I arrived in Bucharest on the train from Veliko Tarnovo and was relieved to get there as Bulgarian trains are crap! I decided first of all to spend a couple of nights in Bucharest to get the feel for the city, culture and people. Off i went then to find a hostel, and like the sheep iam i followed the recommendation in Lonely Planet. After hunting it out....in the classy location of above a strip joint i spent the first night relaxing and reading. So the first proper day in Bucharest was spent having a look around and my conclusion is.....well.....its alright but nothing special. The good points of the city are that there are loads of cool little churches hidden away behind tower blocks as it was govt policy in the 1980's to surround churches with apartment blocks and factories in order to hide them so the population couldnt visit them. Another good point is it has the second biggest building in the world (after the Pentagon) which is The Palace of Parliament which dominates a whole area of Bucharest. Maybe not surprisingly it has never actually been finished as the Romanian govt cant afford it despite spending £1 billion on it, apparently about 15% of the building is still just a shell, but its so damn huge nobody will ever know exactly. However my favourite bit of Bucharest was a combination of the old town (the bit that wasnt being dug up) and a huge roundabout which had a park in the middle and loads of comedy capitalist signs that u associate with eastern europe.

After finishing up in Bucharest with a visit to a nice little resturant for some spagetti carbonara i booked a train ticket to Brasov which is in the heart of translyvania and romania's main tourist destination. The train ticket cost about £5 and the train was about ten times better than Virgin trains, so pay attention Branson! With everyone's ticket there was a seat number, free drink and sandwich, bag storage and generally nice staff....all for one tenth of the price u pay in UK! Anyway Brasov the place was......fantastic!! It is a really really beautiful little city of about 200,000 or so i think and has one of the most beautiful central squares of my entire trip. My hostel was superb, cheap and central and the food in Brasov was great.

Though there is a slight issue there, before coming to Romania from Bulgaria i had been told that Romanian food was rubbish. However i found that it was not at all that bad, granted its quite plain with not much additional sauces, spices etc but i thought it was well cooked, served up in huge portions and generaly alright, it wasnt as good as the Bulgarian earthenware bowls, but then again that was one of the best things from my entire trip foodwise.

Anyway back to normal, the most important thing about Brasov however was its potential for daytrips, as it lay within distance of at least 3/4 daytrips. The most important one is the tour of the two castles which can be done by bus for about £4 return. The first castle you goto is Bran Castle which is famous for being the home of Vlad Tepes who is the basis for the fictional character of Dracula. I thought this castle was alright though it strangely ignores all the dracula stuff (kinda valid when u find out Tepes only actually went there once!) but basically it is just a former royal palace that still looks like it is lived in or at least u can move in pretty quickly! The second castle is called Rasnov and in my opinion far far better. For one thing its a proper castle and by this i mean, ancient, derelict and on a hill. It has a fantastic view looking one way from the castle u can see the town of Rasnov spread about before u on a huge plain but turn round and look the other way and all u can see is forest and mountains, i preferred the latter view obviously! This castle was beautiful and worth the trip out to it alone and for one thing it wasnt packed with tourists like Bran.

The other day trips from Brasov are Peles Castle in Sinaia which is a really romantic fairytale palace about an hour on the train away from Brasov. However i preferred the little town of Sighisora which is famous for being the birthplace of Vlad Tepes but it is a really interesting little place of its own accord with lots of cool little museums, shops, towers and churches to look around.

The final leg of my trip was a coupe of days in Sibiu (oh i spent just over a week in Brasov) which is an amazing city full of cafe's, squares, baroque buildings, huge churches and shops. It was like a very very minature prague and comes highly recommended from this author! However it is very very difficult to get to, the only way u can get there is on a train from Brasov (if u come from bucharest transfer at brasov) and its really out of the way. I loved this city so much, but i cant really describe how! I guess it was because i was in another great hostel, met some good people, had lots of fun, found some great cafes...the only problem was that a lot of places stopped serving food about 9 at night!

I ended my entire trip by coming back to bucharest as i had to fly home. had 2 u say?...well yes i did...im out of money...stupid crap pay at holiday inn!

Anyway thats it from my trip, i hope u all enjoyed reading about it and thanks for all the e-mails in my inbox and messages on facebook!

now if anyone wants 2 give me a job in UK...get in touch! and no im not a journalist or author...haha

Romania remains copyright of the author coldposts, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Albania - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14014&l=86e72&id=514972396

Macedonia - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14019&l=1f543&id=514972396

Bulgaria - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15035&l=12cfa&id=514972396
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=15038&l=c19c5&id=514972396

