Leaving in a few hours overnight to Sarajevo, bosnia. Then headed for mostar, bosnia. Down to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Then either to bulgaria and down to turkey, or over to italy. I'll be in touch when i next can...
sound familiar? yes yes, i'm not good at decisions. so i leave for sarajevo tonight for sure. leaving here in twenty minutes.
after ahving been in one place for so long, it's ahrd to get moving again, especially being alone and heading for bosnia. a little nervous about everything, despite knowing that it is safe there, just going back to the challange of a new place with a new language, and this time, few other travellers. i keep assuring myself that it'll be fine. it'll be great. but still, my confidence is a little shattered after the camera incident. alas... the show goes on. hurrah.
i missed my train. so i am STILL in budapest. frustrated beyond belief. now i think i will go to belgrad in serbia tomorrow. then perhaps to sarajevo or, i might leave that until next time when the weather is nicer. it is cold, i want to go south to the warm. it gets dark at four thirty. it's very odd.
Leaving in a few hours overnight to Sarajevo, bosnia. Then headed for mostar, bosnia. Down to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Then either to bulgaria and down to turkey, or over to italy. I'll be in touch when i next can...
budapest has a wealth of ornate old architecture; more than anywhere else i've seen. perhaps prague has more, but you can't see any of it for the tourists. i was disapointed with buda castle, finding it more of a collection of beautiful buildings set within a wall, rather than a castle per se. the citadel however was far more impressive; set atop a hill overlooking the two cities, buda and pest. i spent six hours today wandering around the streets, watching buildings and people walking by. well, to be honest, the buildings weren't doing a lot in the way of walking. tomorrow i'm headed out with norwegian christopher to see the market and sit in a cafe for a few hours watching the world go buy, eastern europe style.
right now i'm off out to see the hungarian nightlife, on a tuesday, which may not be anything terribly exciting, but...
overwhelmingly expensive internet cafe prices and a distinct lack of funds has resulted in this unfortunate lapse in communications. but, here i stand, new pin number in hand, loads of cash now at my disposal, and new countries surrounding me to explore at my leisure. oh yes - tis grand.
here now i rest in olamouc, still in the czech republic. it's a university city, filled to the brim with students, as opposed to praha that was overflowing and bursting at the seams with ugly tourists with matching suitcases on little wheels that don't like cobblestone streets bwahahahaha. after having left cesky krumlov (spectacularly stunning hostel environment.) i headed north to praha (that's prague in english by the way) where i stayed at sir toby's, sister hostel to krumlov house. i wandered the streets of praha, took a day trip to kutna hora, and then jumped on a bus and travelled west to loket, near karlovy vary, the infamously touristy spa town. the lonely river hostel, again, in the same family as the others, was equally splendid to relax in; more like a house really, with only nine guest beds. following loket, i hitchhiked back to praha, then grabbed a train out to olamouc.
i can't imagine how long it'd take em to document here all the things worth mentioning. however, a few things of interest follow.
in praha, they have trams. on the left side of the trams, the seats are single row. to us, they're a bobsled. yes, a bobsled. my travelling counterparts and i would stand to the side of the seat, holding the back of the seat in front, and run quickly on the spot as the tram accelerated, then, jump into the seat, hold on tight, and lean with the bends. we also prayed to mecca in the metro stations. it's nice making people smile. praha people need to smile more.
in kutna hora, there is a ossarary. i think. maybe it's something spelt similar to that. it's a little churchy thingy plesaantly decorated with the bones of forty thousand exhumed bodies. there's a delightful chandelier and a carefully constructed coat of arms containing every bone, including teeth, in the human body.
speaking of teeth, i chipped mine the other day in loket. thankfully, there was a dentist next door. we made andy goldsworthy style sculptures with the autumn leaves while we waited for my appointment.
i don't speak czech. that makes it pretty tricky being in a country that doesn't really speak english. drat. today i bought some dice. i learnt a game called farkal. given that i left my two packs of cards in wales, (i hope you guys are playing a lot of canasta still) i decided that i'd buy a new form of entertainment; dice. farkal is a fab game. a little like a dice adaption of poker in an arbitrary sort of way i guess, but sort of not. perhaps i'll teach you how to play farkal one day. i thought about marketting farkal. all you need is five dice and a photocopy of the rulesheet. love it. i'll make millions. well, maybe hundreds. sheesh, maybe a couple of bucks. ah well. i love farkal.
oh yes, the hills ARE alive, but... austria... requires no soundtrack.
from the moment the plane approached the alps, i fell in love with austria. salzburg airport is tiny tiny tiny; it's the quickest international airport i've ever encountered. i promptly boarded a bus and rode away into the alps through bad ischl to a town called hallstatt. simply the most beautiful town ever. indeed. built on a small verge between mountain and lake, the views are astounding, the photo opportunities are endless. i took a walk into the mountains, after a seven hour training hike two days earlier, up towards the dachstein. i stayed at shilcher hut above obertraun before summiting krippenstein and descending into obertraun and back for a final night in hallstatt. a highlight of hallstatt - the charnel house, with 610 painted skulls. the graveyard is so small that they leave a body in the grave for twentyfive years before removing it, bleaching the skull in the sun, decorating and naming it, and placing it in the charnel house. mmmmmmm.
now i am in the czech republic, in a town called cesky kromlov. it's near the southern border north of the austrian city of Linz where i slept last night. have been here for a few hours. the hostel is unreal. the town is spectacularly stunning. have eaten DIRT cheap food and had a mug of local potent wine (i blame the spelling mistakes on the wine by the way... ahem) and now it' time for a few more walks around town before heading back out for a medievil platter for dinner. then i think some much deserved sleep is in order. oh yes, sleep is good. yesterday i didn't really eat anything much. i had strudel for dinner. that's sick. but hey - i'm making up for it in cesky kromlov... hurrah.
the travelling is going fab - i quickly realised that i had taken at least twice what i really needed - and i am rtegretting it today after hitching for two hours yesterday int he rain and now i hurt loads in my shoudlers after holding up my pack for so long. but oh well. so i left a lot of it in linz with a family i met in the mountains in hallstatt. will have to go back to austria now to pick it up - oh well, nevermind. cheaper then shoudler surgery.
it's kinda lonely being aorund by yourself, and although i expected it to be as such - i guess i didn't realise hopw ahrd it would be to arrive back from two days hiking in the alps and be the only one in the hostel, so not being able to talk about it to anyone. bleh. music helps as i spend hours in transit, but certainly i'm looking forward to having someone alongside me. there are people everywhere - but most people seem to be near the end of their travel, or heading in the other direction - prague is a popular starting point for this side of the world - but i'm just heading there now. ahhh yes - prague.
anyways - a haphazard post i know, but alas - that's 34Kc gone already.
after a two or three week trip through czech, i'll head for slovakia, then hungary, slovenia, croatia, back to austria, and possibly a quick jaunt in italy before heading back to england...
man oh man - how hard is it to speak czech?!! sheesh.
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