When in Rome...

It has always been one our mottos to try and avoid vast metropolis cities for our weekend getaways, especially considering we live in one and the idea of a holiday is to avoid the rat race. However despite Rome having a population of 2.6 million people it is definitely no ordinary big city as Rome's history spans over two and half thousand years and was once the centre of a vast Roman empire. It has such a big history it would be impossible to summarise in a paragraph, and I am sure most of you have watched Gladiator so I won’t bore you with the details!


Trying to get around the mammoth amount of historical sights in a weekend was no easy feat, excellent walking shoes are a must and patience necessary to deal with the lines and the grey brigade on their tour groups slow ambling along in massive packs blocking the narrow cobbled streets. Luckily for us we didn’t go in the height of summer so the crowds were not excessive. We walked for about 8 ½ hours each day and got through a lot of sights, so the best way is to summarise what we saw with a good old fashioned list:


Vatican Museum (and Sistine Chapel of course): Lined up, got pooed on by a bird with the biggest poo of all time, the impact of the mighty dump was so powerful it splashed off my bag getting Chris and I well covered. They say it is good luck...and must be even better luck if you are in the holy Vatican city... but the line didn’t move any faster and we had crap all over us so go figure? Once inside and out of firing range of evil birds we were taken in by the sheer beauty and extravagance of the Vatican. The art, statues, gold trim and excessive riches never seemed to end, each room offering more and more to marvel at. The Sistene Chapel ceiling was breathtaking, but certainly not alone in its surroundings.

St Peters Basilica: Looked out for the Pope but he wasn’t taking visitors, especially the non-catholic kind, so we wandered around his “meagre” church instead. It was huge, ridiculously huge. We resisting taking off our shoes and sliding across the marbled floor in our socks, didn’t fancy a million years of doing penance for that one.

Pantheon: One of the most historically important monuments in Rome. It is considered as the temple of all the gods. It was constructed between 118 and 125 AD and is well-known for its large open dome which lets in all the seasons. It was one of our favourite sites, although Chris loved it more than I did and got strangely affectionate with it...hmm...

Trevi Fountain: Neptune, the god of the sea, riding on a shell-shaped chariot with his minions around him all carved out in a baroque style – impressive. They say if you toss a coin over your shoulder into the fountain it guarantees you will return to Rome. Looks like we won’t be back as we couldn’t get through the crowd to even get splashed by the water from the fountain. Had a lovely pizza for lunch right near there though...

Spanish Steps: On the fringe of Rome’s most expensive shopping streets although the grubby looking Spanish Steps weren’t up there on our wow list. Didn’t help that they had a fake Berlin Wall exhibition up on the steps at the time. We moved on quickly, and somehow Chris managed to steer me away from the shopping street on the back (maybe his good luck from the bird incident).

The Roman Forum: The old powerhouse site for Rome, not as well preserved as other historical landmarks in Rome but still unbelievable to think that some of these ruins date back before Christ and are still standing today. Sends a shiver to think of some of the decisions that were made on that very site back in the day.

The Colosseum: Everyone knows the Colosseum! Originally capable of seating some 50,000 spectators for animal fights and gladiatorial combats (basically anything that would draw a crowd) it must be one of the most famous stadiums in the world. Utterly fantastic. The night before we visited we watched Gladiator at the hostel so we were all pumped up about seeing it for real.


There was other stuff we saw on our epic walking missions, but all we can do without writing pages and pages is sum up Rome as a historic wonderland which you could spend weeks exploring, but I think we gave it a good shot for a weekend. I haven’t even mentioned food that much which is totally unlike me but it was mostly pizza slices and gelati on the run although this did not mean we were hard done by, Italian fast food has to be up there as some of the tastiest street snacks you can get.

Bog Blog

The Baltic countries have always etched out a place in our top destinations list so it felt necessary to complete the trio and visit the third and most Northern Baltic, Estonia. We pretty much knew what to expect having already stamped our mark on Latvia and Lithuania.

