Hi Everybody! We arrived in Lima around midnight and were picked up by the hostel. We stayed in an old hacienda in the Mira Flores district. We met lots of interesting people at the hostel and about half of them were in our age group. One man had ridden his motorcycle all the way down from Canada. He had lots of interesting stories to tell. I had breakfast with a young lady from Australia who was taking a year to go around the world. Four other older teenagers were from Ecuador and on their way to Machu Picchu. Walt and I came to Peru in 1998 and enjoyed our visit to MP. On this trip, we are in Lima only because we got a great airline price to this destination. Lima does charge you a $30 ... read more

Hi Everybody! Slovenia is a charming country and reminds me of Germany. Everything is lush and green with pretty flowers everywhere. The houses all have window boxes that are overflowing with bright colored flowers. Tito, the Communist leader of Yugoslavia, had a summer villa here and often entertained heads of state in Bled. Bled is a small alpine town that sits by peaceful Lake Bled. It has a 1000 year old castle hanging from the side of a cliff. The Julian Alps - named after Julius Casesar are a backdrop for the town. In the middle of Lake Bled is a fairytale island with a small church. During the Communist reign, the church was closed and wedding were outlawed in the church. Today, it is a popular site for weddings. The Slovenians have a tradition that ... read more

Hi Everybody! We drove over a twisting, mountain road to get to Bosnia Herzegovina. Not long after we crossed the border, we started seeing bombed out houses. We rode by the Neretva River passing many fields of grapes. Our destination was Mostar, a city situated at the base of a mountain range. This city has a thriving Muslim community and a large Catholic community. Over half of the buildings had bullet and shrapnel holes. Some buildings were just a shell, others had collapsed roofs, and others had the doors and windows shot out. A large Catholic church downtown had hundreds of bullet-shrapnel holes. We went to the Old Town and saw the stone bridge which has recently been rebuilt after being destroyed in the last war. It really touched our hearts to see this city with ... read more

Hi Everybody! Walt and I have just returned to Belgrade from Romania. We had a fascinating adventure! Just getting there was very difficult! We took a bus from Belgrade to the bus station near the border. At that point, we had to get a taxi and were able to do that by Walt speaking German to the bus driver. He understood enough to tell the taxi driver where to take us. The bus and the taxi were not allowed into Romania. The driver took us as far as to the Serbian checkpoint. We walked from there to the Romanian border - which was about a fourth of a mile. Next, we walked a half mile to a gas station. The owner was very nice but did not speak any English. He understood enough German to help ... read more

Hi Everybody! I am having to play catch up with the blog, because we have not had internet access for several days. I know the travelblog alerts are probably irritating to some of you. Just delete the reminders or hit unsubscribe if it fills up your mailbox. To get to Sofia, we had to ride the bus back to Skopje, Macedonia. We caught another bus there for Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. The road to Sofia was extremely bumpy. All of our muscles ached by the time we arrived. Most of the population in Sofia is made up of Orthodox members. There are lots of Orthodox churches, but we have only seen one Mosque here. In the city center, there are several old,beautiful, massive sized buildings. They have huge windows, tall doors, and ornate gates. Sofia ... read more