Joining the August madness

On Friday I got home from a two week holiday. Europe does (to my Australian eyes) strange things with holidays. It seems to me that the entire continent just picks itself up and goes somewhere else over July and August. Many people will take almost their full year’s allowance of holidays in one hit. Sure the weather’s nice, but I don’t really understand why they don’t spread themselves out a bit more, particularly those without kids on school holidays. One possibility is that they have a use it or lose it system for annual leave, unlike in Australia where you can usually roll it over.

Whatever the reason, it’s kind of hellish around all the best spots. But despite that, we had a lovely time. The itinerary was:

• Fly into Geneva
• Drive through Switzerland and Austria
• See Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro
• Drive back through Italy
• Fly out of Milano

I had barely heard of Slovenia before going there, but it was probably one of my favourite places on the trip. And the road from Innsbruck in Austria over the Dolomites was one of the most beautiful I’ve ever taken, absolutely stunning. I think one of the themes of this blog entry is going to have to be: “the photo doesn’t do it justice”.




Bled was the first destination in “Eastern Europe”. That by the way is more of a political designation than geographical, as Greece is certainly further east than Slovenia. My Lonely Planet described Bled as appearing to have been created by some god of tourism, with its magnificent lake, the monastery on the little island in the middle, the imposing mountains all around (one with an imposing castle)… It must be spectacular in winter covered in snow and removed of so many tourists!



We stayed this time in a private room. Lots of local people have converted spare space in their houses into hotel-like rooms. This was definitely one of the cheapest options around, plus you got to see where people lived, enhancing the travelling experience. It was mainly feasible in the touristy places. Away from Bled, we found charming little mountain top dairy villages, more stunning scenery, just everything you want from the Julian Alps really (named after Julius Caesar himself – I had plenty of driving time to read the history sections in the Lonely Planet).

Next up was Ljubljana (Eastern Europe has a general inadequacy of vowels in my opinion – it gets worse). This was a super funky little town. Sure, there was the obligatorily gorgeous cathedral, a castle on the hill, the lovely river dividing the capital with lots of fine architecture. But mainly there were bars. Lots of bars. And restaurants. All different, some, old and cute, some super modern and artsy, some local and all inviting.

I wouldn’t want to inflict the awful rampaging English buck’s party phenomenon on any city but if I was organising one, this is where’d I’d go.

I liked the way they’d combined modern architecture with that from the time of the Austria-Hungarian Empire.

Rico however wasn’t terribly happy with Ljubljana as he got his wheel clamped (largely due to an inability to read the sign in Slovenian). We followed the instructions to pay the bill to a very patient and polite gentleman who appreciated that I found his sign very amusing (look closely at the picture of the car - you might have to click to make it bigger).

Next night was in Zagreb, capital of Croatia. An interesting city, not really geared up for tourists yet but obviously doing pretty well for itself. Lots of beautiful buildings from various periods in history, markets with great looking fresh food if you ignore the swarming bees (that were everywhere we went), lots of shopping if you’re into that sort of thing. Eg ugg boots! (The local hero on the horse didn’t seem to mind).

After dining in Geneva, Innsbruck and Bled, we had rather got used to the outside dining concept. Lots of places in Europe close to traffic at night (I assume just in the summer) and the tables and chairs come out and everyone dines in the plazas and terraces. It’s absolutely lovely, and at first glance Zagreb was no different with outside dining everywhere. Except at a second glance it turns out that everyone was just drinking! Clearly this is another potential party town.

We did eventually dine magnificently (and pretty cheaply) here.

Next up was Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is a photo of the border crossing, the only evidence that I was ever there because they forgot to stamp my passport. I was a bit nervous for a while, with visions of being stopped on the way out and having all sorts of bureaucratic nightmares. That didn’t happen however - borders have obviously changed a lot in this part of town since the former Yugoslavia broke down. We often just got waved through, sometimes we got stamps, sometimes not. There’s clearly some complex system that escapes me.

Of course, that was on the main tourist routes (absolutely chockers with cars from the EU, Italy and Germany were the best represented). This is the road the GPS thought would be the quickest way from Croatia back into Bosnia (check out a map, down on the coast near Montenegro the borders do some rather bizarre things). Luckily it was quite scenic, as the two gentlemen at the top of the hill, one Croatian and one Bosnian, both of the rare, non-English speaking variety, managed to explain that they really weren’t set up for strange foreigners, as their little border crossing (two huts with about 50 m of the usual no man’s land between) was for locals only! That was pretty funny. So back to the highway along the magnificent, awe inspiringly beautiful Adriatic coastline.

