Julian and Bianca Overseas

From beautiful Dubrovnik we continued our cruising throughout the Dalmatian coast - as our fellow cruises kept reminding us "its a hard life". We managed to take every opportunity for swimming, whether off the boat (where Julian goaded the other males, including a 55year old and 13 year old to jump from the highest points possible, and excelled at climbing the anchor back onto deck!) or on some of the most stunning 'beaches' - although in Bianca's book anything with pebbles is not a beach.

Highlights were the magnificant town of Korcula, walls surrounding gorgeous alleyways, and booming Hvar with an old citadel on the hill and superyahcts in the marina. We managed to only have one morning of bad weather, the rest of the time was hot hot hot which made the swims even more pleasant. Back in Split we busied ourselves for the day before boarding an overnight ferry to Ancona in Italy - our cabin was so cute! Then it was onwards to Florence!

We finally realised in Florence exactly how expensive it is to travel in Western Europe - sheesh. So we stuck to free or cheap attractions and managed to keep ourselves well entertained. The obligatory stop to see David was well worth it, Julian now considering a new career as an Art Critic - apparently the hands are too big. We had some very expensive pizza and beer near the Ponte Vecchia, and enjoyed breathtaking views across the city from Michaelangelos piazza. Also saw an exhibit on Gaileo, or the history of astronomy - fascinating looking at all the old globes and equipment from a range of cultures. Strangest was the preserved finger of Gaileo himself...

Florence had some great markets, and like in Turkey where we got convinved to buy Turkish tablecloths, Julian is now the proud owner of an Italian leather jacket. He got a good deal, now Bianca is looking for some nice Italian boots!

From Florence headed to Venice and to the blessed sanctuary of our apartment in Arsenale - it was wonderful to have somewhere to retreat to during the heat of the day, and we enjoyed becoming a little like locals, shopping for provisions, only getting lost occasionally. Julian managed to persuade Bianca out of bed at 5am on our first morning for a walk around the sights, which was an inspired choice. St Marks square with not a soul, same for Rialto bridge!

Our remaining sightseeing over the next two days took place in 38 degree heat, refreshing. We visited some great galleries and some interesting musuems (one with a massive 12m crocodile skeleton from the Sahara). Also on our itinerary where some of the many churches, including one with a preserverd hand of a saint and another one with a foot... Does anyone else find this strange? Managed to turn down the 80 euro gondolier ride, but did take the vaporetto's up and down the Grand Canal and out to Murano island. We oohed and ahhed through the Doge's palace and St Marks Basilica, and basically fell in love with Venice.

Now in Rome after a looong and hooot train ride. We've spent today sightseeing in cooler weather - wow only 32 degrees! Ticked off the Spanish Steps, St Peters Basilica, Piazza Navona and lots of Egyptian obelisks - how many do they have! Tomorrow we have planned the Colloseum, the Forum and Trevi Fountain before boarding our flight home - we'll be back in Canberra on Tusday morning.

Look forward to sharing our stories with you (and our bed, pillows, tandoori pizza, Coopers Pale Ale, and many numerous things we didn't realise we needed so much!)

We took a crazy bus ride from Zadar to Split where the driver was hammering behind cars on a very narrow and windy coast road, which inevitably resulted in a near accident. After coming to a braking and sliding halt (while in the middle of a bridge) there was a man on his back in the isle, a woman bleeding from her ear and an older woman with a cut lip. Go the older woman upping the driver as she got off! Yeah!

Split was steamy and teeming with loads of tourists. The town is built directly ontop of an old Romanesque palace, and surrounded by market bazaar selling everything you could need for your cruise! We stayed a bit out of the city and made full use of the fact that the buses were being upgraded and didn't yet have the ticket puncher installed - free bus rides for the poor backpackers! Due to an afternoon downpour, after booking our ferry tickets to Italy for next week we took shelter in the cinema to watch Transformers 2 :-)

The next morning we bought our cruise supplies, water and beach towels, and jumped on board a 30 sleeper boat for lunch and then off crusing amongst the islands. We stopped for a swim, where Julian discovered that his blue towel was a bit on the cheap side, being blue himself after toweling off. We stopped in the port of Makarska for the night and joined the crowds from other cruises to enjoy local fireworks and a band in the town square.