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After checking in and getting settled at the hostel we went out for some food and had a quick walk around Sofia at night and all we basically saw was people gorging on mcdonalds and prostitutes. So basically first impressions werent all that great, but after waking up the following morning we decided to follow the map and went for a proper walk around the city and discovered hidden away amongst the high-rises a quite pretty city, lots of interesting little churches, statues, monuments and some great parks! I'm not really gonna write a lot about Sofia because its not really the key part of Bulgaria to be honest. The next stop on my list (Paul was still with me for the first day) was Plovdiv, which is a town right in the middle of Bulgaria (those with good sporting memories might remember Bolton conquering Lokomotiv Plovdiv in the UEFA Cup a couple of years ago....i remember it, it was the only game i left early, remember it mum?!!). I stayed in a really great hostel there called Hikers Hostel. After having a look around we discovered a really pretty old city with lots of colourful old buildings and the old town positioned between a network of hills. I stayed here for 2 more days and even walked up a couple of the hills when i had done everything in the basin of the town. I was really pleased i decided to visit Plovdiv as its a wonderful little town and even has a cool ampitheatre that u can wander round.

After Plovdiv i met a Canadian girl in the hostel who was getting the same bus as me but she was going to Tryavna not Veliko Tarnovo, so we set off to get the bus together. Unfortunatly upon arrival at the bus station she found out the bus wasnt stopping in Tryavna so she came along with me to Veliko. Her name was Jeri and we got on really well and would spend the next few days together and had a lot of fun. Veliko Tarnovo was a place i had never really heard of to be honest until about a week before i planned my route but im now unbelievably glad i went there. It is a gorgeous little town sent on the S-bend of a river, with loads of old buildings, a huge castle, the coolest church ever, mountains surrounding it on all sides and loads of cute little villages on the hillside. It was probably amongst my 2 or 3 favourite places so far in the whole trip.

There were a few things that worried me though, first off me and jeri noticed an estate agent and had a nosy in the window (as u do) and both stood their in shock for about 10mins.....all the houses were under 30,000 euros (thats about 17,000 pounds!).....granted they werent in Veliko but in the villages just outside, but even so!!! The second thing was possibly the most bizzarre thing i have done on my travels, we were wandering around a church in a little village called Arbanaisi and decided to pop in, we opened the squeaky door only to walk into the very start of an orthodox christening! As the door was really really noisy we couldnt sneak out, so we had to linger at the back of the hall and watch a little girl of about 4 getting baptised! We ended up taking pictures for the family who's kid it was (so both parents and godparents could be in all the pics) and generally helping out in tiny bits and at the end we were rewarded with some nice bread!!

We then went to Tryavna (where Jeri was originally trying to get in the first place) and spent half a day there, which was fun. Before we decided to hitch-hike the last 15miles or so to the Drynovo monestary.....alas what both of us didnt know was that it was up hill and a very rarely used road! we ended up walking about 3 miles before we got picked up by a man in a carpet van who could take us to the town of drynovo which was about 2 miles short of the monestary, after taking this lift, we almost immediatly got picked up again by 2 men in a lada who would take us to the monestary aslong as we would talk like posh english people too them......deal! The monestary itself was gorgeous, as it was in a fantastic location surrounded by mountains and cliffs, with caves u could go exploring in, a river running right past and a forest surrounding it on all other sides. It was really mind-blowing! After taking in the sights for an hour or two and then getting something to eat we wandered back to the main road and after trying unsuccesfully for about 15mins to get a lift we eventually got offered a lift by some old guy in a comedy old soviet car whos name i cant even remember. However he could only take us back to Drynovo (couple of miles) and the fee was 2 cigarrette's (neither of us smoked, but we bought one pack between us as we understood this was the normal currency....plus they r only 1 euro for a pack of 20!). After getting back to Drynovo we encountered a real problem as we couldnt get a lift for about 45mins, but just as we were about to give up and a get a bus back the last 40miles or so a random guy and girl pulled up and said they could take us all the way to Veliko Tarnovo as they were heading to Varna anyway. We snapped up this offer and got back to our hostel both exhausted after the days travels.

The next day i moved onto Romania while Jeri moved onto Varna on the black sea coast.

Bulgaria was probably my second favourite country so far as it had lots of everything, but i think it will have been reinforced by the really good company i met in both Plovdiv and Veliko Tarnovo

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The next day the Canucks moved onto Bitola while i moved in the opposite direction to the capital city, Skopje. Now my guide book said there wasnt much in Skopje but i went with an open mind and was willing to give it a chance. After checking into the worst and most over-priced hotel of my trip so far i went for a wander and found that Skopje has a really nice little Muslim quarter and Bazzar and......well absolutely nothing else. I had paid for 2 nights so had to stay and suffered easily the most boring days of my trip so far as i did............well............nothing!! i just wandered around town and passed the time, i did find a good sandwich shop though! I did also meet a random nutter at the bus station, he was a kinda destitute guy who spoke ok english who asked me if i needed help, i said no i was ok, but then he started talking to me, he said he was in trouble with the macedonian govt because the president wanted to kill him. He also said the president has stolen his girlfriend and then offered him 20million euros to flee the country...apparently the guy refused and it was now his aim to be the next president of macedonia....high aims for a homeless guy Also i got ripped off for the first time, i paid around 10 euros for a 2 euro taxi ride......another key bit of advice, never take a taxi from the train or bus station as they will always rip u off!

