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Dublin

Rather than take the motorway from Kilkenney straight to Dublin we took a detour through the Wicklow Mountains, directly south of the city. We passed through the town of Hollywood, stopped to check out the view from Wicklow gap before grabbing lunch at Laragh. From there we continued through the national park and managed to stumble across the set of the TV show “Vikings”. We were on a tiny one lane road when we came across a huge makeshift car park full of trucks, cars and trailers and stopped to talk to one of the assistant producers. She told us that they were filming down by the lake as the area closely resembles the areas where the Vikings used to live. Once we got to the vantage point above the lake it was easy to see why they chose this place. A circular lake, complete with a yellow sandy beach and flanked by steep mountains made for an incredible sight. We sat there and took in the view for close to half an hour, only leaving because of the cold, not for getting tired of the scenery.

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In Dublin the first order of business was to check out the pub district in the Temple Bar area. We did our own little pub crawl through this vibrant part of town, checking out a couple of bars, and enjoying a few pints of Guinness from the very city that it is made in, before taking a spin down to the night club area. The bouncers from Perth should take note of the way the doormen from Dublin operate. There were guys so buckled they were almost crawling through the doors of Copper Face Jacks and Flannery’s, and yet the bouncers didn’t so much as bat an eyelid. A few of the lads would have been lucky to be a day over 16 as well but that didn’t seem to matter much either. An early morning stroll past the illuminated bridges crossing the River Liffey capped off a pretty incredible day for us.

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We took a tour of Croke Park, the holy grail of Gaelic Sport in Ireland and while the stadium tour probably won’t rate as the best in the world, the museum on the history of Gaelic Sport would have to be up there amongst the best. I only have the MCG museum to compare but this exhibit was seriously good. On top of that you can practice your hurling and Gaelic skills amongst others in a series of interactive exhibits in the museum.

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From there we walked through the city to the Guinness Brewery (A quick hint about the factory: make sure you book online as you save a couple of dollars and skip the horrendous queue which would have been at least 45 minutes long). The tour was similar to the Heineken Experience in many ways but Kylie and I were split on which one we thought was better. I liked the Guinness Brewery better myself while Kylie enjoyed the Heineken Experience more. We could both agree that the interactive experiences and sport involvement at Heineken were better than Guinness. But, the section on Coopering (the art of making wood barrels for storing beer) was genuinely incredible, and the bar where you can drink your free Guinness while enjoying 360 degree views over Dublin sure beats the dark, smelly and sticky dungeon that Heineken offers up. Plus, once you get a taste for proper Guinness, it tastes a hell of a lot better than the Heinekens.

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We also checked out Trinity College, the oldest university in Ireland and the home of the Book of Kells which is a fancy illustrated bible that people inexplicably pay €15 to go and see. A stroll around St Stephens green was a bit of a letdown and I thought that a city where it never stops raining would be able to produce a slightly better green space area. We finished up our time in Dublin by checking out the Brazen Head which is the oldest pub in Ireland, founded over 800 years ago as well as sampling some of Dublin’s street art.

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Galway

We raced across the country from Dublin to Galway in order to catch the Ireland vs France Rugby World Cup game. We checked into our hostel where the average age seemed to be somewhere north of 50. A couple of pints were enjoyed while we watched the Leprechauns smash the frog eaters 24-9. We sampled some of Galway’s finest pies that night at the Pie Maker before checking out the rest of the old town which is famous for its Spanish influences.

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Galway, seemingly like every other big town in Ireland has very little to do except check out the local pubs (which is not a bad thing) so after doing a lap of town and ticking off the list of “things to do” in about 20 minutes we jumped in the car and headed west. We got as far as Lettermore before deciding to climb to the top of the hill and watch the sunset since today was the first day there had been clear sky on the horizon. We sat on top of the hill eating scones with jam and freezing our tits off while the sun went down.

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The next day we packed up and headed out to Killary Fjord which, as it turns out is a pretty poor excuse for a fjord. We drove along it before taking a random right turn and finding ourselves at Glassillaun Beach which would have to be one of the most amazing beaches in Ireland. A white sandy beach book-ended by rocky headlands, which gave way to the clearest water you could imagine in a bay protected from the Atlantic Ocean by some offshore islands. I thought this another great spot for a “quick dip” which turned into some entertainment for a couple of girls who arrived on their bikes as I was emerging from the water in much the same way as Daniel Craig did in Casino Royale (you can decide who has the better rig).

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From there we followed the coastline for a bit which was spectacular throughout, before ducking in to the Connemara National Park to learn a bit about peat before checking out the rather impressive Kylemore Abbey. We pulled in to the village of Oughterard for the night which is built on the edge of Lough Corrib, the Republic of Irelands largest lake which contains over 1000 islands. While checking out the lake we helped a fisherman bring in his boat for winter repairs. The thing weighed a tonne and his 9 year old son was being about as helpful as an echidna in a balloon factory. We got chatting to him and found he was a 5th generation fisherman on the lake and that the young lad was fluent in the local language, something that the government has made an effort to revive in the last 5-10 years.

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That night we ate what is probably the greatest Irish Stew in all of Ireland at The Boat Inn before sinking quite a few Guinness across the road at Faherty’s Bar. We were the only ones in there for some time and got chatting to the barman who gave us some fantastic insights on life in rural Ireland as well as educating us on what people from the different counties are known for. For instance, everyone outside of Dublin hates everyone from Dublin and the people of county Mayo like to have intimate relations with the local sheep.

Clare

We drove down to the town of Doolin the next day and jumped on a ferry to the island of Inisheer. The tiny island is home to a few dozen houses, some farm animals, an impressive shipwreck and of course a football pitch. But otherwise, life here doesn’t seem to have changed too much in the last few hundred years. The locals mostly speak Irish and only speak English in an attempt to get tourists to hire bikes or go on horse cart rides. On the return boat we were taken to the foot of the mighty Cliffs of Moher. The boat took us to within about 50m of the cliffs while the full might of the Atlantic pounded at the cliff face. It was great to get a different perspective of the cliffs and see the people walking along the top of the cliffs.

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The next morning we walked the full length of the cliffs from Doolin to Liscannor. The first section where the cliffs are only 100m high are still great to walk as you have the path to yourself. You eventually reach a point where you can look across to the highest part of the cliffs and down to a heavy right hander wave where only the most dedicated surfers bother to go. This is chiefly due to the walk down a 100m high cliff, onto a rocky beach where waves crash around car sized boulders. But the reward is worth it once you paddle 400m out to the wave and still have the energy to catch it. We then walked on to the tallest section of the cliff and encountered tour buses full of people vying for the best photo vantage point.

The thing about putting the main viewing areas on the highest part of the cliff is that you can’t look at the most impressive part as you’re on top of it. We walked on through this section and within 5 minutes the crowds had reduced to nothing again. From here we could look back on the highest part of the cliff and there are places here where the cliff is completely vertical and if you jumped off you would land in deep water (you’d probaby still die though). It is definitely best to walk the cliffs in this direction as they slowly get bigger and bigger which adds to the effect of walking the cliffs. Walking the other way would probably turn into a bore by the time you finished.

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  We both had an absolute blast in Ireland but our favourite times were had in the smallest little villages, just chatting to the locals who are just as interested in your story as you are in theirs. While the obvious destinations like Killarney, Cork, Kilkenny and Galway are nice, they are all essentially the same. Once again we were lucky with the weather and after the first two days were rained out we were fortunate enough to have to endure 9 days of mainly sunny and mainly dry weather. If you’re looking at the photos and thinking it doesn’t look that great then keep in mind that none of these photos even come close to doing justice to the beauty of this country. To Dragey and the Maloneys, thanks so much for putting us up and feeding us as well as to the lads who offered up accommodation and tips.

Ireland Part 2 – Hard to find anywhere Moher beautiful Dublin Rather than take the motorway from Kilkenney straight to Dublin we took a detour through the Wicklow Mountains, directly south of the city.

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  Limerick & Kerry

We had organised to stay with the Maloney’s in Newcastle West, a small town south of Limerick for a couple of nights. Our fight didn’t arrive until after 10pm so it was creeping up to midnight by the time we had picked up the hire car and walked through the Maloney’s front door. Nonetheless there were snacks, beer and of course some Jameson’s laid out for us while we introduced ourselves and discussed plans for sightseeing the next couple of days.

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After an enormous fry up the next morning courtesy of the one and only Kay Maloney, we set off for the Ring of Kerry for a spot of sightseeing. We stopped by Killarney, a beautiful, though slightly overly touristy town that marks the entrance to the Ring. Even so, there are a ridiculous number of old pubs and bars along with a nice castle that we were soon to discover looked pretty much the same as the other 3,427 castles in Ireland. As soon as we set off along the Kerry Road the heavens opened up and decided to stay like that for the rest of the day. It was about now that we got our first whiff of that ‘wet horse shit’ smell that seems to envelope the entire country whenever there is moisture around (which is a lot of the time). But we pushed on all the way to the Skellig Ring at the western tip of the peninsula checking out the many rained out vistas, as well as the Ballycarbery Castle and Cahergall Stone Fort. The castle was nice but pretty stock standard, however the stone fort was actually pretty impressive with the precision of the construction being a standout feature. That night we went out to the Maloney’s local pub for a couple of pints of Guinness where we met a couple of the locals, tried our hand at winning the local GAA lottery (unsuccessful) and talked anything and everything Irish that we could think of.

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The Dingle peninsula is just above the Ring of Kerry and we headed there ultimately with the aim of catching up with Dragey, a good mate from home. We drove up through Connor Pass, an incredibly wild section of Ireland, full of sketchy one lane roads with blind corners and stunning views to boot. At least there would’ve been if we could see more than 20m in front of us. Once at the top of Connor Pass we jumped out for a look only to be assaulted by rain coming up the cliff at us. This sort of rain renders your umbrella about as useful as an Englishman in a rugby match so we continued on through Dingle to the end of the peninsula. All of a sudden the rain and clouds parted and we were left with a cold but sunny afternoon to drive around the area. We saw the Dunbeg Promontory Fort (save your pennies) and went out to the westernmost beach on mainland Ireland at Coumeenole. Here the locals never seemed to bother learning much English and the local Irish language is still firmly entrenched, so much so that they don’t even bother with English writing on the road signs.

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We headed back to the one street town of Annascaul next and after a quick dip in the lake we caught up with Dragey at the South Pole Inn. Annascaul’s one and only claim to fame is that a bloke by the name of Tom Crean had 3 cracks at getting to the South Pole and never got there. But he did have some pretty hectic adventures on the way and the pub is dedicated to him and his story. Dragey was running a local B&B and hostel in Annascaul and he kindly put us up for the night and cooked us a delicious dinner. Then it was off to the local pub for a couple of pints. Inside we met John, John, John and Eileen. Eileen was a lovely lady, John 1 was normal, John 2 was called Johnny Bangers n Mash and was completely incoherent, and John 3 seemed pretty stock standard at first but quickly took a liking to Kylie then proceeded to get as drunk as Johnny Bangers n Mash but 10 times as creepy. After a big fry up in the morning including our first taste of black pudding (the jury is still out on that one), we said our goodbyes to Drage and headed off for Cork.

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Cork & Kilkenney

We passed back through Killarney on our way to Cork the next day, checking out the Torc waterfall and stopping for a look at Ladies View which looks back down through the Killarney National Park. We took a roundabout route on our way to Cork going through Molls Gap, Kenmare, Ballylickey (had to include that) before stopping for lunch in Bantry.

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The road then took us along the south coast to Kinsale, a great little fishing village south of Cork. The town looked amazing so we decided to pull in here for the night rather than push on to Cork. Here we spent the night drinking Guinness and listening to an incredible local duo sing some live music while what seemed like half the state of Massachusetts did their best to talk over the top of them. Kinsale is definitely worth a look if you are ever down near Cork.

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The next morning we walked along the harbour out to Charles Fort. If you only have time for one old fort in Ireland then this would be the one to go to. It has been fully restored, and some of the barracks houses inside the fort have been renovated to house a couple of quality presentations detailing the times Ireland has been in conflict over the last 4 centuries (hint… a lot of times).

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We cruised through Cork and on to Blarney Castle, home of the famous Blarney Stone. Now if this blog appears to have been written by someone of great wit and intellect one can only presume that the Blarney Stone has indeed bestowed the gift of eloquence upon this humble writer. Although as time has told, I have just as much trouble forming words as I did before. But anyway, the castle and grounds are beautiful and well worth a visit and as it was October, there weren’t too many tourists around. This mercifully meant no line to kiss the stone and more importantly no old and/or fat tourists taking an eternity to walk up or down the narrow castle staircases.