Yesterday and today have been spent in a very similar fashion. Eat brekky, stop for swimming (usually in and out for about 5 swims in between reading), start cruising and get fed an obscene amount of food for lunch. Arrive at port and drink beer. We've been having lots of fun with the other passengers, besides two teenagers and another young couple they are are older couples - mostly Aussies, some English, and a lovely South African couple. Lots of laughs and teasing. We have a large room under deck with a double bed - much more spacious than the bunk bed cabins above deck and also a bit cooler and quieter.

We have arrived this afternoon in boiling Dubrovnik and have sought shade in the internet cafe. The town is stunning white stone and narrow streets, surrounded by a crystal blue sea. We will be walking the circuit of the city's walls later when it has cooled down a bit.

Exciting news, following the end of the cruise we were intending on spending another 3 nights in Croatia and then travelling to Venice, but we thought, what the hell we are here, we might as well pop over to Florence for 2 nights! :-) Very excited!

Our hostel in Olomouc was run by Aussies, god bless them. This means free tea and coffee, and board games! First night there Bianca beat Jules at Trivial Pursuit, and then we were joined by other backpackers in playing championship Pictionary. Bianca was paired with a lovely French Canadian, which was interesting sometimes when she knew the word in French but not English, or I tried to guess her drawing and she couldn´t understand me! All fun though especially when we got the young Czech receptionist to play the Australian Trivial Pursuit with us the next night, she had no idea who Cathy Freeman was poor thing. She was taken by Jules´ resemblance to JFK (she is young and Czech) prompting the new quote "We do not travel to Eastern Europe because it is easy, we do so because it is hard"

Leaving Olomouc, Julian freshly shorn, photos of astronomical clock taken - jazzed up by the Communists so it has idealistic workers instead of angels, we hurtled into Vienna for a quick few hours in where we basically blew our budget in around 10 minutes. To give you an idea we both paid $40 for a dorm bed, in a hostel 5k from the city centre....

And onto Slovenia, we spent one night in Ljubljana because time was running short and we wanted to go adventuring! Saw the castle and its poor 3D film, but enjoyed wandering the old town and eating more icecream! The next morning we jumped on a bus to Bovec way up in the north west corner - practically Italy. We were amazed we made it without an accident on the tiniest winding mountain roads that our driver liked to speed up to corners on, very relaxing. Our decision to forgo picturesque Lake Bled paid off with the most amazing scenery we have ever seen, huge cragged mountains on all sides, a turquoise blue icy river and a green valley that we could cross in an hour.

Once there we settled into our private apartment, and set out to book white water rafting and canyoning - the attractions of the area. First up was rafting, fully wetsuited up (water is 7 degrees)with life vests and helmets we pushed off with our guide and two other Slovenes. As our guide expertly navigated us down the river with us paddling and squealing, Bianca thought maybe she could get used to this action adventure stuff. Then we got to the second stage, where our guide exhorted us to "paddle harder now" and "much faster now" as it got rougher and rougher... Bianca was a little worried as she had already been paddling her hardest!

Next day Jules was packed off to canyoning by his lonesome while Bianca struggled with a head cold. After slogging up a hill for half an hour, the guide and Julian plunged into an even colder river (with extra thick wetsuits on) and made our way down the river by jumping off ledges into natural pools below and sliding down rocks on your bum, headfirst and backwards (quite scared at that one!). There was also some moments where we had to navigate some sheer cliffs holding onto only a piece of rope, which was very reminiscent of Turkey ˝Dangerous but only for a short while˝ahhh

We were also lucky to see some folk dancing in the town and wander round the valley - they had filmed scenes for Prince Caspian there a few years ago. We then had to buckle down for some serious travel to get to the coast - three buses and three trains to get to the lovely Piran. The town is built onto a tiny peninsular of reclaimed land and was ruled by the Venetians for hundreds of years, so is lovely to wander round. And most exciting, Summer was waiting for us and we got to go swimming!

From there it was another crazy travel trip to get to Croatia (but we can see it, why do we have to go back through half of Slovenia to cross the border!!!). We were sure we were going to miss our connection to Croatia when our train apparently ran out of electricity (not sure if something was lost in translation there), but the nice train conductor simply phoned the other train and asked it to wait - for 45 minutes!

Finally arriving in Rijeka we were scooped up by a tout who promised his house was 5 minutes walk from the beach, which was true but he meant the beach 30minutes drive away. So much for our plan to keep travelling the next day. Ended up having a great two nights, lazy day walking along the coast and swimming (lying on concrete beaches not so great), cooking for ourselves and drinking beer on the terrace with the other backpackers, two Canadians and two Aussies.

