Zakopane to Split

From Zakopane it was onwards to Budapest, but we’d have to cross Slovakia first before we could get there. Along the way we stopped in Slovakia and had an awesome lunch at a little place that made a hearty leek and onion soup that comes served in a bread bowl. It was pretty tasty!

In the late afternoon we arrived in Budapest and headed out to a great place recommended by Ben the Trekker guide to have a 3 course meal as well as a boat cruise (which included 3 drinks in the price). We cruised up the and down the Danube River checking out all the amazing buildings lit up by night, it was our own personal little party boat for about an hour before we made our way back to the dock and then onwards to a night spot in our local district VII (they don’t have suburbs in the inner areas of Budapest instead they have a bunch of numbered districts).

The following morning we got up and headed off on a Bike tour to check out the city of Budapest (thankfully the rain held out that day) it lasted for about 3-4 hours and we got to zip around and check out a few highlights of the city such as St Stephen’s Cathedral and Square, The Opera House, Heroes Square and lastly Castle Hill. The Church was pretty impressive but I’ve seen a lot of them already so I wasn’t overly excited about seeing another. Heroes Square was quite cool and had statues of many of the various saints (mainly kings) who had some significance at one point or another; the most obvious example being Saint Stephen, the first king of Hungary. Castle Hill, as the name suggests, was on a hill so that was a bit of a hectic ride to the top, but after 10 minutes of powering up the hill we finally made it up the top and I snapped some excellent views of the city, parliament house and the Danube river. Apparently the Parliament house is the most expensive building in Hungary; it cost the same to erect/design/build it as it would to house a population of 46,000 with homes.

That night, we made our way to the fabled hot springs of Budapest, they were the perfect temperature and it was a great wind down after a long day of cycling and sightseeing. Where the hot springs come up the water temperature is about 75 degrees, so they actually have to cool it down a bit to make it tolerable haha. We had a great night and headed back to have some pizza back at the hostel, these pizzas were huge! Probably about the size of a whole pizza hut pizza in one slice, maybe just under, either way they were filling! We left a few people behind at Budapest as the Eastern Trekker has a few tours running down this route and some people were getting off here. But we also gained some new friends and moved on to Plitvice National Park.

We arrived in the late afternoon after a brief stopover at an open air war museum that had a few old tanks and other war machines from civil conflicts that have occurred in the Slavic area. On arrival in the park we organized a big BBQ and fried up some sausages and had a salad and some tasty grilled vegetables, by this time we’d gotten to know everyone and we had a big night of fun and laughs before we made our way back to the cabins for a good night of rest for lots of energy to explore the national park the following day.

We jumped up bright and early to get down to the national park and we spent a good 4 hours wandering around checking out the beautiful waterfalls, caves, lakes and the general greenery. I’ve never seen anything like it, this place was timeless. We walked through a good section of the park checking out the caves and waterfalls and then jumped on a ferry which takes you across one of the bigger sections of the lake, walked through some more and then jumped on a road train back down to a café for a coffee before our rendezvous at midday. It was a shame it was raining, but the rain didn’t dampen the day (no pun intended haha), I got some excellent shots all over the park, even some underwater ones. We then continued onwards to Split, after jumping off the bus I can feel it’s sort of warmer here already, maybe I can get some good weather too? We’ll see, but either way tomorrow it’s off to sail the Dalmatian coast, it should be great fun. =)




PS I've got lots of photos and I'll upload them when I get the chance to use wifi and stuff again.. at the moment I've only really had time to get to an internet cafe for a few minutes... perhaps after the sail because I'll have lots of great pictures.

Eastern Trekker

Jumping on the Eastern Trekker Bus in the morning I got chatting to the people I’d be spending the next 9 days with, we even played a little game of musical chairs to meet everyone on the bus, although I must admit it’s pretty hard to remember 40 people’s names right away especially if you meet them for 3 minutes haha It’s kinda like speed dating I suppose.

