Blog 7 - posting from the war zone

Blog 7 - posting from the war zone...

 

Hi everyone, welcome to Blog 7. I'm writing from Bosnia&Herzegovina from a town called Mostar, where we are staying for three nights. Mostar has an old city with a beautiful bridge (Unesco Heritage Listing number 15 since we started!) that was bombed and destroyed during the '90s conflict (the footage of this was surprisingly heartbreaking, considering the affection for which this bridge was held) and rebuild in the '00s. It has beautiful bazaars with interesting knick-knacks. (Renae and i still working out how to ship glassware back to Australia and have it in one piece when we return!) It also has bullet and mortar holes in many of the buildings, cemeteries with the only occupants men who died in 1993-95, and graffiti and signs scattered around the city saying "never forget". Physical and emotional scars on display. Photos next blog..

Last blog we were in Zagreb, but promised some more photos of our time in Istria...so here they are!!!

(Rovinj-Venice of Istria)

(Courtyard in Rovinj)

(...and the view from the church tower)

(Morovun)

(And our wonderful hosts, Rade and Sonja)

I loved Zagreb. Really loved it. It may have something to do with our lodgings, a spacious apartment with high ceilings that looked across to the cathedral and a 30second walk down to Tkalčićeva street, the coolest place in Zagreb for a drink...which we did once or twice...a day...!! But there was a simplicity and lack of pretension to the place a well. It wasn't crowded, it felt bright and fresh. We visited the Gallery of Croatian Naive art, that even the kids enjoyed (I know that sounds a bit desperate, but if the kids walk out of a place that we have basically dragged them to saying they liked it, we feel a bit better about it!!!). We checked out the remarkably unique "Museum of Broken Relationships", where people around the world provide an object and a story that describes the end of their relationship. It was somewhat depressing, slightly galvanising for Renae and I (though we did try to work out what we'd send in!)...it almost worked.

 

 

 

Kids and Renae had a day looking at the Zagreb Zoo zebras...actually I don't know if there were zebras there, I just wanted to write that...while I sent 87 emails with attachments for my application to work in the UK. Still not over the line though!

Had some great meals...meat meat meat...and Plavac and Graševina wine. And my favourite beer was everywhere. So what's not to love!!!

(Zagreb, main square)

 

(Awww, drinks in Tkalčićeva St)

(Sunset over Zagreb)

After a frantic dash to the station to catch a 6.30am train, the Carolinvandenbergs meandered their way from the Croatian capital, to Split, its second biggest city. We knew only a little of Split, thinking it would be just a pitstop on the way down to Dubrovnik, and it's fair to say the outer suburbs are not overly photogenic. But once you elbow past the hundreds of street vendors trying to offer you fridge magnets, and the thousands of tourists pouring off the cruise liners (that I'm sure were the vessels used at the end of the film "2012"!), Split is absolutely charming.

(Palace of Diocletian)

(Boulevarde, remarkably empty...extremely rare!)

(Selfie - Split by night)

We had good weather, and the seaside promenade was bathed in light, sun sparkling off the water. The "old city" here is the palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, and much of it is still intact. It is strange seeing people sitting and balancing their coffee cups on 2000 year old columns.

The walking tour was okay, the guide not blessed with a voice that carried beyond the first tier of listeners, and I felt for my hearing impaired clients...which could have been most of the rest of the people in the walking group. They were shooting Game of Thrones in Split, and we elbowed about thirty semi-clad, completely ripped extras out of the way. Wasn't allowed to take photos of them, so apologies to the ladies (and gents) that wanted a pic.

Another good apartment with SkyChannels, meaning we could get up super early with cider and hotdogs to watch Hawks prove me wrong and take the premiership. We hired bikes (I ran), we swam, pleased that we still could in late September. And we had an evening drink on the top of the hill. Here's a picture! We're actually going back to Split as our last Croatian port of call...stay tuned!

 

And then we thought, why not catch a bus? Actually we had no choice as Dubrovnik has no train station. So off we went on what we thought was a 2.25hr trip along the coast, but after what was either "Marc can't read the schedule properly" or "Split tourism can't upate their roster" (jury's out which one it is)...6 hours later we arrived! To be fair, the Dalmatian coastline is the most spectacular I have ever seen, and was worth the coastal option.

Dubrovnik! Unlike anywhere you will EVER go. It's a walled city, nearly completely intact (and/or sensitively renovated) buffeted against the Adriatic. Pristine, tree lined islands dot themselves along the coast. It is simply beautiful.

(Dubrovnik - view from our apartment)

Our apartment was one example of what I assume many locals do during high (and high-ish) season, which is rent out their houses and live in a sort of granny flat. The house was clean, big enough for us and solely worth it for the morning and night view looking down at the old city.

(View from the Pile Gate entrance)

So in the old city we walked around and looked at shops, had coffee and icecream, swam in the sea (just down the steps and you fell into the Adriatic), had a great drink at a bar called Buže which was on the rocks out side the walls where we watched the sun go down and tried not to think about the fact that the drinks were triple-priced.

(Main square at night)

The highlight was the walk around the walls where everywhere you stood at every different time of day provided a slightly different perspective and nuance of the city. If you jogged the walls (but why would you) it would take about 10 minutes. Took us 90...

 

 

(Sunset from the wall)

Bryan Ferry played a free concert the second night we were there and we strategically booked a restaurant for dinner so as to get a good view. Then it rained...and rained...and rained...and thundered...and aimed some more! Streets were underwater, we ate (outside but undercover) with our feet on the table legs! But the show went on...an hour late. Bryan looked tired and old, but still smooth and his voice was velvety

We up and visited a whole 'nother country - Montenegro! - just an hour away from Dubrovnik. The tour guide, who was great and kept calling us "my dear guests" gave us an insight about its history. Turns out Billie is one day older than Montenegro, which gained independence from Serbia on 3/6/06. Billie gained independence from Renae on 2/6/06!

We visited Kotor, another beautiful walled city. St Stefan, now an outrageously expensive holiday resort (just sitting on the beach costs 50€/day, Angelina Jolie goes there!), and Budva...which I was a bit indifferent about. Amazing what poor service can do as far as your perceptions of a place! We met two really lovely ladies from Ottawa (hi if you're reading!!)...and got our passport stamped as another country on our journey...

(Kotor - walls go all the way up the hill)

(St Stefan)

And yes, there was washing, wifi, homework, meltdowns. Some things stay the same, just with different currency conversions.

Bus to Mostar and here we are. Off to do some afternoon bargaining and maybe an early (and quite cheap) dinner. Wishing everyone good health and good times. Replying to the blog is ridiculously complex (involves registering/creating a gmail account), so feel free to just send us an email to our normal email marcandrenae@bigpond.com.

Bye for now from the Europeancaravans!

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy