Backpacking Bonanza!

The last few weeks have involved a great deal of excitement of the travel and end of exams variety.

The end of exams was clearly celebrated in a very student-like manner involving pubs mainly. I suspect you don't require a great deal of detail here.

The travelling makes up the second part of the after exam celebrations...this portion is on a slightly grander scale than after exam parties with backpacking trips around Croatia, Slovenia, Italy and Greece. Not that we intended for it to be quite as grand as it transpired, but that is how it worked out in its odd and bizarre manner (as always).

So we begin the journey in Dubrovnik, on the southernmost tip of Croatia. It is a sweet little city with lots of old buildings and walls and generally has a very Mediterranean atmosphere to it despite being part of Easter Europe and former communist bloc.

We arrived in Dubrovnik to this little guesthouse in the city and were greeted by the owner who was the sweetest old lady with about half a dozen word of English in total. We muddled through our encounter and had a fairly unsuccessful night of wandering looking for food. However tomorrow was another day and we eventually found our way to the old city and the tourist region of the city.

So this is Briana and I on a trek around the walls of the old city when it finally stopped raining on day one of our adventure!

The next day we found what was dubbed a beach...for Croatia, a beach is some concrete slabs set into a rocky area beside water but it worked well for us and the day was spent lazing around by the water and occasionally venturing into the swirling sea that looked far more dangerous than it was (honest!)

The beach was quiet and largely undiscovered in many ways, it was a little off the beaten track and so for a good few hours we had the place to ourselves though gradually a few odd souls ventured down our way and discovered our little private beach and its sparkly blue waters.

The next day was spent on a the first of many ferries, this one to Korcula where we spent a day. Korcula is much like Dubrovnik but far smaller and quainter. Mostly that day involved wandering and beachyness as well! (there is a small pattern emerging, see if you can spot it!)

The next day was a nice and early Catamaran to Split where we promptly jumped on a bus to Zagreb. This is where the slightly more local aspect of our trip begins as we headed off to meet various obscure family relations and friends of Briana's that she had never actually met before! This was the whole reason Croatia was on our list of places to go, so we hoped the trip would be worth it. Turns out it was; her third cousin, Teo (self proclaimed Brad Pitt look-a-like who looked nothing like Brad Pitt) greeted us at the bus station and proceeded to give us a personal tour of Zagreb, the tour naturally had to involve a taste of the local delicacies, firstly this meant beer. Ozujsko, as it is known.

We were then treated to a fabulous meal looking out over Zagreb with Teo, his grandparents, Leo (a family friend of Briana's father, whose fathers were also friends) and his wife and son. It was an odd bunch but we were treated to local wine (which is fabulous, incidentally) and some good Croatian food. I would tell you what it was but all I know is it involved turkey and something that was vaguely like pasta but wasn't.

Sadly the next day was our final in Zagreb, we were taken around a fruit market and met a few other family members of Briana's before Teo drove us to Rijeka where we were to invade another one of Leo's sons flat for a few nights. Teo dropped us of at a truck stop restaurant where we met Igor for the first time, and with a name like Igor you simply couldn't dislike the guy.

So he showed us around Rijeka, this is us looking out over the city from an old castle I forget the name of...

Igor took us around the area venturing to Pula which lays claim to an old Roman Amphitheatre. It was in good shape as well and was quite spectacular, you can see it pictured below. They still hold concerts and everything there...

We also went to the smallest city in the world, which it turns out is in Croatia and is named Hum...who would have thought!

Sadly by this point our time in Croatia was up and the decision was made to head to Venice for a ferry to Patras, Greece with a stop in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Simple right? ha.

This is Briana searching for our train from Rijeka to Ljubljana...

The stop in Ljubljana was short lived but also interesting...having never heard of the place ourselves (it transpires on later research that it is the captial of Slovenia) we arrived a little bemused by the fact we were in a city that was barely pronounceable which neither of us had heard of and had 12 hours to occupy ourselves with goodness knows what. Naturally we switched to the default occupation of wandering around and discovering the city. This involved much getting lost, and much sitting down and looking at maps.

As is demonstrated below:

From Ljubljana we took a rather unpleasant 2am train ride to Venice where we had another 12 hours of exploring and wandering to do! As Briana had spent some time in Venice before though we were a little more prepared for what was in store. However, it transpires that going to Venice and not getting lost in the many back streets is a virtual impossibility. Venice is everything you would expect it to be really with gondolas and rivers everywhere as well as gorgeous backstreets and cute nooks and crannies everywhere.

And this is proof I actually went!

From Venice we took a 2 night ferry to Patras, Greece where we instantly made our way towards Athens. We were there early morning (as the ferry arrived at 6am), dumped our stuff in the hostel and headed straight for the Acropolis.

Athens was essentially a historical stop which was of particular significance to Briana and I having both studies Classical Civilizations. Sadly the Parthenon was under a lot of construction and big cranes and scaffolding made it slightly less of a spectacle, but none-the-less it was impressive.

Below is me at the Temple of Hephaistos, one of the best preserved in Greece I believe. It probably more commonly known as the Theseion though.

Athens has a mostly superb metro system which we made ample use of (though got very peeved when the line to the airport was under construction and the line to the port wasn't running when we needed them...typical really)

Here I am standing at the tracks on the way to the National Archaeological Museum which had particular interest for me as it housed all the statues and pots we had studied in Class earlier that year.

That essetially sums up the main points of Athens...from there we travelled on to Aegina for a night...here we reverted back to the beachyness aspect of the trip...as is pretty obvious from below...

After a night on Aegina we went to Paros for another night where we spent the evening in a tent of all things..hey it was cheap!

and that was pretty much the end of our jaunt around the region!

The next day was spent getting to the airport and from there we arrived back to the joys of Glasgow!

Next, it's off the Malaysia!