After a few hours we arrived in Kutna Hora, a place where a legend states that holy soil was spilt on the ground here and thus it became a holy place to be buried. So during the years of the plague many people were wanting to be buried at this location and would travel all the way across Europe. The main attraction however isn’t so much the graveyard as the church which is packed with human bones, there were countless skulls and other bones lining the small church, they even had a human bone made chandelier, can you imagine that as a centre piece in your house? After checking out the bone church I quickly went down and had a look at the Cathedral that was supposedly built on the “holy soil”. It was said that all those people were dug up as the church was built on the holy land and hence the bone church was made in another location using their remains to honour them.

From there it was onwards to Olomouc [still in the Czech Republic] (pronounced Olomotts) where we were staying at the flora hotel which was quite nice compared to the hostels I’ve been bunking in. Ben, our trekker guide, took us for a quick walk through town and around visiting another town clock, although this one was more centralized around communism and the worker rather than religion as in Prague. We also saw a few cool churches, one of which pope John Paul had visited in addition to mother Teresa. Later on we got a bite to eat at a local café/restaurant located in the town centre, where I tried some Czech beef goulash which was tasty as. That night we had a scheduled “plane party” which at first I had no idea what it involved but we actually went to a “plane” or a bar which looked like a plane inside and out for a great night out before hitting the hay and waking up to a fantastic buffet breakfast in the morning.

After a feed we jumped on the bus and made our way north to Poland where we stopped at the largest and main concentration and death camp used by the Nazis in WWII, Auschwitcz. The camp is segregated into several main sections I, II, and III. We only visited I and II as the third was mainly destroyed by the Nazis when they fled hearing the news of the approaching soviet forces. We walked through buildings where prisoners were housed, some of the cells were beyond cruelty, the standing cells were probably no more than 1 meter x 1 meter and only a 2 meters tall, four people would be crammed in there at a time forced to stand in pitch black darkness for hours or days on end usually dying of suffocation. There were also stories told of people begging for mercy and priests asking to step in another’s place when groups were selected for the death wall (where prisoners were lined up along a wall in Camp II and shot), one person gives testimony that he survived the holocaust and the camp because an honorable priest stepped in his place.

The disgusting experiments that were conducted on living human beings by the Nazis were despicable, they would infect people by stitching hay or other things inside them and seeing how long people would live. Often experiments were conducted on small children; one baby didn’t even look one year old. A Nazi doctor was said to have effectively established a process which could sterilize 1000 Jewish women every 24 hours through injecting a serum directly into a woman’s fallopian tubes. This place was overwhelming, something like 3 to 4 million people died here, that’s the population of Queensland and I’ve never felt chills like I had when I was walking around this place, I don’t think I’d ever want to go back. But it is certainly something that people should experience to understand the gravity of the injustices of history; you don’t truly appreciate or understand the gravity and severity of these events or just how lucky we are today in the modern world, without having seen a haunting and confronting place like Auschwitchz.

After several hours at the camps I was more than ready to get out of there and onwards to Krakow to discover the beauty of Poland and possibly have a stiff drink while having a think about what I’d just seen and experienced. When we arrived in Krakow we prearranged a meeting at a happening club, The Diva Club, in the Krakow centre and had our own little VIP section for a few hours early in the night. I didn’t see her, but apparently Nikki Hilton was downstairs in another VIP area for some promotion she’d just done. Anyways during the night we danced away and I even got grabbed by a polish hen’s party to have a bit of a dance with them down on the dance floor, overall a fun night.

The next morning the weather again wasn’t so good so we opted to go for a bit of walk around Krakow with an umbrella (but not before I grabbed some new jeans for 50 euros or 240 zloty as they use in Poland). We had a guided walk around the city and saw several of the churches and markets squares and visited the city walls and lastly the Krakow Royal Palace, where all the kings and important historical figure were buried. Recently there was a bit of controversy as the last president was buried there, mainly because he died in unfortunate circumstances from a plane crash, but up until that point it had only been for royals or important religious figures as the people in Poland are very religious. At the end of the tour we grabbed an excellent baguette bake style food with melted cheese and mushrooms and all sorts of goodies depending on what you wanted, and it only cost the equivalent of 2 euros.

