Blog 6 - from the mountain peaks to the basement

BLOG 6 - FROM THE MOUNTAIN PEAKS TO THE BASEMENT...

Hi everyone. Greetings from the capital of Croatia, Zagreb. As I write, Gary Ablett has just won the Brownlow Medal (oops, spoiler alert...) and various family members are either flying in to Melbourne, or pleading for tickets on line, to get to the Grand Final...where Hawthorn will unfortunately lose to Freo (I actually predicted Freo would win three weeks ago...).

We've just started our third month on our "journey" (not the X-factor type the real thing), but I'm casting my mind back to week 7 and driving into a place called Heiligenblut, Austria. It was a place chosen on a whim, and an amazing on line view of Grossglöckner, the highest mountain in Austria. When we got there, we were rewarded with that amazing view...and a ghost town of a hostel with about three other inhabitants, no wifi, no cooking facilities, and a surly, unhappy hostel manager who acted as though we had interrupted her down-season by being there (granted last night there we were the only ones there!!).

 

Heiligenblut and surrounds were beautiful, and we had a great time exploring the countryside, going for walks, hikes and runs, looking at windflowers and marmots (weird badger things...I think that's the Wikipedia definition) and generally being all at one with nature. It was nice. The glacier, part of the Grossglöckner park, had basically dwindled to a fraction of its former size. One of the rangers told us that only 20years ago there was a walking track through the tunnel in the glacier. Now there's a half hour climb down to see a bit of blue ice. It is a tragedy. Luckily climate change is crap...or so sayeth our new PM at one time (don't blame me, I didn't vote!)

(Marmots!)

 

(Glacier...what's left of it...)

 

(View from our room)

***OBSCENE BEAUTY ALERT*** Our next stop was Slovenia and Lake Bled. One of the luxurious and downright bizarre things about this trip is that I saw this place in a book and thought that it looked amazing...so we went, and it was!

We stayed in a Hostel/family room and it was okay. We had the choice of either sleeping with the windows open and listening to drunk Slovenians drinking, singing and generally carrying on. No indoor voices those people! Or sleeping with the windows shut and slowly sautéing in our own sweat (nice visual?)

We spent almost all our time at or near the lake: swimming in it, eating ice cream beside it, photographing it, running round it (a good 6km flat run, was great!), riding round it (which we as a family are NEVER SPEAKING OF AGAIN), rowing in it (wow nothing like rowing to make you realise a) that you have a strong arm and a weak arm and b) how amazingly uncoordinated you can be). Oh, here's a million photos!!

 

(BledGrad - castle)

(Vintgar gorge)

 

 

 

 

Our one trip away from Bled while there was to Vintgar gorge, which was sehr schön (sorry I'm lapsing into occasional German as I've spoken it more than English it feels recently!) - very beautiful! Renae and I, as old Australians spurred on by a young Welsh couple, jumped into ten degree water at the foot of a waterfall. Less romantic than it sounds!

(Yes, it's freeeeezing!)

 

We left Bled, and decided to spoil ourselves with a stay in a really impressive hoel in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia. Eurobasket finals, the European basketball championships (I'm sure you worked that out!) we're being held there, and all the countries were staying in the hotel. We were often in the lifts with unnaturally tall people...and next to Billie, it was pretty weird. We felt a bit Ma and Pa Kettle as we took a car lift to the car park...wow we don't have thinks like that in Orstraya! Didn't do the place justice, as kids and I just hung out in a water park while Renae shopped, then gorged on buffet dinner and lunch...or maybe we did do it justice. We may never know!

Then Dobre došli, we're in Croatia!!!!!!

Our first stop, through the tunnels, the tolls and the outrageously narrow, scrape-inducing streets, was Zadar. We stayed at an Air-BNB house, apartment in the front (us) and family at the back. Thought that may be awkward, but they were lovely...even helped me get a fire going for a barbecue. (I know, I'm ashamed...it's unAustralian!)

Zadar was charming, a bit rough around the edges, but we generally have been getting very good weather, and we bought the kids mask and snorkels so they rarely left the water! We sat and drank beer and wine and looked out over the islands and watched the sunset.

(Zadar from the church tower)

 

(Hitchcock was right...)

 

(They do worship me here...)

 

The old town had a strong Roman influence and we enjoyed looking round, climbing the church tower, buying produce (and probably being ripped off) at the local market. Alfred Hitchcock stayed here and remarked that the Zadar sunset was the best he'd ever seen! We caught a ferry to Preko on the island of Ulgjan (I think) and swam and ate a massive seafood meal. A lady on a ferry befriended the kids and invited us to her house for coffee in Zagreb. I lost her email address...

