Hey folks,
Am ensconced in s warm hostel in Skopje, finally updating this, checking email, etc etc. We got here this afternoon from Prishtina, Kosovo, which we arrived at from Montenegro and Croatia. We've gone from the icy bitter cold of Sarajevo, to the blinding sun and pleasant warmth of Mostar, to the rain of Split, Dubrovnik, and Kotor, and then back to the cold and ice of Zabljak. Skopje is still chilly, as it's inland, but luckily not hat-and-scarf weather.
A whirlwind update from last time:
Mostar is charming; it may be our favorite town on the whole trip. It was a little quiet, nice and warm, and we stayed with this wonderful couple who brought us fresh homemade cake and tea in bed. Life was great.
From Mostar, we daytripped to Medugorje, Roman Catholic pilgrimmage site since the early 1980s, when 6 teenagers first saw an image of the Virgin Mary. It was beautiful; they've built a massive church, lots of areas for devotions and rosaries and ways of the cross all over and around the town. It was, however, very strange: the town is clearly set up for receiving thousands of tourists a day, which it does get in the summer. But I think we were the only 2 tourists in town. We had the church, and Apparition Hill almost entirely to ourselves, and the restaurant where we grabbed lunch opened just for us. We really appreciated the town, but both agreed we'd really dislike it in summer: we saw photos, and it's absolutely wall-to-wall pilgrims. As it was, it was incredibly peaceful and contemplative, and we had a great day there.
Next up was Split, where we saw the old walled city in the rain. It's the site of Emperor Diocletian's retirement palace, and the city was kind of built up inside the old palace. It's incredibly picturesque and fronts the Adriatic. We just spent an afternoon there, before heading on to Dubrovnic, which was a little similar setup, a walled city on the Adriatic. Both Split and Dubrovnik were so fun to just stroll around and appreciate. The not fun part for us was that Croatia is more developed and threfore much more expensive than everywhere else we'd been. Still, we were able to stay with a family in Dubrovnik, who shared their homemade carob liqueur and told stories of their travelling days.
From Croatia, we headed to Montenegro, first to Kotor, which was gorgeously set on the water, surrounded by mountains on 3 sides. In the morning the fog and coulds kind of rolled over the mountains towards the city, it was incredibly picturesque.
From Kotor, we caught a bus to Podgorica, and then on to Zabljak, which is in Durmitor National Park. During that bus ride, we switched from balmy if damp warm Adriatic weather to cold mountain air; it was a bit of a surprise getting off the bus to snow again. At Zabljak, we went skiing, as one does when one is in Zabljak. It was adventuresome; I'll write more later of course, but suffice to say we got more stories from our day skiing than any other day on our trip.
From Zabljak, we headed to Kosovo, where, due to a ridiculously fast bus and fast customs, we arrived at 2:30 this morning. Arriving at a bus station at 2:30am when one was not planning on grabbing a hotel is not fun; luckily the security guard let us into the bus station, which actually had couches, and the bus station cafe opened at 4:30, so we could collapse into chairs with tea and books. We went through Prishtina, the capital of the Kosovo region, pretty quickly as it's a smallish town. It's also a fun town: to get to the city center we took Bil Klinton Bulevard until it met up with Mother Theresa Street. I enjoyed Prishtina.
We then hopped a bus to Skopje, where we've pretty much done nothing but relax so far; we'll see the town tomorrow before heading Istanbulward. It's been quite an adventure, and we're entering the home stretch...
kib,
-R
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Another city, another hostel, another internet cafe...
A few thoughts on Sarajevo:
-A few of you have asked about the gas crisis and how it's affecting our trip. Well, today we found the most visible sign: Sarajevo's eternal flame has gone out, because there's not enough gas to power it. Yeah. We've also found that most of the hostels in town have shut down their larger, cheaper rooms because those rooms don't have electric heating, and there is no gas for the central heating. Thankfully, while our hostel here would win absolutely no awards, it is warm and does have hot showers, neither of which we were sure we'd find in Sarajevo.
-One thing that I've found really interesting here is the appearance of microcredit institutions. This is the first time we've seen them in Eastern Europe, and there are a fair few of them, around the city.
-There's still damage from the shelling of the city in 1992-1995 visible on many buildings in town. It's a little odd to think that in my lifetime, this city was a war zone.
-Bosnia is soooo Turkish, it's incredible. They have borek, kebap, mercimek corbasi, and patlican salatasi in the restaurants. The cafes serve Bosnaski kafe (Turkish coffee, by another name; a little less thick though). The cake shops sell baklava (in servings 4-5 times the size of Turkish servings) and helva. The guy next to me at this internet cafe is speaking Turkish to his friend. The hotels have names like Merak (Curiosity) and Yildiz (Star). The district with all the shops and restaurants is called Bascarsi (the head/chief market). It's wonderful. I think I will really enjoy Bosnia.
