Turkey

The Moscow crowd - the six of us who travelled together for the entire 8 weeks, 

with Tony the Tour Leader.

From left:  Peter and Janette; Jane and Colin; Tony leaning forwards; Denyse and Jason; and me. I'd just like to draw attention to my bright orange watch and bright pink socks.

The overnight train to Istanbul was way hard core.  We were on it for almost 24hrs.  We got on at midday in Bucharest and got off at 1115am in Istanbul - we were early!!  AND Kim got off the tour in Bucharest so I had a cabin all to myself!  It was amazing.  I basically went in there and shut the door and didn't come out for six hours.

It ended up being quite good fun.  We were the only people in our carriage, aside from one other random person.  And he was weird.  He was travelling alone, and he told us all that he ran sold-out seminars for men on how to pick up women, all over Europe.  There was no way any of us believed him.  He was Canadian but he reckoned he'd been living in Bucharest for years.  He obviously thought he was the man.  None of the girls on the tour would've touched him with a ten-foot pole, and I didn't actually believe he'd been to half the places he said he had.  For instance, he was talking about how he'd spent heaps of time in Sofia, and it was just like Bucharest.

Not.  Even.  Close.

You may remember one of the stops on our tour was Sofia.  Sofia has wide cobblestoned streets and is beautiful and extremely well kept, there's no graffiti anywhere, there's no dirt anywhere, there are no buildings in any kind of disrepair.  And we've just discussed Bucharest.  Noisy.  Dirty.  I forgot to mention it, but they leave the ends of electrical wires dragging on the ground.  The buildings are half torn down and then abandoned.

Interesting.

Anyway, aside from that guy, everyone basically ended up standing in the corridor drinking together.  A lot of people had brought their own booze onto the train, and the conductor had something like four bottles of wine and six beers, and we ended up clearing him out as well.  Scandalous.

So we all eventually went to bed around 10pm (all the booze was long gone by 930pm).  We got woken up  crossing from Romania into Bulgaria, then again going out of Bulgaria, and then again going into Turkey.  A good time was had by all.  When we were going into Turkey, they made us all get off the train to get our passports stamped.  Everybody else on the tour had to buy their Turkish visas, which, depending which country they were from, cost from 15 euro up to 45 euro.  I didn't have to pay because I'm a New Zealander.  LOVE IT.  Some of the others were quite personally insulted that they had to pay and I didn't!  It was funny.  It was four o'clock in the morning and freezing cold, and they all had to go and line up (outside) to get their visa and then line up somewhere else to get stamped through.

We were staying right in the old part of Istanbul, close to the Grand Bazaar and the mosques.  We had a city walk that afternoon, then we really all just wanted to relax I think.  We had our final night dinner, but by then we'd already lost Peter and Janette, who were staying at a different hotel and joining a new tour (that's game).

On our city walk, we went to the spice markets and Grand Bazaar, which were awesome to take photos of.  The colours were amazing!  And so were the crowds!

The next day was my birthday!!  For my birthday, I'd decided that I should fly from one country to another, so I didn't have a lot of time.  But I spent the morning at Ayasofya, which is an old mosque that doesn't operate anymore and is preserved as a museum.  It was so busy.  I'm sure last time I was there (when I went to the Middle East with Tucan Travel two years ago) I had the place almost to myself.  However, I'm hoping I still got some good photos...

I was panicking about how I was so sure something was going to go wrong and I wasn't going to get to Athens, so I basically ran from Ayasofya back to the hotel, even though I was well early, to catch my transfer...  Which didn't show up!  More next time.....

Slovenia

We stayed two night in Ljubljana. That is one of the hardest words to type that I’ve ever come across. It takes far too much concentration. Anyhoo, the first afternoon we had a couple of hours to organise ourselves and find some lunch, and then we took a walking tour around Ljubljana with a local guide. Ljubljana’s rather small, and the tour was meant to go for two hours, and I think that the guide felt like she needed to fill the entire two hours. She was very knowledgeable, but she had a tendency to spend ages at every stop, telling us every bit of information she had, rather than giving us the basics and then moving on. It got quite entertaining, because she’d stop speaking, and we’d all go mmm lovely how interesting, and go to walk away, and then she’d start again – and the door handles are significant because…

It would’ve been better to keep it brief and finish early, in my humble opinion.

The market; Lover's Bridge with padlocks; a random composer next to a very random tree.

