the hour the twelve apostles appear through the wooden doors to a musical tune while a skeleton omnimously chimes a bell. We decided to stay and watch as you can’t not watch this when in Prague. Only the bell only produces this musical display between 9am and 11pm so there were quite a few disappointed people around! We really need to more research! We did make it back later in the day to watch it though and to be honest it was a little underwhelming.

We then headed to to the Charles bridge which even at 7am was busy with people trying to get an Instagram shot, it was very amusing to watch – there definitely were some very patient photographers on the bridge.

We headed to the castle and spent a couple of hours wondering around the grounds before we headed back to our apartment. As I mentioned we were staying a bit outside the centre but looking at the map there looked to be a park close by and the weather was finally sunny and 20 degrees so it was time to finally peel off the leggings and put some shorts on and head to the park for a spot of outdoor relaxing. Only what looked on the map to be park actually turned out to be beautiful countryside- an absolutely delightful surprise!

From Prague we were headed to Olomouc, in my research Olomouc was described as being much like Prague but without the tourists- this definitely sounded like our kind of place! We had to change buses in a place called Brno (pronounced Bruno), another place that I’d read about and sounded interesting so I suggested that we spend a few hours exploring and seeing some of the places I’d read about. Brno also has an astronomical clock, but it’s VERY different to the one in Prague. It is shaped like a large bullet (allegedly, but I’ll let you decide) and at 11am each day people gather round with their hands in various holes and try and grab a large marble that’s fired each day at that time. It’s unusual for 11am to be the time for this activity to happen, but it happens at this time thanks to an event during the Thirty Years War. During this time the city of Brno was under siege by the Swedes and a Swedish general promised to lift the siege if the city did not fall by noon, so the locals played a trick and changed the clocks to 11am meaning that the Swedes surrendered. A local girl caught the marble and promptly shoved it her mouth, which made us quickly back away lest she accidentally swallowed it and I was forced to use my ‘resus training for non clinical staff’ course that I’d completed at work!

There were two other things that we were interested in Brno, one was the labyrinth under the cabbage market, but being a Monday it was shut. Again our research failed us. The other was the Capuchin crypt which holds perfectly mummified remains consisting mainly of friars. Some of the remains are on display and it’s very tastefully displayed.

We then headed to Olomouc which was indeed as pretty as described without the crowds. We’ve been using the app GPS my city to do self guided walks around each place that we’ve been to but Olomouc didn’t have one, I had picked up a map from the hostel which had 30 places of interest marked on them and we did our own walk, and boy did we walk! We walked over 37,000 steps that day visiting churches, climbing their towers and seeing lots of fountains which seemed to form the crux of most of Olomouc’s sights. Olomouc also has an astronomical clock and this one did not disappoint – it chimes for a full five minutes and was utterly delightful. Olomouc is a beautiful city and the highlight was finding a little park with a rose garden where we sat for around an hour in the sun drinking some beer we’d picked up. One major motivation for doing so many steps was that we didn’t want to go back to our hostel! Yep, we had our first horror accommodation experience. On paper, and even in reality it looked to be a decent hostel, but as always, I was sharing with a bunch of men and these men smelt like they’d not seen a bar of soap for a while. We’ve stayed in dorms in South America, South East Asia and India and NEVER have we stayed anywhere that smelt as bad as this place. I was gagging everytime I went back into the room and it really made me question if I ever wanted to stay in a dorm again.

Other than the hostel we loved Olomouc but we were so happy to arrive in Krakow knowing that we had a little studio apartment booked. Krakow was again absolutely stunning city, the square was probably the best one we’ve seen- it was so spacious and utterly charming. We spent some time exploring the Jewish quarter and learning more about some of the horrors that took place there. We walked a lot that day, another 27,000 steps – over three days we walked 90,000 steps and my feet were throbbing and the only solution was to sit them in a saucepan and let them soak- its all glamour!

The next day it was time to do probably the hardest thing that we will do on this trip, and that was to visit Auschwitz. I found the whole experience very moving, walking the same path that hundreds of thousands of people had walked to their deaths. The whole thing was done in a very respectful manner but Joey and I both agreed that the thing that moved us the most was the huge pile of hair that had been shaved from victims. It’s important to do this type of thing to remember and try and stop these things happening again. However as our guide said, these things have happened since and are happening now, only a couple of hundred kilometres from where Auschwitz is in Ukraine. I find that very difficult to swallow.

After Krakow we definitely needed something to cheer us up and we headed to Budapest for a couple of days. We’ve been to Budapest before and had planned this stop to be a rest point after three weeks of being constantly on the move and planned to do nothing other than go to a ruin pub and the thermal baths. Only the day before we arrived in Budapest we found out that The Pope was also in town. If you don’t know my maiden name was Pope and Joey’s catholic, so when I turned to him, gave him a look and said ‘the Pope’s in Budapest the same time as us’ there was only one response ‘we should go see him’!

So our weekend of taking it easy actually meant getting up at 6am with a hangover after drinking more aperol spritz than I had intended, and heading to Mass. We queued for about 45 minutes to get through security and into the square. The square was more spacious than I thought it might be and we were actually in a good spot to see his convoy speed past (which we’d also managed to do from the balcony in our hostel!). We stayed for the first 30 minutes of mass which was in mainly Hungarian with a little bit of Latin thrown in. The first time we were in Budapest we accidentally saw the Brazilian president and his huge convoy and now we’ve seen the Pope here – we’ll definitely return and see who we can see the next time!

After this we headed off to the thermal baths for a few hours, making sure we visited every bath and we both agreed that we’d had one of the best days of the trip so far.