Sarajevo is, as much as Eastern Europe has been, beautiful and cold. We saw a few churches, mosques, and monuments today, including the Latin bridge, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, thus sparking World War One. It was incredible. The other highlight of our day was finding an English bookshop, so we are now fully stocked and ready for many long bus and train rides to come. As long as they're in daylight hours.
kib,
-R
-A few of you have asked about the gas crisis and how it's affecting our trip. Well, today we found the most visible sign: Sarajevo's eternal flame has gone out, because there's not enough gas to power it. Yeah. We've also found that most of the hostels in town have shut down their larger, cheaper rooms because those rooms don't have electric heating, and there is no gas for the central heating. Thankfully, while our hostel here would win absolutely no awards, it is warm and does have hot showers, neither of which we were sure we'd find in Sarajevo.
-One thing that I've found really interesting here is the appearance of microcredit institutions. This is the first time we've seen them in Eastern Europe, and there are a fair few of them, around the city.
-There's still damage from the shelling of the city in 1992-1995 visible on many buildings in town. It's a little odd to think that in my lifetime, this city was a war zone.
-Bosnia is soooo Turkish, it's incredible. They have borek, kebap, mercimek corbasi, and patlican salatasi in the restaurants. The cafes serve Bosnaski kafe (Turkish coffee, by another name; a little less thick though). The cake shops sell baklava (in servings 4-5 times the size of Turkish servings) and helva. The guy next to me at this internet cafe is speaking Turkish to his friend. The hotels have names like Merak (Curiosity) and Yildiz (Star). The district with all the shops and restaurants is called Bascarsi (the head/chief market). It's wonderful. I think I will really enjoy Bosnia.
Sarajevo is, as much as Eastern Europe has been, beautiful and cold. We saw a few churches, mosques, and monuments today, including the Latin bridge, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, thus sparking World War One. It was incredible. The other highlight of our day was finding an English bookshop, so we are now fully stocked and ready for many long bus and train rides to come. As long as they're in daylight hours.
kib,
-R
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Epic Joyage
A few things:
-Kel and I have decided we are horrible backpackers. First of all, we don't have legit backpacks--we're travelling around with a school-size backpack and a laptop backback, respectively. Our hostelmates without fail have legit, backpacking backpacks. Second, unlike many of the other backpackers in our hostels, we're in bed by ridiculous-o-clock early, because we're usually exhausted from travelling/staying warm/climbing citadels. Third, we have a bad habit of just showing up in a city, and looking for a hostel once we get out of the bus/train station. Thus we end up like last night, when our train got in to Bucharest after 9, we started walking towards a hostel, got lost, had to take a cab (which ripped us off by a factor of 3, but the end total was still under $5), found that hostel dark and shut down, and took another cab to another hostel. That cab got really ridiculously lost, and we ended up having to call the hostel owner for directions in Romanian before finally showing up at 11:30pm, hoping they actually had rooms. Luckily, winter is most definitely the off season for this region, so they had beds. The last way (for now) that we are just bad backpackers is our choice of time to go voyaging: these areas are clearly set up for summer tourists, generally, and most backpackers come through Eastern Europe once it's not iced over. Oh well... We add our own distinctive flair to our travelling.
-Mishaps so far: I lost my phone yesterday in Bucharest, presumably to a pickpocket. I'm really more unhappy about losing the number than the phone. Kel was grazed by a car this morning, also in Bucharest (don't worry parents and Grandma, she is fine). She stepped into the second part of a 2-median road without looking in the right direction, and a car clipped her with its rearview mirror. Luckily, the car saw her and was braking, and her 4 layers of coats/shirts took away most of the force, so she pretty much was just grazed and scared the living daylights out of both me and the driver, who stopped and got out to yell at us in Romanian. I have spent the rest of the day making sure she looks both ways.
-Both Bulgaria and Romania love love love American pop music. Particularly Katy Perry's "I kissed a girl". I think we hear it at least 3-4 times a day, usually interspersed by Rihanna. Some of these songs I've never heard before, because I'm a square and don't follow new music and such.
-There is a ridiculous Turkish influence here, mostly apparent in food, vocabulary, and traditional music. They've got the same soups, stuffed dishes, stews, and other traditional foods. There are a noticeable few Turkish words in Bulgarian and in Romanian, although not really enough for me to get by speaking Turkish. And the traditional music is verry similar, played with the same instruments and occasionally the same melodies. Of course, the Bulgarians and Romanians will vehemently deny it, as there's still quite a bit of resentment for the Turkish invaders here, even though they were Ottoman and centuries ago. Some things take awhile to change...