Ljubljana is adorable, and has a small old town that’s built down both sides of a river, with lots of bridges that cross between. The walking tour took us to a few of the most interesting bridges, the town hall, the local cathedral, and the markets. One of the bridges has become the local Lover’s Bridge, and it’s where you go to lock a padlock to the fencing to symbolise how you’re going to be together forever. It’s a shame I’m so cynical really. It was very pretty though. After the walking tour, most of the group went up to the castle (which is really a fort, apparently, it’s just become known as the castle). You can either walk or take a cable car up for a few euro. I took the cable car. To be really honest, the castle was a bit of a letdown. You have to pay to get into most individual parts of it, and it’s not all on one ticket, you have to pay separately for each area. There are only a couple of things you can visit for free – the wall, which has a great view out over the city, and a small chapel which has some decoration on the walls. Some, not a lot.

For dinner that night, Kim directed me to a kebab shop, which did really good kebabs (for those who are going there in a week or so, go to the main square, look for McDonalds, the kebab shop’s right before it…. I noticed there were 8 views from Montenegro on my last two posts within a few hours of me putting them up, that can only be Sara’s new group!). Their vege option is just salad, there’s no falafel, but Kim reckons it was really nice. And not only were they good, they were about 3 euro. Laura and Kim like this.

The next day we had an included excursion to Lake Bled, which Tucan organised for us. We went by local bus, and it was only an hour or so away, so we were there reasonably early. Marsha and Cam, Sue and Vince and I all decided to hire bikes and pedal our way around town. We picked them up from the tourist info at the bus stop, and the girl who was working spoke excellent English and was really nice. She let us take the bikes and pay when we got back, so we didn’t have to worry about how long we were gone for, and she talked us through how to get to where we wanted to go and what was good to see, and gave us a map. We decided to all ride out to Vintger Gorge, which was a few kms away, and then do the lake.

So we headed for the gorge. We went along the back roads, but they were still reasonably busy. She’d also told us it was mostly quite flat and easy riding, but we must not be as fit as she is! We had to get off our bikes and walk them on several occasions. On one of those particular occasions, I was behind everyone else, and as I was walking up to them I went to climb on my bike, only to discover one of the pedals was missing. Like, the whole pedal and piece of metal that attached it to the bike had just fallen off as I was walking the bike. Just as I got within shouting distance, the rest of the group all rode off. So I carried on pushing my bike, and a couple of minutes later they realised I wasn’t with them, and all stopped. When I caught them up, Vince went back on his bike and found my pedal, then whipped a roll of duct tape out of his bag (yes, really), and tried to reattach it. He strapped it up pretty good, but it was very oily and I didn’t get very far before it fell off again, even though I wasn’t putting any weight on that leg. So the rest of the way to the gorge, I pushed my bike along the flat and up the hills, and rode it down the hills. Thank god we were almost there anyway.

The gorge was lovely, but again so many tourists. Even though it was the end of the season, there were still just enough people to make it slightly uncomfortable. Just so that you get stuck behind slow people and can’t quite get past until they decide to notice you. However, it was beautiful and the water was just as absolutely clear as what we saw in Croatia. The walk from one end of the gorge to the other took maybe half an hour or so, and then you walk back. At the end there’s a big waterfall, which is worth seeing but because of the angle of the sun I couldn’t get a good photo of it.

There were buses running from the gorge back into Bled, so I jumped on one of those and the driver (who thought the whole thing was hilarious) shoved my bike into the storage compartment. I took it back to the hire place and swapped it for another one. The girl was a bit shocked, she said they’d only had the bike for a couple of weeks, but she was really nice about it and didn’t try to blame me or inflict a surcharge on me or anything. From there I went and rode around the lake, which was gorgeous. If you’ve ever seen a photo of this lake, you’d remember it. There’s an island in the middle with a church on it, and a castle on a hill on the edge of the lake. There’s also the Bled International Rowing Centre, where they held the third part of the World Rowing Cup four weeks before I got there. There were people I met at the start of the tour who told me about sitting on the grass watching it. I saw a couple of guys head out for a training session. I’m so hanging out for a row.

By the time I rode around the lake, stopped a few times, took some photos, and found Marsha and Cameron, we figured it was time to eat again. It was about 330pm, and we’d taken lunch with us to the gorge, but we were starved again. So we returned our bikes (when we eventually managed to find our way back to the right place), went and ate, then got the bus back to Ljubljana. What an awesome day, and what a beautiful and peaceful place.