From now on we’re leaving the Schengen zone (although we do pop back briefly for a quick stop in Dubrovnik) which means hard border crossings- we’ve done a few land border crossings before so we’re excited to get back to these, sometimes they’re easy, sometimes they’re laborious and sometimes we do them whilst being really sick! Bring it on!

May 8, 2023 6

And we’re off!

There has to be some irony, or maybe completeness, when your last travels were cut short due to covid, and then 10 days before you’re due to leave for the next lot Joey gets struck down with it. It was a relief when I then caught it knowing that we stood a chance then of getting over it and getting back on the road.

We did get away as planned and caught the Eurostar to Bruges, arriving in the early evening, this gave us chance to acclimatise, get over the shock of seeing bunk beds (in our private room- what the heck?!) again and have an evening stroll. Bruges is such a pretty city, I must have used the word pretty about 50 times over our two days there. The cobbled streets and the buildings were just so quaint and the perfect place to just walk and admire the scenery.

We’ve become huge fans of getting up and hitting the streets early before any one else and most of the time it works. We can appreciate the true tranquility of a place before everyone else arrives to get their Instagram shot. Joey has coined a phrase ‘we shall have the morning and the fools can have the day’ and this is just how we started off in Bruges.

We shall have the morning and the fools shall have the day

After two days in Bruges we were ready to hit the next country. It was two short bus journeys to Luxembourg and we had a couple of spare hours in Brussels; plenty of time for a waffle and to check on our favourite pissing statue, Zinneke Pis. Brussels most famous statue of course is the Manneken Pis, but did you know there’s also a woman and a dog?!

We arrived in Luxembourg City in the afternoon, if you didn’t know Luxembourg introduced free public transport in February 2020, which is a godsend for any backpacker! We headed to our hostel and our first dorm of this trip. In absolute classic Becca style I (allegedly) spent a good portion of the night snoring really loudly. I never do this anywhere else other than in dorms so personally I blame the altitude of the top bunk! Most people prefer bottom bunk but in India I got into the habit of bagging the top bunk when I would find myself sharing a dorm with Joey and 6 other men.

We had the next day to really explore the city and I wanted to go to the American military cemetery. Google maps suggested that we take a bus and then walk for about 20 minutes, it looked straight forward enough but Google maps basically set us off walking along the hard shoulder of a motorway with no pavement. It was pretty scary and something we did not want to repeat on the way back. I’m not sure what we were more scared of, getting run over or stopped by the police. The cemetery was absolutely worth it, it was beautifully kept and houses over 5000 graves. We arrived at the same time as three bus loads but they stayed a really short period of time and once they’d gone we had the place to ourselves. There is only one woman buried there, who died shortly after the war in a car accident on her way to be reunited with her sister in Paris. The information contained some deeply moving stories about some of those buried there. After 10am though there’s a shuttle bus back to the city which we hopped on rather than risking our lives again.

The road Google maps sent us down — it doesn’t look too bad here!

We walked around the city again and again we were pleasantly surprised by what a pretty place it was. We would definitely recommend Luxembourg for a weekend break.

Next up was a short train ride over the border to Germany, we stopped in Trier which is Germany’s oldest city, the birthplace of Karl Marx and nestled in the Mosel wine region. Trier again was full of attractive buildings and so many Roman ruins, the Porta Nigra is definitely the most famous of these, but there’s also an amphitheatre and the largest Roman baths outside of Rome. All of these are surrounded by nearby vineyards that you can stroll through. In the town square there’s a wine stand open every day that you can buy glasses and bottles of local Riesling so of course we were happy to spend 6 euros on a couple of glasses to sample the local produce.

Joey enjoying his Riesling at the wine stand in Trier

Monday was our first ‘homeless’ day. This is the term we use when we’re either catching some form of transport overnight or we’re arriving in somewhere really early and have nowhere to go. Some homeless days are better than others, we had a really challenging one in Hampi, India where we had 13.5 hours to kill. This time we were catching a bus at 10pm to Berlin and checked out of our Air BnB (boujee backpacker alert) at 10am so we set off on an adventure to the fairytale castle of Eltz. This involved a 90 minute train and then a 20 minute bus. The Germans, being as efficient as ever, had aligned these and it was straight off the train onto the bus. The castle dates from medieval times and is one of only a handful in Germany still intact. It’s set on top of a 70 metre high rock spur deep in the German forest. This, alongside its round turrets really add to its fairytale appearance. We took the English guided tour (just ask when the next one is) and then spent about 3 hours exploring the treasury and surrounding forest. We headed back to the station and had a wander round the wine village of Hazenport, a tiny place with nothing much other than some quintessential German churches and a wine bottle vending machine.

We had a couple of hours to kill when we arrived back in Trier so wandered the streets before doing what every homeless backpacker does – hang out in Burger King!

The night bus wasn’t too bad, we managed to bag two seats each so we could spread out a bit and actually get some sleep. We arrived into Berlin around 9am, left our bags and set off to explore the city, we walked around visiting all the famous sights including the Reichstag, the Bradenburg gate and Bebelplatz which was where, in May 1933, students burnt over 20,000 ‘un-German books’. Over the course of the next few days we also spent time exploring the Tiergarten, a beautiful park, the East side gallery, which is one of the longest remnants of the Berlin Wall, and the Topography of Terror. Berlin is a city that has gone through so many different things in very recent history and it’s sometimes a lot to digest and comprehend. We’re not ones to shy away from hard history though.

We were lucky enough to catch up with an old colleague of Joey’s in Berlin who was in town for work and contacted Joey a couple of days beforehand to see if we were heading that way and we were! It’s always lovely to see people while we are away so do hit us up if you think our paths might cross at any stage!

Berlin was our last stop in what we’re defining as Western Europe so now it’s to the east – to Prague and beyond!

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