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Kilkenney was our destination for the night so we made our way there via the Rock of Cashel. It was nearly closing time for entry to the castle plus half the castle seemed to be covered in scaffolding so we had a poke around the outside before checking out the interestingly named ‘Hore Abbey’, a derelict church in the middle of a nearby field. We poked around the ruins of the church, even finding John Butlers gravestone which would actually explain a lot about the crusty Australian folk singer. Kilkenney itself is a nice, if unspectacular town. The Kilkenney Castle is in working condition and is really quite stunning but castles were starting to wear off on us again by this stage.

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Ireland Part 1 – Oh it was Great Craic Limerick & Kerry We had organised to stay with the Maloney’s in Newcastle West, a small town south of Limerick for a couple of nights.

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London, well known for its terrible weather, greeted us with bright sunshine and 20 degree heat when we arrived on our flight from rainy Amsterdam. We then breezed through England’s notoriously fickle border control while a couple of lads next to us got the 3rd degree for not knowing where they were going or how long they were staying in the country for. However, our mood was quickly dampened when we each had to fork out a Bangladeshi sweat shop workers annual salary to catch the Gatwick Express into London. Luckily for us, we were able to stay at my Uncle’s apartment near Richmond, thus freeing up valuable cash reserves that we could use for things like paying up to $9AUD for a bloody coffee! The apartment was right near Kew Gardens, a fairly upmarket suburb where the only people not driving BMWs or Mercedes were driving Maserati’s or Aston Martin’s instead.

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Madame Tussauds Wax Museum was something that had been on Kylie’s list for a while now and we had held off on going in some of the other European cities because we knew we had time in London. I was never particularly interested but figured that simulating sex acts on wax figures would be a bit of fun so I tagged along willingly. Following our visit mine and Kylie’s advice to anyone would be this… Don’t bother! I can see no situation where you would look back proudly on that time that you stood next to that thing that looks like Brad Pitt. They pack as many people into the museum as they can, all fighting for prime selfie position in front of insert famous person here before you get shuffled into the worst roller coaster of all time and then watch the worst 4D movie of all time. But if you still really want to do it make sure you do it in Mainland Europe where entrance costs about $30 instead of the mind boggling $50 we forked out for the London version.

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With both of us being Harry Potter fans (not those creepy over the top ones just regular ones,) we thought it would be rude not to visit the studios where the movies were created. The tour of the studios takes you through every aspect of the filming process as well as letting you walk through and peer into some of the many sets from the movies. From the cupboard under the stairs to the Great Hall, Gryffindor common room, Dumbledore’s Office and Potions class to name a few, it was fascinating to see the attention to detail that had gone into the creation of the sets. There are so many things that you would never even notice in the movies that you can see up close and in detail here. There are also some of the many props like Hagrid’s bike, the Ford Anglia, the Knight Bus and of course broomsticks to check out before stopping for lunch and some Butterbeer.

After lunch you walk through the make-up department where all the goblins, werewolves and dragons were created and these were quite impressive. Next it’s onto a stroll through Diagon Alley and then into a room that houses a 1:64 scale model of Hogwarts. For the both of us this was the most impressive part of the tour as it was about 20m long and nearly 9m high. Each tiny window had working lights that could flicker to simulate someone walking past the window and each roof was covered in tiny tiles and the tiny trees were made of actual wood. This model was used for full shots of the castle during filming from the second movie onwards. Overall I came away from it far more impressed than I had expected to be and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has more than a passing interest in the books and/or movies.

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In trying to force a bit of culture into me, Kylie booked us tickets to a West End musical of the Lion King. I’d always enjoyed the movie and it is Kylie’s favourite Disney movie so it seemed like a good choice. While I thought the performance was OK, there is something not right about hearing African animals talk with a British accent and to be honest most of the performers need to go back to singing school and start at square one. This is especially true for the boy who played infant Simba who sounded like a strangled (big) cat and I couldn’t wait for Mufasa to die so that Scar could exile Simba from the stage. If theater performances are your thing, there are so many different shows on offer I’m sure you’ll find one that tickles your fancy.

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London is chock full of things to see, although after checking out most of the sites, it’s fair to say that none of their landmarks are on par with some of Europe’s other historical cities. Westminster Abbey is a grubby old church and the Palace of Westminster is 80% scaffold, although Big Ben is pretty cool when viewed up close and from afar. Across the river sits the London Eye which is very impressive but £20 is a pretty expensive way to see London when you can go to the sky garden at the top of the Walkie Talkie tower for free. From here you get prime views of the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the Shard, the Pickle and back up the Thames to Big Ben, plus there is a cafe and restaurant up there where you can grab something to eat or drink while enjoying what is arguably the best view in London.

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Buckingham Palace is a boring old square building, designed by the most unimaginative architect to ever exist and the changing of the guard would have to be up there for the most boring ceremony in the world. For all the people who knew we were going to London and didn’t advise us against going here I say “shame on you”. We cruised through Hyde Park, Kensington Garden, St James Park (all of which are really nice) before going through Trafalgar Square and up through Notting Hill. Notting Hill is a really cool district, full of cafes and ‘one of a kind stores’ selling you things you don’t need and didn’t even know you wanted before you walked in there.

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The Imperial War museum has free entry and would make a genuine claim to being one of the best war museums in the world. I spent a couple of hours in there and didn’t even scratch the surface, yet every display in there seems necessary and is always interesting. They don’t go overboard on the writing either, using plenty of audio, video and artifacts to keep you interested.

Of course we also checked out the Abbey Road zebra crossing, site of the famous Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover. If you’re not a fan of the Beatles or you think it’s too clichéd a thing to do, I say do it anyway, but only for the people watching. Kylie and I were in stitches at times as van drivers leant on their horns, yelling every curse word under the sun at old mate as he crossed the road for the 7th time trying to get that perfect picture.

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Richmond Park, near where we were staying is well worth a look if you’re lucky enough to run into some sunshine while you’re in town. The park is massive and is home to nearly a thousand deer. We were there during mating season so we were treated to a show of the big bulls bellowing at each other, throwing their antlers around and chasing that doe tail.

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During our time in London we were fortunate enough to be around for the Rugby World Cup, and while we didn’t go to any games since most last minute tickets cost more than Ben Cousins weekly drug habit, we did watch a truckload of games in pubs around the city. Without doubt though, the England vs Australia match took the cake and watching the hearts of 60 million Brits break simultaneously was a sweet, sweet moment indeed. Despite making up less than 10% of the crowd in the pub we were at, the Aussie contingent more than drowned out the noise the poms were making and I don’t think we heard Sweet Chariot sung in the pub after about the 30 minute mark.

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We were also in town for the AFL preliminary finals and of course the grand final. We watched Ross Lyon and the Fremantle Dockers show everyone how not to play finals football with Kylie’s friend Kelsie at the Walkabout pub before getting up at 3:30 in the morning the following Saturday to watch the pitiful excuse for a game of football that was offered up to us. Even though half the crowd at the Clapham Grand were supposedly going for Hawthorn at the start of the game, it quickly became apparent that 99% of those so called supporters had been going for Hawthorn for 3 years at most. This resulted in an atmosphere of heartbreak for the Eagles fans and complete indifference from the Hawthorn “supporters”. But it was all good; because I got to drink all the free beer tokens from Kylie, Kelsie and her friends, as well as their half frozen meat pies because apparently 4:30am is not the time to start drinking (could’ve fooled me).

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London is a huge city with so much to do, but we still came away feeling that few of the things to see or do are truly world class. While we didn’t go to Wimbledon or a soccer match we can do those things in other cities anyway at half the price with a more mental crowd anyway. And then there’s the issue of the weather. Don’t get me wrong, we both had a good time in London but we were blessed with 10 days of uninterrupted sunshine and I think I would have been miserable if the weather was bad. It takes forever to get anywhere unless you have a helicopter, the price of food is extortionate as is accommodation and the beer is just as expensive as back home. It makes me wonder why it’s such a popular thing, to come and live and work in London. You put up with terrible weather, earn less money (generally), spend more (definitely) all so you can hang out with other Aussies and have a couple of long weekends around Europe throughout the year. Maybe it’s just me but give me the sunshine of Australia while hanging out with the South Africans and Irish of Perth and a 6 week turbo charged trip around Europe any day.

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London – Screw your Sweet Chariot London, well known for its terrible weather, greeted us with bright sunshine and 20 degree heat when we arrived on our flight from rainy Amsterdam.

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Amsterdam is a feast for the eyes. From the minute we stepped off the train from Munich we were bombarded with sights, sounds and smells that I doubt you will find anywhere else in the world. First, the famous canals with the buildings alongside leaning precariously to the left, right, forward or back. Then the sounds… being 11:30pm when we arrived, the night was well and truly in full swing. Apart from the groups of lads singing football songs outside the pub, the first person of note we walked past was busily regurgitating his space cake into the canal below. And lastly, the smell of ganja wafting from the ‘coffee shops,’ that sell all kinds of dried and baked goods but not necessarily coffee. Within a minute you can be certain that you could be in no other city but Amsterdam.

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The weather in Amsterdam is traditionally pretty rubbish. We awoke to blue skies and thinking we’d outsmarted the weather gods, set out for a day of sightseeing. We walked past the National Monument and Rembrandt Square, whilst sampling more than enough free samples of cheese from Amsterdam’s famous cheese shops to get me through to dinner. We’d been out for about 15 minutes when the clouds rolled in and it started to rain, rarely stopping for the rest of the day. Luckily we’d come prepared, so we pushed on towards the Rijksmuseum and the IAmsterdam sign for a couple of cheeky photos along with every other tourist in the city. We bypassed the Van Gogh museum because it would be a waste of our money, and we would only be taking the spot of someone who actually appreciates the paintings of the famous yet seriously disturbed Dutchman.

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Then it was on to the Heineken Brewery for a tour of the factory that produces the 7th most popular beer in the world. We’d purchased a ticket from the cafe near the IAmsterdam sign so we managed to skip the horrendous line and cruised straight in. The tour is self guided and takes you through the history of Heineken brewing and the ingredients that go into their beer, as well as giving you an in-depth look at the brewing process. This is all sewn together when you get bottled (in a brewing sense not the Perth nightclub scene sense) in a 4-D film, where you go from a grain of barley all the way to finding yourself in a carton of beer and being drunk at a beach party. After that we got a couple of free tasters before bottling our custom made beers and taking part in a couple of interactive displays about Heinekens advertising through music and sport. You then finish off with a couple of free beers in their dark, sticky and smelly bar, but hey, it was better than being outside in the rain. Overall we both thought the tour was pretty good and well worth a look if it’s raining. Every minute spent in here is a minute you don’t have to spend hoping that a tram, car or bike won’t clean you up while you try and navigate the madness that is the cities road system.

That evening we visited the Anne Frank House. I wasn’t expecting much from the display but I was well and truly impressed with the amount of emotion they were able to extract out of an empty house. Anne’s father Otto, who was the only surviving member of the house, did not allow the rooms to be mocked up like they would’ve when the family were in hiding during the war. Even so, with a little imagination you can see how cramped and bleak it must have been spending 757 days cooped up in a handful of tiny rooms with 7 other people.

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Afterwards we stumbled across the Torture Museum and decided to take a peek inside. What started off with some fairly mundane torture methods like hangings, the rack and the wheel, turned into some seriously disturbing methods of “extracting the truth” out of guilty people. Some of the more gruesome methods involved having your head strapped to a bench while a screw is slowly inserted into the back of your skull, or sitting a person atop a pointy block of wood and weighing them down with concrete blocks (you can use your imagination as to what orifice this block of wood went into) and (probably) the worst one whereby a person was slowly sawed in half from the groin up to the neck. Luckily these were all in drawing format so the detail was thankfully lacking but it left you in no doubt, that being labelled a witch in medieval periods was not a good career move.

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The next day we caught the free ferry across the IJ to Amsterdam Noord. Let’s just say that apart from the Eye Film Museum I had been duped by an overenthusiastic blog writer into thinking that there was more to do over here apart from waiting for the ferry to return us back to the other side. Once back on the “good side” of Amsterdam we headed to the De Gooyer windmill via the NEMO science centre for an elevated view of the city. The windmill is the largest in the Netherlands but there really is nothing special about it. If you have the time I would suggest you take a trip out to the rural areas where you can see a bit of green grass and tulips to go with these spinny things. We took a stroll through the markets on Dapperstraat, sampling Amsterdam’s “best chips” which could not have been far off the mark, before checking out the Brouwerij ‘t IJ brewery to sample some craft beers while we waited out the heaviest of the rain. Now most girls think this already, but out of the 6 beers we sampled, all but one of them tasted exactly the same. Thankfully they were super alcoholic ranging from 5.5% up to 9.2% so I managed to walk out of there half cut.

