Well, apologies to the subscribers who have just received a whole bunch of emails and posts all at once. The iPAQ has had a bit of a fit and whilst I can continue to write the posts on there, I just can’t post ‘em…

The main thing is that the time in the Internet café can still be really quick and save me big piles of cash that’s far better spent on food. I’m really getting used to these QWERTZ keyboards now though. It might be a bit of a shock when I get back to work and all my tags are the young kids generation . Okay, sure that makes no sense to the non-geek among you.

This is just a short post to let you all know we’ve arrived at our final stop before our flight on Sunday (noooooo). Ljubljana. I’ve walked around for almost a day now, and the place is fantastic. There are dragons everywhere, as they seem especially proud of Dragon Bridge - I hadn’t read that in the guidebook yet so there was no need for disappointment at not seeing them. Don’t read guidebooks, perhaps.  So yes, dragons and amazing autumn colours and falling leaves from the massive amount of trees that adorn the river, and hillsides. I’m not sure we could have visited this city at a better time of the year, as the season just seems to suit it perfectly :

That’s it for now - time to explore the parks

There are places all over the world that leave you completely speechless. They’re all out there, waiting to be discovered, unearthed and experienced. Those places can be temporary in the laughter of a child, they can be more permaneant natural beauties; a crash of a wave or Gulfoss waterfall, or they could be structures created to overwhelm the senses such as The Vatican. Today, I’ve added to this list with the Plitvice Lakes National Park.

Words cannot describe this place, and the pictures I’ve taken can only ever hope to capture a small part of it. I want to record this speechlessness and total peacefulness while it’s still fresh in the memory though, and recommend that all of you at some point visit the park as one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

I’m not joking.

We entered at the aptly named Entrance 1 at around 7.30am as the sun was just peaking over the valleys corridor, and a fairytale mist formed a veil over the water below. A short walk down the hill, and I was on a small wooden bridge across the lake, with small waterfalls to the left, reeds to the right and Veliki slap (meaning big waterall) just ahead of me. Whilst not as massively impressive as the singular Gulfoss Waterfall in Iceland, it is Croatia’s largest, and makes up just a small part of the beauty of the area.

I could have easily spent days just existing here, and exploring all 294.82 km(2). Take a book, stare into the distance, or close your eyes and listen to the turqouise water all around you, and you’ll know exactly how I felt.

I don’t even feel any disapointment at not seeing the bears, deer, wild boar and wolves that live in the woodlands above. Yep, guide book. Again.

I did see a cave where a bear obviously lived though. I know a bear lived there because it was very dark, and there was one of those stick witch-type brooms just by the entrance. How do you explain that, if it’s not Momma Bear cleaning house?

Plitvice Lakes. The highlight of the trip so far, and hopefully not the last

“Hello, do you speak English?”
“Yes.”
“Great, I made a reservation over the Internet for a room tonight.” It had been a long, long day and evening driving through Sisak, down to Krapje, through Bosnia and arriving at Plitvice Lakes;
“What’s the name?”
“Kevin Blake”.
A quick glance to her colleague behind the counter, and a few raised eyebrows. “Can we see the confirmation?”
My suspicions were raised as I smugly showed her the iPAQ with said confirmation. Another look to her colleague. Big smile. Uh oh.
“Yes, that’s Hotel Jezero in Slovenia. This sort of thing happens all the time. They have the same name as us, even have a lake of their own”.
Shit.

Anyway, this was all after… and there’s a lot of before to get through as well.

I think I left the last entry at Zagreb. We have since rented a car from Hertz to explore some of the area between Split and Zagreb that we missed on the train journey north. The first of these, The Lonjsko polje wetlands. Home to a village made of wood, the Posaljve horse, the Turopolje pig, as well as a large group of nesting stork (though they leave around 24th August to spend the winter in South Africa). As with the mongoose, we didn’t see any of that. The guide books are full of false promises and false hope. Actually, we did see some wooden villages - some of them have started to be replaced with newer and more permaneant structures, but there were plenty of the more sightly wooden houses and farms too.

