Split - Sibenik - Paklenica - Freiburg - Garmisch

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Another enormous gap and now I realise that if I continue at this rate I´ll only do another three or five entries by the end of the trip. That´s no good.

Split

So. After checking into the hostel in Split, we had a bit of a chill day. Kathleena decided she was going to go shopping, and we walked around and around the old town. There are narrow cobbled streets, lots of marble, and some very, very old buildings. It´s right on the sea, but the sea isn´t quite as nice as Dubrovnik. The reason for Split being a big tourist draw is that it´s the site of Diocletian´s palace, which is not so much one building as a neighbourhood. It´s surrounded by tall walls, outside of which is the old town. Kathleena got a dress and some earrings. There were a lot of really cool shops but I didn´t really find anything. Being very tired from the night before, we were planning to make an early night of it. I made some pasta at the hostel, but then we ended up going to watch the football game with some Australians. It wasn´t that important a game though - they won, but didn´t go completely crazy like they usually do.

The next day we went and saw a lot of the historical things in the city - there´s a very old church that could have been from Rome (though not as grandiose) a tower from which you could see the whole city and the sea shimmering and the wind blowing, and a tiny little temple of Jupiter. The ceiling is arched and carved intricately, there´s a bronze statue of Jesus, and stone altar. It´s interesting to see the pagan temples that have been converted to Christian purposes. It was getting grey and rainy at that point, so we went back to the hostel and I made...pasta. I´ve got my recipe down to a frickin T, I´ll share it with you in a minute. The next day we were planning on going to see Trogir, a centuries-old town on an island in a river, but the boat never came. So we went straight to

Sibenik.

The reason we came here was to see Krka national park, which is a short bus ride away. We arrived around seven and were met by this lady who was renting out her flat. She took us through the old town, to her place, which blew us away. It was a spacious room with a bed on one side and a kitchen on the other. Like a real kitchen, the kind I haven´t been in since I left. It was really cheap too, so we took it. I made dinner and the next day we caught a bus to Krka.

It´s a wet, marshy valley which a river flows into and then spreads out every which way, so that a shallow lake flows down in rivulets through many waterfalls into big pools, streams and puddles to the bottom, where another river flows away. It was very nice; there are boardwalks over water and green green vegetation growing high on every side. The sun shines but doesn´t touch you, only makes the plants glow. As the day got later, more and more people arrived, until it wasn´t very cool anymore. So we made our way back up to the top. It was two, and the next bus wasn´t coming back till five. So we walked. It only took us three and a half hours or so; the bus only passed us as we were entering Sibenik. I made pasta and the next day we left for Starigrad,

Paklenica.

This was to be our last national park in Croatia, and much different from Krka or Mljet. We got a room at a small guesthouse (with another KITCHEN) and crashed for the night. The next day we went to Paklenica park. It was about an hour´s walk, so we didn´t get there till about ten. Let me describe it. It´s an enormous gorge surrounded by craggy, shattered white mountains, which forests crawl up most of the way. Irregular, rounded structures loom over the thick forest. It was hot as hell and humid too - we were sweating before we even started hiking.

It really was a beautiful place. You´d be walking up and up and up this trail which zigzagged uphill, and then finally you´d be out of the woods and be able to see that you´d already climbed rather high. So first there was a dirt trail, then a gravelly one, then finally we were making our way over and through enormous rocks, the trail marked by big red dots here and there. There came a part where a big rocky wall stretched over us, but not straight up; there was a big crack (wider than me) running up it, and big rocks sticking out. So while Kathleena took a break, I climbed up; first up over the big rocks, then into the chasm, and bracing myself against the walls, I crawled up. I looked out and saw the whole valley laid out. I couldn´t see any people, any trails. Only by craning my neck could I see where I´d left my pack on the trail. I could get out of the crack, and go up and over the top, or...I looked deeper in and there was sun shining down. It seemed that the crack went all the way through, but had been filled up on top by falling rocks. By turning sideways and wriggling further in, I got to where I could look up...and see nothing but sky. I crawled towards it, and emerged into blinding sunshine. I was on the top of a big rocky extrusion, the start of a ridge that stretched up and away. I sat there and absorbed the place where I was. I took a few pictures. Then I crawled back into the crevice and down to the path.

We continued to the path and then got to a densely vegetated area, like a forest on top of the mountain. After that, the rocks rose up again. It was the most challenging hiking I´ve ever done, lifting myself up and up with my legs, and sometimes it was so steep that I had to pull myself up with my hands. And just pouring sweat because of the heat. Oh man it was hot. Kathleena was a real trooper, too. At length we got to the peak, after a final stretch going up these rocks. Let me tell you, there´s nothing like getting to the top of a mountain after a good four hour hike. The wind up there cools you down, you have some water, and just look around at the world you´ve left behind. We could see all the way back to town, to the sea, to mountains invisible from inside the gorge. It was breathtaking. We decide to make a big loop and follow another trail down the other side of the mountain, which would lead straight back to town. It seemed like a good idea, and this way we´d get to see more stuff instead of just going back the way we came. We were pretty low on water.

