Northward in Croatia

On the road over a month now. Somewhere in Italy (or maybe earlier), this stopped being a vacation and started to become just what I do now - sightseeing and making train reservations is now my daily routine. Hopefully returning won't be a culture shock :).

I've been making my way northwards through Croatia relatively quickly over the last few days - I'm stopping over in the big Croatian cities on my way to other places, really.

August 1: Final day in Dubrovnik

A lazy agenda day - slept in a bit, then went kayaking around the city and out to Lokrum island. Lokrum's a nice little island (apparantly where the locals go to relax) - two things deserve special mention though:

• Peacocks everywhere, moseying down the paths with the people. I guess there's some sort of nature preserve thing going on.
• Lokrum has a dedicated nude beach, that surprisingly isn't entirely comprised of old German couples (though they are certainly present). On a tangentially related note, Croatian women are very beautiful.

Didn't cover too much ground - moseyed around the island, lounging on the beach when the views were good ;).

Dubrovnik pictures

August 2: Split

Took the early bus to Split, the second largest city in Croatia and "coastal capital". Croatians take their road security seriously - more passport checks, and I'm pretty sure we didn't cross any borders. Chatted with a Brazilian guy (on his way to Hvar) and Croatian girl (on her way back to Germany) on the bus ride.

Got in around midday, found a room, and wandered around town and through Emperor Diocletian's old retirement palace.

Split pictures

August 3: Plitvice

Plitvice National Park, on the road from Split to Zagreb, is an limestone canyon filled with a series of 16 terraced lakes and the waterfalls connecting them. Running over the limestone fills the water with CaCO3, which adds a nice blue-green color, and calcifies the lake beds, preventing mud and rendering the lakes very clear.

Anyway, it's exceptionally beautiful and a must see in Croatia.

(Plitvice was once a major filming location for German/Italian spaghetti westerns because it apparantly looks like the western US to them...)

The park isn't that big and I did the whole thing in < 4 hours. Long day - picked up the bus from Split in the morning, 5 hour trip to the lakes, 4 hours hiking, then 2.5 hours on the bus to Zagreb (plus ~1 hour of waiting for the late bus to show up, of course).

Had another fortunate stroke with the weather - 5 minutes after boarding the bus in Plitvice, a major hail/lightning storm ensued. I pity the poor Germans who got off a few minutes later at their campsite (they confessed to not putting the fly on the tent in the beautiful morning weather).

Still pouring here in Zagreb as I write this - hopefully things will clear up tomorrow.

Plitvice pictures

In Which Ben Reaches the Apex of Foreign-ness

Spent yesterday walking the streets and walls of Dubrovnik and relaxing on the beach. Quite enjoyable, but not much to write about.

Today was a bit more interesting. I took a side-trip to Mostar, a small predominantly Muslim city in Bosnia-Herzegovina that was once an Ottoman stronghold. As I understood it going in, this would be a grand journey into strange foreign lands, which would astound my feeble western mind. That does somewhat overstate the case:

• The bus trip lives up to the billing - hours of delays both way, 3 passport checkpoints, crowded hot environment, generally unhelpful staff, mysterious unexpected transfers. Beautiful scenery once the rain let up, though.

Photo of my bus, one hour after scheduled departure.

• Mostar is predominantly Muslim, but very liberal - headcoverings are rare, mosques allow photos and shoes, no noticeable prayer calls
• The bulk of the tourists appear to be Slavic, but everyone still speaks English. I had more communication issues in the south of France.

Still a worthwhile trip - the bridge is impressive, the cultural shift still palpable. Perhaps the most interesting element was the highly visible remnants of the Bosnian war; unlike Dubrovnik, which has repaired nearly all structural damage from its own struggle for independence, Mostar abounds with abandoned ruins, bullet holes, and the graves of young men.

Dubrovnik pictures

Mostar pictures

Beyond the Sea

A little more reflection on Rome:

• It's a tiring city, in no small part because of all the necessary walking to get anywhere you want to go. The Metro is, well, pathetic (e.g., it was completely shut down because of a train accident yesterday)
• Best hostel experience thus far - roomed with a couple Brits, a couple Czechs, an American and a South African.
• Wine is expensive again (as of entering Italy, really); definitely miss that about Spain.

Anyway, got up Thursday, went to the Borghese (excellent Bernini, including the superb "Apollo and Daphne") and the National Museum (Roman celebrity sculptures), then caught the train to Bari in the early afternoon.

I was originally intending to stay on the deck, but they offered me a berth for about 25 Euros less than expected when I arrived, so I took it. A bit hot and stuffy, but the weather was great and the seas were calm. Met an Australian couple on board and traded drinks and stories back and forth.

Arrived bright and early this morning in beautiful Dubrovnik - got offered a room right after disembarking and took it - am currently typing this from a porch overlooking the old city and the Adriatic. Be jealous.