Basically if u r going to Macedonia i would recommend missing out Skopje all together if possible and just going straight for Ohrid and the surrounding area as it is fantastic for scenary, hiking, biking etc.

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My first stop was the main city in the north called Shkoder which i only really wanted too see because it has a huge fortress overlooking the entire town. I got into town at around 4pm and went off to find my hotel (12 euro a night...thats about 8 pound and it was a 3*) without a map and with nobody in town speaking english, plus i was loaded up with my bag and it was about 35 degrees. Two hours later i was still looking for my hotel with no map and still unable to find an english speaker. Eventually i found a man who spoke a mini bit of french and between us we managed to work out a rough route. The man then amazingly kindly decided to escort me all the way to the hotel even though it was about 2 miles away. So upon arriving at the hotel i threw my bags down outside and went to find someone. So i wander inside dripping in sweat and find.....a huge wedding going on!!! i have to walk through this wedding looking like something recently arrived from a swimming pool and find a hotel staff person who also didnt speak any english (only italian). I then had to take my bags in through the fire exit so i didnt disturb the wedding (which was fair enough), had a quick shower and headed off to the fortress which was......amazing!! it was huge, really really intact and really really good!.....though i forgot my camera so u will just have to take my word for that. After returning to the hotel and having a quick drink i headed out to see the city and quickly i discovered it was.....an absolute heap of shit!!!! There was nothing to see, it was dirty, horrible and there was rubbish everywhere. I'm not joking about this, there were piles of rubbish that were higher than me!! So maybe not surprisingly i went to bed early that night so i could head to tirana early on.

Getting on the bus in the morning i headed off to Tirana. I had been warned previously that buses just abandoned you anywhere they could in Tirana (instead of taking u to a bus station) and i found this to be amazingly....true! I got dumped somewhere about 3 miles away from the centre of Tirana and therefore my hostel and proceeded to get lost for the second time in 2 days though luckily this time it only lasted for about an hour. Again i found a guy and asked him for directions and before i knew it i had about ten albanians all pointing in totally different directions to this place. Eventually though we sorted out the direction i wanted to go in and i found my hostel. Now Tirana itself is possibly the most insane city i have encountered and this is mostly for one reason.....nobody can drive! In my three days there i saw loads of cars driving the wrong way down one way streets, ignoring red traffic lights and failing to notice people crossing the street on pedastrian crossings, so it quickly became clear that the only way to cross the road was too leg it as quick as u can!!

After seeing the sights and sounds of Tirana i headed off to Berat which is the most beautiful town in Albania by an absolute mile, it is an old Ottoman town with all the houses still preserved perfectly and was just so beautiful that i couldnt really believe i was in the same rubbish infested country i had spent the last few days.

I headed off then to Elbasan but only to catch a transfer to the Macedonian border and to say goodye albania....and oh, you owe us another 10 euros............bast(snip!....my mum reads this!)

Albania remains copyright of the author coldposts, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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havene had time to upload the pics for these 2 countries yet so they will come in the next week or so i guess!

Well i set off for Sarajevo first of all. I have to admit i had no real idea what was i gonna see or do while here and first impressions werent all that great as the bus station was in a giant industrial estate. However i made my way to the hostel and the guy kinda explained to me that the side of the city that the bus station is on is basically just residential and industrial so i had no real reason to go there (i say he kinda explained it cos he didnt speak any english, just italian and serbo-croat and i dont speak either of them). So i went out that night in the rough direction which i was pointed and discovered a city which was remarkably busy around 3 or 4 streets and then really quiet everywhere else. I obviously couldnt see many sights this first night so just spent most of my time getting my bareing etc. The next day i headed off proper to see all the sights, i was amazed at how much of a pretty city i had encountered, surrounded on all sides by hills, narrow streets with hundreds of shops selling anything and everything and hundreds of beautiful mosques. Apparently there about 108 mosques in Sarajevo which i had no idea about but i looked round the 2 biggest, Emperors Mosque and Gazi Husrev Bey Mosque, both of them are stunning though i thought the Bey mosque was a lot more grand than the Emperors mosque which was a bit unexpected! I spent the rest of the day looking round all the old town and then going around all the museums, actually there were only 2 and one of them was the worst museum i have ever been in, in my life!!

The next day i moved onto Mostar which is a very interesting place. Its very interesting to look at the parrellels between the two sides of the city. The christian side has been largely rebuilt because it was the more prosperous side of town, but driving through the muslim side of town it looks in places like the war just ended last week. There is still collapsed houses all over the place and shells of houses seem to be about every 4th house. There was some really weird rebuilding bits though, at one point there was a huge new glass DHL building which looked all posh and new and its next door neighbour was the shell of an apartment block, with one side collapsed and u could see all the way through the entire block!