The following day, we were on our way back to Budapest, to the final leg of our tour.

Croatia - Korcula and Hvar Islands

After we said goodbye to the people who were leaving and hello to the five newbies (Peggy and Gwen, friends from Canada, David from Canada, Ina my lovely Aussie roommate, and Fenella from the UK), we headed down to the port and caught the ship out to Korcula Island. Peggy, Gwen, and Fenella were only with us for our week in Croatia (on the Jewels of Croatia tour), but Ina and David joined for four weeks, and are still on tour with Sara now (on the Balkans Encompassed tour). The first thing that happened when we got on the ship was that everyone dumped their bags and walked off to get coffee or have a look around the ship, and I suddenly found myself alone. That was the first time that’d happened to me over the whole three weeks, and it was not a welcome feeling. So I wandered around and had a look and then came back to where our bags were, and sat down with Kim and Sara.

The next thing that happened was that Kim told Sara (our tour leader) that her roommate Fenella was a snorer. I said Ina did as well, meaning that won’t work so you might as well leave the roommates how they are, but Sara took it the other way and said “right, you two are rooming together now”. So there it was, I had a new roommate for the second time in two days.

It was only a few hours to Korcula, so we got there, went to our hotel, and walked back into town in time for a late lunch. There’s not a lot there, it’s just a nice island with a nice but small town, so we didn’t even have our usual orientation tour. I had lunch with Kim and Ina, and then they wandered off in two different directions, and again I was by myself. I went and found an ice cream, then sat at the water’s edge, right by the town, to eat it. Then I went for a walk through the town, which took all of five minutes, and on the way I ran into Sue and Vince, an Aussie couple who were on our tour, who I really like. The first thing Vince said to me was “we’ve just been talking about you”. I said oh yeah, why’s that? And he said “We were thinking you must be really lonely, now that your friends are gone”. Far too close to the mark. I was doing my unsuccessful best not to cry. They told me that anytime I wanted to I could go and hang out with them or go with them for a meal, which was incredibly kind and just what I needed to hear at that stage. When I left them, I went to see if I could find Marsha and Cameron at the beach, but by the time I got there Cameron was in town looking for lunch, and Marsha was leaving to head home.

  

This is my own record of my trip, as much as for everyone else’s information, so I am going to be quite honest here. I was very alone at this stage, and for the first time on this trip I had to deal with myself, if you know what I mean. Normally I’m quite happy in my own company, I lived by myself for over a year and I loved it, but a few months before I left home the guy that I was seeing ended things with me. It wasn’t unexpected, and it was on good terms, but it was very painful. Until Croatia, I’d managed to bury myself with work, getting organised to leave the country, seeing all my friends, and when I came overseas I was rushing around trying to do everything and having a good time with the friends I made on the tour. So when I suddenly started spending a lot of time on my own, trust me, it really wasn’t pretty.
Anyhow.  Enough of that.

That night was the first night on the trip that we’d had a full kitchen at our disposal, so most of us took the opportunity. I had ham, cheese and tomato toasties; others cooked full meals. We were only there for the one night, so everybody was home by 9pm and we were all in bed by 10pm.

We caught the catamaran to Hvar Island the next morning, which was much faster than the ship that had taken us to Korcula. We were there in a couple of hours, if that. I think we had to be on the boat at about 6am, so I don’t know about anybody else but I slept most of the way.

Hvar Island and Hvar town, where we stayed, were very, very touristy but very picturesque. We were there at the tail end of the tourist season, so it was much quieter than it might have been, and very enjoyable. We had two full days there, because we were there at about 8am the first day, so I spent most of my time sitting in the best café in the town with Sara the tour leader and sometimes Cameron and Marsha, and walking around the coastline, and sitting on the rocks or swimming. There aren’t any sand beaches, only big sheets of rock. Everything you hear about Croatia’s islands is true – it’s so beautiful, and the water is incredibly clear. However deep it is, you can still see right to the bottom. It gets deep fast too, it drops right away from the shore.