For some reason we always end up travelling to the Baltic countries in the colder months. This inevitably means that we are pretty much the only tourists in the very quiet of season cities and towns. It makes things a little hard to organise but it also makes for a very peaceful yet exciting voyage.

We decided to go a little Ray Mears style and scheduled a trip into the depths of Estonia's wilderness. This lead us to the Sooma National Park, home to one of Europe's largest and most unique bog lands. We got picked up in Parnu by our private guide who fitted the bill well. He smoked a pipe, had an unruly beard, talked with passion of his homeland, albeit a little too much, and was obviously used to being in the Baltic bog land in the middle of winter, unlike us.

After a short drive to the park we disembarked at an old park house which was still in use. We were given a very in-depth run down of the local history, environment, wildlife, culture etc. The park has a unique fifth season which can happen at any time of year. This is the flood season where almost all of the park is covered in water. For the animals and plant life this is a great thing as the water disperses nutrients over the land fertilizing it. In winter the floods sometimes freeze leaving a frozen reminder of how much the water level actually rose. It is not surprising then that the most effective way to travel around the park during this fifth season was by dugout canoe.

Being the middle of winter and considering beavers had blocked most of the waterways knawing down trees to make houses and dams dugout canoe wasnt an option so we were on foot through the bog lands.

We walked for miles until Julie was no longer able to handle the pain of the cold, especialy considering she had broken her shoulder just days before. The bog which is a very acidic peat area was like a desert island surrounded by forest. The trees struggled for life in the acidic soil growing in gnarly patterns and only reaching small heights after hundreds of years. Snow shoes were essential as without them we would have fallen through the 2m deep layer of heather and sphagnum moss and probably frozen to death.

After a sum what surreal experience of bog walking it was back to Tallinn the capital of Estonia to spend our final night. The old town was beautiful and quaint and the fact that most of the tourist activities were shut did not bother us. After the bog walking, just strolling the streets enjoying the smell of sugar coated pecan nuts while soaking in the medieval surrounds was plenty to keep us happy.

Tallinn was full of restaurants trying to create a medieval dining experience. We thought that we should go and have a look not only for the singing and dancing but the fact that in the middle ages the diet of the rich was basically meat and beer. The food was different but amazing. Glazed cranberries and horseradish to accompany my boar, bear and elk sausages mm mmmmm. I think the honey beer and dried elk meat also must get a special mention however Julie may strongly disagree.

Again the baltic's have impressed. I don't know whether it is the fact that there is always some sort of crazy activity to take part in like ice fishing, bobsledding or bog walking. Maybe its the long and interesting history of good and bad times or the fact that the countries remind me of home with small populations living in cities and towns surrounded by beautiful wilderness. What ever it is I recommend going for a sneaky look for yourself.

Not so hungry for Hungary

After our Croatian adventures we quickly wanted to book a holiday to get over our holiday so we decided to keep up our weekend excursions and head over to Budapest for the weekend.

Budapest in its own right is a beautiful and vibrant city with amazing architecture and history. Problem is we could take that statement and apply it to every city in Eastern Europe we have visited during our time here. To be fair to Budapest it was more our tiredness and repetition of such weekend trips rather than the city itself which had us feeling a little lack lustre for this particular trip.

Also the temperature change from our 30+ temperatures in Croatia to a chilly 2 degrees didn't help, beanies and warm layers were dragged out and are now back in use full time.

Budapest has been through much of the same hardships of war as other Eastern European countries, the major difference is that it had a spell of being a dual monarchy with Austria for some time. We learnt more about this monarchy by taking up a free walking tour on the Saturday with a very informative guide, I mean this guy was a walking talking history book! All very informative but at times when the group stood on a street corner frozen and turning shades of blue it was tempting to point out that you can walk AND talk at the same time.