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We caught up with Paige and Amy from our Sail Croatia crew that night to watch the rugby and grab dinner before a tour of the red light district. Some of the girls standing in these windows are quite attractive, but the further you get from the main strip the quality declines quite rapidly until you are wondering whether they accidentally replaced the blue lamp with a red one. It was quite amusing to see all the lads going in full of bravado, egged on by their mates only to slink out of the doors 15 minutes later looking rather sheepish. We didn’t go to a sex show while we there as they are super expensive and to be honest I just wasn’t that keen. Instead we settled for the sex museum. For 4€ you’ll be hard pressed to find something that makes you laugh and cringe as hard as the material in here. From pictures of 19th century porn, to sex hotline conversation and giant wooden penises this museum has it all. An absolute must if you’re in the city.

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The next morning we caught up with Curtis and Grace (also from Sail) for a debrief of our respective travels since Sail Croatia before boarding our flight to London. Amsterdam is one of those cities where you can get away with not doing a second of sightseeing and still have a great time. The atmosphere of the city, despite the continuous rubbish weather is always electric but super chilled at the same time. It’s one of those places that you could visit again and have a completely different, but still amazing experience. But maybe that’s because of the space cakes…

Amsterdam – Red Light Go, Blue Light No Amsterdam is a feast for the eyes. From the minute we stepped off the train from Munich we were bombarded with sights, sounds and smells that I doubt you will find anywhere else in the world.

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We arrived in Munich a couple of days before the annual checked shirt and push up bra conference (more commonly known as Oktoberfest) as we knew full well that there would be no time for sightseeing once the kegs had been tapped on the opening weekend of the biggest and best beer drinking festival in the world. After a “delightful” overnight bus from Berlin the plan of attack was to hit up the Dachau concentration camp for a tour of the first ever (and longest running) concentration camp set up by the Nazis. Whether it was some kind of omen or not, someone decided to throw themselves on the train tracks just before we boarded our train, thus throwing a tragic spanner in the works for the day. Instead, we took a general spin around town to see why Munich is the place to be in Europe in late September.

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St Peters Church in Marienplatz is the focal point of town, around which sit numerous shops, restaurants,  beer gardens (most importantly) and the Victuals Market. I thought I’d seen every type of market there is in Europe and the US but this is probably the most diverse one we’ve seen so far with every type of fruit, vegetable, meat, pasta etc etc you could think of. But maybe it was just the numerous beer halls scattered around the market that got me all excited. We walked past the Kongigsplatz noting that it looked exactly like 90% of monuments throughout Europe before heading to BMW World. Unike the Kongigsplatz, the BMW World building is completely unique. Entry is free and we spent a couple of hours checking out all the latest models, technology, displays (both interactive and not) that BMW have, as well as spending plenty of time looking up at the ceiling wondering how the hell the roof wasn’t falling in on us.

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Next door to BMW World is the Munich Olympic Park. They hosted the games way back in ’74 but somehow everything looks like it could’ve been built in the last couple of years such is the quality and design of the buildings. The entire park has now been turned into a public open space and literally thousands of locals laze away time here, taking in the views of the city in the immediate vicinity and the Austrian Alps further to the south. By now it was nearly 5pm and we were well overdue for some of the delicious amber ale that Munich is famous for. We returned to the beer garden in the Victuals market and ordered a couple of steins, a chicken schnitzel and a pork belly, and went to town on that food! It is no wonder that the locals in Munich seemed to be carrying a couple of extra kgs compared to their Berlin compatriots because the food and beer here is “THAT GOOD”! We spent the evening chatting to a couple of locals about life in Munich and what they get up to during the festival over a couple of beers before turning in for the night.

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Next day the trains were back up and running so we headed out to the Dachau concentration camp. Opened in 1933, it was the first ever Nazi concentration camp and was originally used to house Hitler’s political opponents and those who were a risk of speaking out against him during his rise to ultimate power. For €3 each we were given a guided tour of the camp, taking you in through the gates of the camp, complete with the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign at the entrance to the camp. The tour detailed daily life for all classes of prisoners as you walked through the remaining buildings that have been kept largely as is, since the end of the war. We walked through the “barracks” that housed the prisoners and it is quite difficult to imagine how they crammed 2000 prisoners into these buildings that couldn’t have been more than 100m long x 10m wide. But there was no more powerful a moment than when you are taken for a walk through the gas chambers. The chambers in Dachau were never used for mass extermination like those at Auschwitz but the feeling you get in your stomach when you walk under the sign titled “showers” and into the room is absolutely nauseating and I couldn’t get myself out of there fast enough. In addition to the tour, the camp contains an incredibly detailed and large museum dedicated not just to the goings on behind the walls of Dachau during the war but of the war itself in general. This is the sort of place that you need to set aside an entire day for if you want to do it justice.

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The following morning we had a couple of hours to kill before checking into our accommodation with the Fanatics for Oktoberfest so we checked out the Eisbach surf break. You might be thinking to yourself “but isn’t Munich hundreds of kilometres from the coast!?” and you’d be correct. But, a quirk in one of the canals running through town has created a standing wave that surfers spend all day, everyday shredding (some a lot better than others). After checking in with our Fanatics tour we all headed over to the Augustiner Beer Garden, supposedly the largest in the world for a few warm up beers and a feed. We got to know a couple of others in the group, some of who had been on the steins since midday and were no chance of making it to the tents the next morning.

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Saturday morning brought the morning we had all been waiting for. Oktoberfest is a truly unique event. Where else in the world do people happily wait 5 hours to get a beer? And when are you likely to see a midget skol a litre of beer whilst sitting on top of a man in a dress who himself is standing on a table? And where else are you likely to see Kylie voluntarily drink beer? But really, Oktoberfest is about drinking tonnes of beer, talking pure rubbish to old and new friends and singing and dancing as badly and as loudly as you can. We spent 2 days in the Hofbrau and Lowenbrau beer halls catching up with some friends from Sail Croatia and making new ones along the way. We would have loved to spend more time there, if only to try every single one of the rides at the festival.

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Oktoberfest is some of the best fun you can ever have. It turns non-beer drinkers into booze hounds and it turns introverts into extroverts. You probably won’t even remember the names of the people you spent 8 hours singing, dancing and cheers-ing your beers with, but none of that matters because they almost certainly won’t either. If you’re a bit of a lightweight then just jump on the Radlers and if it all gets a bit much inside the tent then you can test your stomach on some of the rides and attractions around the festival. And don’t forget to leave a day or two in between where you actually see more than the inside of a beer hall. Munich is a beautiful, vibrant city that is well worth some of your time.

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Munich – Ein Prosit, Ein Prosit!! We arrived in Munich a couple of days before the annual checked shirt and push up bra conference (more commonly known as Oktoberfest) as we knew full well that there would be no time for sightseeing once the kegs had been tapped on the opening weekend of the biggest and best beer drinking festival in the world.

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Now just to make it clear, I am not referring to Berlin as awful, rather something that happened during one of our walking tours, but that will all be explained later. In fact, if you’ve been to Berlin (not including the years 1933-1989) and didn’t like it then you’re in a very select group, as Berlin had come with the highest recommendations of all cities on our trip so far.

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A few days out from arriving in Berlin we decided to bite the bullet and book some tickets to Lollapalooza, the iconic American music festival that has spread to South America and now Europe. We caught up with Al and Mickey again to watch acts such as Everything Everything, Glass Animals, Mighty Oaks, MS MR, Bastille, Hot Chip, Deichkind and Macklemore play. 47,000 people poured through the gates for the inaugural German edition and let’s just say they have a few kinks to iron out before next year’s effort. The festival was held at the Tempelhof Airfield so space was not an issue, yet the lines for food during peak hours were up to an hour long and if they tripled the number of toilets there still wouldn’t have been enough. Most guys took to relieving themselves on the fence and, being on a tarmac this meant that it ran all over the festival grounds (mmmmm that ammonia smell)! But other than that the festival went off without a hitch and we had a great time checking out all the acts and sideshow attractions that Lollapalooza put on, and their cashless system works an absolute treat with lines for beers being the only manageable ones of the day.

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It was however, one of the more subdued festivals we have attended. While watching the bands, you had plenty of space around you, with no pushing and shoving from fellow festival goers, but it would’ve been nice if the crowd got a little more excited when some of the bigger hits were played to create a little more atmosphere. You’d have thought we were at Sunday mass for all the excitement much of the crowd showed at times but we had a great day regardless and if we come across Lollapalooza again we wouldn’t hesitate to give it another crack.

The local treat is the currywurst which is essentially a glorified sausage smothered in tomato sauce. I tried a couple with mixed results, but soon realised the best thing to eat in Berlin are the Turkish Kebabs. For €3.50 you get a huge kebab, full of meat, vegetables and the perfect amount of sauce that doesn’t leave you full of regret immediately afterwards. In fact, they are cheaper and way, way tastier than anything we had in Turkey.

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The next day we went on a walking tour of Berlin with the Original Berlin Walking Tour group that leaves from One80 hostel in Alexanderplatz. Now, walking tours have not been something we’ve jumped at in the past as it usually involves racing through a couple of landmarks faster than we’d like, while a guide with poor English regurgitates information on the sign behind him/her. But this tour was different. Our guide was a British expat who gave us a fantastic insight into Berlin from its founding in the 13th century right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and everything in between. It took us from the old Soviet TV Tower, past the Bebelplatz (site of the Nazi book burning in 1933) to Checkpoint Charlie, Hitlers WWII Bunker, the Jewish Memorial, and onto the Brandenburg Gate.

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The memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe is a memorial on a huge scale. Over 2700 concrete slabs of random size are positioned in a grid pattern over the site which you can walk through. There are no plaques or information boards here, you are just meant to feel whatever it is you feel. For me, the dark colour of the concrete cast a solemn mood over the whole memorial while for others the feeling of suffocation and confinement while you walk through the concrete blocks was a powerful effect. Unfortunately some brain dead individuals who base their self worth on ‘Instagram likes’ were sitting on some of the blocks taking selfies and smiling like Cheshire cats. It seems that a certain level of brain function is required to understand the meaning behind the memorial. The tour was 3 hours long but the things that we learnt, especially about World War II and the Cold War gave us a full list of things to visit over the next 2 days.

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That night, we went back out to Lollapalooza and sat outside the festival grounds to listen to Sam Smith and Muse close out the festival. The festival was wrapped around the old airport terminal so you could walk around the outside and listen to each of the stages without paying the entrance fee or the standard extortionate fees for festival beers. We grabbed a couple of drinks and snacks from the mini-mart and watched the bands play along with about 3,000 other thrifty music lovers. It was a great finish to an incredible day that could not even be spoiled by having to share the Berlin Subway with 40,000 other festival goers on the way home (note to Lollapalooza – Organise some buses!!!)

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Getting carried away with the walking tour from yesterday we decided to jump on the ‘Alternative walking tour’ as well. We shouldn’t have… this tour promised a look at the street art of Berlin as well as getting to visit good, cheap food places and bars as well as some tips for the rest of Berlin. Instead we got a tour guide with a crush on one particular street artist who took us to see all of said artist’s paintings with little interest for any of the other things advertised on the tour. The rest of the time was spent trying not to cut your feet open on one of the thousands of broken bottles littering the suburb. The one highlight of the tour came when we were looking at an enormous mural done by a pair of Brazilian twins. Just as our guide was explaining the origin of the painting to us, an old lady shuffled up alongside her and murmured something in German to the guide. After a few goes she burst out with “IT’S JUST AWFUL!!!” and adopted the same pose as the mural to much amusement of our group before shuffling off in the opposite direction.

