The emerald Isle

General post office in the center of Dublin

-What's the must-do things in Dublin?
-Drink
Arriving at Dublin airoprt we grabbed a taxi to our hotel and asked him the usual question (above), and got an instant reply, which was in line with what we'd been told from everyone before we left.

We did however want to experience a bit more than just their rich pub culture, so after we'd settled in at the hotel we found our way to the trainstation and went a bit outside the center to see the Shackelston photo exhibition.
Arriving the Dun Laoghaire we kind of hoped for the best in terms of finding our way, and it worked quite well. The exhibition did however close an hour earlier than expected, so we were only able to do a quick run through the small room, stealing an even quicker glance of the exhibition.

We even met new friends on the train back home

Figuring out we really hadn't eaten since the flight we stopped at what has to be one of Dublins finer resturants, the steak we did order was at least one of my best meals of 2014, and with it now reading December it does say something. But thenagain, my food-memory is probably located in my short term memory.
A supposed quick stop at the hotel before checking out some bars after this excursion turned into an early night, and as we had to leave the hotel at about 6:00 the next morning it was probably for the best.

Getting up that early was easy as the beds were too hard and we'd wake up every 10 mins, finding our way to the pick-up was a bit more tricky, but still very doable and we were picked up by Joe who was our driver for the daytrip to Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.
Joe was, as most Irish, a very friendly fellow who was highly knowledgeable about his country's history and the places he took us to.

Carrick-a-rede

There were only two others on the trip, making it even easier to get to know everyone.
Ater a few minor 'eat/drink/toilet'-stops as the drive was quite long we arrived on Carrick-a-Rede a suspended tow bridge over some cliffs. Really not pleasant to walk over and look down, but the wind had increased for our return making it a less comfortable walk. At this stop we also got a nice glimpse of the Irish coastline in all its wonderfull rawness.
Giant's Causeway which was the main stop was only about 15mins drive from here (see video), at this point the weater started to act more as the forecast had threatened with - rain, wind, lower temperature and a bit more rain.
It was thankfully on and off a bit, so it was really just pouring down when we were at the real center of the causeway. The pictures at this point did not get as fresh as I could've liked, but with the amount of rain I did get on my lens I should be quite happy with how most turned out.
The rock formations has two stories behind them, choose yourself which you believe.
The first being lava formations created 50-60million years ago.
The second being the giant Fionn MacCoul created the causeway them when he got sick of a giant in Scotland badgering him all the time, and one day decided to go over to teach him a lesson. The story is quite enjoyable, but it differs from where you read it, and there's no real point in me making yet another bad version of it here.

Basalt formations at Giant's Causeway

Our travel companions had opted to eat before going out to the causeway, and one of them even got lost and didn't find her way back before 45mins after the agreed time.
We picked up the speed and got into Belfast which was also part of the itineary.
We could either choose to stop several places the driver recommended for a few minutes or walk around the city for about an hour, the first option was quickly decided.

BigFish - Kiss it!

First stop being the Titanic-museum as the famous ship was built here. We didn't have the time to go in, but at least we saw the building and some parts in the lobby and giftstore.
Next stop was one by the old customs house were they'd also had a large sculpture of a fish outside
The story goes that if you kiss the fish, and you have to use toungue, you will gain all the fish's wisdom. And if you concider doing it, you probably need all the wisdom you can get.

Third stop was at a large food market close to the city hall, this is a place I'd love to have more time to try a kangaroo burger or one of the many other very tempting edibles they had for sale.

We also got a short drive through the areas of the city where there'd been bombings, riots etc and got to see some of the murals that still showed part of the history.
And then there was the long way home of course, but still a great day trip.

Saturday was spent walking around Dublin, looking in stores and then going to the Guiness Factory. This is top of the to-do list everywhere for Dublin, and I really can't understand why. It was a factory, they had some explanations on how it's brewed and that's more or less it. The plus was a very energetic director in the videos and a bar at the top where you could have a view of the city.
Walking back to the center instead of taking a bus/taxi was very easy and enjoyable, got past a few old churches and found another decent resturant before reaching Temple Bar area at about 16:30, which was just in time to meet the very drunk locals in the streets....

Anchors by Carrick-a-rede

Cliff island by Carrick-a-rede

Castle ruins close to Giant's Causeway

Demilitarized Zone and Doosan Bears

Having done my homework it was obvious that a trip to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) (which is a horribly incorrect name for the area) was a must. A trip to the Joint Security Area (JSA) within the DMZ was apparently the main highlight of many peoples trips to South Korea. So we'd booked this trip several weeks before leaving, sent our papers to UN to be cleared and was ready, but the South/North Korea conflict being what it is, the trip to JSA was cancelled while we were in SK.
South Korean protesters sent 200,000 leaflets with anti-Pyongyang information/propaganda over the border, NK does of course not like this and started shooting at the balloon and the border was shut down.
The SK government says this is within their freedom of speech, but the activists gives them a heads up before they do it so the border patroll can make arrangements. Happens quite often, but still annoying that it had to be the day when we had planned to go there. A tip for any other travelers, book this trip on one of your first days, increasing your chance of changing your date if they open it again before you leave.

There were no other days we were able to go to JSA before going back home, but we were able to re-book for a trip to DMZ so we at least got to see NK from afar.

The DMZ is a two kilometers border between north and south with strickt regulations, a few people live here, farmers and a few who runs some small stores, other than that it's military and wildlife.

Pick-up was early and we joined a huge bus with mostly americans on the trip.
The first stop was a viewpoint of the DMZ itself, overlooking the river and that was about it.
The next was more interesting where we first were given a short view of a border museum, before being presented an extremely pro-USA propaganda movie about the border situation. The fun/scary/surprising thing about this movie was that most of the americans didn't react at all to how it was created, but they did agree when I pointed out things like the graphics of the south engulfing the north at the end and some other "not-so-balanced" views in the short movie.
After this we were able to go into one of the attack-tunnels NK had dug towards Seoul, but never been able to use. There were apparently several clear signs that it was NK who had dug them and not SK which some sources claim. Personally I can't say that I have any idea, but there are enough people skilled in propaganda to have been able to build this in a way that it "had" to be NK, while it was themselves who dug it to gain support. Purely speculations, but I am sure the story would've been told differently on the other side of the border.

Next stop was the viewpoint towards the NK propaganda-town where they'd set up speakers calling for people to cross the border just after the war went into seize-fire. There was a massive flagpole which they called the "ridiculous flagpole" in SK as it was immensly high.
From what we understood, NK had set up a flagpole, SK had then set up a higher flagpole before NK increased their to this side.
As with so many topics it seems to me that we only get the SK/USA-version of these conflicts, which we have no way of really verifying if are correct or adapted to fit their view better.

Last stop was a trainstation SK had built towards NK in a hope they could be able to connect to the mainland in other ways than just planes/boats, but where NK has never used their side even if it's already built. SK used this station now as a kind of tourist goal, but I am very glad we booked a full trip and didn't just go here ourselves. We wouldn't really been able to see anything else than this trainstation if we'd done that.



After the DMZ tour we stopped by the shirts store where we'd ordered several tailored shirts. These were ready on time, but the fit wasn't really what we'd hoped for. They were however thankfully too broad around the belly, and this is one of the easier things to fix. Hamilton Shirts were without any quarrel willing to sew them in and have them delivered to our hotel the next day. They did as promised and the shirts (well, the 4 out of 8 I've used so far) fits perfectly. I will return to get more shirts from them if I ever return to Seoul.

We spent the remainer of the day at the tech-area in the city looking through various stores with gaming consoles, photocameras/lenses and more or less all other goods in those categories. I bought a lens which I thought I got cheap compared to back home, but when I looked through prices back home it was more or less the same.

Saturday was spent at Samsung D'light store/showroom where they show some of their future developments.

The main highlight of the day, and actually the whole trip was when we went to the baseball game between Doosan Bears and LG Twins. Both being Seoul-teams charing the same ground, and this being a play-off game during the weekend I'd asked in the reception if we should get tickets earlier, but been told it would be no problem. The game was however sold out, but there's always sharks so we ended up paying double the facevalue, which still wasn't worse than €15/NOK 120 per ticket.
The general feeling of this game was in short just amazing. I've uploaded two short clips, but they really can't justify the atmosphere in the stadium. As written, this was THE highlight of the trip, and I would recommend anyone going to Seoul to go to a game, even if you don't know anything about baseball or even care much about sports in general.

Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon

Getting up early for the trip to Jeju and also returning quite late meant we took a few hours extra sleep thursday morning, we did however have plans ready and these also held a timeline. 

In Suwon, a city so close to Seoul that it is actually connected by subway there was the 51st Suwon culture festivale, and we'd pointed out something that would probably translate to "parade of the king" to look at. The bus was supposedly a lot faster than the subway, so we jumped on one and got there in about an hour. We did of course have no idea where to go from the bus/trainstation where we were dropped off, but a taxi did the trick and we were released into the wild at a policeblockade and told to walk past it and inwards.
After a few hundred meeters we saw the first performers getting ready for their show in the street, and a few hundred more we saw the first temple gate. 

The crowds were getting thicker and there were more and more performeres who had found their spot in the middle of the street. 

After a while we also found a huge crowd of a couple hundred who were warming up for their rope-pulling contest. I'm guessing/hoping it was east vs west of the city or something like that, but I really have no clue, neighter do I know more than the ones closest to the square won. Good for them.

We kept on moving farther in, hoping to find something and surely enough the parade started after a while, and it was a long one. We guessed that the Hwaseong fortress which we were really there to see should either be the start or end point of the parade, and knowing where the parade ended elimnated that direction. 

After fighting our way to connect to an open wifi we did however get a reply from google maps that it was a few streets away from us. 

Arriving there we realized that the whole area actually was the fortress and this was only one of the entrances, but also where you could easily enter the wall. 

The wall was massive, and at most gates there were large temple-like towers. 

We took the longer and steepest road, southbound, and ended up at a hill overlooking the whole fortress city of Hwaseong. As mentioned in my previous post, my GoPro had a defect memory card, but arriving very late the day prior I didn't know this yet and lost even more photos using this card. 

At the bottom of the hill they held the culinary part of the festival which was packed with people and to be honest, it was a bit chaotic. 

A quick look through the main buildings down there before we headed for the "chicken street", where we managed to find a chinese resturant that didn't sell chicken. 

After some gesturing we did however get something else, mostly fried rice and some brown/black onion sauce. It was okay, but not something I'll be looking to recreate at home. 

Still believing that the memory card was working, and with an amazing sunset pushing through, we found a nice spot overlooking the city with the hill and a temple in the background. This timelapse is probably the footage I will be most annoyed by missing from the entire trip, but ot much to do about it now anyway.

Managed to salvage a few pictures, but it's a bit depressing to think how great a timelapse of the sunset would have been

We stayed at this spot for about half an hour before it started to get a bit too cold, found a taxi and got back to the busstation for one of the most aggressive busrides I've experienced. The busdriver really didn't have his best day, and I am happy there were seatbelts.

Got home a bit late again, but for the next day we still had to get up early for the trip to DMZ.

there is a change I've improved the colors in the sky slightly in this picture...

Yeah, you should go to Jeju

Probably the worst headline I've had so far, but if you are fond of raw nature and you are in the area - check it out.

When searching for options and information on Jeju before leaving there wasn't much to find that really gave the answers I searched for, and the questions others had was how much time is needed, and how to get a driver. 

How much time can be answered quite easily, you can do some in one day, but the island is too big to really get to more than one side in a day. We choose the east side and "stole" the intineary from a tour page, got this translated to korean and gave it to our driver. In other words, there's lots to see on the west (and partly north/south) side, and we could easily have spent much more time on the east as well, but time is limited when you're only away for a week. 

Our driver was mr Soon Jo Yoon, we contacted global taxi some weeks before we left, got a phonenumber from them and called him. It was a bit difficult understanding what his mail was, but we got a reply that he'd pick us up at the airport at the requested time, and surely enough he was there. We asked for price, but never got any more replies from him. Seems to be the standard when reading other pages as well. 

Price was 150.000 for an 8 hour day, and an additional 20.000 pr hour after this. I'm not 100% sure if we paid for his lunch or not, but he took us to a black pork BBQ as requested and ate with us. Our cost for either two or three people was still lower than two people in Seoul. This is also where we were shown how to eat korean-style, which really brought out the tastes in the food much better than when we'd just stuffed our faces with a random piece. 

Labyrinth 

Our first stop was a hedge maze, which probably was more for children than for adults and didn't take many minutes to get through. Had my GoPro attached to my chest to create a video of running through it, but annoyingly enough there were some bad blocks on the memory card, and this ruined several movieclips I took with this camera. Thankfully I had my main cam as well and got some decent shots with that, but not of the maze. Supposedly "few people make it through in less than 15minutes", I am not really sure if I believe that to be true, as you even get a map of the whole labyrinth before you start.

Manjang Cave with ghots

Manjang Cave 

Next stop was just a few minutes from the maze where a massive lava cave had been created some thousand years ago, about one kilometer in before we had to turn around. Thankfully we'd taken our jackets along and this was the sole place on our entire trip where they were actually needed. 

Korean folk village 

Well, to be honest this was not the most inspiring stop on the trip. It was very similar to every other cultures old villages, a few houses, a millstone and that was more or less it. If you've never sat foot in such a place, give it a go, if you have seen similar places other places in the world and have limited time, skip it.

If your name is Hansel or Grethel, better stay away

Seopjikoji

Our next stop was much better, the cliffs on the far east of the island reminded a lot of Iceland. At the end of the pathway there was a viewpoint towards Seongsan Ilchulbong as well. On the way there they'd surpringly enough set up a massive gingerbread house where they sold soft-ice, which was more ice that what we're used to calling softice at home (or any other place in the world). 

Seongsan Ilchulbong

Our main "must see" on the list was Seongsan Ilchulbong which is among "7 natural wonders of the world", a peninsula created by a vulcano about 5000yrs ago, with an excellent pathway up to the top at 180m which also offered a nice view inland. Again annoyingly enough my camera didn't record my movie at the top so I can't bring home either a surround view of the crater or the timelapse of the tourists flocking to the top. This was also an easy way to see that Jeju really is the tourist place for koreans. In about 30mins we spent at the top we saw one other non-asian up there, but with the close proximity and numerous flights from Seoul, Busan and probably all other korean cities with something resembling an airport it's an easy desitination for them. It also provides a different world where nature and not concrete is the dominant. 

Sangumburi Crater

There was still some time left, and instead of driving us to one of the rather strange exhibitions that we'd written up as options, mr Yoon recommended another crater-park which was partly on the way to the airport. This is actually where I was able to get the best pictures of the day, but a nice sunset does of course help a lot. (Both the picture to the right and the first in this post)

Flights 

The flight to/from Jeju/Seoul takes about one hour, the planes runs all the time. My guess is that there's more than one plane every 15 minutes during peak hours from Seoul. If you go there and stay for a day or two it's probably easy to do without more than handluggage which makes it very smooth. Getting to Gimpo airport we used bus 3000 which cost 7000 KRW and ran every 40-50mins. The bus took about 45-60mins getting there, of course depending on where you get on. Our stop was Yeoksam, one stop away from the more familiar Gangnam. The airport in Jeju was however also something worth mentioning, everything went fine, but it was packed with people and the noise level was surprisingly high. Incheon is a nice, quiet place compared to this.

S(e)oul of Korea

Intro to Seoul / South Korea
There's always something unexpected

Every city offers some surprises that you never really see coming. They may not be big, but they're still there and usually keeps you wondering why they do a certain thing that way.
In Seoul it was the complete lack of trash cans. During the week I spent there I hardly saw a single trash can, my guess was that there was some heavy taxation on it, and surely enough there was a very strickt recycling regime in Korea. In addition to that they buy the garbagebags from the garbagemen. Anyway, if you're there and have an empty bottle of water or something you want to get rid of, just hand it to someone in a kiosk and they'll usually take care of it. And this isn't a problem of a size that should keep you from visiting the country. 

Exchange rates and subway 

For exchange rates it's quite easy, 1000 KRW is about 1 USD, most prices are fixed, but there may be some markets where you should haggle a bit. They are however not as fierce hagglers as some other asian countries or not to say arabics - which i found quite pleasant. The general knowledge of english is not very high, there are programs in place to help them learn, but I wouldn't be surprised if it takes at least a generation before they are at a level where most are comfortable with english. On the positive side of the language barrier you can see that all signs and tons of commercials are highly influenced by america. 