We drove almost the entire length of the national park from Sisak down to Krapje, which left us in a bit of an awkward position to get to Plitvice Lakes National Park. If you don’t know the geography of this area, Croatia is shaped like a mirrored upside down L. We were at the top right of that L. We wanted to be about 1/3 down on the big stick-part. Fortunately it’s not sea in the way, but Bosnia - so we were in better shape having a hire-car to get across that area, than say, a boat.

Or so we thought.

It was starting to get dark as we got to the Bosnian/Croatia border. But we still thought it was worth it at this point, as we’d just got another stamp in the passport
The first gas station we came across, we filled the car with petrol. Wouldn’t want to get stuck in Bosnia without petrol after all. Not with all those mountains in the way. About halfway through the guy filling the car we realised that without the petrol station accepting credit cards, we had no way of paying for the petrol. Either the guy had to get a straw and suck the petrol back out, or take our Croatian money. He took our Croatian money.
Next, we stopped off at a Derby Football Club café (though not the UK Derby FC) where the people were again extremely friendly, and served a damn good coffee! This town was also the first time I’d seen such a extravagantly lit-up mosque. Is this done every evening, perhaps? Or especially for Ramadan? There’s another mental note to not be so ignorant, I think! I don’t remember the towers being quite so awe-inspiring in Cyprus.

Other than that, the drive remained reasonably uneventful. I sent a message to Sandra of Cyprus fame, to find out if the speed limits were in miles per hour or kilometers. Whilst she couldn’t understand my SMS-english and wasn’t able to answer the question, it was at least a welcome reminder that we had someone just at the other end of a phone as a translator / local - or who might be able to explain to the police that we’re really nice people and should be let out of jail after all.
Until we got to a town that I am temporarily forgetting the name of, but will fill out here soon. We were looking for the turning towards Novi Grad, Croatia. It had to be around there somewhere because we had been driving around the city for ages. But it was also really dark and we didn’t know where we were. To make matters worse, all of the road signs were in Cyrillic script and I hadn’t yet grasped any concept of how those names might match up to the very different looking names on our map. So we stopped and asked for directions.

After a few minutes of map pointing and frantic waving, “Novi Grad, yes, yes”. Our guide started to look thoughtful as he thought about the best way to show us where to go. Neither of us speak Bosnian. He didn’t speak English. If he had spoken English, he might have been able to tell us “right, right, then left, two roads on, right again, then left, go straight until you get to the big church, and turn left again. Next right, and take that road to Novi Grad.” It’s quite likely we would have been nodding and smiling at this for some time, maybe scribbling illegible characters on some paper. Maybe we would have followed them to a degree, and ended on a dirt track before wondering “maybe he meant, right back there at the church”.

None of that happened though. Instead, he climbed in the back and pointed at things and directions we should go. We stopped outside the block of flats where he lived, he got in his car and he led us out the city onto the road we wanted.

So this is where the title of this entry comes from. The Kindness of Strangers. If we hadn’t come across such a person we could still be driving around Bosnia now. It’s a lesson to us all to help the people who need it and ask it of you instead of falling prey to the world where criminals work the roads, taking advantage of the Samaritans who help to stop. Be careful, yes - but stay human.

We have the guys address and intend to send him a proper thank you once we can find a willing translator

Anyway, that’s all a bit emotional and attempting to be quite deep isn’t it. It’s not what you were expecting, is it? You wanted more comedy perceptions of the holiday and these great countries, didn’t you? Well. Tough. Croatia, Bosnia, and now Slovenia (where I am finally getting around to writing this up from - they’re all fantastic parts of the world, and I hope everyone living here realises just how lucky they are

So to cut a long drive short, we traversed the mountains, we crossed the rivers, we overcame all odds, and left Bosnia.

A short drive away and we were at the Hotel Jezero, looking forward to a nice warm bed. That was when we were told we didn’t have a room of course. The room we had was some 150km or more away. It was sitting abandoned in Slovenia and undoubtedly had no friends. This Hotel Jezero, the real Croatian one, was also full. The Hotel Plitvice just down the road was full. The Hotel Bellevue next door had plenty of free rooms. But it was closed for renovation. We were looking a bit screwed really - and all ready to spend the night in the car. “Hotel Grabovac is slightly cheaper, do you want me to phone them for you and see if they have any rooms?” the nice lady exclaimed. The Croatian goddess of a woman picked up the phone and confirmed we could stay there. Rooms.

