Summer 2006

and now on to my favourite part of the journey, Slovenia. The absolutely best place I have ever been, even if I do look a little bored (+ blurry) here:

Not sure why I looked like that when I had such countryside as

and

to look at. Certainly beats English train journeys.

On arrival we checked into our hostel, complete with 100% fewer gas leaks than the previous

and then popped out for a bit, leading us to see these fine dancing fellows:

Still not quite sure what was going on there, but it entertained. Now night-time in Ljubljana is even better than the day-time, but it makes photos a lot harder to take:

but these do give an indication of how lovely the place was.

The next day rained like a bitch, here's us on the crazy little train up to the castle:

and here's the castle:

including the flag. Not as nice as Croatia's, but it'll do. Assorted other fun things included this statue:

this chandelier:

and this picture of a tit ( and the bird eating from her shoe)

Considering it's now three months later I suppose I should probably sum-up the holiday then? Well dim the lights and commence the visual aids...

The Croatian coast near Rijeka. A pretty nice way to arrive I'm sure you'll agree! I shall gloss over the fact we were on a crappy coach heading away from this beautifulness. After a dispute with an angry Croatian coach driver we eventually managed to transfer and head on to Zagreb.

Possibly one of the best flags in the world. Can't remember who took this photo but the perspective is pleasing so well done. I remember there being a lot of security about when we took this possibly due to the fact its near a lot of important buildings, including:

It's just a shame I can't remember what its called. The roof rocks though.

One of my particular favourite things was the worlds smallest railway, seen here:

It takes 55 seconds to get from the bottom of the hill to the top. The hill isn't even that bad, its madness I tell you!

The benefit of being at the top is that you can take photos such as this:

Now the sightseeing is over its time for the fun stuff, namely:

beer

and icecream

oh yeah and paddling at the astoundingly beautiful Jarun - a man-made lake designed especially to host the 1987 World Student's Games. "The world student's games?" I hear you cry. I don't know either.

Anyway thats the Croatian highlights - think of the things I didn't have time or space to include! Such as the story of the gas-leak hostel, the dead wasp saga, many many churches and me paddling in a lake.

Oh alright then:

So Croatia over and done with then. Very hot, very eastern european, very fun. And cheap too! The countryside is very quaint and old-fashioned, Zagreb less so, but there's still a touch of 'old europe' about it.

Travelled by train from Zagreb (awesome train station) to Ljubljana (not so awesome). I didn't realise they still used the old fashioned carriages with six seats per compartment, but that was very fun. Border policija were scary.

Ljubljana is amazing, perhaps the prettiest town I've ever seen. Really tiny but the architecture is brilliant and the cafes both plentiful and well-stocked. Not as cheap as Zagreb but still reasonable.

Anyway, a proper update later, I'm off to spend a few thousand more tolar. Vienna tomorrow.

Okay, so now everything is sorted; the flights are booked, the trains are reserved and hopefully the hostels are expecting us (although nothing would surprise me). Our route takes us over 1100km through 4 countries on a whistle-stop tour of central/eastern Europe. We start off in Croatia, travelling from Rijeka to Zagreb, then travel roughly north through Ljubljana (Slovenia), Vienna and then Prague. If only we did Germany we could have gone from coast to coast but ah well, maybe next time.

Now just 2 more weeks of hard bookselling before the next adventure.