The map is huge, but it doesn't take
too long time to have it figured out

The subway is excellent and eventhough many travel guides recommend buying a single fare ticket if you stay in Seoul for a shorter time, I'm stil happy we choose to buy the travel card. The card itself costs 3000 KRW and can be filled up with whatever amount you choose. When you leave you can get everything except 500 back from what you have on your card. That means unless you actually finish your card completely on the last day you end up paying 3500 ($3,5 / €3) for the convenience of just swiping your card whenever you use public transport. It was also possible to use this on our way to Suwon, so it's not solely restricted to Seoul. 

Very handy and saved us a lot of time. 

The people are friendly and most will try to help you if you ask them, there are however as written above a lot who are not amazing in english. I'd read they would rather give an incorrect reply rather than admitting they did not know the answer some times, but we never experienced this, mostly when asking for directions which would be an easy thing to just point somewhere without really knowing or understanding what we asked about. 

Day 1 

Tailored shirts 

On our first day we were, as expected a bit troubled by the jetlag. About 13 flight time from Oslo including a short stop in Helsinki meant that we arrived in at the hotel at about 11 in the morning Korea-time, but with very little sleep on the plane and our heads still connected to Oslo-time which is then in the middle of the night (4am). 

Our first goal was to get to the shirt store at Itaewon, my research had recommended Hamilton Shirts and with a printed map from the subway to the store it was easy to find it. The store itself was very narrow, but with fabrics lined up on all walls it was still all that was needed. Shirts are about 35.000 - 53.000 based on the quality of the fabric. We made our choices, got measured and ordered a fair share of tailored shirts. We were able to get them done by friday night after a short conversation. This was a good thing as they were a bit wide when we got there to pick them up, but they had quarrel sewing them in and deliver them to our hotel the next night. The shirts arrived as they promised the next day, with a much better fit. When we first were in the area we did walk a bit around Itaewon and sat down for some food at a random place. Our choice was some chicken resturant which was dissapointing and expensive (for Korea), we were however dropped off in the same area after an excursion on friday, at a resturant the guide recommended and got a much better culinary experience. Not really surprising, but there is as always much to gain from knowing where to go. 

Gyeongbokgung palace 

Moving on from Itaewon we went to the largest palace in Korea, Gyeoungbokgung which is a fairly short ride with the subway. Many of Seouls attractions are closed on mondays, but this palace has tuesday closed istead. All subways has multiple exits, and all are marked in english with what you should expect to find which usually is very helpfull. We were thus able to exit directly to the palace. The complex is in many ways similar to the forbidden city in Beijing, but at a much smaller, but more colorful scale. After spending some time there our sleepdeprevation really started to make a number on us, so we got back to the subway and just barely made it home without falling asleep on the subway. Another thing about the subway is that I'd read that there were wifi available on them, this is probably true, but it is not free. However EVERY korean has a smartphone, and all of them are using it on the subway. It was a strange sight the first days where everyone just stares at their phone and noone notices anything going on around them. Most scandinavians are also stuck in their phone most of the day, but I think the koreans were actually just a little more in love with their phones than us.

Day 2 

Sk T'um and Myeondong shopping district

There is a lot to see and do in Seoul, but there are also several attractions that would need a pre-booking T'um (Telecom Museum) is one of them, booking can be done online at their site and the tour is free. T'um shows mostly how they see telecom being developed in the future, how it can affect different aspects of peoples lifes like daily work, driving, shopping (online), health etc. There is also an excibition of their newest gadgets which is already for sale, but many may be unaware of. Worth a look if this is something that you are interested in.

T'um is located very close to Myeongdong area, where we also dropped by the trickart museum.. Myeondong is what I would call the very city center, a nice shopping area with lots of stores and nearby there were also a "cultural cuisine walkway for tourists" or something like that. This actually just meant that there were flags strapped over the streets to show where there could be genuine korean food, but still a good thing and we did find a place to have our first korean barbeque. Not knowing how to eat the korean way we did however miss out on some of the experience, but we were shown this the next day by or driver at Jeju. Below is a short timelapse from the shoppingstreet in Myeondong.