From there it was on to Zakopane a small mountain town in the south of Poland with beautiful views and fantastic food. When we arrived mid morning we made our way down to the market and main shopping strip to have a look about and grab a bite to eat. After lunch I caught the tram up to the top of the hill that overlooks the town and got some great photos before trying some local cheese, and grabbing a beer while elevated over the nice little town. For dinner that night we made our way over to a place dubbed “the meat palace” by the eastern trekker crew, we got a massive platter feast of meat and potato before we ended up heading back to our nice little hotel. The breakfast the next morning was pretty good, nearly as good as Olomoucs hotel, I can’t wait to get to Croatia, hopefully for some nice SUNNY weather!

Prague

From Berlin it was off to Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic, along the way we made a stop over at Tezerine, which was where a minor holding camp was set up by the Nazis during the war to hold people before they were sent off the Dachau, Austwich and other concentration and death camps, many famous Jewish people were sent there prior to being trained off to the other destinations.


The bus arrived there in the afternoon and a few of us made our way to a pretty cool bar/club for the night not too far from the hostel. It had all sorts of mechanical and engine related stuff all over the walls very cool, and a fan made with pieces of irons. Nick, the Busabout tour guide, was having his birthday so he recommended the place, it was a great night. There were a few others I met on the bus who are also going to do the Eastern Trekker tour down to Split, as well as the Croatian Sail, so it looks like I’ll have some friends for the next few weeks.


The next day in Prague it was again raining, a pretty miserable day and I still wasn’t feeling 100% so had a sleep in to try and beat the bug before heading down to the chemist again for another round of drugs to try to kick this thing. Once I got my cough syrup and cold and flu tablets I did start to feel a little better, but overall it was a very relaxed day of recovery, the breakfast was pretty good though, eggs, sausage, bread, spreads, cereal, cheese and cold meats, well worth getting up for.


The following day I made my way around town (after downing some syrup, a million tablets and some nasal spray) getting some great photos of the clock tower, the streets and the astronomical clock located in the town square. Each hour it goes off giving a little mechanical show where a skeleton rings the bell and various figures rotate and move about. It wasn’t exactly the most exciting thing in the world but the clock was quite cool. Apparently the maker (who built the clock during the 15th century) had his eyes cut out (or something similar) so that he couldn’t make another more impressive clock in another city. In revenge he got his apprentice to take him to the tower where he sabotaged it and made it inoperable for about 100 years before they could find another clockmaker who could repair and restore it. haha


After watching the clock a group of us from Busabout made our way over the Charles Bridge which was built by King Charles so as to withstand the elements, and it’s been around since the 13th century so I’d say that it has passed the test. Along the bridge there are 30 statues which are all pretty cool, depictions of Jesus, etc. However there is one statue on the bridge which you are supposed to touch in one spot if you want good luck and the other is supposed to make you get married or pregnant within 12 months. However I didn’t know this at the time! Looks like I better start planning a wedding! Haha The group we were with said that you touched the dog and it gave you bad luck but the saint falling was supposed to give you good luck. It wasn’t until later that day after some lunch that we went on a free walking tour of the city to see most of the city highlights and the tour guide said otherwise about the statue!


We made our way around the city, seeing a few monuments recognising the years of communism only two decades ago, to an area where scenes from mission impossible were filmed, stopping at the “pissing statues” of Prague, the John Lennon memorial wall and eventually up to the Prague castle which was quite cool, although it wasn’t so much a castle but rather castle grounds but it contained a church and several courtyards and a garden, as well as a vineyard! That night a group went out for dinner and I had some traditional duck cooked in the Czech fashion with some cabbage and dumplings. It was excellent!


After another night of rest I got up still feeling pretty average but went for a wander again around town, that night I organized the clocktower pub crawl which was, as the name suggests, right near the clocktower. The night started with 2 and a half hours of unlimited drinks for 14 euros, and they had beer pong tables which made for a lot of fun, although I must recommend to everyone to never play people from the US or Canada, YOU WILL LOSE lol The night got pretty rowdy as we moved on before eventually making our way home so I could sleep before I had to get up to catch the Eastern Trekker in the morning.