But I’m getting well ahead of myself. Bosnia of course hasn’t long recovered from the war between the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats. I must say, of all the ridiculous wars this one seems particularly stupid. As far as I can tell, Serbs and Croats are ethnically the same, speak the same language and have roughly the same history. The only thing is, one bunch goes to a Roman Catholic church and the other to a Christian Orthodox church. The other group in the country are the Muslims (same ethnicity, same language, they just happened to find it expedient to convert during the Turkish Ottoman Empire days). Lots of chaos all round.

The first thing we noticed on the way south from the border was the number of unfinished houses. Large, two and three story buildings had been constructed but never finished. However people were obviously living in them (you could see rows of washing for example, and pot plants). I think that after the war, people were donated money for building materials but then the money ran out.

Our first stop was at Jajce (pronounced yitsé). This was a lovely old town with its own waterfall and masses of history. So much so that when a nice little hotel (dining room shown in the photo) was being built, they discovered some original Turkish baths, now shown off under a glass panel in the floor.

We had a great time here, and fell in with a local woman explaining in alternate Spanish and English the architectural history of her home town to the crowd she ended up attracting. Catacombs, ramparts, ancient mosques turned into churches and a large modern memorial to those that died in 1992. And of course, plenty of other reminders of the war.

The next day was Sarajevo. If I remember correctly, they called this the first televised war. That would be because of all the international journalists who got trapped during the bombing in this Holiday Inn, located on “sniper alley”.

Sarajevo has obviously been rebuilt a lot, and I really liked the relaxed, holiday atmosphere. Again, there were plenty of reminders of the war still, but also lots of things going on, not least of which was the Sarajevo film festival! The old town (every self respecting European city has an “old town” or Stari Grad in Croatian, Vielle Ville in French, etc) was so cute it almost seemed contrived, invoking memories of a Turkish past.

I was tickled by the tourist t-shirts, in English, that said “I’m Muslim, don’t panic”. But of course, the bombing in Sarajevo wasn’t the only modern history in this place. Oh no, for this is the town of History with a capital H. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is where it all started – the bridge where a Bosnian Serb shot Franz Ferdinand, the even that kicked off WWI and the rest of the 20th century.

Next up was Mostar. Again my camera failed to produce the required quality images of this amazing place, so I direct the interested to the images at the bottom of this site (I know, slack, but hey this blog entry is probably already too long!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostar.

All I can say is that there was a bar in a cave. In a cave! Why doesn’t every cave have a bar? This was too perfect.

Next time: the road west and north and then west some more.

Legally driving

Finally I’m decently licensed again. After 1 year in the UK, you’re supposed to exchange your foreign licence for a UK one. So I might not have been technically speaking legally driving all those times that I was, you know, driving for the last 2 years.

It’s a funny system over here. You have a normal card with your photo on it, but you also get some piece of paper which is meant to go with it. The most critical functions that one might wish to perform with a driver’s license (eg hire a car) seem to need both. My wallet is unnecessarily fat.

The funny thing is that the photo is black and white. Actually, no, the funny thing is that the photos used to be in colour, but the letter that came with my new licence proudly proclaimed to have improved their systems with technological advancements… by making the photos black and white. (!)

Of course, France always has to outdo England in the beaurocracy stakes. In order to get me on his car insurance, Rico has to show my licence (seems normal enough). Except in France, licences show the date you first received your full driving licence. My new UK licence has a date from about a week ago. That's still a challenge to be resolved.

The sun’s been shining for the last few days, and today (Sunday) I went for some nice long walks. It still astounds me how much my mood can depend on getting enough sunshine and warmth. I could literally feel myself getting happier as I walked in the sun. I’d never felt this before moving to England, probably because I’d never gone such a long time without my vitamin D.

My house is a shambles at the moment because I’m undertaking cellar renovations, and it’s very bad for my waistline and wallet! I pop into my local pub across the road every now and then and so met the guys who are undertaking the work. Every night we have a “project meeting” in the pub to discuss how the day’s work went. Other jobs have a contingency added on; I’ve had to add a beer-ingency! But it’s going to be great (I hope) when it’s finished.

Although, one challenge is heating. Can you believe that the English don't know what an IXL Tastic is? I'm going to have to try and order one over the internet.

Next Saturday I’m off on holiday. Normally I would avoid August like the plague when it comes to holidays in Europe, but Rico and I were constrained timing wise by his job. So I booked the two cheapest flights I could find – I’m flying into Geneva and out of Milan and we’re going to drive somewhere in between. It should be great, and I’ll try and remember to take lots of photos.