Nanta 

I'd also booked tickets for Nanta which is a food show that they have ran since 1997 in Seoul and now performs at 3 special Nanta-theatres that all have 2-3 viewings every day. It is supposedly listed as one of the top 10 tourist attractions in Asia, and I would have no problem recommending it to anyone traveling there myself. Tickets should be bought online in advance and I think we paid about 50.000 for very good tickets. The show is (mostly) non-verbal, and the very few words that are actually spoken are just as often in english as in korean, and you don't really need the words to understand the story either. There is a chance of being pulled up on the scene, and there is a chance you may get a slice of rogue lettuce or other vegetable thrown your way. The show lasted for about 1,5 hours and after this we were ready to go home. The next day we had to get up early for the bus to Gimpo Airport for our flight to Jeju Island. No cameras allowed during the show, but if you are intrigued you can easily search for it on youtube and find plenty there.

A full sircle of all the characters that gives their names to the years was found in Gyeongbokgung palace

They really did love their cupcakes in Seoul, and with Halloween coming up they even made cupcakes for that

Dubrovnik - by the cliff by the sea

By the Cliff, By the Sea

"The Pearl of the Adriatic" is one of the names Dubrovnik boasts.
A small city with a population just above 40.000, but during summer I have a feeling just as many swedes visit the city, and there are plenty of other tourists as well.
As our guide told us, during winter she can walk the main street in the old city and just barely see 7-8 people, while during summer there can easily be 7-8000 on the same stretch.

Dubrovniks old town is it's by far largest magnet, attracting tourists in the thousands, and the numbers are still increasing with about 10% every year. The fact that it's been used as King's Landing in Game Of Thrones doesn't put a break in the steady stream either.

The city walls stretches almost 2km, although it really didn't feel that long when we were up there. The cost to get up is 100 kuna (about €14), and everyone is willing to pay it.We arrived in Dubrovnik around mid day, but the threat of thundershowers made us go directly into the city instead of walking the wall after our guided tour three hours later as the initial plan had been.
The rain started dripping quite fast after we got up there, and within some hundred meeters the lightning and thunder was upon us. Packing a raincoat had been a good idea, and I was happy to stay on the wall and take photos for as long as we could. Most of the group had left us, but knowing the meeting point and time for the guided tour was all I really needed. We did however come to a bypass where the tour guide was waiting for us, the others had found shelter at a local waterhole - or rather winehole to be spesific.

As we could get down from the wall at a few places and then continue from the same place later the same day, it became obvious that we really should get down. Having lightning hit the courtyard about 30meters from us was also a good sign that it was time to seek shelter. The very heavy rain poured down for about 1,5 hours, and after it stopped it quickly became very hot and dry again, and we could enter the wall and fulltill our wall walk before the guided tour.


The next day there were nothing planned other than the farewell dinner at night. I went back to the old town along with another of the travellers to continue looking at museums as we'd bought a package-ticket the first day with enterance to 9 of the towns various museums. Our first stop was the Ethnographic museum which was a very pleasant surprise. The rain started more or less when we left the buss this day, so we had to run through the streets that was almost getting flooded before we got to the museum. On the main floor it was a strange exhibition of the pagan religion, along with stories of their main characters, but also stories and information on their scare-stories to keep children away from wells and other potential dangerous places. These stories always have a similarity to other pagan religions, but I still find them very interresting and entertaining.

The farewell dinner was held at a resturant that had mexican and pizza, there are apparently very few places serving mexican in Croatia, and it was indeed very strange. Nothing like I've had before when ordering mexican at least.

All but one of the group met for dinner and they a drink before we said goodbye and left for our own corners of the world.
I had very much enjoyed this kind of trip as it opened some cultural doors I wouldn't have been able to find myself, such as the BBQ at the guide from Sarajevos summer house, the many local resturants and the maybe not so important croatian words.
Jazarvac!

Bay of Kotor - The Black Mountain

The Black Mountain

Montenegro is one of Europes smallest and youngest countries, claiming independence in 2006 and having a population just above 600.000. Not a country I know a lot who has visited, but if you ever are on these coasts, I'd say it's definately worth your time.

The already long 7 hours drive from Sarajevo to the Bay of Kotor turned out to be a lot longer, a long queue at the first of many border crossings took it's time, and so did most of everything else this day. We did however get there in the end, and got a quick guided tour through this cozy small city by the bay.