On that note, we have a train to catch, so I'll update from another computer, in another country. Hopefully a warmer country.... We think we'll be heading from Belgrade to Sarajevo, then out to the coast to Mostar, Split, Dubrovnik, and points south. Of course, we change our plans nearly every day, so we'll see what happens...
kib,
-R
-Kel and I have decided we are horrible backpackers. First of all, we don't have legit backpacks--we're travelling around with a school-size backpack and a laptop backback, respectively. Our hostelmates without fail have legit, backpacking backpacks. Second, unlike many of the other backpackers in our hostels, we're in bed by ridiculous-o-clock early, because we're usually exhausted from travelling/staying warm/climbing citadels. Third, we have a bad habit of just showing up in a city, and looking for a hostel once we get out of the bus/train station. Thus we end up like last night, when our train got in to Bucharest after 9, we started walking towards a hostel, got lost, had to take a cab (which ripped us off by a factor of 3, but the end total was still under $5), found that hostel dark and shut down, and took another cab to another hostel. That cab got really ridiculously lost, and we ended up having to call the hostel owner for directions in Romanian before finally showing up at 11:30pm, hoping they actually had rooms. Luckily, winter is most definitely the off season for this region, so they had beds. The last way (for now) that we are just bad backpackers is our choice of time to go voyaging: these areas are clearly set up for summer tourists, generally, and most backpackers come through Eastern Europe once it's not iced over. Oh well... We add our own distinctive flair to our travelling.
-Mishaps so far: I lost my phone yesterday in Bucharest, presumably to a pickpocket. I'm really more unhappy about losing the number than the phone. Kel was grazed by a car this morning, also in Bucharest (don't worry parents and Grandma, she is fine). She stepped into the second part of a 2-median road without looking in the right direction, and a car clipped her with its rearview mirror. Luckily, the car saw her and was braking, and her 4 layers of coats/shirts took away most of the force, so she pretty much was just grazed and scared the living daylights out of both me and the driver, who stopped and got out to yell at us in Romanian. I have spent the rest of the day making sure she looks both ways.
-Both Bulgaria and Romania love love love American pop music. Particularly Katy Perry's "I kissed a girl". I think we hear it at least 3-4 times a day, usually interspersed by Rihanna. Some of these songs I've never heard before, because I'm a square and don't follow new music and such.
-There is a ridiculous Turkish influence here, mostly apparent in food, vocabulary, and traditional music. They've got the same soups, stuffed dishes, stews, and other traditional foods. There are a noticeable few Turkish words in Bulgarian and in Romanian, although not really enough for me to get by speaking Turkish. And the traditional music is verry similar, played with the same instruments and occasionally the same melodies. Of course, the Bulgarians and Romanians will vehemently deny it, as there's still quite a bit of resentment for the Turkish invaders here, even though they were Ottoman and centuries ago. Some things take awhile to change...
On that note, we have a train to catch, so I'll update from another computer, in another country. Hopefully a warmer country.... We think we'll be heading from Belgrade to Sarajevo, then out to the coast to Mostar, Split, Dubrovnik, and points south. Of course, we change our plans nearly every day, so we'll see what happens...
kib,
-R
C-c-c-cold
We made it to Romania, after a fun travel experience (taking a bus to the one border town with an international ticket office still open, buying said tickets literally 7 minutes before the office closed, and then getting to wait around 7 hours in a not-heated-after-midnight train station for our 3am train). When we got in, we headed straight up to Brasov, in Transylvania/the Carpathian Mountains, where we collapsed at a hostel and later worked up the strength to tour the town a little bit. Brasov is a really charming town, it had a skating rink in the center, right next to the town Christmas tree, and a little Christmas-y market selling gingerbread, handmade mittens and hats, and the like. Kel bought handknitted wool socks, and I bought a handmade hat there, and we both agreed those are some of our best purchases on this trip yet. At dinner that night, the restaurant had boiled wine--we clearly are no longer in the Muslim world.