We looked at the map.

"The trail goes out of the park. I wonder why? Is the outside any less beautiful?"

So at first it was the same as going up. Down the rocks, into the forest. But instead of giving way to rocks, the forest just got thicker and thicker. Scruffy, scratchy plants, and tall grass reached over the path and made it almost invisible, rubbing our legs rashy. As we got lower, it just got thicker and thicker. It was hot hot hot, and the sweat made my skin burn and itch. Turns out the difference between a national park trail and another one (in Croatia at least) is not the merit of the trail, but the level of maintenance. We lost our way several times and had to pick our way back. The air buzzed and hummed with the sound of bees flying around, and we´d run out of water long ago. We were thirsty, hot and sweaty, trudging through this thick brush. It sucked pretty much, and lasted forever. Well, three hours. After forever we could see the town far below, but it was another hour before we got there. When we did, we went straight to the kitchen, to the fridge, and got our 5L bottle of water. We poured two huge tankards and just sat there, not speaking, just gulping it down. It was strange because it felt...heavy...almost hard to drink. Later, Kathleena told me that on the way down she was seeing little white dogs in the corner of her eye, dogs that were not there. So remember kids, when you hike to the top of a mountain in 30 degree heat, make sure to bring lots of water.

Kathleena took a nap, I took a swim. We made pasta and went to sleep.

The next morning we stopped at the post office and made a reservation for our hostel in Amsterdam, before continuing to the park. Kathleena was still tired from the day before, so she just took a walk up the gorge to sit by the river and write postcards. I decided to climb another mountain. It was even hotter than the day before! I´d reach up to wipe the sweat out of my eyes with the back of my wrist and it would just slide across, being as sweaty as my brow. Luckily I´d worn my straw cowboy hat, otherwise I´d be blinded. Other than that I was wearing hiking shoes and board shorts. Too hot for a shirt.

The day before we´d gone west; this time I went east. The first hour was just switchbacks up the valley wall; the second was a bit of a plateau, walking through the flowered, wooded, mountaintop forest. The last forty five minutes totally kicked my ass though. I just scrambled and clambered up over jagged white rocks. The slope must have been about fifty or sixty degrees, it was freaking steep! You´d have to hoist yourself up constantly, and I was just dripping sweat. It must have been thirty five degrees, but the air was so fresh up there that it wasn´t unpleasant. It was awesome. After all that I finally reached the summit. The view wasn´t as magnificent as the day before, but it was more satisfying, being harder to reach. I sat there, walked around the top, took pictures. When the bugs found me and told their friends, I left. It was almost as hard getting down; I felt like a mountain goat, the Capricorn. It was really awesome. I´m so glad Kathleena and I agreed to each do our own thing that day, because either of us would have had a lousy time doing what the other was doing.

We met back up at the guesthouse and made dinner. Which I will detail here.

DOUG´S INCREDIBLE BACKPACKER DINNER and KATHLEENA´S DELICIOUS SALAD

So! You get to a place with a kitchen and decide to save some cash and make your very own dinner. The secret is: the food bag! I have a tubular waterproof bag which attaches to mz backpack. It´s got some crucial ingredients in it, and simplifies things when it comes to grocery shopping.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

Some red wine (the absolute cheapest you can find. in greece we averaged one to three euros per litre. slightly more in croatia)
A tin of tomatoes
Some extra virgin olive oil (THE STUFF YOU GOT IN GREECE. OH YEAH.)
Oregano
pepper
ajvar (a spicy mild pepper puree)
garlic
a steak
some pasta

Put the tin of tomatoes in a pot. Pour in some wine (a bunch, like half a cup, don´t be stingy) and observe the lovely dark colour it turns the sauce, a spoonful of ajvar, a minced clove of garlic, a pinch of oregano, a dash of olive oil. Turn it on low and stir it up. You might have to cut up the tomatoes if it´s whole tomatoes. Put the top on. Stir that occasionally. Smell the red wine vapourising. Mmm-MM!

After that´s started to simmer for a while, sear the steak in a nice oily pot or pan at high heat, then put the sauce in there so it picks up all the meat flavour. Take the steak out so it doesn´t get overcooked. Now since you only have two pots, rinse the pot the sauce was in, fill it up, and bring it to a boil. Add some salt and put the pasta in. (I like fusilli.) If your sauce hasn´t thickened up by that point, take the top off so it´ll steam off and reduce a bit. When the pasta´s almost done, put the steak back into the sauce to heat it back up.

Drain the pasta when it´s done al dente and pour some oil into it. Swish it around. Put it in bowls.