 

On we went to Istria, which markets itself as the Land of Good Wine. We had great expectations about this region, and where we were staying, and we weren't disappointed on either level.

We stopped at Plitviče lakes, which everyone said (including Trip Advisor) was one of the must see things...in the world really. It was..um...nice, pretty...crowded.

(Plitviče lakes)

We stayed in a town called Baderna, near a bigger town called Poreč (Poretch if you're wondering what the weird accent means). Our hosts were Sonja and Rade, and along with their daughter Jelena, have been one of the highlights of our trip. They welcomed us warmly, their accommodation was amazing. Great beds and facilities, trees to climb (Billie has so many war wounds but would not change a thing), bocce to play, and a beautiful dog Buba that the kids doted on.

We had many day trips, including Poreč, Grosnjan (my favourite - full of art shops and streets you could just wander around and lose yourself in!), Rovinj (the Venice of Istria) and Motovun (beautiful town, perched literally on the top of a hill...a bugger to climb). The Italian influence is very apparent in Istria, being once a part of Italy, and Italy just being over the water a bit. But there is a very relaxed and comfortable mentality to Istrians generally that we identified with and appreciated.

(Poreč at night)

We had a meal with our hosts, as well as drinks at the first and last night. We had a chance to get to know them, their lives, how they met, and their philosophy on life (I know that sounds twee, but it has given us pause to think about why we do what we do). Interestingly, their English is poor, our Croatian is poor so we communicated through German! Wasn't too bad!!

(Awww, Buba the dog!)

There was truffle-infused...everything! There was Teran and Malvazija the local wines, there was čevapčiči, there was honey schnapps (actually there still is as they gave us some as a parting gift)!

There was also a stone that decided to crack our windscreen and we spent the last week of having the car watching it spread slowly across the glass! Best 20€ spent to get glass and tyre insurance!

But our time in Istria, when we look back from our respective institutions in ten months time, will be a highlight I have no doubt. We will be back in ten years for singing and dancing! Živjeli!!

Nb more photos from Instria in the next blog....

And finallllllly, Zagreb. More on that next time other that to say that with a $70 AirBNB room, you get what you pay for. We were taken down underground to an apartment that was arty/bohemian if you are being polite, dodgy if you wanted to call it as it is. One night there of no sleep and we have changed to a bright open, comfortable apartment on the main square. We're here till Friday...try the veal.

Renae is looking up ways to get to Dubrovnik, Jessie is reading Harry Potter to Billie in the other room (Jess is about to start number 6...she has discovered reading in a massive, almost antisocial way!)

Ahh, there are moments when you feel you may not be doing permanent damage to your or your family's emotional well being. This may be one of them.

Hope all is well with family and friends. Hugs for Scouty and Carly. Go Hawks. Dovidenja from the EuropeanCaravans!!!

 

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Blog 5 - from Austria, towards Istria

Blog 5 - everything is backwards! From Austria, towards Istria.

 

Hi all. Well, Richmond's out, Collingwood's out, Labor's out...things clearly going well that end. Hope everything is well otherwise!

It's been two weeks since I last posted and to say we've done a lot would be understating it. We've had a car for two weeks (a Citroen...I'm kinda in love with it, despite how long it took to work out the German language GPS.) and I'm prepared to say I have mastered the "wrong side of the car, wrong side of the road" thing...worst parts were getting out of the Vienna airport, and learning that Europeans just don't like it if you are on the left side of the autobahn doing (a legal) 130 when they want to do 180. Renae's subtle sentence we agreed on "hmm, the other side of the road looks nice" was only used once...maybe twice.

Aaaahhh, Vienna. We had a few days there, and probably didn't do it justice. There is a central part which is just beautiful architecture everywhere. The girls went off on a tour of the Spanish Riding School, making Jessie's day, and I went to my Third Man museum (what, you still haven't seen it, after I told you to last time? Shame on you!). It was a brilliant museum which looked not only at the film/memorabilia etc, but captured brilliantly Vienna and Austria during wartime, and into peacetime. So much I didn't know about the history. And yep, we had schnitzel for dinner!

(We went to a butterfly house...I just really liked this photo I took!)

(Spanish riding school horses)

Biggest frustration was data use costing us about $25 a Mb, as opposed to about 80¢ in Germany. Global roaming, which we have been really careful with generally, killed us here.

From Vienna we headed back into the Czech countryside, where the beer is cheap and plentiful, (and the data is cheap and...er...plentiful), to a place called Cesky Krumlov. Our house overlooked the Vltava river and we had a great view of the old city, beautiful old church and castle...not so much the 87 restaurants and souvenir shops, which are tucked in a bit deeper. Here are some pictures!

(View from our house!)