Anyway after really enjoying my short stay in Bosnia i celebrated my birthday by taking a 9 hour busride to Herceg Novi in Montenegro (not the recommended way to celebrate your birthday). I arrived in Herceg Novi without a room so just had to grab a granny at the bus station, this was the first time in my trip i had had to do this so was very curious what sorta room etc i would be given. Basically though for 10 euros (6 quid) a night u just get the spare room in their house (providing the house is in the centre, its a lot cheaper if u go further out but then u have 2 drag ur bag miles!) it was quite nice and Herceg Novi itself was a pretty little walled town but nothing special. But it was a nice stop over for a night. The next stop was the town of Kotor. I met an english guy on the bus called Dave and we agreed to share a room to cut down on costs. We unforunatly picked a really crap ant infested room though! The town of kotor was very beautiful though, it was a walled town in a deep gorge looking out across a bay. Another mistake we made though however was to go to the fortress at about 1pm in 38 degree heat. It seemed like a good idea at the time but what we didnt really realise at the time was that the fortress was at the top of one of the mountains!! we both lost about a stone just on the walk up i think! After relaxing in a cafe and generally trying to return ourselves to the land of the living we wandered round the old town for a few hours before heading out for some Tea. Our tea was really nice, goulash incase u were wondering, but was occasionally broken up by city wide powercuts! Went out for a few beers afterwards which was a good laugh. We split up the next day and i kicked onto Ulcinj and again needed a room on arrival (there are no hostels in Montenegro). After some hardcore bargaining in the bus station i managed to get an entire apartment for 9 euros!! the only catch being it was up a huge hill on the outskirts of town, even so i couldnt turn that down it was just 2 cheap! Ulcinj is a very strange place though, its primarily where all bosnians, serbs and montenegrans go on holiday as it has a 10 mile long beach! but that seems to dominate the town and its all a bit 2 much hotel condos for me too take it serious!

Anyway im off to Albania today, im actually really nervous about going here and to Macedonia because they both write mainly in Cryllic (macedonia writes only in it, no latin text anywhere!) so im thinking it will be very very difficult to navigate my way around! only time will tell though eh, if u never hear from me again im wandering round Tirana cluelessly for the rest of eternity!

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First off got some pics for u: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12641&l=75caf&id=514972396

I have been here ages. I have spent virtually 4 days on Privic and then been in Supetar for about 2 weeks so im not gonna go into minute detail as to what i have done everyday!

Basically the island of Privic is a tiny tiny island with about 100 houses on. Its a place that all the locals come on holiday 2 when they wanna get away from all the general tourist crap. It has no roads, no hotels and all the stuff for the shop (veges, fruit etc) come on a boat every morning! It was a really great island that i loved because it was so seculded but also very very beautiful and the beach was very nice! Only one problem with the island and that was that upon arriving i found that me, Dajna and her cousin Anne-Marie had to finish off a litre of some evil spirit stuff, which we proceeded to do. I spent most of the next day on the beach with a hangover and fell asleep around midday to wake up with an amayingly burnt back!

I have been in Supetar for a while aswell. The main part of my visit was my dad coming over, which was really good even though we didnt do a whole lot. One day we hired bikes and went cycling around the islands which was fun....until we went up a huge hill, very steep with no real road. It nearly killed me....and im pretty sure it did dad also but he just never let on!

anyway im gonna have 2 go now and retreat back 2 the sea and go for a flounder!

hope your all well

john

Sibenik and Brac remains copyright of the author coldposts, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Arriving in Innsbruck i was amazed at how exactly like Slovenia it was, backing onto the alps, green, very very beautiful and then i noticed the difference.......it was about 10 times more expensive than Slovenia! Even so i would highly recommend it to everyone as its a very very beautiful little town with a beautiful glacier river running through the middle. My only problem was that there were no hostels there (or at least no available ones) so i had to book a cheap hotel, which though cheap was a lot more expensive than a hostel! anyway the first night i just walked rounnd the town got my bareings etc and saw the local sites of the town. basically though i never took my eyes off the hills a lot cos they were so pretty. Day two i went to a place called CrystalWorld which is a museum kinda thing run by the Swarksi (or something like that) jewellry company and everything in their is made of crystal, it was really really amazing, i loved it in there! i saw the world made out of crystal, a giant jellyfish, trees, people, the worlds biggest jewellery stone and loads of other wonderful things. I then went to the shop and looked at loads of things i couldnt afford Day three i went to look round the winter olympic venues they have up there which were good fun but i didnt go on anything, basically cos i cant ski! Though u could go on a bobsled ride but it was 40 euros and i couldnt afford it.

