Best Western Hotel My Place Nis

... very day (the Italian prime minister came for a political visit and we saw him while he watched a military parade). The country is cheap though and we only spent 7 euros for 2 people for an entire day.

Special thanks to Bernhard for letting us use his shower before we got on the evening bus to Istanbul. We are not necessarily looking forward to the 2nd night on the bus in a row, but we are hardcore backpackers and that's the way a world trip should start!! ;)

Sofia….what can we say……a perfect place to get lost ( both metaphoric and phisically…..try to understand the cirillic alphabet, the written names of the streets and you would agree with us….) However a really quiet city, completely unaware of us as ...

A beautiful afternoon sailing on Lake Iskar, 40 km from Sofia. This is the lake where I learned to sail many years ago, and it was wonderful to go back. We sailed with my cousin Reny, her husband Rosen on their boat. Their little girls Bobi and Lili were great sailors. My brother Plamen also joined us.

This is where the story starts to get interesting. I decided that I didnt want to be a normal tourist and take a plane back to Zagreb from Dubrovik. I was trying to get to Sofia, Bulgaria and the quickest way is thru Montenegro - passing Kosovo and then into Serbia. 24 hours of traveling: I caught a 5 hour bus ride from Dubrovnik to Podgorica, Montenegro. Montenegro is a country that I would love to rent a car, bike, moped and just travel up and ...

Arrive in Nis, very hot. Trz to decide where to next. See bus leaving in few minutes for Belgrad, decide to take it. Express bus, nearlz non stop, there in 3 hours. arrive about 5 PM. Take late 21:00 train to Budabest. Four of us in 6 compartment car. Drunk annoying Serb finally leaves us. Good conversation with young attractive Polish girl studzing architecture. Wants to design attractive liveable apartment houses for modest income families.

... bent its beak into a smirk as if to say "I can´t believe you actually paid to ride the Balkan Express". P**haps they w**e headed for slaught**, but at least they´d arrive in a timely mann** - how dare this train have the audacity to be called the Balkan `Express´! Back inside the train, meanwhile, my attention was drawn to a suspicious man who kept walking past my compartment, eyeing me with the malevolent look of a clichéd TV s ...

... years in australia, he spoke english as well as 10 other languages. he had been involved in the diamond mining business and obviously made a lot of money and had come back to serbia to build something for his people, a water side restaurant, he was also very giving with his money and told stories of buying icecream cones for all the kids in town - during w.w.2 he didn't have icecream and now he can afford to do those things, it's only money. we had ...

... Belgrade - Sofia train line i wouldnt have come here at all, but since it is i felt i had to stop for at least for a day. The other sights in town except the old Roman palace are a fortress in the centre of the city, and a tower a little way out of it. The tower is called the Skull Tower and is literaly made out of human skulls. The Turks scalped about 5000 Serbs and a made a tower out of their skulls ...

... Kula Cela, a fairly gruesome pillar, was erected when the Serbs were still at war with the Turks (quite some time ago) by the Turkish warlord after a large battle (1000 Serb and 10000 Turk deaths) to serve as a warning to any other Serbs who might consider going against his rule. I cant help but feel British politics might be in a very different state if Tony adopted this policy. Unfortunately, only the base of the tower now remains and ...

... Kolasin was the base for Beth's volunteer workcamp, which seemed comprised of a raffish group of Balkan youths all crowded into one abandoned jailhouse at the edge of town. I could sense apprehension in Beth's voice as a group of Montenegrin volunteers offered us some white bread and Nutella for dinner. But the neon jumpsuit-clad leader eased our worries by taking us out for Turkish tea and impressing upon ...