We were all planned to head onto Albania after Montenegro but we have both become increasingly fascinated by the former Yugoslav republics and so we switched routes and headed up to Serbia to hear the other side of the story. In one of the books I’ve been reading it says that during the nineties journalists used to call Serbia ‘Mordor’ though that was due to good old evil lord Slobodan. So not so surprisingly Serbia has been the most chilled and relaxed country we have visited so far! The people we have met have been super friendly and have been [View Full Entry]

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We have had a wicked time over the last week. Dubrovnik was a mini holiday in our great big one just to soak up the sun (or in Lee's case get sun burnt!) The old town is really stunning it is one of the most picturesque places we have visited! The only bugbear was the incredible number of American tourists from cruises who crowded the narrow streets! They even had name badges 'Nancy Cohen from Ohio' etc etc! Crazy!! Kotor in Montenegro was our next stop, another incredibly picturesque place! It is apparently Southern Europe's deepest Fjord but it is [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Sarajevo after a day train journey from Budapest not really knowing what to expect. I think most of us can remember the pictures from the war and the siege on Sarajevo I was expecting the possibility of a very depressing visit although Lee assured me he had read great things about the city! We were greeted from the train journey by the agent of our hostel who was absolutely bonkers his English wasn't too great as we had realised when it had taken an hour to see that he hadn't sent us a text message in Bosnian [View Full Entry]

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We had a quality weekend in Budapest- a lot of walking around and taking in the city! We will let the pictures speak for themslves on this one! Clare and Lee [View Full Entry]

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We had a wonderful couple of weeks in Romania as you can probably tell by our inability to choose between the photos we have taken (sorry I know there are a lot for this one!) First stop Bucharest what a random city it is! It is Chisinau's grown up prettier sister! By that there are amazing Parisian avenues, albeit a little rough around the edges, but there are also blocks and blocks of communist concrete disasters. It was once called the Paris of the east, a claim made by most of the Eastern European cities we have visited, but after [View Full Entry]

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The journey from Krakow took a whole day which was pretty annoying to say to say how close they are (Lviv was once part of Poland and is about 80km from the border). The trip to the border town where we had to change trains was pretty uneventful however when we tried to get across to get our next train we were not allowed on the platform as the train was still being cleaned. We were stood waiting noticing how much stuff everyone had with them- luggage and boxes of food I'm not sure whether they were to be sold [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in civilization, in Clare's terms this means any city with a H&M which Warsaw has many it even has a Zara! , following the overnight bus from Vilnius. We were pretty tired after the bus and it didn't help that when we were getting the train into town from the bus station Clare was "Babusked". So far in Eastern Europe we have been Babusked far too many times by crazed old ladies in public spaces rushing to be at the front of any line (They have lived through communism for most of there lives so we do understand) [View Full Entry]

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We have spent the last week in Lithuania and loved every minute of it! Our first stop after leaving Riga was Siuali to see the Hill of Crosses. A cross in Lithuania apart from the obvious symbolises defiance against foreign invasion- something that Lithuania has experienced a lot of from Germanic knights in medieval times to the Soviets more recently. Apparently crosses had been put on this particular hill from around 12th Century and in 1930 there were around 400 crosses. As the hill was such a symbol of Lithuanian nationalism the Soviets removed the crosses (only to be replaced by [View Full Entry]

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After the craziness that is Russia, Tallinn (Estonia) was a wonderful relief! We were not able to get visas as we were hoping for Belarus but the Baltic's so far have exceeded expectations to make up for it! We arrived in Tallinn early morning after the worst overnight bus I have ever experienced- the heater was on me all night and the icy road made for an uncomfortable bumpy night! None of the luxuries of south American semi-cama just rock hard seats and leg room for midgets. Tallinn old town is a beautifully preserved medieval maze of cobbled streets and squares. [View Full Entry]

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After all the hype in the last blog entry our train from Moscow was brilliant, we must have had our fingers burnt by the trans Siberian where the people in third class were alcoholic gold toothed skinheads! The train to St Petersburg was full of families and middle aged couples. We had a group of Russian uni graduates next to us who could speak English so we winded up chatting away having a few jars and asking heaps about Russia. The beds were far too short for me but we had a decent night’s sleep and all for 12 pounds so [View Full Entry]

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