I then had a quick train journey to Salzburg, where i had exactly 17 hours to waste before a connection to Sibenik. Salzburg is famous for two things 1) Sound of Music 2) birthplace of Mozart and wow didnt they promote it! all i saw walking round the town was adverts about those 2 things (neither of which really interest me by the way!). I ignored all this as much as i can before heading to the castle, which was really wonderful even though they dont give it any promo! After finishing up at the castle i basically had nothing to do so went and read an entire book in the train station while waiting for my last night train in a while. This night train was gonna b different cos once again i had braved not booking a couchette (too expensive in austria), but luck was on my side as the train was deserted so i had a whole block of 6 chairs to sprawl myself accross which resulted in my first good nights sleep on any night train!

sorry if this is a bit of a crap update, i couldnt b bothered writing a lot!

take care

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Day two we woke up early and at 9:30am were in possibly the weirdest place i have ever visited first thing in the morning.....the sex machine museum! It is a really hilarious place showing everything u could possibly imagine (and things i never had done previously.....voyeuristic chamber pot anyone?) from gimp suits, saedo-masicistic machines from the 15th century to 1920's porn films starring the best friend of the king of spain! I would heavily recommend it to everyone cos its very fun, though maybe just not so early in the morning! i have some great pics....but alas they wont be making it onto the upload!

In the afternoon we went up Perin Tower which gives u great views of the city in all directions (u can see right into Slavia Prague's ground....its not very good). Once again i was terrified walking to the top, once i was up there i was fine but it was walking up this staircase on the outside of the tower, with only wire mess between you and a fall of about 100 metres. Once i was at the top and snapping away i noticed Mel had gone white, which was funny and unexpected as she had been taking the piss all morning about me crying when we got to the top. After that we went round the castle and then back to the hostel to meet Mel's mate before descending on some horrific drinking binge with mel, her mate and about 15 other people from the hostel. by the time we left everyone was pretty hammered (about from that perverted Singaporian lad!) and our group consisted of us three, 5 heavily hammered irish lads......3 of whom got lost from us within about 100 metres!, 3 scottish lasses, 2 london girls, a singaporian lad, a couple of yanks and some others who i cant remember. We headed off to a nightclub which was 5 floors, queued for about a decade to get in, bought the most expensive alcohol in Prague (basically UK prices) and went to discover what type of music infested these 5 floors....and the answer......basically the same type of music on every single god-damn floor....shitty wanky dance music! most people loved it but me and one of the scottish lasses liked our rock so we basically just sat around and chatted and laughed at people the whole night. I left at around 3am (alone!) as i had a early morning train to catch to Vienna. I heard a group come in at about 5am and when i was leaving at 7am one group were still out!! Anyway i got the underground to the train station not exactly feeling 2 pretty and departed for Vienna, mostly concentrating on not being sick......which i wasnt....yay!!

So why do u ask did i not stay in Prague longer? basically because i have been there before, seen all the sights and really enjoyed it, but Prague in late January is really really really busy and just gets a bit uncomfortable being crowded all the time and i didnt really need to be there as its all stuff i have seen before! if i was gonna recommend to someone i would say either go in May or September but never between those months!

pics of my very brief visit can be found at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=11427&l=c3956&id=514972396

Czech Republic remains copyright of the author coldposts, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10956&l=945d9&id=514972396

I arrived in Krakow at 6am after travelling on another night train, it went much better this time, i booked a couchette and slept for about 75% of the way after watching out of the window for the other 25%. Anyway upon arriving in Krakow i couldnt check into my hostel till 2pm but they let me store my bags and have a shower before i headed out to explore which was nice of them. So after changing etc i headed out into....RAIN! the first day of my entire day i didnt have hot sunshine!! Now wandering around any city in the rain isnt the greatest experience, but wandering round a new city with no idea where u r going and nobody speaking english is a new experience for me and not one im looking to repeat soon! I have to admit i found Krakow a bit over-rated (maybe it was the cold and rain...i dunno) but all the guides had told me it was such a beautiful place but, i just didnt get it! For one thing Krakow (and Poland in general) is a hugely hugely religious place and anyone who knows me well will know that is something that just doesnt sit well with me! For one thing all the walks u could go on were all church walks or synagogue walks, they had names like Pope John-Paul II walk (he was born in Krakow so fair enough i guess) and i just didnt really enjoy them. Plus all the churches are red brick, with narrow windows, very tall and narrow and in my opinion looked just like....well....mental asylums!! Anyway moving away from the religious side of things, Krakow has a very nice castle....from the outside. i have no idea what its like inside as there r only so many tickets available per day and they had sold out by the time i got there (10:30am). So the first day was a bit of a disaster in fairness!

The second day i was there i went to Auschwitz and Berkenau camps. They are obviously very sad places but very very interesting to goto. One thing i learnt was that, before i went if someone mentioned auschwitz i thought of wood huts, metal fences, gas chambers etc etc just like everyone else. What surprised me is this is actually the camp called Berkenau where all of these things exist and some still remain now, it was really horrifying to see all this but the tour i was on was done with real dignity and approached it all with class and from the right angle. Auschwitz camp is actually an old polish cavalry camp which was captured and used by the germans and once this started to overflow berkenau was built in temporary means. i would advise anyone in this area to go and see auschwitz even if history doesnt interest u.

