Travel Blog Posts
September 3rd 2006
Hello from Plzen, home of Pilsner.... One hour out of Prague, our main reason for visiting was to tour the Pilsner Urquell brewery (it was here where the eponymous Pilsner was invented). The brewery tour was a bit underwhelming. In part I think this is because they are currently increasing the capacity of the brewery (with all the building work that goes along with it), and as such are limited in what they can show tourists. Even so, what we did get to see what very interesting. We got to see some of the many tunnels underneath the factory (which stretch for miles in several dimensions), see the brewing process, and taste some of the unfiltered beers. It was also very cheap, so we can't complain. They could do a lot more with it though! The ... read more
September 1st 2006
Greetings from the Tatras! We are in Zakopane, which is on the Polish side of the Poland/Slovakia border. The Tatras are the biggest mountain range in these parts, and the Tatras are spoken of highly by Poles and Slovaks alike. So we had to check it out. A word of warning for those thinking of coming here - all such sightseeing (at this time of year) must be done before 11am when the clouds roll in, and remain for the rest of the day. Zakopane is a favourite holiday haunt for Poles, with various local traditions. One of them is Oscypek. When we arrived, we were extremely curious as to what the little things that street vendors were selling were. They looked like pork-pies and the locals seemed to be buying and eating them very qucikly. ... read more
August 31st 2006
Hello! Time to catch up on some blog entries! Krakow was a great place to visit. It is certainly a lot more vibrant than Warsaw, although sadly not less rainy. That said, given some of the places we visited, rain was perhaps the best backdrop. The tourists seem to zero in on the main square - apprently (and evidently) the "largest old town square in Eastern Europe". And it certainly is big. And confusing. And very, very pretty. It also has a huge market where I finally found the chess set I have been looking for all over Eastern Europe! Slightly less well travelled by tourists is Kazimierz, which is just down the road from the old town. It was, once upon a time, a city in its own right, occupied largely by the jewish community. ... read more
![Schindler\](http://photos.travelblog.org/Photos/19613/87327/s/547191-Schindler-0.jpg "Schindler\")
August 27th 2006
Ok.... it's probably cheating to use an actual city name as a title for a post, but it is in keeping with the theme, and it is a Joy Division song title, so I feel I should be excused. Anyway, we have now made it to Poland. It is quite a contrast to Slovakia. It is much more developed for one. And nobody speaks English. And there are less tourists. All of which make it a great country to travel through (if only we'd learned some Polish before we left). We also seem to have left the worst ravages of the American package tourists behind us. I should clarify what I mean here (American bashing has evolved to such a level amongst backpackers here that it is actually blatant racism, which is actually shocking, and quite ... read more
August 24th 2006
Well, not really the USSR, but it might as well have been, on the way to our Hostel at least. Our first impressions of Bratislava were marred by, in order of appearance: - A dead body lying outside the train station; - The ugliest building this side of the BNZ centre. The dead body you can leave to your imagination, but the building I refer to is the Slovak Radio Building (see photo). To my untrained eye, it looks like an upside down pyramid, and is exceedingly ugly. However, I expect to recieve emails from the architects among us to enlighten me on the errors of my ways. We never intended to go to Bratislava, you see. Or Slovakia. The fact that we went there at all was really a function of the (earlier mentioned) bureaucratic ... read more
August 16th 2006
Hello! We are currently in an internet cafe in Sarajevo, just over the bridge from the spot where Princip assassinated the heir to the Ausro-Hungarian throne, thereby (intermediate steps skipped) indirectly sparking World War I. Finding the spot is a somewhat difficult exercise, however, as almost all evidence of this fact has been eradicated. Princip was a Bosnian Serb nationalist, you see. And Serb nationalists are not that popular around here. Apparently there are moves to reinstate the former museum which marked the spot, but as far as I can tell, these have gained little traction. All there is is a simple plaque, and for the time that we were there we were the only tourists to go there and look at it (and I haven't noticed anybody looking at it subsequently). You can hardly blame ... read more
August 12th 2006
Hello! It's been a long time between drinks, but here is an update... We have now left Croatia for Bosnia. We spent the past five days staying in Dubrovnik (you may remember it from such wars as the Croatian war, when it was bombed within an inch of its life). Due to a Herculean restoration effort, the city is back looking as it did before the conflict. When you visit the old city, the only ways you can tell that anything is amis are the difference in colours between the roofing tiles, and the telltale plaque which shows which buildings were damaged by "attrocities committed by the Bosnian and Montenegrin aggressors". On a related note, we had the strange experience of being present in Croatia during their national thanksgiving (nationhood) day last week. There is something ... read more
August 8th 2006
Hello everyone!!! Just a quick note to let you know that we are all safe and sound in Split, southern Croatia. Lovely walled city with a port that makes Littleton look very sad indeed!!! Have had an opportunity to partake in some Dalmatian cuisine (very interesting, and very fishy, much to my chargrin), and to experience cinema Croatian style (thankfully, subtitled in Croatian, not dubbed, as in Hungary - however, brining ice cream into a movie theatre in Croatia is a no-no. Be warned). Have also had our first experience since Vietnam of long distance travel in the heat of the day in a bus without aircon or windows. Not to be reccommended. Also not to be recommended is unintentionally stumbling into Bosnia without any Bosnian currency. THankfully, Euros were accepted. Anyway, had better get a ... read more
August 4th 2006
Hello! We are now in Zadar in Dalmatia. More specifically, we are staying in Bibinje - a small village south of Zadar. It is a nice little seaside village, with little in the way of infastructure, but lots in the way of cheap produce (although I can't say the same for the meat - we had some of the worst sausages of our life the other day!). We are staying with a Croatian couple who spend part of each year in Australia, so speak good English and can explain the workings of the place to us. No complaints at all - apart from perhaps the location, next to the village church, which means that it chimes on the hour throughout the night (although we're used to that now...) We have also spent three days in Pula, ... read more
July 30th 2006
Hello everyone! Another country, another random keyboard format to contend with. This one continues the Hungarian trick of reversing the zs and ys, and throws in another couple of quirks to puzzle the mind. Can't wait for Bosnia, where the cryllic alphabet is thrown into the mix. Anyhoo... Our two nights in Zagreb have been and gone, and we can honestly say that one day in this city is time enough. It's very nice and pretty, and is set in lovely greenery with medieval state buildings atop two hills, but most of the sights take all of two hours to see. Especially when they are all going through restoration work. It seems that the Wellington City Council isn't the only municipal body with surplus construction funds at the end of the financial year, as everything in ... read more
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