TravelStream™ news feed for member gr8escape on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/gr8escape en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:41 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gr8escape/2/1209396960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gr8escape/2/1209396960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/gr8escape/2/1209396960/tpod.html Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:41 -0400 Back in the ring to take another swing

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Istanbul, Turkey

(C) I wish I had paid more attention in school. The history of Turkey is very influential in the history of America, but I never had any context for how or why. This point of rock where one finds the Topkapi Palace may be one of the most influential points of rock in history and it's pretty breathtaking to walk out on the palace promenade and look across the Golden Horn and view the islands out on the Sea of Marmara. It's pretty breathtaking to think of the Turks keeping watch over this seaway for over 500 years from this vantage point... to think of the Byzantines looking out on this same view contemplating the invasion of Mehmed and his Ottoman hordes who crawled over their walls and destroyed their 1000 year-old empire... to think of the Romans who thought this place would be a good setting for their eastern capital 1800 years ago... to think of the stories that ascribe the Great Flood to the breaching of the Bosphorus and the creation of the Black Sea. I am in awe standing on this promontory. The Europeans created much more impressive castles and palaces than this seat of the Sublime Porte, but nobody had a more interesting view.
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Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey

(S) Finally, we're in Turkey. Getting here, however, was not that pleasant of an experience. First of all, we couldn't read the signs in the Sofia train station about how late our train was and when it would be leaving and from what platform. Finally, it arrived from Belgrade, and not knowing how long we would have, we ran up the stairs to the platform. Unfortunately, at the top of the stairs was a step down, that I missed of course and stepped off, twisting my ankle in the whole painful process. Since I was wearing my pack, which is full of all my belongings and camping equipment for five weeks, I toppled over and fell on the side of another step, hitting the side of my left leg pretty damn hard. I lay crumpled and crying at the top of the stairs with Bulgarians stepping over and around me for what seemed like about 2 hours. I was able to drag myself, with backpack still attached to my back and unable to stand, up to sit on the small step I had bruised my leg on and was just sitting there. Finally, my travel partner appeared. I have no idea what he thought when he saw me sitting on the ground like that. Sadly, he had to carry both packs. We then realized the car number on our tickets did not exist in Bulgarian train reality. We were told to get on and find a room. Nice. Now, since Chad is carrying both packs and the train is seconds from pulling out, he hurries to climb on, only to slip backwards and nearly goes under the train. Luckily the packs save him. And we get on the train! We also find an empty car where we set up camp. And I proceed to crack open the two bottles of Croatian wine. Hey, I'm in pain, ok. Only to be awoken at the Bulgarian border at 2 in the morning. Then again at the Turkish border where we have to get off the train in our pajamas (and possibly still drunk from Croat wine) and file over to get a visa for 15 euros each and then go to border control. All at 3 in the morning. Luckily, we had some money unlike some American kids who were desperately trying to find the funds to enter the country. We donated $20 to the cause and they found the rest. We did actually make it to Istanbul. Where we had some trouble figuring out the luggage lockers, but had success in finding delicious pastries for breakfast. And then had our first taste of how hard it is to get coffee with breakfast in Turkey. Ummm...what about this Turkish coffee I've heard so much about, folks? Now how about a hotel? Well, our guidebook gives us some options, none of which we can actually locate to save our lives. We settle on one that looks nice, finagle a price much lower than the first one quoted, and run off to locate our bags. On returning, we discover our room is roughly the size of our Chevy Spark and both of our backpacks will not fit on the floor space at the same time. I throw a smallish fit and my travel partner has us moved to a larger room. Which won't be ready until 5. Off to Aya Sofya, then, chaps! This basilica was built in the 6th Century AD and was the largest cathedral in the world for 1000 years. Of course when the Turks conquered the city in 1453 and Constantinople became Istanbul, the Aya Sofya became a mosque. There were approximately 400000 tourists in the Aya Sofya and it still seemed empty. What a place. Now a quick note about our first dinner in Istanbul. The menu looked nice when we looked at it outside. We are seated, order our first humus in Turkey, it arrives, and it's what? Peanut butter. I am not even kidding. With french bread. No pide (pita). Now, we know better, but we sat there and ate it like good little tourists. Terrible. All the funny trials aside, this city is amazingly beautiful and friendly. I understand how people get lost here for weeks. (C) I'm still impressed with the comfort and ease of Istanbul - notwithstanding our peanut-butter hummus. Our NEW hotel room - not the postage stamp one - is fair sized and has giant windows looking out across the Golden Horn. We get delicious Turkish breakfast on the roofdeck and we are right smack in the middle of town. A fellow traveler in Montenegro told us to just find a hotel near the train station and I couldn't be more pleased. The neigborhood is very comfortable, has lots of good restaurants and a very happy little baklava store. We negotiated the rate down to 35 euros per night and this was a great stop!
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Rila, Bulgaria