Seems that the king of the dual monarchy at the time favoured Vienna as his flagship city so never wanted any significant building in Budapest to be bigger or better than anything in Vienna. Apparently the Budapest Opera house caused a major royal tantrum as it was such a beautiful ornate building when the king came to see the first performance he remained unimpressed about the performance because he knew the building was better than anything he had in Vienna. Talk about being a spoiled brat!

Fortunately for Budapest it emerged from World War I battered, but now the capital of an independent Hungary. There was little mention of the communist rule of Hungary and for our slightly older guide he was reluctant to discuss anything surrounding that era, perhaps some of this fear of the communist rule lives on?

After our informative but chilly tour, we headed for anywhere indoors to warm up and defrost. The lovely Hungarian wines and stodgy food certainly help with this! Budapest like other cities has a wonderful central food market, dried paprika being a major seller as it is a staple in goulashes and spicing up their other meat dishes. Yes, I bought some!

Budapest is a famous spa city, so we simply had to go "bathing". The baths are really the last vestige of Turkish culture in Budapest, left over from their occupation of the city back in 1541. The thermal baths are surrounded by beautiful old buildings and full of not so beautiful old Hungarian men. It was great moving around the different temperature pools, dashing in between them in the freezing weather. The venue is vast though, so many indoor and outdoor pools, saunas and if you had the money full spa services like massages etc - we didn't have the money.

To complete our weekend whirlwind tour we climbed up to the highest point in the city to take in the views, checked out the palace grounds and tried our last bit of local cuisine. This particular beauty was like eating bread that had been soaked in salt for about a week, not one for anyone that is thirsty but perhaps good straight after a spa where your salt levels might be deficient.

Having seemingly lost our mojo for the city trips we headed back to London a little tired and determined to be more focused about where we go from now on. We might have done our dash in Eastern Europe!

Sail Croatia with a quick trip to Bosnia

Winter is almost upon us in London. The days are getting darker and colder and the skies, although it is hard to believe, are becoming even more shades of grey. To make sure we did not go mad this winter and suffer to much from SAD (seasonal affective disorder) we thought a mission to the Mediterranean for a week basking in the sun was essential.

Julie had always wanted to go to Croatia so we did some research and found that the way to see the coast and Croatian Adriatic islands was by boat. There are a number of things which most Antipodeans travelling through Europe make an effort to do. These include of course beer fest in Munich, Pamplona running with the bulls, Tomatina, Gallipoli on Anzac day and sail Croatia. It was not therefore difficult to book a week away on a 1942 twin mast wooden sail cruiser.

Complete with captain, crew and 28 other young mostly antipodean travelers all keen to get as much sun as possible while enjoying the beautiful clear blue Adriatic sea. The most important thing was always going to be the weather and going in September meant we had the chance of rain but let me just get this out of the way first. The weather was amazing!!!!! Not one cloud in the sky or breath of wind and temperatures reaching above 30 everyday.There was a slight eerie mist every morning and with the water a mill pond it felt as if we were lost in the Bermuda triangle.

We had seven days at sea to get from Dubrovnik to Split which is along the same Adriatic coast line about 250 km North. We started the trip with a spare day in Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is known as the Pearl of the Adriatic. It is an amazing fortified town in the deep south of Croatia which has to be one of the most picturesque towns of the entire Mediterranean. The only down side is that every body else knows this so the place was packed. The grey cruise brigade was out in force which made walking through the crowds even more difficult.

We boarded the ship apprehensively, assessing all the other ship mates as they slowly arrived. Hoping like crazy we were not stuck with 28, 18 year old friends all there for a shag fest. Everyday on the boat followed the same kind of formula. Up at 7-8am for breakfast provided by the on board chef. Depending on how late you went to bed the night before it was either back to bed or straight onto the top deck with a bottle of sun screen. Until lunch nothing really happens. Just relaxing and soaking up the sun. Lunch again provided on board. The boat then anchors in a breathtaking cove so the boat jumping, island exploration and snorkeling can begin. The boat lifts anchor and then heads for an island port for the rest of the day and night. Not a bad formula really.

