Final Chorus
In four weeks of travelling, experienced by we:
12 brand new countries
11 markets and bazaars
10 different hostels
9 overnight trains
8 palaces and castles
7 illegal immigrants
6 final train changes
5 hours canoeing
4 extra euros train fare
3 pizza slices
2 upset stomachs :(
And so much ice cream we lost count!
Well it's all over and I am back in Paris for a few days.
The trip from Belgrade to Sarajevo was pretty uneventful but Anna and I were really surprised to see a shantytown on the outskirts of Belgrade. Sarajevo was great except that Anna and I both got a touch of Belgrade Belly and so spent most of our first day there in our hostel room. I was recovered sufficiently on the second day to take the hostels tour and I'm really glad that I did, it was led by a guy who lived in Sarajevo during the seige and so he was able to illustrate quite well what it was like. We visited the tunnel museum where we saw the remains of the tunnel under the airport and a video on Sarajevo during the seige and how the tunnel was used. Then we went to the Jewish cemetary overlooking sniper alley, which was one of the places the serbian snipers particularly liked to be based, and he talked to us about life during the seige. Sarajevo is still very obviously recovering from the seige and there are still lots of buildings that were badly damaged but I really liked it and would definitely return given the chance.
We only had short visits in Zagreb and Ljubljana but we enjoyed both cities. Zagreb was a bit disappointing in that much of what we wanted to see was covered in scaffolding but there was some kind of folk danicng festival on so there were lots of people walking around in interesting costumes so that went some way to making it up to us. Ljubljana was really prettily situated with the main square on the river. the castle there was a bit too modernised for our taste but we enjoyed the bric a brack market along the river.
We had a coupleof hours in Venice on the way back to France and naturally we put them to good use finding some pizza and gelati and St Marks square. We were very happy to arrive in Beziers as we'd had another confrontation with a railway official, although this time the man was far more reasonable. We were really interested to see about seven men escorted from the train for having no passports once we crossed the French border.
The south of France was lovely, a really nice way to end the trip, although we didn't exactly take it easy all the time, on Wednesday we did a 9km canoe trip. It was great fun and I was really happy to be back on a river again.
Better finish there, off to the Japanese embassy tomorrow to get my visa organised.
12 brand new countries
11 markets and bazaars
10 different hostels
9 overnight trains
8 palaces and castles
7 illegal immigrants
6 final train changes
5 hours canoeing
4 extra euros train fare
3 pizza slices
2 upset stomachs :(
And so much ice cream we lost count!
Well it's all over and I am back in Paris for a few days.
The trip from Belgrade to Sarajevo was pretty uneventful but Anna and I were really surprised to see a shantytown on the outskirts of Belgrade. Sarajevo was great except that Anna and I both got a touch of Belgrade Belly and so spent most of our first day there in our hostel room. I was recovered sufficiently on the second day to take the hostels tour and I'm really glad that I did, it was led by a guy who lived in Sarajevo during the seige and so he was able to illustrate quite well what it was like. We visited the tunnel museum where we saw the remains of the tunnel under the airport and a video on Sarajevo during the seige and how the tunnel was used. Then we went to the Jewish cemetary overlooking sniper alley, which was one of the places the serbian snipers particularly liked to be based, and he talked to us about life during the seige. Sarajevo is still very obviously recovering from the seige and there are still lots of buildings that were badly damaged but I really liked it and would definitely return given the chance.
We only had short visits in Zagreb and Ljubljana but we enjoyed both cities. Zagreb was a bit disappointing in that much of what we wanted to see was covered in scaffolding but there was some kind of folk danicng festival on so there were lots of people walking around in interesting costumes so that went some way to making it up to us. Ljubljana was really prettily situated with the main square on the river. the castle there was a bit too modernised for our taste but we enjoyed the bric a brack market along the river.
We had a coupleof hours in Venice on the way back to France and naturally we put them to good use finding some pizza and gelati and St Marks square. We were very happy to arrive in Beziers as we'd had another confrontation with a railway official, although this time the man was far more reasonable. We were really interested to see about seven men escorted from the train for having no passports once we crossed the French border.
The south of France was lovely, a really nice way to end the trip, although we didn't exactly take it easy all the time, on Wednesday we did a 9km canoe trip. It was great fun and I was really happy to be back on a river again.
Better finish there, off to the Japanese embassy tomorrow to get my visa organised.
posted by nokillingkenny at 8:43 am
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