Vince and Sue really came through for me in Hvar, they took me for a swim and an ice cream when I’d been feeling really down. You can’t be sad around Vince, he’s always noisy and laughing and joking, and is one of the most Australian Australians I’ve ever met, if you know what I mean. Sue’s very softly spoken but loves to chat once she gets going. The three of us talked for hours and hours over the time we were together, on buses and at beaches. After our swim, I went for a run, which helped a lot as well. Then the nice man who was staying at the next accommodation over slipped me the password to the wireless internet, which I wasn’t meant to have. He wrote it on a bit of scrap paper and threw it over the fence to me. So it turned out to be a good afternoon.

Sara wasn’t really into letting us sleep in while we were in Croatia. The next morning we had to be at the port ready to leave at 720am! Luckily there was somewhere open to buy coffee…

Serbia - Novy Sad

I think I slept almost the whole 7hrs from Budapest to Novy Sad, in Serbia. I don’t remember there being any problem with the border crossing, but I think it took a while. When I was in the Middle East, we had a very hairy border crossing either into or out of Syria. We got abandoned by our drivers and ended up walking across over 2km, in forty degree heat, with these cars chasing us and the drivers yelling at us out the windows and cutting really close to us. We were in no man’s land so there was no protection forthcoming from the police or tourist police, and we had no idea whether these guys had any kind of weapon. They also went to the border into whichever country we were entering, and tried to bribe the guards to not let us through. Thank god the guards ignored them. Comparative to that, sitting at a border for two hours while they go through an entire train stamping passports really doesn’t worry me at all.

I liked Novy Sad. Our hotel was about 15min walk from the train station, and I would never have found it if Sara hadn’t been there. It was in a residential street, from what I could tell anyway, and the only evidence of it from the direction that we came was a sign over the door. The side of the hotel, which we could see when we were coming back from town, was bright green. It was just the front that was completely unremarkable.

Our hotel, and a representative of the buildings on our street.

Kat immediately liked Serbia’s good looking men. And I have to completely agree. That’s the first time since Russia that we’ve seen seriously good looking men. It’s so weird what you don’t see in particular countries – in Russian there were no children; most of the area had no attractive men. Serbians were really nice people, the young people spoke quite a lot of English and they were always friendly and laughing with us and interested in where we come from.

We went for our obligatory city walk. Nothing against city walks, they’re really good for orientating yourself and ticking off the churches and that sort of thing. As we were walking into town the sky was looking a bit dark around the edges, but I didn’t think much more about it. I found it weird that the area we were staying in was looking pretty rough, and the footpaths were a mess, but we were only five or ten minutes from the centre of town, which was beautifully kept and had lovely buildings and pedestrian streets with pavement cafes all along them and pretty churches. You literally walk around a corner and it changes. It was reasonably late by the time we got there, so we walked into town and had a quick look around, then Sara offered to take anyone who was interested over to the fortress, but it was 15min in one direction to get there, so some of us decided against that. Kat and I had already buddied up with Kylie, an Aussie (of course) who works as an economist (another one), and who’s about my height or slightly taller, and has the same slightly oddball turn of phrase and way of looking at situations as I do. It was Kylie’s 37th birthday, which I would never have guessed from looking at her. So the three of us and Cameron and Marsha went and found a pavement restaurant for a beer and a meal. We sat down and got our drinks and ordered our food, and it started to spit. Then the spits got much bigger, and the wind starting blowing underneath all the umbrellas and across the tables. Then it really started raining. Marsha bailed first and we all followed. By the time we got inside and sat down, there was thunder booming and rain pouring and wind howling. Very atmospheric. By the time we left the restaurant, it had all stopped except for sheet lightening flashing around the edges of the sky for the rest of the evening.

The other random thing was that having hardly seen any Cyrillic since we left Russia, suddenly everything was in Cyrillic again. Which is fine by me, I really like it and I’m on a mission to learn the alphabet. I’ve got about 75% of it now.