(S) I don't actually have any words to describe Rila Monastery, other than to say it is one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I have ever been in my entire life. I walked through the gate and the site literally took my breath away enough to make me sit down on the ground. I could not get up or say anything (truly a feat in itself) for about 5 minutes. The pictures do not do it justice and I hope you all have a chance to see it in your lifetime.The monastery rents out converted monk chambers as basic pension rooms to guests, but unfortunately they were all full. Full, you ask? How could that be in the middle of April in Bulgaria? Well, weary travelers, check the Orthodox calendar before you go venturing off to Orthodox monasteries. It's Easter! Shouldn't my Serbian Orthodox travel partner know this?? Guess not, so after a few minutes of being disappointed, we looked at the beautiful place and headed for our car to find a place to stay. We found a really great hotel down the road, after stopping in at one that was again full, but had a great little restaurant with a fireplace. Our room was huge, with a view out on the stream. We took a 3 hour nap because that's what happens when you take the super noisy night train from Belgrade. You get tired, kids. And we're old. Then it was back to the little restaurant down the road with the fireplace. I had my first taste of kavarma, a delicious baked casserole with pork, onions, tomatoes, and an egg on top. It's awesome. Trust me. Sidenote: Fans of The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova will recognize this monastery from the book. If you haven't - read it. Thanks to Jarrod and Coy for the recommendation.(C) For once, get ready folks, I agree with Sara absolutely. Rila is a must - drive your own car if you can, stay at the Monastery, eat at the little restaurant back down the road to Rila where the people were SO friendly, the wine delicious, my cheese stuffed peppers awesome and the company sparkling. I am a big fan of this place. Good job Bulgaria, this TOTALLY makes up for Sofia.
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Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria

(S) Pulling into Sofia at 8 in the morning, we were impressed with the modernity of the train station. We were soon less impressed with the international ticket office where we were not sure if we had a ticket to Istanbul or Kiev. Fingers crossed for Istanbul. Next was finding the Avis office, which was somewhere downtown. Nice. We wandered around for a while, had a giant fight for good measure to get it out of the way for Bulgaria, and found the car rental place in some back alley of Sofia, complete with giant guard dog. We left Sofia immediately if not sooner and headed for Rila Monastery.(C) On this town, I do not disagree one bit. It seems Sofia might not make the top fifty list - partly because they don't think addresses are important, at all - partly because nearly every person we met scowled at us. These people seem really unhappy, although I guess if I lived here I might be too. We did find the car rental place, no smiles and got out of dodge asap.
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Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro

(S) Oh thank goodness, we're back in Belgrade. My favorite European city. After spending the night at the lovely 3 star Hotel National, we meander through the streets of this Serbian capital. Holy crap, I do not like this country. Ok, that might seem a bit harsh, but let's be honest - the Serbian people are strange and not one bit friendly. They seem to think tourists are terrible, which I will admit, I do get tired of tour buses, too, but come on. And our "hotel" was really beyond description. Seriously, one of the worst places I've ever stayed on my life. So, after a refreshing shower with towels the size of tea towels, we head into the city.We of course get into a huge discussion about who was right in the Serbia vs. US battle of late when the US acknowledged Kosovo and Serbia decided to retaliate like a 5 year old and burn down our embassy and bring home their ambassador from DC. I will admit, I don't know all the facts and what led up to this, but I will say I am on the side of Kosovo and our support of their independence as a state. Nuf said. Ready to get out of this country.(C) You're just pissed about the de LUX accommodations last night. They can't help it that there were holes in the sheets, or water leaking out of the sewer onto the bathroom floor. And can you fault them for the smell? Come on. But the breakfast was the coup de grace. Ah, brought me back to the old Tito days. Cigarettes and eggs - please waiter, go easy on whatever it is you're brushing onto my plate over there. And I'd like another Tang please. OK - enough bashing on the worst hotel in the world. Please readers - avoid this one. Hotel National. Signs from the highway between Zagreb and Belgrade, just outside of town. LISTEN - no matter HOW tired you are, or how many flat tires are on your car, keep driving. You'll find something else.Now - for your ethnic-baiting comments, I'll give you that the Serbian thugs who burned down the American Embassy were stupid. I think the Serbian Government should have responded like an ACTUAL government and condemned the action. Put some people in lockup over it. But they couldn't really, could they, cause they were too busy pulling their ambassadors from all over the world.Still, I sympathize and wonder why the United States is so gung-ho about piecemealing the Balkans. How would the U.S. feel if the other countries of the world recognized Texas' independence??? Ok, bad example. What if South Carolina wanted to secede?? How would good old Honest Abe have reacted to that? Burned down Atlanta? There is no refuge in hypocrisy. But that said, the Serbian Government deserves no empathy here, unfortunately.Belgrade is a nice place though. A little odd, but no stranger than Prague, in my book. The Kalemegdan is a beautiful park, the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers is impressive, and the pedestrian streets around the old town are certainly worth a wander. There were no beggars, no hasslers, and we had a VERY good pizza, shopska salad and stag beer along the way. And by the way, this Jelen Pivo is about as good as pilsner gets!
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Mostar, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

(S) The bridge in Mostar, spanning the Neretva River, connecting the Muslim and Christian Croat sides of the city of Mostar, is one of the most identifiable sites in all of Bosnia. It was built by the Ottomans in 1566. Sadly, the bridge was bombed into smithereens in during the war in 1993 by the Croats. The bridge was rebuilt and reopened in 2004. The day we were there, it seemed to be some sort of presidential visit, as Bosnia has 3 of them, and there was a ceremonial meeting on the bridge. Then 3 dudes jumped the 20 meters (60 feet folks) into the freezing water. Then we continued on our way back to Belgrade.(C) The presidential visit was pretty cool. Not sure which presidents it was though. It's funny that we recognized all the same characters we know and love back home. Secret service guys - though these guys are NOT too serious about their jobs. Advance people running around pushing divers into the water and ordering tourists to move all to make excellent presidential photos. Weird reporters sporting a dollars' worth of clothes and 10,000 dollars in camera equipment. 25 year old aides, dressed like models, following along behind carrying important papers and the keycodes to Bosnia's nuclear arsenal - all looking extremely important and very busy. Minor local politicians jockeying for honorary space in the photos next to the Presidents. But for the Bridge and the minarets, we could have been at the White House Rose Garden...
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Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik, Croatia

(S) Sadly, our time in Dubrovnik has come to a close. One last night within the old city walls to do some interneting and dinner and we are off. It was hard to say goodbye to our little apartment, but I got their card and I'll be back - or maybe one of you will go!(C) Dubrovnik is top five. That's all I got to say.
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Kotor, Kotor, Serbia and Montenegro

(C) I've had a very romantic image of Montenegro that goes back many many years and at least as far as the last James Bond movie where they played the million dollar poker game in a place called Montenegro actually filmed in Vancouver. But seriously I've always been curious to know Why. Why Montenegro? Why is it there? I'll tell you why - because nobody could ever get through these bloody mountains - or maybe they didn't want to fight the feisty Montenegrins for this very hardscrabble, but beautiful piece of the world. If rocks were gold, the Irish and the Montenegrins would rule the world!! But sadly for them - and fortunately for the rest of us - this is not the case. And the geologically challenged Montenegrins are stuck with a lot of worthless rocks to move about and build fences with.We took a MOST amazing drive up the mountain from Kotor - and I mean UP the mountain. We were headed to Cetinje and guided up a different "scenic" path by a local we met on the trek up to the fortress. Of course we were walking up to the fortress because that's what we do - we come to a town, locate the highest point, and start climbing the stairs. Halfway up this 3000 or so step journey, we met a local who told us the view from the Cetinje road was really nice.After 50 or so hairpin switchbacks and over 5000 FEET of vertical climb, we reached the pass over the "hill" to Cetinje. And they used to do this with goats. Actually, the still do it with goats here. But that's another story.The scenery here is BREATHTAKING! But like most breathtaking scenes, there isn't much to eat. Think, the Sahara, or the Alaska tundra, or Ireland. I'll let the pics speak for themselves, but the Montenegrin psyche becomes very clear after surveying their rocky and stubborn homeland. No wonder the Turks didn't make the effort to overcome Montenegro - out of all the other Balkan lands, these were just too hard. Even the Serbs let the Montenegrins go their own way with little fuss.
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Orebic, Croatia