(View from the castle tower)

We got our first real dose of crap weather here, so it was a great opportunity to catch up on job application stuff, and washing (our two prerequisites, must have washer, must have wifi)...not that it the washing dried. We've all gone a little bit Harry Potter mad. Jessie has discovered them in a major way and is already on to reading number 4, Billie is on number one for her reading generally, and renae and I are re-reading them mainly because English books...good English books are hard to come by. There is "50 Shades of Grey" wherever you want it though.

On to a place called Oy-Mittelberg in Germany's south. On the way we stopped at a weird roadside market on the border where there were about 50 tents of Chinese-Czech traders speaking German selling the same bad track suits and other clothes...we bought backpacks for the girls and I bought sunnies which I've already thrown away!

We chose Oy as a place, not because of the raging desire to say "Aussie Aussie Aussie!" next to every road sign (we only did that once!) but because it was tantalisingly close to Neuschwanstein Castle (you know, the one the Disney castle at the start of their movies modelled itself on). It...was...glorious. It really is beautiful, set atop a cliff face in the Bavarian mountains. The 30 min tour shows the finished rooms (it's actually unfinished inside as Ludwig II died during completion and it was bleeding money to build) and reinforced the fact that Ludwig was a nutter in a Michael Jacksony kind of way. We had a picnic lunch, the day was beautiful, here's some photos!

 

 

 

I've enjoyed watching the kids open-mouthed at some of the alps we've seen, nothing like home. Oy was also beautiful, more like a farming town (hence a cow as our neighbour). Very green. One highlight was having a meal in an adjacent town and two young kids teaching Jess and Billie German words. We taught them how to say "g'day" and I felt very stereotypically Australian!

 

Phew, then there was breakfast in Germany, lunch in Austria (Innsbruck) and dinner, eventually, in Italy in the south Tirol in a town called Reischach (German name) or Risconi (Italian name). Spent three days there. It's basically at the foot of some serious mountains, and whilst it was well populated during the summer/school holidays when we were there, I sense it would be insane in winter. There's Gasthofs and chalets everywhere. We took a funicular up to the top of the mountain, went for a hike and watched some CRAZY PEOPLE THROW THEMSELVES OFF IT. okay, with parasails and hang gliders, but seriously...!!!

(Top o' the mountain...and yes that's sun bakers in the top left!)

We went to a spa/swimming pool place and I got to try out the delights of a nude sauna (sorry for those throwing up a little in their mouths right now). It had about 14 different saunas, from aromatherapy ones, to 60degree and even 80degree ones, all unisex. It was...an experience.

 

 

(This space intentionally left blank due to no pictures of the sauna...thank God)

 

 

I'm still about a week and two places behind, so ill catch up on them soon. We're in Lake Bled in Slovenia and you may have to endure about 800 photos of this place. It's amazing and one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. We're a night in Slovenia's capital Ljubljana tomorrow, then in Croatia for about a month!

Kids are doing some homework, but probably not enough. We've added a few kilos - gee they like their meat and potatoes here. Frustrated that hostels we have stayed in haven't had kitchens to cook our own meals. We're missing friends and family (emails/pictures are nice, especially for the girls), but still loving the ride.

Lots of love from the EuropeanCaravans

 

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Blog 4 - welcome to the language barrier!!!

BLOG 4 Poland and the Czech Republic

Hi all. It's 6pm in the evening where we are, early morning in Melbourne. We've been on a train all day, probably the last train for a while. Thought I'd make a start on catching up on the last couple of countries we've been to since the last blog (yeah, that doesn't sound weird at all!)

We left completely satisfied with Berlin, fairly well rested, got some runs in, ate and drank more than we should etc. Kids even did some homework!!!! On the train to Warsaw we sat with a German guy and we spoke for about an hour completely in German! It was probably exasperating for him, and exhausting for me, but at least a realisation that six years of schooling wasn't completely wasted!

 

Warsaw was the hardest place we've encountered so far and the least English language-friendly place (I feel like such a snob saying that). Signs were rarely in English, people were often (not always though) well intentioned. Taxi driver took us to our accommodation. It was the cheapest AirBNB we've used so far...only a few tram stops from the old city, but really basic - oven had dirty dishes, no wifi though promised, beds like concrete, but the guy who owned it was so well meaning and told us of his life through the hard times in Warsaw, we kind of just sucked it up. In the morning, Renae went for a run and got lost, I caught a bus...and got lost...

But ALL that aside, the Stare Miasto (old city) was beautiful and we spent every night there eating, drinking, enjoying the music, drinking, shopping and drinking. We even had a drink or two...

