LeeCranwell

20.08.2019. This morning we said farewell to Ema, our gorgeous host in Split, who, as promised, walked us to the ferry terminal for our trip across to Hvar Island, a journey of one hour. We were greeted on Hvar by a representative from our hotel who organised us and our luggage to be delivered there forthwith! We settled in and at about 5.00pm took off on a short and pleasant walk into the main square for drinks and dinner. Our hotel is pretty good with a pool and bar area, plenty to choose from in the way of meals but we chose to wander into the square to eat and enjoy the atmosphere. The staff are young, friendly and helpful, the hotel facilities excellent. Hvar has a gorgeous port, filled with many boats and some very ... read more

15.08.2019. Last night, after booking into our lovely hotel, we found the Bulldog Bar just a few short steps from the hotel and enjoyed a few drinks and dinner and bumped into four Aussies who we accused of being so loud we could hear them six feet away! They laughed and told us they were from Victoria - well, there you go! They, like us, we’re quite chuffed to hear an Aussie accent after so many weeks away. It’s funny, John and I sit amongst the crowds, drink, eat, chat and enjoy and everyone is speaking in different languages - so when we hear English being spoken, it’s quite comforting in a way. John and I also seem to be the only two people anywhere not bent over their mobile phones whilst out and about! At ... read more

12.08.2019. Our first full day in Budapest, we caught a HOHO bus this morning and spent a few hours being driven around Budapest. What a grand old city is it too. The architecture is wonderful. The temperature was hot, 33 or so, but luckily we could sit under the sunshade on the top deck. At some stage the driver decided to pull the awning right across the top of the bus, which was a jolly good idea! Aussie weather it reminded us of but even we don’t sit out in all that sun! The traffic was very heavy today so it was slow going on HOHO but we did the full circuit and opted for an early lunch. This afternoon, we found a beaut restaurant on the Pest side of the river where we had a ... read more

07.08.2019. Our morning started with a leisurely breakfast and then a walk into the Jewish Quarter of Krakow, a short distance from our hotel. We visited the oldest existing Synagogue in Poland which was built in about 1407. It’s the height of the tourist season but everyone shuffles around so we can all see the exhibits. We then wandered through to the Eagle Pharmacy which, when the Nazis created the Jewish ghetto in 1941, its Polish owner Tadeusz Pankiewicz found himself at the very heart of it. Deciding to stay, he and his staff were the only Poles allowed to live and work in the ghetto and over the two years of the ghetto's existence, the pharmacy became an important centre of social life as well as aid in acquiring food and medicine and falsifying documents. ... read more

02.08.2019. What, 5.00am already? Time to get up and get going for our train journey to Warsaw which will take about seven hours. Luckily for us the staff in the breakfast room allowed us to get something to eat while they were setting up and the cabbie rolled up at about 6.30 even though we’d ordered a taxi for 7.00. Still, he had a cup of coffee on the house and soon whisked us away in his you beaut Mercedes Benz – very nice! The train station was bustling at this early hour and we still had plenty of time for our train which ended up being 20 minutes late, due to a technical hitch down the line. We arrived in Warsaw just before 4.00pm and are staying at the lovely Mamaison Residence Diana. We were ... read more