26 June – got the bus to Mostar to see the Old Bridge (of course). The iconic 1566 old bridge which was rebuilt after being blown up during the “conflict”. It took 4 1/2 hrs on bus from Split to Mostar - thought it would be 3 hrs only (not). The strangely named Motel (in terms of the motel – God knows where you would park!) Kriva Cuprija (MKC), overlooks the smaller Crooked Bridge (Kriva Cuprija) which was also a victim of the conflict and has also been rebuilt. It is seen as a model for the Old Bridge. The MKC sits right above a small burbling stream which feeds into the main river and my room was right above it (as are most I think) – lovely to have no noise other than the stream ... read more

When I say zooming, these things are relative on Croatian buses. Just say 12.30pm bus from Rijeka (ticket bought when I arrived) took 4 ½ hrs to get to Zadar (about 200km?) which is about normal. You cannot exactly race around here too much and the travel-time has to be factored into your planning. Which is almost certainly why my trip down the Croatian coast will end at Split and then head inland into Bosnia-Herzegovina, where there will hopefully also not be the same public holidays! The trip to Dubrovnik from Split is 4 ½ hrs, some of which may have to be repeated coming back due to tortuous ways out of Dubrovnik, mostly involving very long bus trips (like 10hrs) to get reasonably in the direction of Vienna. Travel whinges aside, and they are obviously ... read more

I did say I was trying to jam it all in. My one and only afternoon bus to Rovinj was not until 4.25pm. Which is part of the reason why bashing around Istria is so tortuous – I have to stop 3 times almost – going from Koper to Rijeka on the highway down the middle only takes 2 ½ hrs I think. Instead I went 2 hrs to Piran (stop the night), then 2 ½ hrs to Rovinj (only 1 bus a day which ends there), then 45 mins to Pula on local, then another 2 hrs to Rijeka). Had a quick look around Piran (stayed here mostly cos of closeness to bus station not the attractions per se – all those old peninsular towns all start to look the same don’t you know!). Saw ... read more

18 June Sat. You get used to the spelling of Ljubjlana, but working out the order of the L and the J is a bit off-putting (apologies to Slovenian readers) – henceforth just Ljub. Got the 11.30a.m. bus out of Bled and had a very interesting chat most of the way with Peter and Alice – who did not sound very Kiwi (tho born there) cos they had been living on the North Coast of NSW for longer than I have been here. He was 62 and she had taken a redundancy from the NSW govt and were both clearly very active – having done the Santiago di Compostela pilgrimage walk in Spain/Portugal and generally seemed to like running around the outdoors. If I had had an extra day in Bled might have been nice to ... read more

Salzburg 14-14 June (ignore the fanciful name above - no idea where it is but under S'burg) No idea what that 'title' means, if anything – just being slightly Germanic. And I am on a train out of Salzburg to Villach, still in Austria to change to a train going from there to Bled in Slovenia for a few days. First stop there is Bled which is on a spectacular perfect small blue lake they tell me. From there hopefully down as far as Dubrovnik in Croatia (trying to avoid the weekend for tourist crush reasons). Then a likely dash from wherever I end up around 29 June to Vienna to be there for a concert by my guitar hero Richard Thompson on 30 June. So that’s the summary – what about the last couple of ... read more