One thing i should mention about Krakow was the hostel i stayed in. It was superb, it was called Seven Heaven and was 10 euros a night and served breakfast, had a huge common room, loads of showers and was just so good that i would say if anyone was on a budget trip to poland and wanted a hostel this comes with a huge recommendation!

in summary though i didnt enjoy poland i wouldnt say dont visit, some parts are very beautiful and auschwitz is very interesting.

pics for krakow can be found at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10958&l=2d65a&id=514972396

Poland remains copyright of the author coldposts, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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My hostel was about 2 minutes walk away from the train station (and also next door to the colonel!) which is great news when u have just come off a night train. As i hadnt slept much i just went to my bunk and got a couple of hours sleep. Waking up again i bought a travelpass and ventured out to see a bit of Budapest. As u might know the city of Budapest is divided into two halves Buda and Pest. One half is mainly like a normal city with a view good sites (buda i think.....though i keep on getting them mixed up) and the other is the tourist half. I was in the normal half which was good in some ways (amazingly cheap.......10 euros a night, close to the train station, cheap food) and bad in some ways (20min tram ride from sites and an amazingly complex tram system). So as i wandered around the normal side only i wasnt that impressed with budapest on the first night and went to sleep that night abit worried about what i was gonna do with my next 2 days.

I woke up early on day 2 (yes early....about 8:30!...i havnt actually stayed in bed past 10am yet!) and figured out where most of the sites should be. I got tram 18 which i thought should take me to the centre.....nope it took me to some industrial estate, which was alright but still just an industrial estate After backtracking the tram 18 route and giving tram 21 a try i finally found myself in the city centre, which to start off was just like any other city centre, all the normal shops, topshop h&m etc etc but after wandering for 10mins and then walking around a corner u come to the beautiful chain bridge which is overlooked by a huge citadel, palace and museums. For the first time in Hungary my camera was out of my pocket! I went over the bridge and upto the citadel which was really really beautiful, some superb views, great history and incredible architecture. I was walking around with a french girl at this point from my hostel who was also travelling alone (no i didnt before u ask) and we went into the national museum, budapest musuem and military museum (surprisingly that was her choice) all of these were really really amazing and told me lots of things that were really helpful with navigating the city. My only minor complaint would be that the military museum concentrated mostly on the hungarian uprising (which clearly is hugely important for hungarians!) but largely ignored world war 1 and 2 (ignoring ww2 i wasnt overly shocked at, but ww1 come on....they were the damn austro-hungarian empire!). Anyway we finished the days sightseeing with a trip to the hungarian parliament (my choice...not surprisingly) which is a wondeful wondeful building which puts the houses of parliament in london to shame. at night we ate in the hostel (some kind of weird pasta mix that we threw together from what we both had left from the last night...and a box of ice cream for dessert), drunk a bottle of Macadonian wine (cost around 80p) and a bottle of moldovan wine (about 1.50) and played cards. if i was gonna offer wine advice...and im by no means a professor, i would say go for the moldovan....its actually really really nice! and hungarian beer is a bit shit, though austrian and slovenian are both widely available and both quite nice though austrian is pricey!

my final day i said bye bye to valerie (hello if ur reading this by the way) and put my bag into storage at the train station before heading off to the thermal baths. This place is very very amazing, its a comibination of steam rooms, sauna's, heated pools (ranging widely in temp), ice baths, swimming pools, whirlpools and massive heated swimming pools. Its all set in beautiful beautiful buildings and i kinda regret that i only had a few hours in there as its a place u could happily spend a half day or so. Unfortunatly u werent allowed cameras in there so all i have is a couple of pics taken from the entrance window. After that i went to a place called Hero's column which is the most amazing individual place i have visited so far, i have loads of pics of it, but none of them do it any justice, it was just so out of this world!!

My last 2 hours were spent killing time in a cafe in Budapest....while waiting for my night train to Krakow in Poland. I have booked a couchette bed this time so it will be interesting to see how it goes!

take care everyone, pics coming soon

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http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10147&l=18cfa&id=514972396

And oh yes, i remembered the thing i did on the first full day in bled, i went on a summer taboggon, it was fun even though iam scared of heights!

take care all

shiny pictures of Slovenia remains copyright of the author coldposts, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Anyway the train ride from Split - Zagreb and then Zagreb - Ljubljana were two of the most beautiful train journeys i have ever taken in my life. Both were filled with so much beauty it all got a bit difficult to take in. But eventually arrived in Ljubljana safe and sound after around 9 hours on a train. Wasn't really sure what to expect from this city as i didnt really know anything about it, so spent the first night just wandering around taking in a few of the sites. From first impressions it seemed the centre of the city was very pretty, kinda like a minature version of Prague in a way. So i wandered back the next day when i had had a good nights sleep and found that the centre of the city was just incredible, some really really gorgeous sites, the castle especially was lovely as it gave u some great panoramic views of the city. At night went out for a pizza, i ordered a medium pizza.......it was 18inches and cost me five pounds!!! i was gobsmacked, but being a fat bastard i managed to eat it all!!! I did actually see one large one brought out.....and the only suitable word to describe it was fucking massive, it basically covered an entire table!! Anyway back to important stuff.....me! I then after a couple of nights moved onto Lake Bled, which is a place i had kinda high hopes for as my mum and dad had been there years ago and told me it was very pretty.