(S) Ahh, the last town on the peninsula. Chad of course is not satisfied and wants to take the ferry to Korcula and Korcula City - luckily, the ferry lands about 3 kilometers from town and he decides "too hard." We walk around town, searching for "nefles," the nameless fruit we fell in love with in Portugal that grows all over southern Europe. We don't find any, but keep driving, until we nearly run over some goats and Chad finds his new girlfriends among their ranks. We continue on and come to the actual last town on the Peninsula, Loviste, and sit on a dock and enjoy the scenery and freeze our feet off while dipping them in the ocean.(C) And we get LOTS of glares about our serbian license plates as we drive along the dock at Loviste. This is not what I was expecting from the Croatian islands. Although we didn't get to Korcula, we could see it from just across the inlet, and I was expecting Greek Islands. This is so much more like Corfu. Trees, castles, walls, villages - it's very nice. We both agree that sailing around here would be a wonderful way to spend a few days.
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Dubrovnik, Croatia

(S) First a bit of how we arrived in Dubrovnik. Of course, being the travelers that we are, we do not have any sort of hotel reservations in Dubrovnik. We have the name of a campground that we think might have cabanas or some sort of cabins to rent or we could pitch our tent. Sadly, the clouds that followed us all over Western Europe last year are with us in full travel force and it looks like it might rain in Dubrovnik, too. We manage to locate the campground, go in, find out there are no cabins, and of course my travel partner puts me on the spot in front of the owner and asks if I want to stay there or not. This causes a minor disturbance in the force when I glare at him for putting me on the spot like that but we drive away safely. Needless to say, I did not want to spend another night in a torrential downpour in our tent. Now we are in a bit of a tight spot. It's getting dark, we don't know where we're staying, the guidebook is neither Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, or Let's Go Get Another Guidebook and is therefore ZERO help whatsoever. We end up driving out of the city, getting stuck in a tiny town called Cavtat, which seemed to be only one-way, nearly drive into the ocean, once being about 500 feet above on a cliff, and finally we stop at a restaurant in a town called Mlini outside of Dubrovnik. This restaurant also has rooms, which are of course all full. But the owner has called his friend, who also has rooms. Oh good lord, what have we gotten ourselves into now. The friend shows up, we follow him up and around and upside down on a very narrow road, only to find the most beautiful apartment in all of Croatia. It's a good price, has it's own kitchen and bathroom AND a giant deck overlooking the sea. We'll take it. Victory for the clueless travelers.Ok, so now you know. The next day, we ventured into Dubrovnik, reluctantly parked our car with its Serbian license plates (serious rookie mistake) in a public lot, and headed inside the walls. We spent the rest of the day walking the city walls and enjoying the quiet streets, making us glad we were not there during cruise ship season. We found a pretty great restaurant and had some Italian food, which is pretty much Dubrovnik food, with all the Italian influence here.(C) You forget to mention that genius here bought a Hrvatska (HR) sticker and put it over the SRB sticker on the back of the car - so now only our license plates (which scream Beograd) betray our vehicular origins. So we get glares from the front and smiles from the back.It's important to emphasize the rookie mistake here of driving the Serbian car through Bosnia and Croatia. We really didn't think anything of it since the rental agencies don't say anything. Thrifty even lets you rent in one capital and drop off in another free of charge. They really only seem to care whether you take your car to Kosovo or Albania. BUT if you want to cross borders in your car, be prepared for the hostility. It goes both ways. In Trebinje, a pro-Serb town in southern Bosnia (just 30 miles from Dubrovnik in the Republika Srpska), they glared at our HR sticker on the back of the car like we were traitors!Bit of a disclaimer - I'm a quarter Serb, my mother's family (Orthodox) came from Lika in Croatia, where my ancestors lived for hundreds of years. Hundreds of years in Croatia, but NOT Croatian because they were Orthodox instead of Catholic. The Croats summarily kicked them out of their homes of 10 generations - BUT, this crime against the Krajina Serbs does not provide an appropriate excuse for what the Serbian Government did in 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.
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