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Saturday 9 May:
After managing to get the blog published and emails cleared yesterday Zachary and I managed to find the playground after a brisk 919km walk. I am really impressed by how fit he is. It was good to find it and he enjoyed himself immensely. Of course, being a typical kiwi boy, he took his shoes off. The ground was all stones and he ran around on those quite happily, getting filthy feet in the process. This caused comment from at least 3 other adults at the park. I don’t think Italian children are ever without shoes!
Got the bus back and then dinner and an early night ready for an early start.
I didn’t manage to exchange any euros for Croatian kunas yesterday so that was a priority today. I thought Zagreb businesses might all take euros as they will be adopting the euro soon I believe, but perhaps they are having second thoughts…
We got away nicely on time from Treviso and the train journey to
Udine was very pleasant. Great views of the Dolomites and there were a couple of nice looking towns on
the way and when we got to Udine we managed to drop our luggage at the bus station and go for a walk. In hindsight, we should have gone here for the day instead of Treviso on Wednesday. This is a very nice town indeed. We had an excellent morning tea of croissants and freshly squeezed juice. Then we had a look inside a church and its attached museum and then Zachary and I climbed up a lot of stairs to look at the 500 year old castle. It would have been good to have had more time here and go inside. But it was cool to look around the outside and read a bit about it. There were also superb mountain views from here. The main city square is very nice, reminiscent somewhat of Trafalgar Square.
We then caught the bus to
Villach, Austria. After kicking a couple of ditzy girls out of our booked seats we got underway on time. We would highly recommend this as a scenic journey. We went through the mountains which are traversed via a top quality highway and a network of tunnels. Sitting on the top deck of the bus
as we were meant we had excellent views of the mountains, streams, and the many villages. After about 75 minutes we left Italy and crossed the border into Austria, arriving 20 minutes later at Villach. We printed out our tickets for the next leg and found lockers for our packs before heading into town. This really is a mountain town and the temperature was noticeably cooler, although still pleasant enough for t-shirts. We found ice cream and then went into the city where there were lots of racing cars and motorcycles on display. Looked at a couple of churches and went back to the Bahnhof (rail station) to buy something to eat for the train as we would be travelling from 4:53 to 8:50 and so miss dinner time. It was extremely noisy on the platform as some work was being done on the neighbouring track. Our train came from Frankfurt and at Villach it split into two with the front half going on to Klagenfurt and the back two carriages to Zagreb. It was a bit delayed arriving so by the time it had done its split and we got a loco attached it was 5:15.
Leaving Villach it was quite pretty countryside and we settled in for the journey. I still hadn’t managed to get any Croatian kunas so I was hoping they would have some at Zagreb when we arrived. I had thought about getting them back in Rome when I saw a currency exchange advertising them but didn’t want to carry them all that time. Would probably have been a good plan as it happened. Anyway after a brief stop at the amusingly name Faak am See we went through a very long tunnel and when we emerged at the other end we were in
Slovenia, a country that, to be honest, I didn’t even know existed until I started planning this trip last year! Unsurprisingly the landscape didn’t change much and we could see the Dolomites from this side too. I can’t say I was overly impressed with the Austrian train – the coaches were spacious but the rubbish bin was full, and the toilet in our coach was out of service. After managing to convince the automatic doors to actually open I got to the next one and that toilet had no loo paper or paper towels for hand drying. These
may seem minor inconveniences but certainly the toilets should be maintained (having said that Heather refused to use the one on the train to Udine because of its appalling state).
Much to my surprise we were informed we had to change train in Ljubljana. Not that much of a hassle really but getting those backpacks off the rack, out the door, across the platform, onto the train, and onto the racks is a pain in the butt – especially after 11 hours on the road. We transferred to a Slovenian train which was very nice except the armrests between the seats didn’t go down making it difficult for Zachary to stretch out and sleep. But the toilets were clean! The countryside after Ljubljana was very very nice as we followed the beautiful Sava river. Not too dissimilar to the South Island except the style of houses are different. The light wasn’t favourable for photo taking so you’ll have to take my word for it.
We then had a border control stop.
Croatia, our 4
th country today, has not yet joined the Eurozone so police came aboard and checked our passports. The first man stamped
to say we had left Slovenia and the EU, then a lady officer, who Zachary charmed the socks off, stamped us into Croatia. Zachary thought this was all very exciting and he held onto his passport tightly and handed it over when asked.
Zagreb is not far from the border and we arrived there a short time later. The railway station wasn’t that attractive but the information office was open and she gave me a map and gave me accurate instructions to get to the Youth Hostel. The Post Office next door was still open (they open until midnight on Saturdays) and I was able to exchange my Euros for kunas there at a very good rate. Then a very short walk to the hostel which is next to a supermarket and opposite a pub. We are on the 4
th floor and we have 3 beds in a room and that’s about it. The bathroom is across the hall. However, it should suffice and since booking their rates have actually gone down for this time of year so we are only paying 99 kuna (about $19) per person per night. There is quite a bit of street
noise but we’ll manage I’m sure. A quick shower for Zachary and then Heather headed downstairs to use the free wi-fi and suss out kitchen and breakfast facilities. 10:20pm and Zachary finally asleep after a looooooooooong day travelling. He slept for a chunk of the ride from Udine to Villach (about an hour) but apart from that he has stayed awake – remarkable considering he got up at 5:30am. He has been hard work today, as he was on our last travel day. Hopefully a good night’s sleep and we can go exploring tomorrow.
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