I don't want to bore you all with to many words as I think the pictures are far more affective so here's the highlights:

First stop was the island of Mljet which is a national park. Unfortunately we arrived late and it was to dark to go bush so instead it was a quick swim followed by dinner and drinks at a beach side bar. The water was about 21 degrees and the clearest I have ever seen. I had a broken rib so was only able to flounder on my back but it was still sweet.

Second stop was another amazing island called Korcula but before morning for the night we stopped of just of the coast of an island with an old monastery. Julie jumped of the boat however with my broken rib I was caged on the boat and could not take part. Not easy at all.The island of Korcula was beautiful and quaint by day. It was the home the famous explorer Marco Polo. By night was filled with cocktail bars and nightclubs. We chose a cocktail bar which was open to the street and played braveheart directly onto the wall of the building across the street.

Third stop was Hvar. This island was meant to be the most exclusive in the archipelago. This was pretty evident once we arrived. The town was filled with very lavish and expensive clubs, bars and restaurants that were charging more than you would pay in Scandinavia. As per usual we opted for pizza which was cheap and damn good. We ate a lot of pizza and sardines and about three times a day ended up trying to cool down with a gelati. Above the town was a breathtaking castle with an amazing view over the harbour. One of those views that will stay with you forever.

Fourth stop was Vis. This was the furthest island away from the mainland and took ages to get to. We did not get a swim on the way but once we got there it was straight to the water for another dip. We decided to climb this island which was a nice walk up a goat track through wild Rosemary covered hills. On the way down we spotted a mini golf course and it was on. I will spare you the details but Julie won on the last shot.

By this stage a bromance had formed between me and three other Aussie guys. This was sweet as we were able to leave the girls to there gossip and extreme tanning and get to competitive extreme boat jumping and stone skimming. None of this helped the recovery of my broken rib but I had to join in. The pride of an entire country was resting on my shoulders.

Next stop was the island of Brac but before getting there we moored of the coast of a place called Bol. This was a shingle spit which was considered the most famous bathing spot in all of Croatia. Clothes were clearly optional !!!!!! Again the water was amazingly clear. It was here that we discovered the local fish loved bread, cheese and ham. We proceeded to shower the water in sandwich ingredients while swimming amongst the fish. It was simply awesome. We were lucky enough in Brac to arrive while they were having an end of season street party with live music and fireworks.

The next day was our last day on the boat. We travelled from Brac back to the mainland to a town called Makarska. My rib was fearing a little better so it was straight to nearest cliff top bare to jump off. It took Julie almost half an hour to build up the courage to jump. It was painful watching but eventually she took the leap of faith. Pretty impressive really, there is no way I would jump after thinking about it that long.

The next morning we left the boat to go inland to Bosnia on a day tour. Bosnia was amazing. The town of Mostar still showed the signs of the war between Serbs and Croats which took place between 1992 and 1995. I am sure you can all remember seeing it on TV. The buildings were all covered on bullet and rocket holes. We had been told to walk a little out of town and visit the old bank. I can tell you now it was a crazy experience. The building was surrounded by people just getting on with daily life, catching buses, going to the bank etc. This was hard to believe as the building like others around it was decimated. We carefully entered and walked up the open stairs past offices which still had the original bank files strewn over the floor. There were bullet shells covering the layers of broken glass.

The old town of Bosnia had been pretty much rebuilt and was different world from Croatia with a strong Turkish Muslim influence, not what we were expecting at all.

We were lucky enough to see someone jumping off the old rebuilt bridge in Mostar. It is 24 meters high and there is a chilly river below with not much water so no chance of either of us being tempted to take the plunge...plus you have to pay so we were content to watch.

We travelled by bus back into Croatia to Split, our last stop. We met up with the boat again and started the farewell celebrations. I was sad to see the back of all my hearty ship mates. It has to go down as one of the most beautiful places we have ever been and a great tour with some awesome people. Back to London where I think I need a holiday to get over the holiday I just had.