It had been a long time coming, but we finally made the hop over the water from London to Paris and what a fantastic weekend we had! Montmartre I arrived on the Thursday night and met Rhi at Gare du Nord. She was our gracious host for the weekend, allowing us to stay with her in her beautiful old apartment in Montmartre, the artist and bohemian quarter of Paris. She was the best tour guide for the weekend with her duties starting that evening without request. We dropped my bag off and set up the hill to the top of Montmartre to see the Basillica of Sacre Coeur, which sits at the top of the hill and happens to be the highest point in the city. On the way up, I got my first glimpse of ... read more

Getting to Dubrovnik from Split The only direct way to get to Dubrovnik by car from the north of Croatia is to drive through Bosnia. No train service exists for this purpose probably due to the complication of going through this neighbouring country. We travelled the 4.5 hour journey from Split with a friendly Croatian guy, whose mother owned the apartments that we were staying in. The police on both sides of the border didn't bother looking at our passports, so we never collected another stamp in the book. War and peace Dubrovnik was an independent republic for 700 years until that was abolished by Napoleon in 1806. Since then, it has had a turbulent history with occupiers before, during and after the world wars. Croatia declared its independence in 1990 from the Socialist Federal Republic ... read more