http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Chellebelle/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Chellebelle en-us Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:44:17 +0000 Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:44:17 +0000 Well it was time to finally leave Munderfing and my good friends Rod and Jess....hic......sob.... I was especially going to miss all the lovely road signs of the area. However I was blessed with one last look at 'Pfaffing' as we drove to the train station. Jessie was a sweetheart and drove me to the train station in Salzburg where I caught the 1212 train to Villach where I had decided to spend t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Carinthia/Villach/blog-419770.html Today I caught the train to Munderfing. Yes that is right I am now in Munderfing. This is where two very good friends of mine from Dubai are currently living and where I will be hanging my hat for a few days. For those of you that are not up on your rural Austrian geography Munderfing is a little village that is just outside of the district of Salzburg. So to get there I caught a train from Muni http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-418961.html Well today I spent the day in Munich. Getting from the airport to Munich centre was a little bit of an adventure as the airport is quite a way out of town. A bit like Heathrow really. And I was trying to do this really quite late at night. However I made it into the centre of town and then had to walk through what appeared to be the red light district of town at 1000pm at night with all the drun http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-418044.html We left Saranda in the morning and caught a ferry boat to Corfu Greece Finally out of Albania and back to the land of the Euro. It was actually quite a process getting out of Albania involving many passport and ticket checks in what were quite frankly the oddest of places. Although this was nothing compared to the passport control coming into Greece. One of our passengers is an Asian Australia http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-417428.html This morning we left Gjirokastra and headed off in a private transport to the Adriatic Coast well it is practically the Ionian Coast now and the town of Saranda. The Saranda that we are staying in apparently mostly dates from the 1930s when people began to settle here during the communist times. Hence the large amount of ugly concrete buildings. The drive here from Gjirokastra was just lovely. I http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-416792.html We left Berat this morning on a private transport and headed off towards a town called Gijrokastra. This was approximately 4 hours drive away from Berat but was probably only 3kms down the road. No not really but the roads in Albania are certainly not 6 land super highways so the distance between the two towns probably isn't all that large. The drive itself was relatively uneventful but that cou http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-416789.html It's my birthday. It's my birthday. I'm sorry this isn't the most conventional way to start off a blog entry but it's my birthday and I can if I want to Anyway so today is my birthday and I started the day off most plesantly with some surprise presents from Kris and Susie that Stuie had carried all the way from Dubrovnik I was totally overwhelmed even with a small tear in my eye as I total http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-414810.html We left Ulcinj yesterday morning and commenced our quest to enter Albania. We were very priviledged in that we had a private transport to take us from Ulcinj to Tirana. It was only a short jaunt from Ulcinj to the border however it took sometime to actually get through the border. When we arrived at the border crossing there was a massive queue of cars waiting to enter Albania from Montenegro. Ho http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-414094.html Today we finally left Dubrovnik and headed off towards Montenegro again on our way to Albania. Unfortunately the first thing that I had to do today was to walk down the 155 stairs to reach the departure point for the bus. This proved to be somewhat more tricky than I thought it was going to be. Of course I had to wear my funky yellow boots as they don't fit into my backpack and putting these h http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-413714.html On day 55 we were due to leave Kotor to drive to Dubronik. We were very lucky and Kris had arranged us private transportation to take us between the two cities. This meant that we were actually picked up at our door and delivered to the city centre of Dubrovnik. The drive between the two cities was spectacular. It was one of the most beautiful drives that I have done in a long time. The weather wa http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-413458.html Well I am sorry to report that the weather in Budva wasn't all that much better than the weather in Ostrog and Budva really wasn't the most exciting place on the planet. It was raining in the morning so that put the damper on any plans to get out onto the water and have some fun on the water. Instead we had to shelter in cafes and drink tea and coffee and check the internet until the rain showers http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Montenegro/Kotor/blog-413074.html Yesterday was a bit of a travel day. We had to leave Sarajevo sad sigh and head towards the border for Montenegro as our destination for the night was the Ostrog Monestary up in the hills. This involved a 6 hour bus trip which really is a little while to spend on a bus and then a short private transfer to our accomodation for the night which as the monks dormitory. This was going to be most in http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-411560.html Yesterday we had to get up nice and early again to catch a 6 hour bus to Sarajevo. I have to say that the journey on the bus was far more lovely than the train ride into Serbia. The scenery on the way into Bosnia was just beautiful. There were beautiful hills and lakes and forests. I can see why the Serbs would have wanted this countryside. When we got to Sarajevo we checked into a delightful l http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Bosnia-and-Herzegovina/East/Sarajevo/blog-411508.html We had to get up nice and early to catch the train to Belgrade. It was quite amusing as the very second that we had all hopped on the train the train moved out of the station. 20 minutes early. We were all a little surprised by the fact that the train was leaving ahead of schedule until Chris told us that this was in fact the 630am train that was in fact leaving an hour late not the 730am train http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-410266.html Yesterday we had to leave the wonders of Budapest and head towards Novi Sad in Serbia. Susie and I were actually a little sad to be leaving Budapest in the end as we had actually discovered that we liked it quite a bit. However it was off to Novi Sad with us. Luckily our train wasn't until 110pm so we still had a bit of time to enjoy the wonders of Budapest. So in the morning we headed off down t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/North/Novi-Sad/blog-409088.html Today we left Slovakia and took a train to Budapest. The train trip was quite a fun experience. We had to take 3 different trains and somehow we didn't manage to keep quiet through the entire journey. Susan myself and our tour leader Chris ended up sharing a carraige for a lot of the time and there was a lot of giggling occuring throughout the 6 hour journey. When we got into Budapest Chris took http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Hungary/Central-Hungary/Budapest/blog-408666.html Yesterday we left the wonders of Poland to cross into Slovakia again. This actually turned out to be quite a journey. Luckily or unluckily as it turned out we didn't have to start this journey for a little while. Chris our tour leader told us to meet in the hotel reception at 1210 to go to the bus station. This meant that we had the whole morning free to explore a bit more of Krakow. My roomm http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Presov-Region/High-Tatras/Tatranska-Lomnica/blog-408031.html Today was lovely. The weather was just beautiful sooooo warm and sunny well at least until it started raining Most of the group met up at 1000am to go for a 4 hour guided bike tour of Krakow. This was one of the best bike tours that I have done in the longest time. It was amazing. We had a really great guide called John from Tampa Florida but who has been living in Krakow for the last 11 ye http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Poland/Lesser-Poland/Krakow/blog-407415.html Today was a lovely day. The weather was fantastic. A perfect blue sky day. Our tour guide told us that he specially ordered the weather for us with a couple of sacrifices. We started off the day with a lovely breakfast of the typical local fare. Bread and cheese and ham The first order of the day was a wee bike ride through the hills behind of Cesky Krumlov. This was an absolutely beautiful t http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/South-Bohemian-Region/Cesky-Krumlov/blog-406932.html Yesterday was a complete and utter right off. I was so tired after all the exercise of the day before and the drinking session that night that i was basically a complete and utter zombie. I was so tired that it was actually too much effort to eat food Luckily the day was a travel day between Cesky Krumlov and Prague so it was totally acceptable to sit there and look like a complete zombie not sa http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/Prague/blog-406933.html