We arrived back at the Bus Station in Belgrade, after 3 days in the north. The arrivals is across the road in a separate section and the missing onslaught of taxi touts from the airport are all there in force. We ignored the clamour and proceeded to walk up the hill towards Republic Square to get a bus to our accommodation - a word of warning if carrying a large rucksack, the hill is steep! One of the things we didn't accomplish in the previous few days, was go to the Nicola Tesla Museum (200 dinars). He was basically the father [View Full Entry]

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We entered the world of Cyrillic bus timetables in the bid to relocate to Novi Sad - capital of the autonomous region of Vojvodina. The timetables of course meant absolutely nothing and it was just a case of scrolling down until finding what Novi Sad looked like on the Cyrillic translation we had written down. In the end it was all quite straight forward, we were directed from one ticket booth to Number 13 (!!) where a degree of English smoothed the transaction. The transaction also came with an explanation of the token that you get with the bus ticket (575 [View Full Entry]

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Belgrade - apart from a few perceptive pieces in the travel sections of the weekend broadsheet newspapers and a growing reputation amongst the dedicated followers of the club scene, it doesn’t usually get a glowing press. As a rule, it seems to suffer from the reputation which the previous tensions in the area brought about and unfortunately our visit coincided with some more international bad press after football related violence before a Europa League game in mid September and threatened violence around a subsequently banned civil rights march. I had read a number of pieces of travel l [View Full Entry]

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The second Twenty20 World Cup comes to England. A series of warm ups, group and Super 8 games at each of the three venues - Lords, Oval and Trent Bridge. The two Semi Finals were at Trent Bridge and the Oval with the Final at Lords. The cunning ICC plan to rid the tournament of the lesser cricketing nations came unstuck, after Ricky and the boys failed to read the script. Milinga the Slinger and his gang gave them a few extra rest days in the Ashes warm up schedule than the ACB had anticipated and Netherlands gave England a similar [View Full Entry]

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A good description of Dorset in February - except for the clamour to enter the all new replacement Woolworths store being opened by Chris Evans, which is obviously a big thing in Dorchester. Dorchester made a favourable impression, although is arguably a parking nightmare at certain times. The Hardy plaques of interest are in abundance and no doubt, connoisseurs of the novels will find many buildings and places in town that are of interest. The other plaques of interest in Dorset can be found on the many river bridges, which suggest transportation is the punishment for minor misdemeanours - pe [View Full Entry]

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We set off north along the shores of Loch Lomond towards our next base at Inveraray - a whitewashed village in the shadows of Inverary Castle. We checked into the YHA, amongst the walking fraternity. As activity is somewhat weather dependent, we left some flexibility as to whether we headed straight to Oban through the Glens or went hunting stones near Kilmartin. We’d advise anybody to do their homework on the latter, as it is quite easy to drive straight past one of the most important sites in ancient Scotland. A rocky hill to the west of the main road was [View Full Entry]

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A lot has happened in the 2 1/2 years since the last "current" blog in Malyasia and Singapore. The bad news is that travel has been secondary except for a few berief sojourns in the UK - the good news is that there are still two to travel! The blogging recommences with a Charles Rennie Mckintosh view of the Glasgow world. The photos are based on a brief tour of the main sights as featured on the website www.crmsociety.com A ticket gets you in to all attractions from the nominated list on your self guided tour of the city and it’s [View Full Entry]

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A tale of two cities - Buda and Pest. It's also a tale of two visits - 1997 and 2001. We arrived on the train down the scenic Danube from Bratislava into the not so attractive greeting point that is Keleti Station. In the days before the internet made having a good look round online before the trip, it was an arrival into the unknown. We opted for the underground metro and took the train to the last station possible in Buda, which as far as I can recall was only about two stops. It probably took us longer to figure [View Full Entry]

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Talk to Frank. It's easy! If you take a break from your refreshments in the Old Town of Bratislava, "I won the World Cup" Frank was found aimlessly wandering the streets as part of his pre-match warm up routine. Chelsea were in town to play Slovan in the old European Cup Winners Cup and as accommodation of a 5 star nature was a bit tricky to locate back in 1997, the team were based right in the heart of the Old Town. Alas we were not, having failed to secure a berth in the old communist icon, the Hotel Kiev! We [View Full Entry]

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The tourist dollar seemed to wane somewhere between Te Anau and Riverton and it had definitely disappeared by the time we reached the boundaries of Invercargill. In fact, Invercargill on a Sunday was officially closed. There was little evidence of the much fabled bad hair and checked shirt comments (which have since been withdrawn from all good travel guides presumably on threat of being sued)…………… indeed there was little evidence of anything and certainly no evidence of any chance of an alcohol refreshment after our journey. We checked into the YHA on the m [View Full Entry]

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