Our next day in Brasov, we headed out to Bram, to see Dracula's Castle (they call it Bram Castle, and Vlad the Impaler visited it like once, but it's the traditional castle of Dracula). It was magnificently imposing, and Bran itself was an adorable village, clearly swarming with tourists in the summer, but laid back in the winter. We bought handknitted mittens there, which are also some of the best purchases we'd made thus far; my leather driving gloves may suit just fine in Ankara, but in the mountains of Romania they were not cutting it. After Bran, we headed over to Rasnov, which has a more impressive on the interior castle, with a catch: you have to climb several hundred stairs to get there from the village. In that weather, it was a little painful, but we did it and it was worth it. Still, we were soooo glad to get on the heated bus back to Brasov afterwards, where we met up with some other folks from our hostel for dinner. That night, we watched a vampire movie with a guy at the hostel, Vampire Hunter, which we figured was only fitting given where we were.
The next day, we got up and out of town early to get to Curtea de Arges, to see their Princely Court and 16th century Monastery. Our bus ended up taking 5 hours after in broke down on a mountain road and we had to wait for a replacement bus; that was fun. Curtea was snowy and beautiful; we walked a few kilometers between sights, and their monastery was gorgeous and full of art that was a little different than what we saw in Bulgaria. We headed from there to Bucharest, via the smallest train I've ever seen, and are currently there, where we've yet to see the town butwill do so today before heading out tonight inshallah, for Belgrade.
kib,
-R
Our next day in Brasov, we headed out to Bram, to see Dracula's Castle (they call it Bram Castle, and Vlad the Impaler visited it like once, but it's the traditional castle of Dracula). It was magnificently imposing, and Bran itself was an adorable village, clearly swarming with tourists in the summer, but laid back in the winter. We bought handknitted mittens there, which are also some of the best purchases we'd made thus far; my leather driving gloves may suit just fine in Ankara, but in the mountains of Romania they were not cutting it. After Bran, we headed over to Rasnov, which has a more impressive on the interior castle, with a catch: you have to climb several hundred stairs to get there from the village. In that weather, it was a little painful, but we did it and it was worth it. Still, we were soooo glad to get on the heated bus back to Brasov afterwards, where we met up with some other folks from our hostel for dinner. That night, we watched a vampire movie with a guy at the hostel, Vampire Hunter, which we figured was only fitting given where we were.
The next day, we got up and out of town early to get to Curtea de Arges, to see their Princely Court and 16th century Monastery. Our bus ended up taking 5 hours after in broke down on a mountain road and we had to wait for a replacement bus; that was fun. Curtea was snowy and beautiful; we walked a few kilometers between sights, and their monastery was gorgeous and full of art that was a little different than what we saw in Bulgaria. We headed from there to Bucharest, via the smallest train I've ever seen, and are currently there, where we've yet to see the town butwill do so today before heading out tonight inshallah, for Belgrade.
kib,
-R
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Quick update from the road
Kel and I are in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria, which is fun to say. We went through Sofia relatively quickly (again, museums were closed, although the museum gift shop was open at least--I seem to be particularly gifted at travelling on holidays that result in the closure of buildings), but still saw everything important.
We got in to Veliko Tarnovo last night, so are doing the see-everything thing today, but so far this is a wonderful town. I could quite easily come back, especially in like May, when it's not ice-covered. Our hostel is cozy and chill, and the owner so far has gone out of his way to pick us up at the bus station, go over maps of the town and potential touring routes with us, and give us info on the train to Bucharest; they also include light dinner and breakfast in the price, so it's a fantastic deal for a backpacking hostel. After we got in and got settled, we went out for dinner to this fantastic restaurant with literally over 500 items on their menu. It was ridiculous--page after page of delicious-sounding dishes. The food was amazing as well--Bulgarian food has a Turkish influence but is a bit heartier, which makes sense because it's definitely colder here. On the way back from dinner, we could see the fortress complex above the town, all lit up--Veliko Tarnovo was the capitol for centuries, so it has a huuuuge fortress complex, which we're seeing today.
That's all for now,
more from Romania,
-R
We got in to Veliko Tarnovo last night, so are doing the see-everything thing today, but so far this is a wonderful town. I could quite easily come back, especially in like May, when it's not ice-covered. Our hostel is cozy and chill, and the owner so far has gone out of his way to pick us up at the bus station, go over maps of the town and potential touring routes with us, and give us info on the train to Bucharest; they also include light dinner and breakfast in the price, so it's a fantastic deal for a backpacking hostel. After we got in and got settled, we went out for dinner to this fantastic restaurant with literally over 500 items on their menu. It was ridiculous--page after page of delicious-sounding dishes. The food was amazing as well--Bulgarian food has a Turkish influence but is a bit heartier, which makes sense because it's definitely colder here. On the way back from dinner, we could see the fortress complex above the town, all lit up--Veliko Tarnovo was the capitol for centuries, so it has a huuuuge fortress complex, which we're seeing today.
That's all for now,
more from Romania,
-R
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