The main attraction in Novy Sad is the fortress, so that was where we went the following morning. It’s much bigger than it first appears. We had a guide who took us around the museum (which was ok, lots of Roman artefacts etc, the most interesting thing was the big canoe that they’d found at the bottom of the river), and then through the tunnels underneath. The tunnels were part of the defence system, and I think there’s something like 60km worth, but we only went into 1km of them. They were built to be a labyrinth, and they are very confusing. There are lots of dead ends and rooms off to the side and very short tunnels that connect back on to the same one. It’s quite amazing how much thought they put into what they’d do if each level of their defence system was breached. The Danube bisects the town, so if the enemy could get across that, they’d have to find their way through the labyrinth of outdoor channels that they built, some that could be flooded and some that were dry. If they got close to the main fortress, they could be blown up by the barrels of gun powder that were underneath them, or shot through the holes in the walls. If they made it into the tunnels, there’s no way they’d ever find their way out, and the fortress soldiers were trained to be able to navigate the tunnels in pitch black, and they built places that they could erect barricades really quickly and trap the enemy. So the fortress had never been taken. The guide was excellent, she was really interesting and interested in what she was telling us, and she was stirring everybody up about this legendary anaconda that’s supposed to live in the tunnels somewhere. She’d be maybe in her early thirties. We also liked her because as soon as she’d finished the tour she thanked us and left, and was quite embarrassed when someone went to find her and give her the group’s tip. So many guides hang around waiting to be tipped, or say thanks-bye at a time when it’s really awkward to then not tip them or to give them a smaller tip than they’re expecting.

        

Various photos from around the fortress and tunnels.

After the tour ended, I went with Kylie and Kat and Kylie’s roommate Kim (that’s a lot of Ks) and we sat on the terrace at the fortress and had a coffee. Food and drinks are so cheap in some of these places that you don’t even care that you’re being absolutely ripped off and paying tourist prices, because it’s still far less than it’d cost you at home. Then we wandered down into town and into a little lane that looked like it was going to have nothing on it, which turned out to be an absolute treasure trove of pavement bars and cafes. So we had lunch there. The waitress had this fantastic husky, low voice. Kim and I decided she should be a jazz singer.

And then we had to be back at the hotel at 3pm, so that was about it for Novy Sad.  Then on to Belgrade...

Hungary

We had minivans! The first time this tour that we’ve had private transport. Tony told us we could have six people in one van and the rest in the other, so seven of us got in the first van. It was an interesting trip. Very mature. Someone kept farting and nobody would admit to it. We all have our own theories on who it was. I think at the moment the group verdict is split between Steve and the driver. Amanda was vigorously defending Steve. Not surprisingly, we had to have an unscheduled stop so Marsha could pee against a wall in a random small town. We couldn’t see her from the vans but we’re fairly certain everyone else in the town could. Marsha pees more than anyone else I know, including Kerryn. We are becoming well versed on the Toilets of Eastern Europe.

About fifteen minutes later we stopped for a toilet break.

Ok I’m done ragging on Marsha now. We only had half a day in Budapest. It’s very pretty, again, and we were staying just off the high-end shopping street, which is always a fatal mistake. Not for me, I’m far too tight to spend a lot of money on one item of clothing, but it’s always dangerous for somebody.

The tour I’m doing is actually made up of heaps of smaller tours, so we drop people off and pick people up at various points along the way. I think there are six others who are going as far as me, but everyone else is doing shorter tours. So Pancakes and Julie only did Russia to Poland, Kat comes with me from Russia to Croatia, Marsha and Cameron joined in Poland and finish in Istanbul, and when we got to Budapest we lost Amanda and Steve and Adrian, as well as Pat and Sue and Hugh, so I've gone from being one of four Kiwis to being the one and only. It was really sad when we left everybody.  (For those that are interested, I'll put links to some of the shorter tours that mine encompasses at the bottom of this post.  Otherwise you can go to the Tucan Travel page and look for yourself!)  Those of us who are going to the Baltics also changed tour leader in Budapest, and those going straight to Istanbul went on with Tony.  It works out so that Sarah (my new tour leader) and Tony always hit Budapest at the same time, so in a few weeks I'll be back on Tony's tour, until I finish in Istanbul.

Confusing stuff.

The Famous Five!  Our last night together.

All photos on this post are courtesy of Steve and Amanda Tilley.  I love facebook.

Anyway, when we got to Budapest we headed out for the usual city walk.  We got as far as the first church, and Amanda, Steve, Cameron, Marsha, Adrian and I all packed it in and went to the bar.  Not that we weren't interested, but Amanda, Steve and Adrian had the following day in Budapest as well, and Cam, Marsha and I all have more time there in a month, when we switch tour leaders again.  Kat stuck with the group for the rest of the walk, then met us at the pub.  A couple of hours spent people watching (or rusky spotting) is never wasted.  I can't find any photos of Hungary, I think I decided that I'd do it when I came back...  oops!

Those of us going to the Baltics had a meeting with our new tour leader, Sara, and our new group at five or six o'clock.  It was quite funny because there were something like 11 of us going on together and 6 joining, so it was more like a case of the new people meeting us. 