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We spent the next day revisiting a couple of the places from our guided tours. Checkpoint Charlie highlights the tensions between the USSR and the USA during the Cold War, while the Topography of Terrors museum documents the Nazis rise to power in incredible detail. This is not a place you should get lost in if you only have a couple of nights in Berlin as there are hours and hours of information to sift through. We then checked out the Reichstag, Germanys Parliament house. We sat in the park adjacent to it and took in the size of the building and amused ourselves with the people taking hundreds of selfies in front of the imposing building. I got caught up in the action and even had to take one myself while Kylie had a quick nap on the grass. We then walked through the Tiergarten, formerly the royal hunting grounds and now home to numerous memorials from World War II as well as the Victory Column. We climbed the column, which at 66m high gives you the second highest view of Berlin behind the old Soviet TV Tower. The statue of Victory on top is absolutely huge as well, and is easily seen from many places in the city, but nowhere as imposing as when you are standing right at her feet. Lastly we visited the Kaiser Wilhem Memorial Church. The church, like much of Berlin was bombed to pieces during the war, but unlike the rest of Berlin they have kept the church in a ruined state as a reminder to all of the consequences of war. As if on cue, the heavens opened up, casting a gloomy feel over the whole area, so we jumped on the train back to the hostel and grabbed what must have been our 10th kebab of the last 5 days.

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We both absolutely loved Berlin. Firstly, it would have to be the cheapest capital city in western/central Europe but it is the tale that the city has to tell that really gets to you. If Rome was the centre of ancient history, then Berlin is definitely the capital of recent history. The Germans don’t shy away from what happened during the World Wars and they have to be commended for that and for the quality and quantity of free displays that they’ve erected around the city. And even if you somehow manage to get nothing out of the historical side of things in Berlin, then the street art, architecture and the night life will bring you around.

Berlin, just do it!

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  Berlin – Just Awful Now just to make it clear, I am not referring to Berlin as awful, rather something that happened during one of our walking tours, but that will all be explained later.

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We arrived in Budapest via train and were a little bit unsure what to expect upon arrival due to the continuing Syrian refugee crisis that is affecting the majority of Europe. Since we were entering Hungary from the west we managed to avoid any interactions with these refugees who have spent up to 6 months travelling just to reach this point. We have got into a habit of walking from the train/bus station lately, partly because taxis cost money but mostly because it gives you a good intro to the city and a chance to stretch the legs after being on a train for 7 hours. Exiting the tunnel that connects the train station to the river we were greeted by an amazing landscape. The afternoon sun was shining brightly onto the incredible buildings lining the Danube River, especially Parliament house and the stunning bridges spanning it. Crossing the amazing chain bridge to the Buda side of town you look behind you and take in the Royal Palace, the Citadel and the Matthias Church. We were also greeted by 3 hop-on hop off bus tour ticket sellers at every single intersection as we made our way to our hostel. Each bus must have at least 50 people working at any one time to sell these tickets and for the life of me I can’t see how they make any money.

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It soon became apparent that there is an incredible amount of things to do and see in Budapest. Some of these require groups to make it worthwhile, but there are plenty of things that you can do as a pair or join in with other groups. We checked out the Central Market which was full of the usual fruits, vegetables, meats and fish, as well as far too many pickled products and a heap of knock-off clothes. After exiting the market, the clock struck 12pm so it was time for a beer. We crossed the road to check out the “For Sale Pub”. This is a pub where people used to nail signs to the floors, walls and the ceiling, advertising things for sale. It’s now just a pub where you scribble your names or something stupid down on a piece of paper and pin it amongst the others. They did have all you can eat peanuts though which was great! We then walked along the Danube to the incredible Parliament House. No expense would have been spared in the construction of this magnificent building, or the maintenance of it since. They even have two guards that stand by the flag pole who are not allowed to move, much like the ones at Buckingham Palace. The Shoes on the Danube memorial is next to Parliament House and serves as a memorial for all the Jews executed by the Arrow Cross Party during World War II. They were made to take off their shoes before being shot and pushed into the water to be carried off downstream. We capped the day off by visiting St Stephen’s Basilica and the Grand Synagogue which is the largest synagogue in Europe, but to be honest by this stage in our Euro trip they are all starting to look the same.

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We went on the “Worst Pub Crawl Ever” that night. After a few warm up drinks and dinner we met up with the group and save for a couple of decent guys and girls it was a pretty sorry group of 61 people! But none looked sorrier than our “guide”. This sad act didn’t introduce himself or get anyone else to introduce themselves and when it was time to move pubs he would just get up, put his orange vest on and walk outside, and it was up to you to notice that he or others in your crawl were leaving. This was repeated several times with old mate sitting down at a table not drinking or interacting with group for the duration of each pub before moving on again. While paying to go on a crawl was a waste of money, going out in Budapest is still a must do. The ruin pubs are famous for being repaired just enough so that it is safe to drink and play music in, and there are people everywhere out for a good time. There are pubs and clubs on almost every single street corner in the Jewish District and you can’t help but get caught up in the fun.

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We revisited one of the Ruin Pubs the next morning as some are turned into markets during the day, before checking out the Terror Museum. The museum is dedicated to the events starting with World War II right up to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. The Hungarian people lived under Soviet rule for 45 years, being the unwilling participants in the rise of the Soviet Union through either forced labour, or giving up to two thirds of their crop to the Soviet Union. The museum is pretty interesting, but there is a ridiculous amount of reading that needs to be done to take it all in and to be honest, the best and most interesting snippets of information can be found for free right out the front of the museum anyway. We checked out the Heroes Square in Varosliget Park which also includes a fake Transylvanian Castle, the Szechenyi Thermal Bath and Budapest’s ice rink which would look absolutely magical in the winter time.

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After dinner we walked to Gelati & Co. Nicecream (yeah it’s spelt like that) for the first decent gelato since we left Italy. The Balkans are amazing but they have no idea how to make ice cream so it had been a while since we’d had good gelato. A quick detour to check out the lights on the white bridge while eating our ice cream then turned into a 10km long night time walk around the river. We took in the night time views of the Green Bridge, White Bridge, Chain Bridge, Parliament House, Royal Palace, as well as taking a walk to the Szent Gellért Monument in the dark, hoping we didn’t run into any homeless.

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Our last day involved a visit to Royal Palace compound which houses the National History Museum. This area, which occupies the upper part of the hill, is home to many other palaces all in pristine conditions, the Hospital in the Rock Museum (which at $20 entry seemed a bit steep), the Matthias Church and the Fishermans Bastion which gives the best views of the Buda side of the city. We then took a traditional Hungarian bath at the Kiraly Thermal Bath. This one was about half the price of the others and while it wasn’t as visually spectacular as the Szechenyi Thermal Bath it still boasted a steam room, two saunas, 4 different pools of varying temperature and a jacuzzi. After our soak in the bath we walked to the Kelenfold Power Plant. After a 6 kilometre walk we arrived and via the wonders of Google translate was told by the security guard that it hasn’t been a museum for 8 years. The new owner only offers a handful of tours on request each year for a sum more than we were willing to pay. I probably should’ve sussed that out before we walked 6km each way to see it but this is what it looks like in case you wanted to know what the fuss is all about. Before returning to the hostel we checked out the Citadel and Liberty Statue, a huge old Soviet statue which provides a different elevated perspective of Budapest as it lets you see both the west and east sides of the city while looking directly down the river.

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Budapest is a place where you can pretty much do anything. If you can round up a group of people there are “beer bikes” all over the city where you are given a tour of the city whilst sitting on cart that is pedal powered and (this is the most important part) getting drunk on terrible Hungarian beer. If exercising while drinking isn’t your thing though there are booze cruises, sparties (spa parties) at the Szechenyi Thermal Bath, twice weekly alcoholympics and gun ranges where you can fire AK47s and other firearms (I don’t think they let you drink while doing that though). This is a city rich in history, culture, architecture, food and nightlife. We weren’t expecting to get all this in one city in the middle of Hungary but we did and we loved it!

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Budapest – No I Don’t Want a Bus Tour! We arrived in Budapest via train and were a little bit unsure what to expect upon arrival due to the continuing Syrian refugee crisis that is affecting the majority of Europe.

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Visiting Zagreb was a bit of an afterthought for us as we had to decide on visiting Belgrade in Serbia or Zagreb on our way to Budapest. All I can say is that while I’m sure Belgrade would be an equally fantastic destination I’m glad we chose Zagreb. The first thing you notice about the capital of Croatia is the green spaces. We haven’t been anywhere in Europe so far that has the quality or quantity of parks within the city proper as Zagreb. I also love the fact that Zagreb has a great tram system and I love that they’re free to use even more. That’s not to say that they are actually free but in 3 days of using them we maybe saw 3 people pay to get on.

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The city is known for its daytime cafe culture, with each cafe full of locals and tourists alike from breakfast time until the evening. We sampled the local potato strudel while taking in the sights such as the Cathedral of Zagreb, the Art Pavilion, several statues of dudes on horses, the Zagreb central market, and many other buildings from a similar period. The city is full of amazing architecture, statues and parks that you can spend days exploring if you have the time. At night time the city is not as lively as we would’ve thought but still charming nonetheless. There was a free concert on when we were there too. A Croatian band was playing in the main square in town and they must’ve been a big deal because a couple of thousand people were singing along word for word.

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Zagreb is also chock full of some of the most boring sounding museums and art galleries in the world. The list is too long and too boring to go through but we did decide to visit The Museum of Broken Relationships. Walking in the door you are greeted with a sign proclaiming that the museum cafe has beer “as cold as your ex’s heart”. Inside are over a hundred displays of items people have donated to the museum that remind them of a failed relationship. They are accompanied by an explanation of the meaning behind the item from the broken hearted person in question. Some stories are funny, some are really quite sad and some have you questioning the sanity of the person who sent in the story. Like I said there are over a hundred exhibits but some of my favourite stories include a photograph indicating the place where a woman saw her first penis, a “therapy axe” that a woman used to chop up a different item of her partners furniture each day until she came home from her holiday with her mistress and the “toaster of vindication” where someone stole their partners toaster upon moving out so they couldn’t toast their bread (that’ll learn ‘em!!!).

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One of the reasons we chose to go to Zagreb was its proximity to the world famous Plitvice Lakes. A 2 hour bus ride has you at the pristine ecosystem that is Plitvice. For a National Park it isn’t cheap to get in but there were people lined up for ages and the set up looked far better than any Park we’ve been to in Europe so far. The most important thing to bring with you to the lakes is patience. The average age of people kicking about the park is close to 60 so get used to shuffling along the narrow trails at a snail’s pace and stopping every couple of meters as someone blocks the whole path to take their 724th photo for the morning.

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Regardless of your preferred walking pace, the park is quite amazing. If you are pushed for time make sure you use entrance 1 to visit the lower lakes. These lakes are smaller, clearer and bluer than the upper lakes and your eyes can’t help but be drawn to the blue colour of the water. The ‘big waterfall’ is not very big but presents a nice view as you enter the park anyway. The entrance fee includes free use of the buses and ferry within the park so we took the ferry between one of the bigger lakes, floating on water of an impossible blue colour past waterfalls and lush forests. As you make your way towards the upper lakes each lake becomes less and less blue before turning into “regulation lakes”, albeit with super clear water. If there’s one criticism to be made of the park it’s that you can’t do anything but look at things. With that amazing deep water and cliffs ripe for jumping off it would be great if they incorporated some extra activities into the park. But then again, they have kept this region absolutely pristine, and they’re not having trouble attracting visitors so if it aint broke…

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Zagreb would have to be the most visually attractive city we’ve been to so far. The architecture, green spaces and proximity to Plitvice and the mountains make this a great spot to visit for a couple of days. It’s not somewhere to put on your ‘must visit now’ list but it’s a great place all the same.

Zagreb – The Green City Visiting Zagreb was a bit of an afterthought for us as we had to decide on visiting Belgrade in Serbia or Zagreb on our way to Budapest.

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Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina and it came with high expectations. While not many people we know have been here, everyone who has comes away raving about it. It took a grand total of about 5 seconds for us to be hooked and that was without leaving our accommodation. We’d scored an AirBnB apartment bigger than our place back home, right in the middle of the old town for AUD $50 a night. Throw in a washing machine, dishwasher and cable TV and there was no reason to leave the house.

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The city of Sarajevo also takes about 5 seconds to win you over. It is billed as a meeting of cultures, and this is so true in the most literal sense of the word. One minute you are walking through the Ottoman part of town, full of mosques set amongst 300 year old buildings with cobblestone streets, but take one more step and you could be in 19th century Austria. All of a sudden the streets widen out and the buildings turn to 5 story high palaces and church steeples dominate the skyline instead of the minarets of the Muslim mosques.

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The other reason it is so diverse is the ethnic, not just religious, melting pot that defines the city. Ethnic Bosnians, Croats and Serbs live amongst each other and while they look exactly the same to you and me, don’t tell them that!!! Sarajevo was smack bang in the middle of the Balkans war that devastated the region for a decade in the 90s. I won’t go into it as this war could fill many leather bound books and to gain even the slightest understanding you actually have to visit this place.

