Anna & Jared
Photos and info of Jared & Anna's travels through the USA, Canada, Europe, Africa and AsiaJared and Anna
Travel Blog Posts
September 10th 2008
Our foray into Italy began on a sunny afternoon when we arrived in Como at the height of rush hour traffic. This was a quick introduction to driving Italian style (lots of horn, small cars, and generally no rules). Como involved a stroll around the old town checking out the churches and streets and also a boat trip up the lake admiring all the chateaux and stopping off at a small village called Torno for an hour. From Como we headed for Verona, stopping at Lake Garda for lunch and a much needed gelato. Verona is a very beautiful city, famous for the setting of Romeo and Juliet, also for the third largest and one of the most well preserved amphitheatres, where they still hold concerts and performances. We spent a busy evening and morning soaking ... read more
September 5th 2008
Our first stop upon entering Switzerland was to have lunch alongside Lake Constance which is on the borders of Austria, Switzerland and Germany, and a popular spot for swimming and watersports for the three countries. We headed from here down to Zurich and unfortunately one of our worst accommodations so far. Zurich is situated on Lake Zurich and we found it to be one of the most expensive cities that we have visited. It has the best standard of living rating of anywhere in the world but you would need to be earning a lot of money to be able to reside here. We spent a relaxing evening just wandering around the beautiful and picturesque streets and enjoying a few cold beverages beside the lake. Next we were headed in the direction of the Black Forest ... read more
August 30th 2008
From Lake Bled we headed north back into Austria, but into the west this time. We were treated to some very picturesque and dramatic scenery as we passed by two alpine ranges. Here we were to spend the night in a quaint little village which would be a popular destination for skiers in winter, but as it was the middle of summer the town was quite quiet and our dining options were quite limited but we managed to get a table in the local family restaurant to enjoy some of the local schnitzel speciality. Sunday morning dawned and it was cold and grey which was quite disappointing as we were planning on doing the drive through the Hohe Tauern National Park and over the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse, however we were told by the locals that the weather ... read more
August 28th 2008
The 3 day whirlwind trip of Slovenia started in a little place called Piran, which we had read about in the lonely planet and as it was on our way to Ljubljana we decided to stop off for the morning. It is a tiny little sea side resort town and was very hot when we got there. It has an old church on the top of a hill over looking the sea and a very impressive square that is the heart of the town. From here we headed for Ljubljana only for Anna to discover that we were going to go past the most visited caves in Europe, the Postojnska Jama caves. The caves are about 25km long and had been made into a huge tourist attraction, including a tourist train that they had placed in ... read more
August 23rd 2008
On the way back north we decided that since Jared had been ill for a day and we had not been able to check out Lapad we would go and spend another night in Dubrovnik and stay in Lapad. Lapad is at the other end of the peninsula from the old town. It is where most of the accomodation is and has its own beach and resturant scene. After a nice meal and a swim at Lapad beach, the next day we headed back up the coast to Split for 1 more night. As most of you are aware we have a Sat Nav and it has been a great help in finding our way around Europe, however on this occasion it was not that helpful. We programmed in our hotel address, set off, we arrived ... read more
August 21st 2008
The next country on our journey was Montenegro, which is one of the newest contries in the world after it recently gained independence from Serbia. We were headed for Budva for 2 nights; Budva is the main tourist destination in Montengro and the Dalmatian coasts version of Ibiza. On the way we took a scenic drive along the Kotor Fiord and stopped for lunch in aptly named Kotor. Kotor was an unexpected highlight. It is a tiny little walled town set into the base of a steep cliff and on the shores of the fiord. It also has a mini version of the great wall of china running up the cliff to a church. As it was about 45 degress we decided not to venture up, but instead admired the view from the bottom. Once in ... read more
August 12th 2008
It was with much anticipation that we entered Croatia, as it is one of Jared's favourite countries and we were looking forward to a bit of time chilling out at the beach, and it did not disappoint We started our travels in Zagreb, Zagreb is relatively small capital city and although very beautiful and picturesque apart from a main square and a few museums it doesn't set the world on fire. It is mainly used by tourists as a entry point for the coast. After two nights in Zagreb we headed for the coast. On the way we stopped at Plitvice national park, which we had heard many good things about. Plitvice is an area consisting of many different tiered lakes, and waterfalls. You are able to buy a day pass which entitles you to use ... read more
August 10th 2008
We cruised down through Hungary until we reached the Serbian border, when we arrived at the border we were told to our amazement that our car was not insured to drive in Serbia, and that we would need to purchase insurance at the border or not be allowed in. While the police held onto our passports we moved our car out of the queue and sat in no-man's land while we made a quick phone call to the car company who confirmed that yes we were insured to drive in Serbia. Despite trying to explain this to the Border Police we still were not allowed in, we debated whether we wanted to blow an entire day's budget to spend three days in Serbia. Eventually we decided that as we had driven so far we may as ... read more
August 8th 2008
Our arrival in Budapest wasn't the best introduction to a city that we have had on our trip. We tried to do a drive-by of our accommodation, however we were unable to see it from the road so we drove around and around the nearby streets in an attempt to find somewhere to park. We finally came across a small side street where many other cars were parked so we dropped the car and walked back to find the hotel. When we finally found it we were quite disappointed, as we had paid more for this hotel than we had anywhere else and found that standard was quite poor, we didn't even get a bed but had a 1970 fold out couch. We dropped our bags and headed back to the car, only to discover that ... read more
August 6th 2008
On the way through to Budapest we spent two nights in Vienna. On the way in to Vienna we went to visit the Schönbrunn Palace. This has many surrounding buildings and a huge park and is one of the most significant cultural monuments in Austria. Despite the oppressive heat we wandered around the grounds for around 2 hours and enjoyed a picnic lunch before we hiked up the hill to the observatory for a panoramic view of the palace and gardens. We then headed out to the camping ground and tried to pitch our tent. We had pre-booked a campsite however, the owners of the camping ground don't designate spaces so when we arrived the site was already jam packed and we had to fight for a space to pitch. We had one full day to ... read more
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