I got off the train, and got on the bus down to the hostel i was staying in (an old farmhouse, very very dated but also immensly cheap!) and so far it looked like any old normal town but it was in the mountains. After dumping all my stuff i asked the owner where abouts the lake was, he pointed me round a corner, i walked round it and nearly collapsed it was completely staggering beautiful, i cant really describe how the lake was as it was just so incredibly nice, but when my pictures get uploaded in a couple of days i hope all will become clear. First day in bled i didnt do a whole lot, just wandered the town took in the sites and then later on walked upto the castle which overlooks the town and the lake and looked around. The castle was very very small but offered some great views across the lake and all around the surrounding area. But i had realised one of my goals of the trip to find a castle on a cliff surrounded by forest! Day two i took a gondola to the island which sits roughly in the middle of the lake (i didnt sing one cornetto on it, i couldnt remember the words!). I rang the bell in the middle of the island, but that was pretty rubbish as it wasnt what i hoped for. In the afternoon i hired a bike and cycled round the lake a couple of times, this was really interesting as it gave some fantastic views of the lake and i also got to visit Tito's old mansion, which was pretty amazing! I did something else this day but i cant rememeber what it was, i will mention it when i upload the pics if i can remember!

Day three was a fun day as it started with a trip to Triglav national park and the Vintgar gorje. the gorje was really really beautiful and again i cant find words to describe this place but i hope the pics will do it justice! In the afternoon i landed back in Bled and hired a rowing boat. This was loads of fun as i had never rowed before, i spent the first 15mins just going round in endless circles!! but i soon got the hang of it and im pretty sure i can give those stupid public school boys a run for their money now! I'm back in Ljubljana now writing this but am leaving on a train at 2am to goto Budapest and Hungary!

I will give u a summary of my time in slovenia when i upload the pics!

take care everyone!

p.s. mark, im now fucking awesome at shithead, so i can kick your arse anyday!!

Slovenia remains copyright of the author coldposts, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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It's been really really hot here all week, never really dipping anything below 40c which by this fancy google translation thing is about 108 fahrenhiet, plus its been stupidly humid! So all i seem to have been doing for most of the week is drinking water and hiding in the shade and swimming of course. For some reason i still have a pasty white body though, i dont think i have tanned at all, though maybe its just me not being able to notice it.

Anyway what have i been doing all week, i have seen all the sites, sounds and views that Split has to offer and i have 2 say its a truly fantastic city and im pretty sure im gonna be coming back here at some point before this trip is over! If anyone wants to see a few pictures u can find some at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=9430&id=514972396

i tried to upload some onto this site also but it ran really really slowly so i just figured it would be better on there.

I have also been to the island of Hvar which is kinda like a millionaires playground (i fitted right in!) in Croatia, i noticed an advert there for a house for rent. a 2 bedroom townhouse, was £2500 a week!!!! i've booked two weeks I also took a daytrip with Dajna to the town of Mostar in Bosnia (famous for a bridge linking up the muslim and christian side of the town, which was destroyed in the civil war but has been rebuilt) which was great. I have been cycling for a day also, which was good fun but i lost about 1/4 of my body weight in sweat!

I'm planning just to goto the beach and relax today as im heading off to Ljublana tomorrow and have 2 b up and awake bright and early in order to catch my train. Will update again in a few days time

hope your all well, take care

The Second Week remains copyright of the author coldposts, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Returned to Split. Once i was unpacked and sorted out, we headed down into Split and i got the guided tour off Dajna and her brother Demo (cant remember how 2 spell it, sorry mate!). He is a Klappa singer (local folk music...kinda like A'Cappella) so is a bit of a local celebrity, which meant to the tour took us practically all day because he seemed to know everyone so was stopped to shake hands and chat with what seemed like every person! Anyway the city of split is absolutely gorgeous and somewhere where everyone should visit, english is virtually spoken fluently by everyone so lack of language cant be an excuse for not coming along! I have plenty of pics of Split which will hopefully show the beauty of it but i will be uploading them later in the week. At night Demo took me along to watch Hadjuk Split V West Brom (friendly match) which was fun even though it ended up 0--0.