Despite the ability of so many cultures being able to live in peace together now, you can still feel the underlying tension simmering away between ethnic groups. As a condition of ending the war, the Republic of Srbska was formed within Bosnia, accounting for 49% of the country. According to a local we were talking to, this part of the country is occupied by ethnic Serbs who consider themselves Serbian in every way. While they pay taxes to Bosnia, they speak Serbian, hang Serbian flags from their houses and consider themselves Serbian, not Bosnian, despite never having lived there. Interestingly, the Bosnians do not hide from the fact that they committed atrocities during the war (as did all sides) but they are not too pleased about practically giving up half their country to the same people who waged war on their city for 4 years.

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There are 3 main museums on Bosnian history in town and we visited them all! One is at the site of the assassination of Archduke of Austria, Franz Ferdinand, otherwise known as the catalyst for the start of World War 1. Old mate Franz was visiting Sarajevo when Serbian Nationalists assassinated him and his pregnant wife Sofia. Austria predictably weren’t happy with this and made demands on Serbia that they couldn’t meet, resulting in a declaration of war. Russia was mates with Serbia so they declared war on Austria. Germany, being mates with Austria had to back them up but needed to work France over first so they invaded France, bringing England into the war as well, and the rest is history. The museum itself is pretty average, but there is a good multimedia section that is well worth a look.

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The Bosnian History museum was the pick of the bunch for me. It shows in graphic (and I mean GRAPHIC) detail the siege of Sarajevo from 1992 – 1995, the longest siege of a major city in the history of modern warfare. To see the conditions these people were living in, as well as how they adapted to life under the scope of a snipers rifle is truly amazing. It also documents the hunt for and prosecution of those accused of committing war crimes during the conflict.

The last major museum is a tribute to the victims of the genocide of Sbrebrenica in 1995. Even though the war was nearly over between Bosnia and Serbia, the Serbian Army went into the town, a UN safe zone and systematically slaughtered over 8,000 ethnic Bosnians. Once again, the displays here are extremely graphic and don’t hold anything back, but in order to understand what these people have been through you have to take a visit to the city.

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Another must see in Sarajevo is the Tunnel of Hope. During the siege, the Serbian army surrounded the city and the only link to Bosnian held territory was through the UN held airport. The UN, being the spineless bastards that they are, refused to allow Bosnians to pass through the airport, so they dug a tunnel underneath instead. This linked the city to their free territory to the west, allowing up to 4,000 people a day to move between areas taking food and water supplies to those stuck inside the city. It also allowed the Bosnian army to increase its presence in the town from 7,000 to 70,000 troops. Nowadays, the family home at the tunnel’s exit has been transformed into a museum. You are able to walk a small 25m section of the tunnel, view maps displaying the location of armies during the siege, and see photos and video footage of the building and the tunnel in use. This is best done with a guide as they provide you with so much more information than you could gather by yourself, especially when that person was there during the siege.

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Even if war history isn’t your thing (though you should find out as much as you can while you’re here), there is still so much more to Sarajevo. The food here is simply amazing, especially the Cevapi and Burek, which is a sausage sandwich and Bosnian Pie respectively. It is amazing to walk the streets with a mosque on one corner and a Christian church on the other. The Avaz Tower is the tallest structure in the city and at 39 stories high, you get 360 views of Sarajevo and the surrounding mountainous area. It’s best to take the time to walk here as you will see more evidence of the war in this area than you can anywhere else in Sarajevo. A walk up to Yellow Fort to watch the sunset over the city is another Sarajevo must do. Only 2km from the old town, the fort looks down the valley with the entire city positioned between you and the setting sun. A couple of beers up here as you watch the city lights come to life is absolutely magic.

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We hired a car one day and took a day trip out to Mostar, in the country’s west. Mostar is most famous for its arch bridge, which at 23m high is both beautiful to look at and a thrill seekers dream to jump off. It is a little over 2 hours scenic drive from Sarajevo, made longer by the run in with the police when I overtook a truck on double white lines on a bridge. The only thing the cop could say in English was “100 Mark minimum, 300 maximum”. I knew very well that old mate just wanted 100 Marks and I’d be on my way, but with the hire car and fuel it was already an expensive enough day, so I played dumb (not easy to do when you’re as intelligent as me), and after 15 minutes of trying to swindle me out of my money he reluctantly let me go.

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But, back to Mostar. The bridge is obviously a must see as is the markets around it which have all been renovated amazingly after the war. The bridge jump is high on my bucket list of things to do, but since the training they make you do takes a few hours (which we didn’t have) and the river was at its lowest, I decided to give it a miss. I guess this just gives me an excuse to come back another time. Apart from the old town area, the next best thing to do is wander around looking at the scars from the war. Mostar hasn’t received the same funding that Sarajevo has to rebuild the town since the war, so there are still many abandoned buildings, showing clear signs of the violence that went on here. The Sniper Tower takes the cake though. 9 stories tall, it can’t have been more than a few years old when the war broke out, and its height and location made it a prime spot for Croatian snipers to set up shop. While the building is blocked off to the public, a 10 year old could find their own way in, so we climbed to the top through all the abandoned levels for some prime views over the town.

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A fact you probably didn’t know is that Sarajevo hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics. This created a heap of infrastructure they wouldn’t normally have which were all unfortunately left to rot during the war. The positive thing is that now they make for incredible sightseeing. The ski jump hill is in a picturesque hollow and you are able to climb to the top and look down on the jump track, which is so much steeper than it looks on the TV. The medal podium is also still in place and you can get your photo taken winning gold on a podium that was once used for executions during the war (pretty macabre I know).

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The other more famous attraction is the bobsled track. Only 5km out of the city, we took our hire car there from the wrong direction, resulting in us inching the car up a series of scoured out hairpin bends on a dirt track. The track is covered in graffiti and we watched a couple of German lads showcasing their skills before walking through the overgrown and bullet holed track. This is something you have to get to soon if you want to see it, as they are in the early stages of fixing the track up to be used again professionally.

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Sarajevo quite possibly takes the cake as our favourite city to date. Never have we been to a place so rich in history, both recent and old, and where there is so much to do in such a small area. The great thing about the city is that it doesn’t rely on one type of attraction like architecture, history or nightlife to entertain people as it has a bit of everything. I’ll say it now, if you’ve been to Sarajevo and didn’t like it then there’s got to be something wrong with you!

Sarajevo – Where Cultures Collide Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina and it came with high expectations. While not many people we know have been here, everyone who has comes away raving about it.

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Kotor

Montenegro has been a country we’ve wanted to check out for a while now and when it also lays outside the Schengen Zone and is half the price of Western Europe you’ve got yourself a pretty attractive package. We had 5 nights in Kotor to just chill out and recover from Sail Croatia, and there are not many places in the world with a more amazing view. Kotor sits at the end of Boka Bay, an amazing inlet with super clear blue green water surrounded by steep mountains and home to a UNESCO protected old town and fortress.

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We’d splurged a bit here, getting a modern, one bedroom apartment so we could feel like we weren’t living out of a suitcase for a couple of days. Built around the base of a steep hill the old town has no obvious planning layout and public squares seemed to be located wherever there was a gap in the houses. Luckily the town is really small so getting lost isn’t really an option but it was great to wander through the tight streets and wonder what you were going to encounter around the next corner.

We were staying a kilometre to the north of the old town and only 100m from the water so we spent plenty of time wandering the promenade past local cafes and checking out the cruise ships coming and going from port. This part of town really is very beautiful, with some old colonial houses that look back to town and the fortress above.

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The town has a maritime museum (which we didn’t go in) and a cat museum which we did visit! Handing over the €1 entrance fee we went inside to find 2 small rooms full of pictures of people with cats, birthday cards with cats on them and postcards with cats on them. Great! Luckily the money from the entrance fee goes to feeding the cats around town but I think a more effective strategy would be to go around town threatening people that if they didn’t hand over €1 then they’d force them to spend 10 minutes in the museum. Trust me when I say that 5 minutes in there was 5 minutes too many!

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Having led a life of gluttony for the past week and a bit we thought we’d get back a bit of fitness with a spot of hiking. We chose the walk up to Krstac, a small village high above Kotor with views right out to the Mediterranean. The walk took us through 70 switchbacks (we counted), past herds of goats and cows along an old path built by the Austro-Hungarian army back in World War 1. The first 2/3rds of the trip provides you with ever more impressive views of the bay and beyond before trudging through pine forest, up scree slopes full of snakes to Krstac. At the top we watched people partaking in possibly the world’s worst zip line. I was immediately reminded of a South Park episode seeing these people inch slowly across the canyon to the other side. Bypassing that activity we made it to Krstac and sat on the rocks on the edge of the cliff, looking down on Kotor and the surrounding area. It was a tough slog for our first hike since destroying our bodies, but the view at the top was worth it. You can drive to the top too by the way…

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St John Fortress is the main attraction in town and we decided to head up there for sunset the next day. Because of the hills surrounding town, the sun actually sets in town about an hour and a half before it sets below the ocean. It was strange to see the sun getting higher in the sky as we climbed from town up to the castle. The views from the top of the castle are absolutely stunning, whether you’re looking down on the town and bay or up to the mountains behind you. We sat there for well over an hour watching the sun go down and sampling a beer that some entrepreneurial soul was selling at the top for only €2 (personally I’d be charging 4).

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Kotor isn’t a big town, and there isn’t a lot to do but if you’re like us and looking to chill out for a few days with a view that you could never get sick of then Kotor is a fantastic option.

Budva

Budva is the party capital of Montenegro, a town close to many stunning beaches and many many more Russian tourists. The old town is amazing, full of cafes, pubs and shops that have all been refurbished beautifully. The citadel overlooking the ocean is a must see as it provides great views over the old town, the mountains to the north and east, and out to the islands of Sveti Nicola and Sveti Stefan.

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Svetie Stefan is also a must visit while in town. We decided to walk there, past all the beaches in between but you can get a bus there for just €1.50 (we did on the way back). By walking though, you can take in all the beaches and see how the clientele at each beach changes. After walking under the hill that houses the palatial Dukley Residences you emerge at what I’m going to call Russia beach. 1 kilometer of tall, blonde women and burly men who are big on working the arms and chest in the gym but prefer their abs workouts at the pub (they’re fat). The next beach was a nice medium size bay and more popular with the locals, followed by another that is completely exclusive to a hotel and is fenced off tighter than a prison. After that come the paid beaches. For a very affordable €75 you can have access to the beach, an umbrella and chairs whilst sharing the beach with only a handful of other people. Given the number of people on the beaches of Budva, this is actually more tempting than it sounds. You then arrive at Sveti Stefan, an island connected to the mainland via a causeway that is now off limits to everyone unless you are a)staying there or b)eating at the overpriced restaurant. You can swim at the beach next door for free while looking out over the island, but if you try swim out to the island, you will quickly get told off for even climbing up on the rocks.

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As I mentioned before, Budva is the party capital of Montenegro. We didn’t get to a foam party (I’ve heard they’re amazing) but at night the promenade turns into one big party. We chose the Captain Morgan Pirate Bar first but chose not to stay long as the rum was not the Morgans I’m accustomed to (i.e. it was shite), the music was THAT loud, and the DJ insisted on talking throughout the songs. Seeing that the other bars on the strip were the same we headed into the old town. The bars in town were bustling and we stopped at Caspers for some delicious and extremely strong cocktails.

We’d planned on getting a scooter and exploring the surrounding area the night before but our efforts the night before put an end to that before they started. Budva is a great little town but if you want to party and do some sightseeing, make sure you leave yourselves enough time to do both!

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Podgorica

Podgorica is the capital city of Montenegro. A friend of ours had advised us that one night in Podgorica is “more than enough” and never have truer words been spoken. 200,000 people live in Podgorica, about 40% of the country’s population yet there is next to nothing to do in town. If you think I’m being a little negative then consider that every Montenegrin we met, both in and out of Podgorica remarked how boring the city was and that you are better off spending time elsewhere.

In fact, from our time here I can fill you in on the two best things to do in Podgorica. They are (in no particular order) getting a haircut and rescuing stranded tortoises. I managed to do both in the space of about 15 minutes so you can see how lively the city is. To be honest though, it was good fun trying to communicate what I wanted done with my hair with someone who spoke almost no English and the end result was certainly not what I had in mind at the start. We did however manage to communicate that I was from Perth, was headed up to the Tara River for rafting, that the Montenegrin girls are very attractive and much to his disgust that I was married (maybe he was trying to pawn his daughter off to me but you can’t win them all).