More pictures:

Final day in Rome

Ferry to Dubrovnik

Rome

Quickie blog post - I've been running some long days in Rome and haven't had time to do much writing (also, the pictures need some cleaing up). But I want to put something up before I leave for Croatia tomorrow.

Arrived on July 26 in the afternoon. Since it was a Monday (most museums closed), I swung by the Santa Maria Maggiore (right by my lodging place) then decided to stroll the Appian Way into Rome.

Appian Way pictures

On July 27 trod a path through Ancient Rome - the Colosseum to Palatine Hill to the Forum up Capitol Hill to the Musei Capitolini, then over to the Pantheon, and some wandering about in the evening near the Trevi fountain.

Ancient Rome pictures

On July 28 went to the Vatican - the Museum and St Peter's, then down to wander Trastevere for the late afternoon/evening.

Vatican pictures

Rar

Florence (7/25)

July 25

Florence is pretty chaotic to do without lots of prep in a single day. I hit everything I wanted to but there's always more.

Not a lot of pictures (spent a lot of time in museums), but I ended up visiting:

The Uffizi

(Da Vinci's Annunciation was another favorite)

The Accademia

Enormous and exceedingly impressive in person

The Bargello

The other David

The San Marco

The Pitti Palace

Boring, huh? Well, so's the Pitti Palace (relatively speaking, of course)

I would have liked to see the Duomo/Science museums would have been nice to fit in as well, but I got where I wanted to go. And I did take some pictures:

Florence photo album

Cinque Terre (7/23-7/24)

Another long day on the road to get to the Cinque Terre: Arles -> Marseille -> Nice -> Monaco -> Ventimiglia -> Genoa -> Monterosso. Wrote those last two blog posts on the train, and remembered to take a few pictures.

Marseille

Wore my sweet new FC Barcelona jersey on the train - got taunted by some AC Milan fans.

I bunked down in Vernazza, which is a pretty cool place - the only natural harbor in the Cinque Terre.

The Cinque Terre is beautiful - I spent the next day hiking from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, then took the evening train into Florence. Cliffs, beaches, vinyards, etc - just look at the pictures already, and don't go to Italy without visiting the Cinque Terre!

Cinque Terre photo album

Provence (7/21-7/22)

July 21: Arles

Got into Avignon late on the 20th after another long travel day - been having trouble booking high-speed rail. Barcelona to Carbere to Perpignon to Narbonne to Nimes to Avignon. Nothing available (unsuprisingly), so moved on the Arles and found a nice place on Plaza Voltaire.

Anyway Arles is a nice little town with a whole mess of Roman ruins. Doesn't quite look like how Van Gogh saw it any more:

Swung through the Wednesday morning market:

Then went over to the Ancient history museum for an overview of the artifacts and structures as they were 2000 years ago. Then off to see the Theatre and the Amphitheatre:

Stopped by the Reattu museum (bought the museum pass), but was largely underwhelmed - I'm TRYING to appreciate the modern period, but the signal to noise ratio is not so great.

Bonus fact:
- Some girl soliciting donations for a charity repeatedly poked me with her pen when I politely declined to donate. Fortunately, she gave up about 2 seconds before I slapped her.

Arles photo album

July 22: Avignon

Woo - long day. Took the bus into Avignon in the morning and saw the Papal palace and the old medieval bridge.

Sur le Pont d'Avignon...

The terrace and the big halls in the Papal Palace are kinda cool, but the entrance few is a little steep when the interior's been repeatedly gutted and redone over the past 3-4 centuries (most recent practical usage - Napoleonic barracks). There's a few small murals left, but it's largely barren.

I wanted to go to Pont du Gard to see the aqueduct, but the bus schedule is erratic and would leave me there for 5 hours. So, I thought, "I can bike it! The guide says it's 13 miles away, no problem!". Tourism office informs me the practical (albiet interesting) route for cycling is more like 70 kms. So after ~3 hours walking briskly about town, I decided to use my remaining 5 hours of available time (until the bike shop closed) to bike out and back.

The way out was great - some scattered downpours of rain (of course - second day of rain on the whole trip and it's when I'm biking 70 kms), but made great time to the aqueduct. The way back was another story - first ~10 kms was up and down hills (emphasis on the up), and my legs started to give out (yeah, haven't been biking much lately). Ugh. It got to where I was unable to sustain climbs and was inching my way uphill in short bursts. Finally got the point where I had no energy, 20-25 kms to go in less than an hour, and a series of unsuccessful attempts to hitchhike.

But! Shortly thereafter I crested the last hill - long gentle downhill slope for over 10 kms. Salvation! I cruised down (thankfully I shelled out for a good bike) and my legs managed to recover enough to keep me over 30 kms/hr for the final stretch. Got the bike back to the shop with 5 minutes to spare. Whew!

Success!

Avignon photo album