Aparthotel Villa Nova Neum

... themselves from the top deck of the boat and a small piece of jewellery to the bottom of the sea...forever. Maybe we could be like that bit in Titanic and I could go back there when I'm old and grey...but she chucked it in rather than retrieving it. Oh well, nice thought nonetheless.

... Dalmatia. The indiscriminate bombing of a city like Dubrovnik is not only a crime against these people, but a theft from the rest of the World - an eye for an eye just leaves everybody blind. The massive destruction of this place is beyond words, excuse, or explanation, and I offer my warm thanks to the many governments who contributed and mostly to the people of the town - my slavic kin - for their efforts at rebuilding what they have. It is worth it.

The bus ride to Dubrovnik also included pretty views of the coastline (half of it the same as the ride from Mostar), but unfortunately we were inland for the sunset. When we arrived in Dubrovnik, Russell and I had a rather difficult time finding our hostel. We figured there'd be a tourist office or internet cafe where we could look up the address and get directions once we got there, but no such luck. So we headed to the area of ...

How do you determine if you can count being to a state or a country? Here's what we decided. 1. You have to actually be outside in the place. Therefore, driving through a place in a car, train or bus does not count. Neither do airports. 2. You have to contribute to the local economy. Thus, you have to buy something from somebody in the state or country. Further, Rule Two is subject to Rule One- In other words, duty free airport ...

... just four doors down the corridor from us. They were concerned yesterday that we'd only be four at our cruise critic get together this afternoon Karen thinks there'll be maybe ten now. Didn't do much at all really but that's what sea days are for - battery re-charging. Bit late to CC get together and they're all there - Karen and Mary, Hank and Suzanne, Allan and B? (his wife) and Richard and Linda. We ...

We took an early bus to Vis to give us a chance to look around, but there's not really much to look at other than a Roman ruin that's not that impressive and was locked anyway. Some people were heading to the beaches, but it was far too hot for me already, at 9am. Perhaps the weather was getting more like Tirana! I wandered around the old cemetery there, and noticed a nice tradition of putting photos of the deceased on their graves. It seems like a good idea to me, to help people ...

... Bosnian food! It was great! And it was only about a 5 minute walk to the city center, which was very convenient, with me being the lazy bugger that I am... The old town of Mostar is very picturesque! One of my favourites old towns to date in fact...the bridge in the center of it, is called Stari Most and is a UNESCO site...it was rebuilt, after being damaged during the war... I really enjoyed Mostar and for those of you who ever venture out to Bosnia-Hercegovina, visit it!

... fought together defending against the Serbs. Once the Serbs were driven out, the Croats turned on the Muslims, bombarding their side of the city, rounding them up in camps, etc. In this part of the war the most important symbol in the city, the Old Bridge, "Stari Most" which was built in the 1500s and where the city got its name, was destroyed along with many other bridges and most buildings in the whole city. An exact replica ...

... offending item... Or, "Vinny, what's that you've been lying in?" whilst brushing off my back. Or, "Mike, come on it's time to wake up Mike, come on", and the inevitable 20 minutes later "Get the **** out of bed Mike!" ............. Or, "Mike, if I've told you once I've told you a hundred times, take your hand off my thigh"..... One of these comments aren't true. On the travel olympics, just to reassure our parents, we're not becoming super competitive on everything. Just the ...

"I don't want it to be one of these awful, tacky stag nights that everyone seems to think are so important these days........ Strippers, obviously" -- Men Behaving Badly A quick hats off to a lovely Kiwi girl called Lucy, who joined Vinny and myself in our attempt to spend every remaining penny of Croatian money the night before we left Dubrovnik. It was a difficult challenge, one of the toughest we had faced so far - we had to deal with draconian licensing laws ...