I have to be honest.  I was pretty disappointed when we had our first meeting with our new group. This is nothing against the people on my tour, they are all really nice and I get on well with pretty much everybody, and everybody has tried really hard to get along as a group and to be really inclusive. However, I had envisaged that the group would be far closer to my age. When we discussed this with Tony, he said this tour is completely out of the ordinary, and that normally the group would be mostly under 35 year olds, with maybe one or two older. Our group now has four people under 35, and 14 over, and I think the oldest are in their 70s. When I went to the Middle East with Tucan, two years ago, our group was almost exclusively under 35, and we would more often than not all have dinner together, and usually we’d all spent the day together anyway. Group dinners on this tour are pretty well unheard of. We don’t spend much time as a group other than when we’re on the bus or the train together. A big part of what I was looking for in a tour was new friends of my own age, and I’m really worried that when Kat and Kylie leave the tour in Dubrovnic, I’m going to be very much on my own. However, I have to admit I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the advertised age range on the tour – 18 to 60, with a recommended maximum of 70. The only condition is that you have to be able to carry your own bag, which everybody here certainly can do.

Tony had booked a restaurant for everybody who was on both tours, for that night. Our tour group, those who had been together since Warsaw, all showed up, but only two of the others, which was a real shame. However, we had a nice meal. The usual crowd had decided to go for drinks afterwards, so we went with Tony and a couple who’d been on Sara’s tour through the Balcans and were rejoining Tony’s tour. I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember their names.

Adrian, me, Stevie, Kat, Tony, Random Guy from other tour, Amanda, Cameron, and Marsha.

Our last night together in Hungary.  Again, Steve has placed himself between me and the camera.

I was expecting a late night, but Marsha, who was even more disappointed than I was, went home at something like 1030pm, and everyone else followed within an hour. I went with Kat to the supermarket, and as we were getting back, Adrian was on his way out to a rooftop bar that we’d all been keen to try. So I went with him.

What we’d sort of not bargained on was that it was Sunday night. We got a tram to the right place, which was a big square with lots of young people standing around it. We asked around until we found some locals who knew the bar and pointed us in the right direction. We walked off down the street that we both thought these girls had indicated, and tried to follow their directions, but found ourselves around the back of the same block, in a very quiet side street. So we asked someone else, who pointed us back to the same place. Right before we walked off down the same street again, we spotted an alleyway halfway back up the block, and figured we might as well give it a thrash. We’d been told that it was just a doorway, and right when we came around the corner we found a doorway that had a group of people standing outside, more people coming out, and lots of graffiti. After climbing something like 7 flights of stairs, walked into the covered area of the bar, and it was completely empty, except for one bored staff member. So we went outside and up to the terrace, which was really nice and roomy and had maybe three groups of people. We got a drink (thanks Adrian!!), and as soon as we sat down they came around to tell us that they were closing in fifteen minutes. Love it.

When the bar closed, we decided to go for a walk and see if we could find anywhere else. We did find one place, but even Adrian wasn’t so keen on going in there. It was full of very boisterous men. So we figured it was home time.

As cities go, Wellington is a pretty small fish, so I couldn’t believe the number of people who were out in the streets at 130am on a Sunday. At home, there’d be absolutely nobody.  Sometimes I feel like I come from the back end of nowhere, and like I know nothing about the world.  But then, that's why I travel.

The next morning, everybody got up to see us off at 830am, which was nice of them considering they didn't have anywhere to be that day.  It was really sad!!  We'd travelled together for three weeks, in travel time that's a looooooooooong time without killing each other.  I miss the other three a lot, and I know Kat does too.  It's very quiet without Amanda here!  She's very vivacious and brings a lot of energy to a group.  And I adore Steve, in the same way I adore Denyse (of Jason and Denyse, who I travel with right from Russia to Istanbul).  He's very lovely, doesn't ever seem fazed by anything, and he's always smiling.  And to answer the question on everyone's minds....... yes, I did fancy Adrian a bit.  (For those who are now wondering, nothing happened.) 

There was much hugging, and of course there were some tears from various quarters, and then we saddled up and headed off.  It was a pretty quiet trip to Novy Sad.

Eating ice cream in Krakow when we should've been looking at (another) church.

Good times...  oh how I shall miss those laughs.

