http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/TravelDani/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from TravelDani en-us Wed, 22 May 2013 21:59:20 +0000 Wed, 22 May 2013 21:59:20 +0000 Almost a complete washout but still beautiful. Sun shone hot on the final day though. Can39t wait to return to this glorious county http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Cornwall/blog-669837.html On arrival in Prague I was unaware I was about to experience the worst hostel I have ever stayed in. Arcapay is awful. The receptionist was rude and uninformative the room stank of damp the bed was rock hard it was so far out of town and there was one shower for every 3 dorms. Urgghhhh. Anyway After dropping my stuff off I headed back to the metro station to go check out the old town. Steph h http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/Prague/blog-669449.html Unlimited train travel 10 each for one day took us to Liverpool. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Merseyside/Liverpool/blog-669847.html Za GREB how fitting. Hated this place. But that may have something to do with surrounding circumstances to be fair. The internet can be a wonderful thing but it can also be the most annoying and misleading thing see my Redang blog. My shit day here started the night before when I believed I would be catching the 1am bus from Ljubljana to Zagreb. Turns out that bus only drops passengers off http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/blog-650481.html I quite enjoyed the long train journey from Barcelona even though I was battling with my Ipod earphones the whole time as one decided to break and the other was on its last legs. Some rather nice scenery. It was nice and easy finding my hostel. It was a proper hostel cheap ultra laid back and really friendly. I only had one thing on my mind after checkin food. I went to find the place the ho http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Valencian-Community/Alicante/blog-656864.html There was a bit of confusion with trains so unfortunately I spent more time than intended at the uninspiring Portbou train station where I sat with 2 party boy Australian lads who had been on my overnight train. I still don39t see the appeal with Contiki tours being completely wasted the whole time and not remembering much. This is surely something you could achieve at home The whole thing j http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Catalonia/Barcelona/blog-656686.html It was like ready set GO in Paris. I arrived early and locked my luggage away in Gare l39Austerlitz and proceeded to get the ticket that I had reserved to Portbou in Spain leaving that evening. I then walked rapidly along the river past the Jardin des Plantes which is the main botanical garden in France and the Notre Dame cathedral on the other side of the river to Place St. Michel where the fr http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Ile-de-France/Paris/blog-656677.html I got up early to get a train to Hamburg. It was only an hour and a half journey and the trains in Germany as you can probably imagine don39t mess about. They just get from A to B at a decent speed unlike in all the previous Eastern European countries I had just come from where the trains seemed to painfully judder along. Strangely though the train both to and from Hamburg AND the train from http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Hamburg/blog-656674.html I was very tired on arrival in Berlin39s uber modern Hauptbahnhof. I jumped on the SBahn to where was hostel was situated by the TV tower. I had received a really good service at the train station when reserving my onward ticket to Paris but I was to wish I had never asked a waitress setting tables outside of a restaurant which direction the street was that I needed to get to. Just a simple ar http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Berlin/blog-656664.html I arrived in Krakow from Vienna after a relatively comfortable night in an overnight sleeper. I was pleasantly surprised at how clean the compartment was and was glad that out of 6 beds only the 2 were occupied. I love sleeping with the movement of the train. I was in for a bit of a shock on stepping outside it was pretty darn cold and I was without winter clothes. After finding my hostel I http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Poland/Lesser-Poland/Krakow/blog-654984.html On arrival in Vienna it was still rainy and relatively cold. I got the metro to my hostel. I was ready for a stiff drink or two and got chatting to an American guy I was sharing my dorm with and we proceeded to get wasted at the bar downstairs. Pints for 2 Euros and 5 jeager bombs for 10 Euros were bound to have that effect not to mention the wet pussy shots. To cut a long story short I complete http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Austria/Vienna/blog-653847.html It was yet another hot day in Central Europe. I had had a fairly good sleep on the train from Brasov despite the horrors that unfolded on the journey i.e. the utter wanker of a ticket inspector who defaced my interrail pass. Im not sure I have ever been so angry in all my life. I had filled in the travel calendar entirely correctly yet the inspector clearly did not understand the rules of inte http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Hungary/Central-Hungary/Budapest/blog-652260.html On arrival in Brasov I headed straight for the taxi rank after being told it would cost no more than a couple of euros to get to my hostel. Supposedly Brasov taxis are cheap. The reality is that these taxi drivers think they are in Bucharest so can rip tourists off. After being quoted 10 euros I swiftly told them to F off and bought a 20p bus ticket. I got off the bus at aroundabout the right plac http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Romania/Transilvania/Brasov/Brasov/blog-652259.html I arrived early morning from Belgrade after a dismal overnight journey. Had so many scary moments. I started the journey sharing with a reasonably pleasant Romanian girl. We exchanged a few pleasantries but I didnt realize how lucky I was to have her rather than the next Romanian that entered the cabin until after she left. When she left I thought score a cabin to myself. My happines http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Romania/blog-652258.html The train to Belgrade went on and on and on through not such spectacular scenery unfortunately. Just lots of fields and stuff I was sharing a cabin with a couple of French lads who were also backpacking. I know it sounds really off but I prefer not to engage with people who cant speak very good English. The language barrier gets a bit annoying. I also have preconceptions about the French proba http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/blog-650521.html I arrived from Mostar in the evening and had to find my way from the bus station using my Lonely Planet map. A bit annoying when its within a huge Europe on a Shoestring guide as well as hauling my wheeled luggage along. My hostel was located in the heart of Sarajevo so it was a bit of a trek. I had my eyes peeled for the Sarajevo Roses I had heard about these in my LP guide. They http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Bosnia-and-Herzegovina/blog-650507.html After having travelled from a country where begging is illegal it was a mini shock to the system to encounter lots of gypsies begging on arrival at Mostar bus station. It was a bit stressful because I had tourist touts trying to get me to stay at their hostel etc and one of my flip flops fell apart while I was running to get my luggage off the coach which I had forgotten about so I had to change http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Bosnia-and-Herzegovina/South/Mostar/blog-650492.html Severely hungover I reluctantly forced myself out of my deep drunk sleep to go and catch the minibus outside of Ploce Gate to Montenegro. This doubtlessly put a bit of a dampener on my day which is why I generally don39t drink much whilst travelling. But what was done was done I had gone out in Dubrovnik the previous night and got hammered on buckets of vast volumes of intoxicating liquids. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Montenegro/blog-650523.html I arrived after a much needed sleep on the overnight coach from Zagreb early in the morning luckily enough. I would have felt luckier at the time if I had known just how busy the old town got during the day It was nice trying to find my hostel to have the old town to myself bar the people setting up their businesses for the days39 trade. I found my hostel just as it was starting to get hot. L http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/blog-650485.html Beautiful park. Tourists are herded around like cattle though http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/blog-650482.html