A Bed. Sweet heaven.

On our first night in Croatia, we went searching for a restaurant in Mlini. While we were down by the sea in the bay, we heard the sound of car horns beeping, and lots of them - like suburban crickets had somehow taken over the roads and were ready to take on the human race. Actually, if the suburban crickets had taken control of the roads, they’d be in a pretty good possession to take on the human race. I sincerely hope that none of the readers of this blog are of that persuasion.

Anyway, we had thought it was due to the football against Andora, but we’ve since discovered this is a wedding related tradition. The entire wedding party drive through the streets and sound the horn generally makiing as much noise as they pass. In the case of Split, we saw someone leaning out the window with a video camera, capturing all this excitement and people waving back into the cars, which seemed like a nice touch.

Speaking of weddings, we have arrived and will shortly be leaving Zagreb. We took the train from Split overnight, and slept the entire journey, before waking up wide-eyed and bushy tailed in Zagreb. Except for the sleeping part. The train journey is probably the only set of train tracks in the entire world that is based on a Grand Prix track. My understanding, is that when the railways are built, if something gets in the way, you get it out of the way so that the tracks are as straight as humanly possible. According to GCSE History, this is exactly what happened what happened in the UK. If you happened to be a farmer who owned land in the way …. you had to sell. Something went wrong in Croatia though, and every 5 minutes we were woken up as the train hurtled around another chicane. It was definitely an experience though, and I highly recommend it, if just for the wash pack and 7-day croissant (Pete hates those things!). So called because the croissants will last for 7 days and not taste any different to the first day. Take what you will from that

The first thing we noticed about Zagreb upon leaving the train at 6am, is that that Zagreb is cold. Really cold. “Oh that’s not good”, I said between shivering, “What isn’t?” mumbled Pete as he walked/slept at the same time. “I can see my breath”. Cold. The second thing we noticed as we left the station, is that it was even colder outside the station.

The capital is actually very different from the towns we’d been to so far. And not just because it was cold and much bigger. Previously, there was a very precise formula of “sea, followed by cafes and shops, and mountains”. There’s no sea here, but they have kept fairly close to the mould by keeping everything in the same order, from the river. More excitingly, everything is really really easy to find, and you don’t go and find the sea to find it. Instead, Zagreb has one of those city square things. Everything is really easy to walk to from Trg bana Jelacica, and all of the tram lines seem to pass through here. It’s a bit of a shame to arrive on Sunday when almost everything is closed, but there is still plenty to see, if not do.

We got the tram from the railway station towards the Hotel Ilica, where we stayed yesterday, and have a second night tonight. This is without a doubt a really brilliant hotel. I really can’t do it justice by description alone, but the woman at reception greeted us while holding a small dog that Paris Hilton would be proud of. As we walked closer to the room, we were already very impressed by the hotel furnishings, but stopped at the doorway. Double bed. Back down the stairs we go, hoping to change the room for a twin. Back up the stairs, concierge leading the way. “Yes, two beds” she said as she showed us the almost second room just around the corner. We have no less than; 1 single, 1 double bed, shower with head that stays up on its own (has rarely happened on this trip), a small oven / grill, balcony with 3 seats and table, 28″ widescreen LCD TV, DVD player, writing desk, fridge/freezer, and loads more. The room just looks great, and I can’t wait to put the pictures up - but check out their web site at www.hotel-ilica.hr to get some sort of idea.

If their was room in my bag, I would pack Hotel Ilica right up and stuff it in alongside the mini goth club to bring home.