Apart from my two favourite activities though, the city is dirt cheap. There are coffee shops everywhere, crepes for €1 and the millennium bridge, while not the most amazing bridge in the world is still better than anything we have in Perth. If you ever find yourself in Montenegro, make sure you aren’t in this city for any more than 24 hours!

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Tara River, Durmitor National Park, Zjablak

Glad to be done with Podgorica, we boarded the Bus to Scepan Polje, a tiny town on the border of Bosnia which runs along the Tara River, the second deepest river canyon in the world (no prizes for guessing the deepest) for a spot of rafting and canyoning. Pretty quickly we realised we should’ve caught a lift on the tortoises back I rescued yesterday as our bus driver chugged along at an infuriatingly slow speed. Luckily, the countryside was spectacular as we passed through little villages, still green despite it being the end of summer and into the town of Pluzine, the first town in the Piva valley and home to Piva Lake. This manmade lake which is used for hydropower is over 100m deep, only 200m wide in places, has mountains reaching up to a kilometre high around it, and has the brightest blue colour to it.

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After passing the dam wall we drove along the Piva River, still raging this late in summer, and were dropped off at the side of the road and told to walk down a dirt track to our accommodation. Hoping the bus driver was better at directions than he was at driving we made our way down a series of hairpin bends before arriving at a little slice of paradise. The owner, Milada greeted us with a shot of plum brandy before showing us to our cabins and leaving us to our own devices.

Rafting was on the itinerary the next day and we jumped in an old banged up Land Rover for a very bumpy ride to our start point. The main reason we’d done the rafting was because it was part of the package deal to do canyoning, and being so late in summer we weren’t expecting the rapids to be too hectic. Well, these rapids were more like a few ripples on a pond; if you had your baby in a basket you’d happily float it downstream without much worry. I had my GoPro strapped to my helmet and filmed all the rapids but if this blog hasn’t already sent you to sleep the footage definitely will.

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After lunch we caught a lift with an Italian couple who we went rafting with to the town of Zjablak, near where our canyoning start point was the next morning(yes, this is a “tour” but you have to arrange your own transportation). After climbing up and over the mountains surrounding the river we passed through a high plateau used for agriculture where their main export crop seems to be grass. It was like another world up here, apart from the odd power line, it was like stepping back in time a hundred years such was the primitive way of living up here. The Durmitor National Park was next, and while the mountains here aren’t as high or steep as others in Europe these are pretty unique. Each mountain is completely different to the next, whether it being made of different rock, uplifted differently or just looking plain weird.

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We then arrived in Zjablak, a picturesque mountain village with high pitched roofs due to the fact that it’s buried under 2m of snow for much of the winter. After finding accommodation we called our canyoning guide to meet up and sort out sizing and times only to be told he wasn’t taking a group tomorrow! After letting him know that wasn’t acceptable we got him to ring every other canyoning guide in the country, none of whom were taking a group tomorrow. It seems hard to believe but apparently there wasn’t one other person in the entire country that wanted to go canyoning the next day! We made do with a hike around Black Lake, in the national park the next day before jumping on a very long bus ride to Bosnia.

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Montenegro is an amazing country. Despite its diminutive size, it has everything you could want at half the price of most other places. Mountains, beaches, history, adventure sports, snow; you name it (except for desert), Montenegro has it. For your next Europe trip, skip the big ticket places that you’ve already been to, hire a car and explore this little gem of a country.

Montenegro – Should’ve hired a car Kotor Montenegro has been a country we’ve wanted to check out for a while now and when it also lays outside the Schengen Zone and is half the price of Western Europe you’ve got yourself a pretty attractive package.

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After our sail, we had two days to kill in Dubrovnik before heading into Montenegro. I was thinking that would be plenty of time, but in hindsight it is not even nearly enough to see everything in and around the town. Dubrovnik is home to the most impressive medieval walls in Croatia, and probably the world. They stand 25m high and 12m thick in places and form an uninterrupted ring around the old town of Dubrovnik. Our first day was pretty uneventful, we spent a few hours at the beach and caught up with half a dozen of our sail crew for a few beers (you can’t just go cold turkey after 7 solid days on the drink) and to watch the rugby. On the way home we gave the Dubrovnik Maskeron step one more crack. Apparently if you can jump onto the step and stand there for 5 seconds or more you’ll be lucky in love. It’s harder than it looks and hopefully it’s a load of rubbish because we both failed to stay there for the required time.

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The next day we walked to Fort Lovrijenac which overlooks the western walls of the town and sits on a 40m sheer cliff. This fortress was the most important part of the fortifications of Dubrovnik, so much so that they deliberately made the walls facing the town as thin as possible (60cm while the other walls were 12m thick) so that if the enemy did manage to take the fortress the town could destroy it easily from their vantage point. While exploring the castle we were treated to an epic light show. A storm was rolling in over the ocean spitting lightning everywhere. We decided against making a run for the old town and waited it out in the fortress while it rained cats and dogs for an hour. The staircase was turned into a waterfall and the main courtyard a lake before blowing over and returning us to sunshine.

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We then took a walk of the walls of Dubrovnik. At $20 a pop for entry, it is easy to see how they keep the walls of the city in such pristine condition but in fairness the views you get of the town, ocean, islands and hills from all around the walls are pretty spectacular. Our plan was to jump on the cable car and catch a lift up the mountain for sunset but with lightning still going off all around us they had stopped running for the day. We also pondered the Game of Thrones tour but at $40 each to go see some steps that we’d probably walked down already I thought it was a bit steep. Plus Kylie doesn’t even watch the show but don’t hold that against her.

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Dubrovnik would have to be the most picturesque seaside town in all our travels so far and we wish we had more time to explore more of the old town and surrounding area. 2 days is not nearly enough to explore it fully with Lokrum island, and the Velika I Mala Petka peninsula to the north-west of town each being places where you can kill a day easily on top of the town itself.

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Dubrovnik – Detox is Coming… After our sail, we had two days to kill in Dubrovnik before heading into Montenegro. I was thinking that would be plenty of time, but in hindsight it is not even nearly enough to see everything in and around the town.

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We flew into Split two nights before our Sail and spent the next day exploring the city. Split is a nice little city full of beach bars, clubs, many overpriced restaurants overlooking the bay and a compact old town full of excited would be Sail Croatia participants and absolutely ruined individuals who had just completed their sail. After a look around town we walked up the hill to the Marjan Peninsula for a look over town before catching up with Jen and Birch for dinner.

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The next day we arrived on our boat to find that they had assembled the greatest ever group of Sail Croatia goers in history. Miraculously, we didn’t have a single roided up turbo who can’t have a beer without wanting to fight everyone on our boat and as we set sail it was pretty obvious we wouldn’t have any issues on the boat. We stopped for a swim offshore and everyone jumped in for their first swim of the sail… everyone but Keith that is. Keith had been walking home from the beach concert the night before when he decided it would be a good idea to jump headfirst off the pier into knee deep water. Cue a gash on his head that required 20 odd staples. Keith had got on the boat still heavily under the influence and thought it was all pretty funny until he sobered up. We didn’t see him much for the next couple of days but the bar had been set and anything stupid you did would be measured in increments of “Keiths”.

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We docked in the town of Omis which had a castle high on a hill overlooking the town. The sensible decision was made to load up on wine and lemonade and climb to the top and have a few celebratory sangrias. The Sangrias worked a treat and we sat at the top for an hour or so getting to know one another and watching the sunset whilst savouring our home brew.

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The crew cooked us up an amazing bbq that night in an effort to line our stomachs and then it was out on the deck for some drinks. Our captain, Vlado unveiled a disco ball and smoke machine which got the party started so much so that we had people from other boats coming over to join in. Curtis, very quickly informed the first stowaway that the price of admission was a “thongy” (this is where you filter your beverage through someone’s thong/sandal/flip flop/jandals). That night there was a party at Cocktail Bar Del Mare, the only club in town. The club provided the most disgusting free entrance shots on the planet which were presumably made of methanol and engine degreaser. These were that bad that I’m estimating 1 in 4 people immediately vomited after downing their shot. Kylie was not one of those as she went back for another 2.

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We weren’t due to sail until 1pm the next day as some people had signed up for rafting. We spent the morning on the beach continuing where we left off with more home mix sangria and trading stories about last night. Without doubt the best story involved one of the lads forgetting which boat he was on, walking down a dark hallway and suddenly plunging down into the below deck section of one of the boats, incurring the best bruise any of us has ever seen (it was judged a ¾ Keith). Before leaving port we purchased “Toby” the punchbowl which had everyone on the sangrias early on day 2.

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We docked in the town of Makarska on night 2 for the infamous pirate cave party. Kylie and I went for a walk around town and found some guys cliff jumping into the crystal clear waters much to the admiration of the booze cruise boats returning to port. I’ve probably said this a half dozen times before but I LOVE jumping off things so I was in straight away. To compound things a You Tube Vlogger was filming the guys, so I decided to up my game and back flip off about 12m. Needless to say things did not go to plan. I over rotated and landed square on my back and bruised my ribs (see here at 1:23 where I go ½ Keith). I was in need of pain killers so once back on the boat we all got stuck into the beers.

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Vlado unveiled the foam machine tonight which got the party going again but unfortunately for me the beer was doing nothing for the pain so I crashed into bed and tried not to move for the next 12 hours. The other 29 people on the boat had a cracker of a night, with one of the boys proposing to Doris, our on board waitress while the rest partied the night away in the cave.

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Day 3 was supposed to be a bit of a rest day. We docked in Stari Grad, a pretty town with not much of substance to see or do. A few of the crew headed off for a wine tour while the rest either slept or had a look around town. A picnic on the dock was decided and most of the boat laid down towels and sheets and chipped in for food and drink. Toby the punchbowl copped an absolute hammering that night. The first two bottles of vodka didn’t last long before we had to call in for reinforcements. The next 5 bottles did not last much longer either. While the other boats were having a chilled night the Novi-Dan crew were dancing, singing, doing Kath and Kim impressions and jumping/getting pushed into the water. I was on an injury roll and when I tried to open a bottle with another already opened one, I suddenly found most of the top of the bottle embedded in my finger. My blood had been thinned by the beers so this thing bled, and bled, and bled leaving the dock looking like a murder scene all for a 1mm wide puncture wound.

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The Novi-Dan docked in Hvar the next night alongside 5 storey high boats that get leased for €180,000 per week. The town just oozes money as do some of the night clubs there. Unfortunately some of our crew did not get a chance to appreciate Hvar as Toby had not taken kindly to being used and abused the night before and struck 6 people down with a Gastro like bug that was described by all unlucky enough to get it as “the worst I have EVER felt” (minimum 1 ½ Keiths).

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The rest of us headed straight to the Hula Hula Bar. At 6pm this place was jumping with hundreds of people dancing, spraying champagne around like they didn’t just pay €100 for it at the bar, taking in the sunset and priming themselves for a BIIIIG night. At midnight we headed to Carpe Diem nightclub, a short ferry ride to an island just offshore from Hvar. I honestly didn’t think I’d enjoy it since they play Deep House music and I’m not a fan of repetitive beats but this place was crazy and we partied until dawn before setting sail.

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Korcula was the next destination which involved an optional ATV tour around the island with a snorkel stop in between and an extended swim stop for the rest of us. The ‘Gastro’ bug had claimed another couple of victims but it was only a 24 hour bug so the people who missed out the night before were raring to go to the jungle bar that night. We had a group dinner at a Mexican place in town which was organised by Sail Croatia and it’d be fair to say that whoever organised it has never eaten the food there as it was pretty average. A couple of us then headed for a drink at the Massimo Cocktail Bar, which is situated on top of an old fortress wall battlement with the best sunset views in town. Back on the boat those still alive were getting the party started and while we gave it a shot, we couldn’t get ourselves up and about and called it quits at 11pm. Those who made it out were treated to a really cool hilltop bar amongst the trees and were still going at 5:30am when I woke up and joined them for a sunrise cider.

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The cider did nothing to improve the way I was feeling but thankfully most of the crew was in the same boat (see what I did there). We docked in Mljet, a really small town next to a national park on one of Croatia’s biggest islands. Apparently the park is beautiful but it was a 4km walk and everyone was dead (another couple had gone down with gastro again), so we hit up the beach for a few hours until it got dark. This night was another designated “quiet night” and for the most part our boat was keen for a quiet one bar a few girls who thought that playing centurions would be a good idea. They all got to 60 which was a pretty solid effort before Doris shut the game down as she didn’t seem keen to be mop up vomit on this particular occasion. We also farewelled Toby the punchbowl that night! It wasn’t the way we’d planned to see him off but in hindsight throwing him overboard full of one of our centurions players vomit seemed pretty appropriate. Apart from Centurions though, none on our boat kicked on that night and we had to be content listening to the turbos on either side of us trying to fight one another.