Tucan Travel Tour Links

My tour - Eastern Europe Discovery - Moscow to Istanbul - eeed

Pancakes and Julie's tour - Moscow to Warsaw - eemw

Complete Eastern Europe - Warsaw to Istanbul - eece

Balkans to Istanbul - eebi

Balkans Discovered - Budapest to Dubrovnic - eebd

Warsaw to Dubrovnic - eewd

Balkans Encompassed - Budapest to Budapest - eebe

And many, many more.....

Poland - Krakow

I bought a new camera. Dad told me to. The lens on my old one is having a ‘mare, the autofocus doesn’t work and it does this funny clunking thing when you turn the focus ring manually.  I went in to look at lenses for my camera, but a lens alone was going to cost me about NZ$600, and I came across a beautiful new Nikon D3100 in the same shop which was NZ$830. I told Dad my lens had sort of carked it but does actually still work, and that I was trying to talk myself out of buying this camera. He said buy the Nikon. My camera was originally his, and he’d already had it repaired once, and he said it’s not worth fixing again. So while we were waiting for our train out of Krakow I went to the electronics shop, which had the same Nikon but with a much better range lens, and it was only about $100 more. So I bought it. I got the camera, the lens, a camera bag, and a memory card, all for about $1000, and I can claim about $160 tax back when I leave the EU. That is SO MUCH less than I’d expect to pay in NZ. I’m so excited!! I’ve always wanted a Nikon.

Other than that, Krakow was like this mad dash the entire time we were there. We arrived by train at lunchtime, that afternoon most of us went on an optional excursion (a trip that Tucan will organise for you but which is not included in the cost of the tour) to the Krakow Salt Mine, then we took a city tour by golf cart the next morning, saw Schinder’s factory at lunchtime, went to Auschwitz that afternoon (which is included in our tour), and took the overnight train to the Czech Republic that night. I would’ve really liked at least one more day in Krakow, I feel like we missed a lot.

The Salt Mine was interesting.  Not overwhelmingly so though.  We walked down 380 stairs underground, and spent about 2hrs walking through passages and room after room that'd been carved out of the salt....  as you might expect in a mine I suppose.  A lot of the rooms had statues in them that had been carved out of the salt.  You have to excuse my photos, I hate flashes so everything's at least like 2.5sec exposures.

I am Oz!  Being photographed by a million or so other people while my shutter was open!

There were a couple of pretty impressive rooms.  The cathedral was the best.  It's absolutely ginormous.  (That's totally a word and totally how you spell it.)

It has some pretty impressive statues, and carvings on the walls.

This was my favourite thing in the whole mine.  The perspective is perfect.  It's flat, but when you stand in front of it, it looks like it's been carved right into the wall.

The lights are behind her, not inside.  The statue I mean.

Another interesting example of the fact that you can see through pure salt.

I'm not as verbose as usual unfortunately...  Bit tired at the moment.  Luckily a picture paints a thousand words so I'm already at five thousand and something.

The golf cart city tour was good because it covered everything in the near vicinity.  Our hotel was in the coolest street, it was full of little cafes and restaurants and bars, and it was in the old Jewish Quarter.  Krakow was pretty beaten-up looking, but I really liked it.

I found out that the reason there are buildings falling down around the place, or at least it's the reason in Krakow, is that there are so many people who they couldn't account for after the war who owned property, and because they didn't know if or when these people or their decendants would show up again they didn't sell the buildings on.  I like that the government did that.

Fortifications in the city wall.

This was at... maybe a church I think...

Amanda being very cheeky with someone else's hat.  "Quick, take my photo!"

We finished the city tour at Schindler's factory (as in Schindler's List).  They made it into a museum, which has only been open for a year.  It's an excellent museum.  We had to be back at the hotel fed and watered at 130pm, so we only had an hour to get through, and it took that long just to walk from one end to the other.  It's more about the war and the persecution of Jewish people than it is particularly about Oscar Schindler, but it was very well done.

Left:  Floor tiles

Right:  Pots and pans which form the outer walls of a room.  Inside it's perfectly round and has the names of the people on Schindler's List all over the walls.

 Fantastic museum.  Really sorry we didn't have another few hours to spend there.

Lunch.  Open baguettes from the best shop in town. 

It was in a pagoda in the middle of the market square, along with four other baguette shops.

I'm going to have to write a separate post for Auschwitz.  I didn't take any photos though, I kinda didn't feel like it was appropriate.