We left Shkodër after breakfast on the balcony at our hotel. The drive from Shkodër to Berat wasn’t particularly scenic for most of the 3 hour journey, largely because of the haze but also because many Albanian cities and towns aren’t particularly beautiful (uninspiring buildings, litter, unfinished gardens). The roads were mostly pretty good though. We drove into Berat through the new part of town. Eventually we turned around a corner and caught our first glimpse of the beautiful old city Berat is famous for. Berat is the 9th largest city in Albania and is also home to a historic centre which, along with Gjirokastra’s, is UNESCO world heritage listed. Berat and Gjirokastra are recognised as rare examples of an architectural character typical of the Ottoman period. Berat’s historic centre consists of a castle (Kala) most ... read more

We awoke to a rather chilly morning in Kranjska Gora; our windscreen was covered in ice! After defrosting the windscreen / washing the ice away we set off towards Vintgar Gorge. The drive to Vintgar Gorge took about 40 minutes. After leaving the freeway and driving uphill for a while we ended up on a narrow road, which seems to be typical of the approach to tourist attractions in Slovenia! Eventually we reached the car park, paid our 5 euro parking fee and headed off to buy our 11 euro per person tickets for the Gorge. Vintgar Gorge is a 1.6km long gorge close to Bled. It’s one of the more popular tourist attractions in Slovenia, for good reason. We’d read that it gets really busy so to arrive early, but assumed that was only during ... read more

On our way from Ljubljana to Kobarid we planned a small detour to visit Predjama Castle. After about an hours drive (on the wrong side of the road) through beautiful scenery we arrived at the castle. Predjama Castle is a medieval castle built inside a large cave approximately 123m above the valley below. The first mention of the castle in historical records is from around 1274, but it has been rebuilt / extended multiple times since then. The castle has had numerous owners over the years, but the most famous / infamous was knight Erazem of Predjama who was described as a Robin Hood type figure who ultimately met his end following a year long siege after a servant informed the enemy that the weakest point of the castle was the toilet. The servant signalled to ... read more

The journey to Hong Kong unfortunately began at about midnight for me; I woke up with violent case of food poisoning. I spent a about four hours feeling incredibly sorry for myself before I managed to get a couple of hours sleep prior to our alarm going off. Fortunately we'd decided to get a taxi to the Yangshuo train station rather than take the bus. I collapsed into the back seat feeling sorry for myself while we settled in for the one hour drive to the station. Despite the name the Yangshuo train station is no where near the town of Yangshuo. We waited at the station for about 40 minutes before boarding the fast train to Hong Kong. I napped for most of the three hour trip to Shenzhen. At Shenzhen North train station we ... read more

We arrived in Guilin after a 1.5 hour flight from Lijiang. After collecting our bags we met a very giggly Chinese lady who was our driver for the 2.5 hour trip to Ping'an. The trip was beautiful but very slow (and included a stop to refuel and get the car washed); our driver didn't do much for certain stereotypes which exist about her gender or race... On arrival at the gate to enter Ping'an we said farewell to our driver and avoided the women offering to carry our bags in baskets on their backs (Scott's bag has wheels and mine is a backpack so we're not sure why we needed someone to put our bags into a basket and then carry them...nor would we have felt comfortable watching a grandma lug our bags up the hill..). ... read more