On the mountainridge behind the city there was a fortress which offered a nice hiking oppurtunity. It became dark before we had the chance on arrival day, but we were a few who planned to get up there in the morning to see the sunrise. I got up at 04:45 and left the hotel fifteen minutes later. The climb was supposed to be about half an hour according to our guide, while our main guide said it was a bit longer. It took me 22mins including several stops to take photoes as the one to the left. None of the others were to be seen on my way up, the hour I spent up there, nor on my way back, however one of my fellow travelers had been running half way up during the time I spent at the fortress without me noticing him.

A return to the hotel at still an early time meant I could steal an hour sleep before breakfast and our agreed time to go to the beach-city of Bodva which was about half an hour away by taxi.
This city was quite similar to Kotor, but had even more tourists than the cruise passengers that filled Kotor during the day. The beach was packed, but as there were three beaches next to each other we went to the farthest end of the third and got a nice spot anyway. Although not before we'd had lunch with some amazing pancakes with fresh fruit and icecream.

Slouching on towards Sarajevo

Filip met us early in the morning to take us to Sarajevo, a city that was under siege for about 4 years during the Yoguslavian war in the early 90's.
On our way there we stopped in Mostar, a small, cozy city where the main attraction is a huge bridge.
There were also divers who would stay on the brigde walking back and forth trying to get money from the tourists, and as soon as he had collected €25, he would jump.
Mostar was also bomed during the war, but the turks and other nations skipped in to help them rebuild the bridge after the war ended.

Sarajevo is, as all too many cities are described, "east meets west". Personally I don't think that term suits the city, but I would use "Christianity meets Islam". There is even a clear line in the main walking street when you cross over to the other.
The assasination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914, the many remains after the war, the old town where they still sold all kinds of copper products as they did in the old days, and the highly differentiated eating places, all made Sarajevo one of the brigthest highlights on the trip for me - as expected.
The heat wasnn't as unbearable as it could've been when we were there, still hot, but nothing a scoop of gelato or a bottle of water couldn't cope with.

As part of our guided tour (the second day we stayed there) we went out to the guides' summerhouse about half an hour out of the city for an excellent barberque in real bosnian style. Excellent meat and even better vegetables. We also bought the largest watermellon I've seen in a long time, but none were able to touch it after the massive meal.
A stop by the "tunnel of hope", or "tunnel of life" as it's also called on our way back ended the day before we had a day off in Sarajevo.
The tunnel was built during the siege on Sarajevo, underneth the airport which was controlled by UN to help bring in supplies to the city and also help some refugees leave the city.

Next stop, Bay of Kotor in Montenegro.

Plitvice & Split. Parks and reconstructions

Parks and reconstructions

The national park of Plitvice and it's 16 combined lakes was a beautiful experience. We arrived towards the evening and went out for a traditional Croatian Peka-dinner. Quite tastefull, excellenct soup followed by veal with potatoes and vegetables before dessert concisting of a pancake/crepes with jam.

Plitvice was registered as an Unesco site in 1979 and boasts a massive number of tourists every year. Apparently more than 1,2million.

There are 16 lakes arranged in cascades, there are more than 1200 different plants that can be found
as well as numerous animals, such as bears and wolves - although we only saw some mice and a squirrel.

The arrangement of the lakes makes way for the any beautiful waterfalls which comes in all sizes.

We spent one night at Plitvice, about 4 hours wandering around the park which was quite packed with tourists, before we left for Split.

On the way to Split we stopped at Nicola Teslas birthplace which also held a small museum.

Split was completely packed with tourists, and it was both easy to hear and see that the scandics has direct flights there. It remined very much of the greek islands and their touristtraps. The Diocletian palace was the main highlight. A large and well preserved roman palace, but it was barely possible to move around due to the many tourists. I would have loved to get there early next morning, but a heavy thundershower put an end to those plans.

We did however go to Trogir, a small city about 30-60mins by bus from Split. Still packed with tourists, but slightly fever and a lower pace in general made ita more pleasant place to be.

We are now leaving Croatia for this time, heading to Mostar (unofficial capital of Hercegovina) before going to Sarajevo (official capital of Bosnia & Hercegovina) for a few days.
This is what I think will be the highlight of the trip for me, so I'm really looking forward to it.