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Dubrovnik was our final destination on sail and the feelings were mixed. On one hand you don’t want it to end as it means saying goodbye to new friends but on the other hand there are things like air conditioning, showers that are separate from the toilet and real beds on the mainland. We took a spin through town once we docked, checking out the imposing walls of the old town, the beaches, and then the nearest bar.

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Our final team dinner was that night in the old town. This time Sail Croatia had done a better job of choosing a place with decent food and all of us except Marco and Kadie (who were the latest Gastro victims) enjoyed a good meal. Then it was back to the boat for our last warm-up party before heading out to Revelin, the biggest club in Dubrovnik that is situated inside a medieval fortress! This was an incredible place, a huge cavernous space filled with party goers listening to terrible tunes and purchasing vodka sodas at $16 a pop! I only made that mistake once but we still had a good time in the club before the repetitive “music” wore us down.

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We then headed to the Sky Bar, one of Sail Croatia’s “partner clubs”. This allowed us to skip the line and get free entry and boy were we glad we could forego the entrance fee. It was a dirty, stinking club with no air conditioning and packed shoulder to shoulder. It was so hot that there was not one person actually dancing, with everyone seemingly conserving their energy. We got out of there ASAP and headed back to the port, grabbing a few beers and sitting in the park across from the boat while we all watched Kylie chase a dog that had stolen her water.

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We said our goodbyes to the crew the next morning and also to the 28 new friends we had made. We both count ourselves lucky that we did not have one dickhead or sad sack on the whole boat, which is not something you take for granted when you are living in close quarters with these people for a week, and also that we got through the week without getting gastro! To everyone on the Novi-Dan; you’re all dead-set legends and I hope we can see each and every one of you again!!!

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LEGENDS OF NOVI DAN

Sail Croatia – The Legends of the Novi-Dan We flew into Split two nights before our Sail and spent the next day exploring the city.

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After 9 days without a hot shower we rolled into our accommodation in Rome, turned the air conditioning up full and scrubbed ourselves clean like we’d just got hoe from a weeklong bush doof. The afternoon was spent enjoying the finer things in life (clean linen and the interweb) before a quick dinner and a night time tour of Saint Peters Square. The crowds in the Vatican are supposedly legendary so we were both pleasantly surprised to walk into an almost deserted square, lit up amazingly to show off the majesty of the basilica and the arms of the Tuscan colonnades shaped purposely to feel as you are being embraced by the church itself.

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Castle of Saint Angelo

Palace of Justice

We knocked out a big day of sightseeing the next day. I had high hopes for Rome, being the birthplace of civilisation as we know it and was keen to check out all the sights that played such a huge part in world history. We started with the Castle of Saint Angelo which was probably the most imposing fortress we had seen to date, but not quite as imposing as the line to get into the castle. So we admired from the outside before passing the Palace of Justice and the Mausoleum of Augustus on our way to the Spanish Steps. The photos I’d seen of this place always looked great but when there are 1,000 people sitting on them the grandeur of them was significantly diminished. Then, when you try to take a photo sitting on them you might as well be on a staircase anywhere in the world.

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Spanish Steps – as good a photo as we could get

Pantheon – Just WOW!

We bypassed the Trevi Fountain which was closed for reconstruction and walked to the column of Marcus Aurelius (think the good Emperor on the movie Gladiator) which was as impressive a column as you will ever see. We then walked past the Montecitori Palace where politicians do whatever it is they do and on to the Temple of Hadrian. The temple was built in 145 AD after his death by his successor and it is thought that he ruled over the empire at its most prosperous and happiest. We checked out the Pantheon next and what can I say but wow. I always know when something is impressive because it blows Kylie away too. Built in 128 AD by our mate Hadrian this is a building built way before its time. Walking into the temple and seeing the beam of light from the opening at the top is almost like looking into a portal to another world.

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The view as you walk into the Pantheon

Largo di Torre Argentina

Next was a trip to the Largo di Torre Argentina, right next to the site of the assassination of Julius Caesar and home to a colony of stray cats. We checked out the cat colony which houses nearly 200 cats at any one time and sees over 3,000 cats come through its doors every year to be neutered and vaccinated. The Altar of the Fatherland, or “Wedding Cake” was next and is one amazing structure. Built to honour the first King of Italy and its First World War Soldiers, it is an enormous Palace made of the whitest marble that sticks out like dogs balls amongst the brown brick of the surrounding Roman ruins.

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Altar of the Fatherland – “Wedding Cake”

Altar of the Fatherland – “Wedding Cake”

We walked amongst some of these ruins before arriving at the Colosseum. The line was massive and we were offered a guided tour that skips the line for only a few Euros extra. Roberto was our guide and he mixed up the staggering amount of history in the place with a healthy dose of humour and just a sprinkle of misogyny and racism to spice it up a little. We were then given a guide of Palatine Hill. This is the place that, according to myth was where Romulus and Remus (the founders of Rome) were raised by a she-wolf after being abandoned by their father and is also the “actual” centre of Rome from as far back as 1000BC. All this information was given to us by our Canadian guide who painted a much more vivid picture than I just did. All in all it is essential to get a guided tour of these two places as they fill you in with more information than you could ever read in the same timeframe. Plus you’ll just be looking at a heap of old bricks if you don’t.

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Piazza Foro Traiano

Colosseum from the inside

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Using the “worlds first” ass washer inside the Colosseum

Palatine Hill

That night we caught up with Jen and Birch as they were also in town. We ate great food, drank cheap beer and champagne, and debated the big issues such as the Adam Goodes saga. After running out of alcohol for the second time we called it quits and Kylie and I took a 4am tour through the city back to our hotel. If you haven’t done it before, Rome at 4am is deserted! We had the Colosseum to ourselves as well as every other attraction in town. The walk home was great fun but did not save me from my hangover the next day.

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Dinner and drinks with Jen and Birch

Romantic

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Colosseum at night

I don’t play by anybody’s rules…

We’d deliberately planned an afternoon Vatican Tour in case of a hangover and I had one bad. Breathing was a mission and I thought I was going to hurl sitting on the side of the street at 3pm waiting for the bumbling idiot that was our guide to sort himself out. Luckily I improved over the next half hour but our poor excuse for a guide did not. Massimo was his name and he was as useless as a white crayon, forgetting entrance tickets, mumbling his way through explanations, going off topic and forgetting what he was talking about. Aside from him, the Vatican Museum is massive, housing exhibits of statues, vases, maps, rugs and more and I would have loved more time to wander through the displays without Massimo talking smack into my earpiece the entire time.

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Castle of Saint Angelo at night

Vatican City at night

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Pinecone Courtyard

Statue of Hercules

The Vatican Museum

We then walked to the Sistine Chapel which houses the famous ceiling paintings of Michelangelo and even managed to snap off a few photos despite the security guards patrolling the perimeter. To be honest, taking photos was pretty easy so long as you stood on the opposite side of the room to the Chinese tour group who had the flash and zoom lenses cranking and who seemed oblivious to the shouts of the guards telling them to stop. After the chapel we took a wrong turn, ended up outside the museum and had to go line up by ourselves to get into Saint Peters Basilica. Luckily it wasn’t far from closing time so the line was only about 150m long (it’s normally over 400m) and we got in pretty quickly. The Basilica is the biggest in the world and has so many things to look at, but we’ve seen hundreds of churches in the last 3 months and the lighting in there is actually pretty dark so I wouldn’t say it’s the most impressive we’ve seen. Even so it is well worth a look; even just to say you’ve been there.

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Sistine Chapel

The “Creation of Adam” is at the top

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Saint Peters Basilica

The alter in Saint Peters Basilica

Rome was once the centre of the world and is now the centre of the most interesting and best preserved historical artefacts in the world. Even if history is not your forte you can spend days wandering the streets and admiring the buildings and shops. I could have spent days exploring the Palatine Hill alone and there are even more sites and artefacts outside the city centre that we didn’t even get a chance to consider visiting. I had high expectations of Rome and it exceeded them easily, just beware of those bloody tourist taxes!

Rome – Definitley wasn’t built in a day After 9 days without a hot shower we rolled into our accommodation in Rome, turned the air conditioning up full and scrubbed ourselves clean like we’d just got hoe from a weeklong bush doof.

[archerditchy-blog]

Apologies for the language above but when you read the location of this blog that is probably the first thought that popped into your head. To save you a trip to Google maps, Port-Vendres (PV) is on the coast at the south-western tip of France, about 30km from the border with Spain. In answer to your next question, we decided to come down here as my Uncle Phil and Aunty Pip had a little apartment here. And hey; when you’re travelling, the best accommodation is free accommodation!

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Thanks Phil and Pip for letting us stay!

After 7 hours on the train we were met at PV station by Phil and Pips friend Del. She showed us the apartment, which I might add was very impressive and just a tad nicer than the hostel rooms we’ve become accustomed to, before gifting us a bottle of wine and leaving us to our own devices. We thought of cooking our own meal that night but the lure of the pizza place right outside our door was too much so we settled on that for the evening.

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Port Vendres from the road out of town

Beaches at the village of Paullilles

The next day we walked over to the village of Paullilles, booked in a table for the following night and then hit up the beach. After an hour of lying on the increasingly hot black sand we decided to take the coastal route back to PV which was 3 times longer but undoubtedly more picturesque. We walked along the cliff edges, looking out over the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean, watching boats cruise by and taking the occasional dip in one of the many rocky bays in between. The walk was tough but pleasant until the point where we ran out of water with about 3km to go in 35 degree heat. At that point we stopped the ocean gazing and put our heads down in an effort to get home as quickly as possible.

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View from the balcony over the Port

Bastille Day fireworks

We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon and after dinner we settled into our seats on the balcony to watch the Bastille Day celebrations. The streets around the port were closed to traffic and pop up bars were serving beer, wine and sangria, while bands walked around playing songs in front of each restaurant. At 10:30 we were treated to yet another fireworks show with our balcony commanding prime viewing position in the town. It was pretty clear though, that the French do not know how to party like the Spanish as they had wrapped everything up shortly after midnight and the next morning the streets were spotless already, not a broken glass or plastic cup in sight.

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The walk home from dinner along the crash barrier

Dinner the next night was at Les Clos de Paullilles, a belated wedding present from Phil and Pip. We were treated to a 4 course degustation containing a Tuna entree, Beef and Fish mains with a cheese platter and then dessert. The meals came accompanied with matching wine and it would be fair to say that everything we had was on point. Instead of taxiing home we thought a sobering walk would be a better idea. This involved walking up a pot-hole riddled dirt path and then straddling a crash barrier on a narrow road. After a while it became evident that walking on the crash barrier in the state we were in meant we’d either fall off the side of the hill, or back into incoming traffic so we legged it along the rather narrow road and only just made it to the end before a car came roaring right past where we were running a few seconds before.

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Collioure – view walking into town

Quirky store fronts in Collioure

Our final day in PV involved a day out at the town of Collioure, a half hour walk away. After some gelato (it’d been 3 days since our last one) we explored the old town area and the castle. The old town of Collioure is more touristy than most but with good reason, as the buildings are some of the prettiest you will likely come across. They are all painted different colours and have been kept in pristine condition. The castle was well worth a look also. It was our first look at a medieval castle and it was fantastic to see all the various techniques and tricks they used to keep invaders at bay. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be the among the first hundred soldiers into any of the tunnels as boiling hot oil poured from above was all that awaited you. That night we tried the tartare de beouf (raw minced beef) which is one of the local delicacies. While the meat was tender we thought it was lacking in flavour, and without that flavour the only thing you can concentrate on is the texture which is far different from the medium-rare steaks we are used to. Still, it was worth it to say we’ve tried it and I’d definitely go back for more if they could get more flavour into the dish.

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The Castle walls in Collioure

Sampling the Tartare de beouf

Port-Vendres and Collioure are each charming in their own right. They’re both less than 3 hours by train from Barcelona and if the party towns of southern Spain aren’t your thing, then you could do far worse than looking in the other direction and adding this piece of coastline to your itinerary. To Phil and Pip… thanks for your hospitality.