Now in Zadar after enduring a 5 hour bus drive along the windy Croatian coast, the four toddlers thankfully left the bus after only an hour. Scooped up by another tout and ended up in the suburbs, " a 10 minute walk to the centre", sure for Carl Lewis at full speed maybe. But for us at least 30 minutes! Highlight of Zadar is their sea organ which makes haunting music as waves lap against the pipes - very surreal. Onto Split tomorrow and joining our cruise the day after.

As it turns out we couldn't get dressed up as knights and fight each other, doh! But we did see lots of other fighting at the medieval festival! We ended up spending three nights in Cesky Krumlov to be able to take in as much festival and sausages as we possibly could. Loved wandering round this really old town and stumbling on people dressed as though they had walked through a timewarp.

Highlights of the festival, of the 5 petaled rose, which has been running consecutively for the past 700 years, included a group of knights dressed in full armour going hell for leather at each other with a variety of weapons, really hitting each other quite hard!

Julian had 4 of the aforementioned sausages, while Bianca only had one sausage, but polished off 3 half chickens cooked over an open fire. We passed on the roasted pigs head, but that didn't faze the Czechs who go for the snout first, gross!

We also saw lots of medieval dancing, singing and one very strange band that set their songs to electric guitar. The highlight of Saturday was a costume parade, with what seemed like an entire towns worth of people in full costume, followed by a knights jousting touranment. Lances splintering on the chests of other knights, cool! Can you tell Julian is writing this edition of the blog...

On Sunday we nursed hangovers after staying up to watch the fireworks show over the castle, and said goodbye to one of our favourite towns, and the best hostel we have stayed in so far, to take a bus to Telc. Not much to be said about Telc, very pretty, surrounded by ponds and medieval style houses. We were pretty tired so just walked around the town, munged on pizza and stopped to watch a Czech film crew making a 'fairytale' movie.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse and it has been raining and has only been about 14 degrees, bring on kayaking in Slovenia and then warm water and beaches cruising in Croatia.

Before leaving Czech Republic we have a couple of days in Olomouc, which so far appears to be a nice town. Julian will be getting a much needed haircut tomorrow!

We've been having fun with bad puns, Julian is a pro at them.

Prague is amazing and infested with tourists (loud American ones it seems), but wander a few streets and you find empty courtyards and reasonably priced restaurants. Sightseeing is dominated by the castle - where we delighted in being 'real tourists' and hiring the audio guide! Massive cathedral with awe inspiring interiors, and 5 saints buried in the tombs. It seems like most of the history of the Czech Republic spirals out from this cathedral, from the many kings to the 'true crown' of the Czech people. We also witnessed the changing of the guard, complete with marching band and aviator sunglasses against the glare of the sun.

Back in old town and new town (circa 14th century), we visited the Prague City Museum with its intricate cardboard model of the entire city - which you can watch in a 3D movie and then see upclose - the detail is amazing. We wandered through the Jewish quarter and bargained with Turkish sourveneir sellers - aaah just like Istanbul. Prague is mostly not about museums, but wandering the city and soaking in the atmostphere and architecture.

But it is hideously expensive - the waiters don't return all your change, and then have the gall to argue that we should leave a tip as well! In another place we sat down and had a live Jazz band start halfway through our meal, how nice. However when we went to pay for the food the live music cost us $4! What the?

So escaping the city - and the most disturbed sleep we have had (loud British drunks coming home at 3am and loud Americans in the hostel common room at 4am) - we bused to Tabor south of Prague. Tabor was established by Hussite religious rebels and is designed to be a maze within the city walls to confound attackers. We joined a school tour group for a tour through the underground passages - the tour guide only spoke Czech but we understood him when Julian was chided for taking a photograph of the tunnels - NO PHOTO! Doesn't he realise the Hussite wars finished 300 years ago, no need to keep the tunnels a secret anymore.

After Tabor we made our way to Ceske Budejovice, the home of the original Budweiser beer. Happily we joined a tour of the brewery, including tastings of unfiltered beer, and then continued our tastings in cafes along the square (all for scientific purposes of course).

Onwards to Cesky Krumlov. We arrived yesterday to discover that the biggest festival of the year (a medieval festival) starts today, but luckily have managed to score three nights accommodation in a hostel run by Aussies. Apparently we are extremely lucky - yeah finally some more travel karma. Spent the afternoon yesteday on a 3 1/2 hour canoe trip by ourselves down river in the sun - bliss with a beer stop on the river bank half way down. Festivities kick off this afternoon, will write all about it later - Julian is trying to get Bianca to enter the swordfighting competition, will she agree?????