Kathleena makes a nice salad with tomatoes and cucumbers and onions and peppers. With some oil and cheese, and some oregano on top. Have that with the red wine you put in the sauce. It´s a good meal.

The next day was Sunday. So the bus we thought would come early in the morning didn´t come until ten thirty. So we took that to Zadar. We were going to go see Plitvice National Park but by then the day was halfway through. So instead we caught a bus to Zagreb, and from there a night bus to Munich. We got into Munich at four am. We did a lot of planning then, and really hashed out the time we´d spend in Germany. It became quite obvious as we phoned ahead to places that accomodation wouldn´t be nearly as chill as in Greece or the Balkans. It´s more expensive, and most places we called were all booked up. So we ended up going to Freiburg; it was the only place we could stay that night.

So Deutsche Bahn (the train company) rocks so hard - at the Hauptbahhof (train station), you go to this place called the Reisezentrum (travel-centre), and tell them where you want to go. They give you a printout which tells you which platform to catch your train, the four-digit identifying number of the train, what time it leaves, then the same thing for each transfer. So you just get off your train and go straight to the platform to catch your next train. A digital readout above the platform tells you which trains are coming and you know which one is yours because YOU KNOW THE NUMBER. And the trains...the trains are awesome. They are marked with the insignia "ICE" - Inter City Express. Ice trains. Cool. They´re fast, comfortable, quiet, and air-conditioned. Readout screens inside tell you the routing of the train, including the next stop and final destination, as well as the SPEED of the train, which averaged at 160 km/h. It was freaking futuristic let me tell you, especially after chugging along on Greek trains that you could run beside to stretch your legs. And we don´t need to buy tickets - we just take out our rail pass and write down that day´s date on it. Then show it to the conductor when he comes round to check tickets. He stamps it and everythings´s cool. It´s so hassle-free it´s crazy. So. Freiburg.

It´s a very old university town, and quite a cool place. It´s situated in the southwest corner of Germany, in the Land (province) of Baden-Wurttemburg. It´s surrounded by the Black Forest. We were there for two nights. The first day we took a bus out to Schauinsland, which was really nice. The bus took us to the Schauinslandbahnstation. This is the rail-car station, of the longest rail-car in Germany, and I guess they have a few. So we sailed above the Black Forest and twenty minutes later arrived at the top. We walked around up there on wide, packed-dirt trails. It wasn´t really hiking, but it was still awesome - the sky was grey, it was cool, and we walked along, seeing the rolling hills, completely covered with dark trees. There were wooden carvings scattered about, from Brothers Grimm, as well as livestock. We saw some cows, and also some goats. But they weren´t evil-looking goats like at Samaria Gorge, they were nice! They had big floppy ears, just like beagles, and little horns. And they came up to us at the low fence and baahhed. We liked them. We also saw a Stone Age pagan-looking trilithon which turned out to be a memorial to a group of boy scouts that got lost in 1935. Five boys died. There was also a huge tower from which you could see the whole surrounding area. After that it started to rain, hard. So we went for lunch, and then for some reason we walked down instead of taking the rail car. It took all afternoon. We saw the biggest slugs! They were orange-brown and just laying on the path. I took like twelve pictures of them. They were awesome, as long as my middle finger and three times as fat. We´d poke them and they´d curl up into a great big lump of slug. We saw snails too, and if we´d collected them all, we´d have had enough for a nice escargot dinner.

We got back around seven, went out for dinner around eight. We were staying at a Deutsch Jugendeherberge (DJH) hostel; it´s a publically-funded organisation that has hostels EVERYWHERE. Their main function is to house school children on field trips and they don´t really have any cool vibe, they´re just institutional people-warehouses. But because of that they have great facilities, they´re spotlessly clean, good free breakfast, etc.

The next day we left at two. I wish we´d spent more time in Freiburg, because we didn´t get to really explore the city, and I almost feel like we didn´t make the most of it. So we took the trains all the way over, back through Munich and south to Garmisch, then on to Mittenwald. We got there at ten and when we called the DJH hostel for directions, they were closed. So we went back to Garmisch and spent too much on a room. Then we called Mittenwald and they´d cancelled our reservation because we hadn´t shown in time, booked our beds for tomorrow night. So our plans for southern Bavaria are pretty much shot, we can´t go see Schloss Linderhof or Neuschwanstein (two huge fairy-tale castles) because there´s nowhere we can stay to base ourselves and it just won´t work. It´s too constricted. It would have worked without a hitch if we could have stayed in Mittenwald. Oh well.

I´m already planning to avoid DJH hostels. They are always booked solid with loud school groups and they are completely inflexible. Things haven´t gone so well over the last few days, but I guess that´s how it is sometimes. I guess we just move on to Berchesgaden, which will be cool.

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