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Port Vendres – Where the F**k is That!? Apologies for the language above but when you read the location of this blog that is probably the first thought that popped into your head.

[archerditchy-blog]

I should start by saying that Northern Spain is far from undiscovered, but compared to its southern shores this place might as well be to Spain what Tasmania is to us. That is that most of us have never been there and to be honest, the people are just a bit different (looking at you Maddie and Lauren).

Our first port of call was Vigo, only a few kilometres over the border from Portugal and the place where we were to pick up our car the next morning. Arriving in town we found it about as lively as Narrogin on a Sunday morning before remembering that we were back in Spain again and it was Siesta time. We had a nap ourselves before heading out for a look around town a bit later. The town was still dead at 7, and while there were a handful of bars opening up but it was impossible to get anything to eat until 9. We ate at the Imperia tapas bar, which, like El Tigre in Madrid gave us free food whenever we bought a drink. The food wasn’t the greatest we’ve ever had, but when you order 8 drinks and get a full feed for 12 Euros, you’re doing alright. It should also be said that the local beer here, Estralla Galacia, is one of the best mass marketed beers I’ve ever tasted and is worth the trip out to North West Spain alone.

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Octopus Man by the water in Vigo

Picking up Mokka for the roadtrip

We picked up our car the next morning and were stoked to get upgraded from the matchbox we ordered to a mini SUV type car. It had all the torque of your Great Grandmas legs trying to get out of her rocking chair but it was brand new and drove smoothly so we couldn’t complain. We headed to the town of Sanxenxo, called the beach of Madrid, since that’s where they holiday to get away from the crowds of Southern Spain. The water here was crystal clear but freezing cold, so staying in for more than a minute or two was not good for your health. Even so, the beaches and water on this stretch were some of the most stunning we’ve ever seen and while it was 40 degrees in the south of Spain that day it remained a very pleasant 28 for us.

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Beaches in Sanxenxo

Sanxenxo – the beach of Madrid

We stayed in the town of Finisterre that night, called ‘The End of the World’ by the Romans, as they knew of no point more westerly than this (they were wrong by the way as the Cabo de Roca in Portugal is more westerly). It’s also the end of the pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago, a trek that often takes people from the French-Spanish border to Finisterre, a distance of about 800km. While visiting the lighthouse on the edge of the peninsula, we saw the triumphant trekkers burning their shoes and dirty clothes which is apparently the done thing at the end of this walk.

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Walk along the beach in Finisterre

End of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage

Finisterre – Western most point in Spain

The next day we headed to the town of Ezaro, which houses the only waterfall in Europe that discharges into the ocean. It was a bit of a stretch to call it an ocean as it was about a kilometre up an inlet where the waterfall hit the water. Having said that, it was at sea level and the water was salty so it’s probably fair enough. I had vowed not to take another photo of a waterfall after Yosemite unless it was into the ocean so here we go again.

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Waterfall into the ocean in Ezaro

Ezaro Waterfall

We drove to La Coruna that afternoon, which we had low expectations of from a few reviews we’d been given. Driving in to town we saw heavy industry and were thinking these reviews were spot on, but fortunately once we got into the old town and saw the beach we were glad the bad reviews were unfounded. La Coruna has several really nice beaches, a huge promenade, great eating tapas and drinking establishments, some of the best city coast walks you can do as well as some amazing parks and a 2000 year old lighthouse. We spent 2 days in La Coruna exploring the city, lighthouse and the beach and think it’s a great place to spend a couple of days if you are ever in the area. It is also the home of the women’s fashion label Zara so we also made a quick detour to do a little pilgrimage of our own.

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Beaches of La Coruna

Tower of Hercules – 2000 year old lighthouse

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The original Zara store

La Coruna promenade

Oveido was our next destination. It’s the capital of the Asturius region, and halfway between La Coruna and the Picos de Europa, which was our main reason for visiting the North of Spain. The town was nice without being amazing; with parks and statues all over the place, but its main claim to fame is the local cider. The cider, or sidra as it’s called here, is not carbonated, far drier and not at all sweet in comparison to what we were used to. The waiters pour the cider from as high as they can into your glass in order to aerate the sidra. Some of the waiters were pros and wouldn’t spill a drop but others had the same level of accuracy as a blind sniper, depositing half of your drink on the floor before finding the glass. Then you’re supposed to drink it in one go  before throwing the dregs on the floor. That might sound a bit dirty but in this part of the world the dirtier the floor on the bar, the better it is. Also, you can sleep soundly knowing that we threw precisely none of our cider on the floor as that kind of behaviour is just abhorrent.

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Sidra house – self pour barrels at the tables

Waiters pouring the sidra to aerate it

Enjoying the local Sidra

We can only think of one reason why Northern Spain is not overrun with tourists and that is the temperature of the water. The beaches, green landscapes, the local people and local produce up here are all absolutely amazing and the thing that is holding it back is the Atlantic Ocean. It’s totally understandable that people want to spend days in the water in Spain because it’s stinking hot most of the year… except here. If you want to experience the Spanish culture without the 40 degree days and suffocating humidity, take a spin in the north and enjoy the road less travelled.

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One of the many statues at the park in Oveido

More statues – something off about them though

Northern Spain – The Road Less Travelled I should start by saying that Northern Spain is far from undiscovered, but compared to its southern shores this place might as well be to Spain what Tasmania is to us.

[archerditchy-blog]

From Istanbul we flew halfway to Madrid, then touched down at a runway somewhere in Italy and taxied across the tarmac for the next 1,000km. At least that’s what it felt like and if you’ve ever flown in to Madrid you will know what I’m talking about. After walking for what felt like another half hour we went through customs and then walked another half hour to the Metro. Getting off the train near our hostel at 2:30 in the afternoon we were greeted on the streets by… nothing. Nothing at all to be exact. The streets were deserted and both our immediate thoughts on Madrid were ‘get me out of here’ until we realised that it was siesta time!

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Amazing chorizo bocadillos

Kylie was particularly excited to be in Spain, more for the fact that she didn’t have to push olives, tomatoes, cucumber and boiled eggs around her plate at breakfast every morning and to be honest I was pretty excited to get into some Tapas too. We sussed out the best place to eat with the locals working at the hostel and were advised to go to El Tigre for tapas. While it wasn’t the best food you’ll get in Spain it was something else… FREE! El Tigre works like this… you buy a beer, they give you food and continue to give you food so long as you buy a drink every once in a while. The place was filled with large groups of locals and provided a fun and lively atmosphere. Dinner and drinks came to 10 euro for us that night and we discovered Kylie’s love of cheese and jamon (cured ham) croquettes.

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Plaza Mayor

Words oldest continually operating restaurant

We went on a free walking tour the next day which took in the sights of Madrid, guided by one of Madrid’s premier tour guides. And by sights I mean a couple of ugly old buildings and by tour guide I mean a girl with a quiet voice who was new to the job and who had decided that 21 of the 26 letters of the alphabet were not necessary to pronounce in order to get her point across. For example, when showing us the Plaza de Ramales it was pronounced “aaeaaes” and the Plaza Santa Catalina de los Donados sounded like “aaaaaaiaeooaos” It saves time sure, but after 2 hours we still had no freaking idea what we’d been on or seen.

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La Chocolateria – open 24hrs

Churros from La Chocalateria

After our siesta we walked up to the Templo de Debod which we were told in the tour guides provides stunning vistas of the city at sunset. If by stunning they meant average and by vistas they meant the 6 buildings in our immediate vicinity then they were spot on! That night the hostel cooked up a feed of Paella for 3 Euros and we drunk a litre of beer/sangria each for 2 Euros. A pub crawl was on the cards until we realised that these things don’t start until 1am! Now the 21 year old versions of us would’ve been champing at the bit for this regardless, but we’ve not travelled halfway around the world just to see the inside of a nightclub and then die in your dorm room the next day. We did go and have a look at the pre-crawl party location and noticed that there were more than 50 people on the crawl. When you start to exceed 50 people it stops becoming a crawl and starts becoming a migration, they just become hard work and neither of us was nearly drunk enough at this point to put up with the writhing mass of 19 year old Aussies in a club for another 5 hours.

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The Royal Palace

Guard walk outside Royal Palace

It rained all of the next morning, and after replacing several items which I had dropped to the bottom of the ocean on Sail Turkey, we headed to the Retiro Park for a look. Unlike the park at the Templo de Debod, this was actually nice and there were thousands of locals dotted all over the park relaxing, playing sport, paddling on the lakes or buying books on the bookstore street. This street, some 500m long had bookstores the entire length on either side of the road selling every genre of book you can imagine. Interesting? Certainly not, but it was a bit intriguing I will admit.

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Would I recommend Madrid to anyone? If you’re between 18 and 24 and love to party then without doubt you’ll have an awesome time. If you’re a devout catholic and you love old churches or you have a particular fetish for the Spanish Monarchy then book your ticket now as well. For everyone else… don’t rush.

Madrid - The Nocturnal City From Istanbul we flew halfway to Madrid, then touched down at a runway somewhere in Italy and taxied across the tarmac for the next 1,000km.

[archerditchy-blog]

We came back to Istanbul for 2 days after Cappadocia, firstly to see Gallipoli and secondly to fly out to Spain the next day. We actually had enough time to get Gallipoli done before our sail but hindsight is always seen in 20-20 vision, and I wouldn’t have thrown my GoPro in the ocean either if I had my time again.

Waking at 6am, we dragged ourselves onto the bus for the 4 and a half hour journey out to the Dardanelles. A light drizzle in Istanbul turned into persistent rain the closer we got to our destination, which felt like a bit of an omen in my opinion given the nature of what we were going to see.

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Exhibit from the Museum

Exhibit from the museum

After lunch in Kilitbahir we were met by our tour leader, none other than TJ himself from TJs tours. TJ is a Turk, who is married to an Aussie and speaks with a broader Aussie accent than most of us. Our first stop was the Kabatepe museum, basically an Anzac Day memorial from the Turks point of view. We felt that they made the exhibits as objective as possible, although in the life sized dioramas the Turks always seemed a bit taller than us, despite the fact that in our 4 weeks in Turkey I’d yet to see a Turkish guy or girl even approach the 6 foot mark. Having TJ there to supplement all that information was great as well. He is not just a tourist guide, but a Gallipoli historian as well, so he allowed us to see the war from both sides of the fence.

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Beach cemetery

Beach cemetery

Next, we headed to the Beach Cemetery, the first of many that we were to come across for the day. It was such a sobering experience to walk amongst these tombstones, hardly noticing, nor caring about the steady rainfall on your face, and to stand there, simultaneously mesmerised and horrified at the hundreds of Australian and New Zealand soldiers who had their lives torn away from them so early. It truly was so sad to see the tombstones with the soldiers ages written on them, many between the ages of 18 to 23, including that of Private Taylor, who was just 17 when he died.

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Anzac Cove

Anzac Cove

We visited several more cemeteries and monuments, including a story that isn’t, but should be told in our Anzac Day memorials. In this event, an Australian soldier was wounded and caught in between the crossfire of the ANZAC and Turkish trenches. Seeing this, one of the Turkish soldiers whipped off his undies, attached them to his bayonet and jumped out of the trench waving it in a ‘surrender’ motion. The firing stopped immediately and he walked over to the ANZAC, picked him up and then dropped him off at the edge of the ANZAC trench so that they could treat his wounds. He then turned back to his trench and as soon as he was back in his trench the firing continued afresh.

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We stopped off at Lone Pine, the scene of a fierce battle that amounted to the only real victory that the ANZACS achieved in the 9 months in Turkey outside of the gains made on the very first day of the invasion on April 25. Next a trip to the highest point on the peninsula, called Baby 700, where the New Zealanders briefly occupied the hill, critical in the quest to take the straits, before being driven back to the sea by tens of thousands of Turks just a few days later. There is a mass grave of 650 New Zealand soldiers here, where only 10 of them are identified, the rest must lie there forever, their exact whereabouts unknown.

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Lone Pine Cemetery

Lone Pine

All Australians and New Zealanders know that we had to retreat from Gallipoli eventually but the stalemate that persisted for 5 months towards the end of the occupation was news to me. It was great to see the respect shown by the Turks, not just for their troops but ours as well and the care taken to maintain the memorials for the dead, no matter what their nationality.

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Turkish cemetery

To ALL the fallen soldiers on the peninsula of the Dardanelles… Lest We Forget.

Gallipoli – Lest We Forget We came back to Istanbul for 2 days after Cappadocia, firstly to see Gallipoli and secondly to fly out to Spain the next day.