Days 5 - 7

All of the past few days have been spent on Brac. I have to admit i really love it here, the town we are staying in is called Supetar and is one of the most beatiful little towns i have ever seen. The locals are stupidly friendly, even when they are being over-run by tourists. We have spent most of the time sunbathing, swimming and generally relaxing as it now around 35-37c everyday so a bit too hot 2 do anything more gruelling. Unfortunatly though i forgot my camera so dont have any pictures of Brac!! Oh yeah, Mum, you are gonna be shocked by this, i have been eating lots of the local cuisine, which means lots of salad, lots of pastry things and lots of.....fish!!

Day 4

Woke up bright and early.....well 9:30! Packed a small getaway bag (supplied by Dajna's dad, thanks for that!) and headed for a long weekend on the Dalmation Island of Brac (pronounced Brach, apparently if u say Brac it means to get married so i steered well clear of that!). Dajna has a small house here so again no rent to pay! Unfortunatly this means though that i have 2 buy everything when we go out, whether it is food, a scooter (which we rented!) or the ferry tickets but i cant really complain as i do have free accomodation. Anyway today it started to get really hot, apparently it was about 31c today (not sure how much that is in fahrenhiet...i get confused on working it out) which is considered something near a tropical heatwave in UK. We headed down to the beach, which was stone but a kinda comfortable stone. The beach seemed quite busy but once the locals saw my pasty white body heading towards them they panicked a little bit and many people deserted the beach with 15mins (or it might have been because it was dinnertime and sensible people were heading for a bit of shade). The water was strangely warm and was amazingly clear! Spent most of the day at the beach, though we briefly chopped it up by returning to the house and cooling down for a while. At night we watched Shaun of the dead....and i attempted to drown myself in a pool of aftersun.

Day 3

Dajna had her last uni exam today at 8am (a sickening time to be awake never mind in a oral exam!), so i stayed in bed till she got back. She passed, so well done Dajna! Shortly afterwards we were packing up all our stuff and getting ready to move onto Split, which much to my surprise was a 5 hour coach ride away (and 7 hours by train!!). Knowing im not the best with coach travel i put on the travel sickness bands mum gave me (thanks mum!) and gritted my teeth and tried not 2 cry for the entire journey (i was brave and never shed a tear!). Anyway while staring at the countryside and passing small towns i realised some very interesting things about Croatia, firstly the north is hugely green with plenty of small towns out in the isolated wilderness while the south and Dalmation coast is more barren with hardly any greenery and all the towns hugging the coastline. There is actually one point where a strange transformation happens, you see miles and miles of forest all around you, you enter a tunnel that runs under a mountain, pop out the other side to see nothing but burnt grass, dry soil and the sea. Personally i liked the countryside of the north better because of the forestry but i quickly adapted to the dryness of the dalmation coast. Upon reaching Split i met Dajna's family and went back to their house. That night i had a quick look round the city at night with Dajna but she spent most of the time moaning about a new walkway which has been put in on the promenade which i thought looked good but she disagreed!

Day 2

After 10 hours sleep i was much refreshed and we went sight-seeing round Zagreb for the day. We took in countless Museums, art galleries and cafes (including the resturant owned and run by Zvonimor Boban!) during the day before going to a cafe at night. I think Zagreb is probably not an ideal tourist destination. The centre of the city is beautiful but this only really lasts for about a few miles square and the rest of the town is just a industrial city with plenty of stereotypical communist apartment bloc's. However i did find the people really really friendly, especially in Dajna's neighbourhood where everyone already knew who i was before i even arrived, apparently Dajna's flatmate had been gossiping about me to everyone.....disturbing! Anyway something i was really impressed with in Zagreb was the amount of VW Beetle's on the road, theres is hundreds of them all milling about in perfect condition! Dad if u have figured out how 2 use the internet and are reading this, if u fancy another Beetle Zagreb is the place to get one!

Day 1

I set off from home at around 5:30am feeling immensly grumpy and already suffering under the strain of my far far too heavy bag! Getting a lift to the train station i was to be honest, completely shitting myself! Anyway i saw off mum and dad and all the hugs and kisses and everything and got on. The train ride down to London was fairly quiet and i arrived at 9:15.....yes thats right rush hour!! In London i learnt the first lesson of my trip, do not EVER lean backwards when wearing a very heavy bag on a esculator! I navigated the London underground and the regional trains alright and ended up at the shining metropolis that is Luton and its really crap airport (its kinda like Liverpool airport but with 100 times less to do). Checked in with Wizz Air (who i thought were excellent by the way, a lot better than EasyJet or any of the other discount groups) and had a lovely plane ride (i was asleep for 4/5 of it) and landed into the bright sunshine of Zagreb. After recovering my bags and getting the airport - zagreb bus i met Dajna and collapsed into her apartment knackered. Luckily at this point, the british weather seemed to follow me and it clouded over. Went out for some Tea (or dinner, whatever u call it) and then went to the apartment for some lovely well deserved sleep.

Week One....and a bit remains copyright of the author coldposts, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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