 

I stole away for an afternoon to the Polish Poster Museum (no, don't switch off, polish art and design is incredible - check out the pictures!), we took the kids to the Copernicus Museum, which as Renae put it, was Scienceworks on Steroids. Very hands on, kids loved it despite the hour queue initially. Saw a really basic planetarium show and if we'd looked carefully we could have seen one probably written by a friend of ours (sorry Tanya!).

 

 

 

Polish food was a highlight: pierogi (Billies favourite), hunter stew, Sour sausage and egg soup, potato...everything!

 

 

Polish poster museum

After Warsaw we went south to Krakow. Walking into the sunshine, having a sandwich in the park at the outer wall of the old city, we agreed that we preferred Krakow in the first 30mins than the whole three days in Warsaw. Me with a front and back pack and the girls wheeling their packs, we looked like a mother duck and their ducklings! We wheeled to our accommodation (again AirBNB, similar price, same issues...I felt I would never get more than two hours uninterrupted sleep again, with all of the sirens, screaming, trams...)

Krakow is beautiful, and knows it too. Tourists know it as well, because they were everywhere. The main square in the old city is amazing. Quite big, the architecture, statues and churches were stunning. It was nice just to sit on a chair with a coffee and watch the people. Girls did a horse ride around the sites while absorbed free wifi and applied for jobs in the UK.

 

 

We did two outings. One was a trip to the salt mines in Wielicska We did this over two days as Billie was sick on day one and she and renae went the following day. It was an unusual place to see. You travelled a long way underground and the guide (who was hilarious...a bit like Natasha from Boris and Natasha) told you about the history of the salt mine and how they mined it, but they had also created these amazing sculptures and whole rooms, including two chapels!

 

 

The other outing (for want of a better word) was Auschwitz and Birkenau. It was a stunning day when we went and the countryside we passed on the hour it took to get there was lush and tranquil. It seemed almost ironic as we walked through the camps - seeing the Arbeit Macht Frei sign, standing in the chambers, seeing the piles and piles and piles and PILES of suitcases, shoes, shaving brushes...all the hair.

Our guide left us with the words "do not forget this place" and it is something I know I will never forget. It was hard to gauge the girls reactions. I think a lot of it simply was beyond their scope of reasoning. I guess they're not alone with that.

 

 

 

So in the desire to get a good nights sleep, we decided on a sleeper car from Krakow to Prague. Best we could do was a midnight change of trains in Katowice, and then on from there. Jessie got a blood nose in the middle of the night...and the we were in Prague!!!

 

Breakfast overlooking the George Bridge up to the castle, watching the swans, all very quiet. Prague rivals maybe Paris as the most beautiful city in the world. No question. None...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We checked into our hostel (that Jessie chose, so she knew it was riding on her!) in a family room...and immediately booked another two days. It was an unreal place to stay. There was a guitar and piano (ahhhh), there were activities every night and the kids were part of them all (making soup, spaghetti, there was Czech beer tasting...okay they didn't do that!). We made some great Facebook friends and it was nice for Renae and I to talk to adult human beings that weren't each other.

 

 

Another walking tour, again split over two days due to general exhaustion. Our guide was the lovely Andrea, who had a Czech mother and Slovak father, from Czechoslovakian grandparents, so understood the conflicting history and gave a great factual (how the hell do they remember those DATES) and personal details. We are remembering to give feedback to Trip Advisor, Hostels International and airBNB about our experiences - anyone who travels should do the same.

 

 

The main square was again amazing, not that you could see it through the vendors, horses and tourists (bloody tourists!!). And walking along the George Bridge was a bit like leaving the MCG just after the siren. So it's not too surprising that my highlights were my 7am run through the city, when I had it to myself - just me, the other runners, guys with tripods (no way you can use a tripod during the day)...and brides getting their photos done...yup, that's normal! That, and the time in the hostel, and just walking around a timeless, magical, majestic city...oh, and the Jewish cemetery (see comparison of Jewish cemetery and Berlin memorial below)...and definitely the cheap beer!!! Jessie and Renae would say the Segway tour...why walk when you can Segway!!

 

 

 

Okay, so now we are in...Vienna (insert Ultravox boom boom-boom, pow-pow reference there). It's Friday night, we pick up a car Sunday and HIT THE ROAD!!!!! The EuropeanCaravans are going Thelma and Louise! But first, there's a "Third Man" museum to see ( you've never seen the film? Hire it straight away - Orson Welles, best final scene in a film ever) and free wifi to exploit.

 

I'll stop here as Im noticing that my blogs are becoming Rowling-esque and getting bigger with each one. We are missing you all. Any contact is good contact. Wish us luck as we navigate the wrong side of the road.

Love from the EuropeanCaravans!!!

 

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