It’s quite likely that Pete will murder me for this entry, but I have to write it anyway. I sent a text message back to the UK last night … “We’re in an Indian restaurant and my mate (Pete) has actually asked the waiter if the food should really be this hot.” We went out to an Indian restaurant for Pete’s birthday, as food of choice. It was all going well until Pete’s Spinach and Potato dish was laced with liquid fire. He tells me that it shouldn’t be hotted than the burning fires of hell, but I’m not sure - it’s an Indian restaurant after all, and the food is generally quite spicy. Anyway, Pete was very close to walking out without paying the bill, unless … unless the waiter tried his food, to make sure that it was SUPPOSED to be that hot. “It’s a vegetarian dish” said the waiter, “they’re always hotter”. Needless to say, the waiter didn’t try it, and I apparently wasn’t giving the support Pete was after, by laughing lots and apologising to the waiter. Well, mine was very nice after all

Pete rubbed his eyes, thus filling his eye sockets with that liquid fire and ensuring that “a place Pete doesn’t hurt himself” couldn’t be ticked off on holiday bingo

That’s all from Zagreb for now. More tomorrow probably, as we take a car rental back towards Split someway to the Plitvice Lakes National Park, before heading back to Zagreb on the 18th, and taking the train into Slovenia.

There used to be a lovely little Internet café down by the bus station in Split. They had a large array of english books on hand, and whenever you bought a book the nice man who worked there would let you use the Internet for 30 minutes free of charge.

What a great idea. As we headed into the Internet café next door, that nice man popped his head out. “No no, here, here, fast ADSL connection”. I’ve been wanting to dump all the data from the trackstick, and generally see how close I am to filling the memory card, so I asked “well, we have this, can we install some software?” Eager to get another customer or two, he agreed and walked us around. All of the machines are linux. No good for what I needed. When I told him this, he sat us down at the router, and said we could use his one and only Windows machine. “No virus, right?” “No, no virus, just drivers”, I laughed.

You may think you know where this story is going. You may think that you’ve worked out all the twists and turns already. Perhaps you’re already skipping way down to the end, bored with whatever useless commentary I’ve added along the way. You may be right.

Five minutes later, two bottles of beer have been brought to our machine and the trackstick is plugged in. One of the girls two computers along perks up “Excuse me, my Internet isn’t working”. Firefox has an error, the computer restarts, the room full of computers are useless…

Tomorrow, news of how two British travellers managed to interrupt the Croatian power grid, plunging the entireity of Eastern Europe intro darkness.

In our second full day in Split we managed to destroy an Internet café. The guy was very nice about it. He said it was his fault, that he shouldn’t have let us use his router machine (he didn’t even charge us for the time we had used). He may be right - but I’m still very sorry Mr Internet Man.

So, if you find yourself in Split, please stop off at the yellow Internet café near the bus station. He doesn’t have an Internet connection any more, but do buy a book or three - he needs it!

The rest of the day had a lot more of aimless wandering to it, including a massive hike around the Marjan peninsula that finished Pete off, and made him go and sit down by the sea instead. I continued, determined to find the local zoo, natural history museum and hopefully a Mongoose. I found one of them…

And the zoo had a tiger! And a fox! And a Wolf! And bears! And a guinea pig… Actually, lots of guinea pigs. It doesn’t matter where you go, but zoos will always have guinea pigs or rabbits. I’m not exactly sure why… Who goes to a zoo to see a rabbit? Seriously, do children run around their parents spiralling out of control as they dance a dance of joy and longing for “oh, can we see the rabbits, please please please please!?” No. They want lions, tigers, zebras, rhinos, elephants, giraffes and llamas. Maybe not llamas. This zoo had a llama . It was right there by the entrance. I found a group of people and spiralled around them dancing a dance Michael Flatley would be proud of “We’re gonna see a llama, a llama, a llama!”. At least I would have if anyone else had been there.

All in all, it was a quite a modest zoo. It had a llama which cheered me up no end, as well as a really funny monkey that looked not totally unlike one of those old soft toys that would fold inside out and turn into a ball or a bear. Poggles? Something like that.

A trip around the rest of the peninsula gave me the opportunity to completely tire myself out and remind my legs that if they didn’t shape up soon … I was going to like, die. It was incredibly peaceful, and filled with really nice woodlands overlooking the whole of Split and the various ports that surround it. I thoroughly recommend it as a really nice addition to the lively city just down below.

Tomorrow we’re going to leaving our private (cheap) room behind, and take the overnight train to the capital - Zagreb (about 800 kunas [80 quid] for the ticket and cabin for the both of us). There, we have two nights booked in Hotel Ilica. The 1-star hotel of choice for Pete’s birthday on Sunday. Lonely Planet Guides describe it as the “Best deal in town”. It does look interesting