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.

Zagreb - is Croatia just its coast?

Everyone goes to the coastal cities, but Croatia has more to offer

Well, I haven't been to the coast so far myself, so can't really say much about how that part of the city is, but Zagreb should be on the list for everyone who is backpacking through Europe.
Safe, easy to navigate, warm, cheap, packed with nice resturants on the sidewalks and the city is close to so many other exciting places to visit.

My first day was a bit of a hassle, got up early and got to the plane in good time. Had an Underberg of course, got to Amsterdam, had another Underberg there, and got to Zagreb where the airport pick-up didn't show up. After looking for him/waiting for about 25mins I called the hotel who said he had left as the plane was delayed - something it wasn't, but they should send another taxi which should be there in 2 minutes. 2 minutes never mean 2 minutes of course, but after 35mins and still nothing I called back to the hotel and met a guy who barely spoke english. Found another cab and got to the hotel where they had now changed their story to the first taxi having waited for me, but someone else had claimed to be me and taken it - and being driven somewhere else. Annoying, but in the whole story of my trip here it didn't set me back much more than an hour, and I didn't really have anything or anyone waiting for me.

Took a stoll up the mountainside which is exagerating it massively, but a least it was a small hill where the old city had been before they moved it down to the plains. Small narrow streets with resturants all over. Found "museum of broken relationships" which was a hugely positive surprise. The museum was built on things ordinary people have to remind them of some relationship they've once had, and a short - or relative short - story behind it. One being an old love letter which was never sent, a guitar return when the x moved out, an axe used to destroy all the furniture of the x who just left or the pc game football manager who remineded the girl who had donated it of the x boyfriend who had kept her awake numerous nights playing the game. I know the game all too well myself, and know how many hours one could get lost in it. Thankfully I've not played it in many years, and hopefully it'll stay like that.
By far one of the most inovative and original museums I have visited so far, and apparently it has more visitors than the larger museums in Zagreb

Finding the cathedral on my way also gave me the oppurtunity to get a nice shot of a saint on a pole.









For day 2 I had booked bicycle guiding which I'd tried in Buenos Aires back in january, and was extremely happy with. The tour I'd found here offered two different paths, old and new Zagreb. Or both combined in a longer tour, which became the obvious choice for me. There were two others along for the ride, Gordon and Carol from New Zealand, so quite the opposite side of the world than me.

The trip offered a nice overview of the city, as it was supposed to, both of historical places, information of what could be found where and some hidden gems. The national theather in the picture to the left is not among the hidden gems, but still beautiful.

Tonight I'm meeting the group for the main trip around the Balkans. So far I know we are six travellers and one guide. Looking forward to meeting them.

Armenia, why wouldn't everyone want to go there?

Armenia?

Why would you want to go there?
This was the most common response I got before I left when I told people where I was going.
I believe most people do not know much about Armenia, but I do not agree that they should automatically be negative towards the unknown - as I believe that is the main reason why so many do not even concider going to Armenia.


Armenia and Yerevan is at least not well know to Norwegians, and there is in fact one negative part with travelling here - the plane can either arrive at 01:25 or 04:45 (we choose the first), and leave at 06:00.
That is of course given you do not wish to stay too long at a transfer airport.
The positives however are so many more, good food, friendly people, rich history, an easy accessable city and prices lower than anything I've experienced other than south-east Asia. There's lots of other positives that I am sure I will scratch into while I write.

I myself didn't have much knowlegde of the country myself, neither about prices nor more or less what to expect other than the weather forecast telling us it would be about 20 degrees and thundershowers everyday, the weather was however excellent except for one morning which meant we had to walk in the rain for almost 5 minutes - in total over 4 full days. Most of the time it was 25-30 and perfect weather.
I had looked up a tour company online and booked daytrips through them from 10 to 15 everyday before we left. Hyur service prooved to be an excellent choice, and for the cost of about NOK 1000 / €110 for airport transfer both ways and the four days of touring the countryside for two persons was a much better deal than the local guy my brothers friend knew, this guy knew no english, but could drive us where ever we wanted for €100/day. Well, again it pays off to do some research.
If anyone who reads this is concidering going to Armenia/Yerevan, I can strongly recommend Hyur Services. Very reasonable priced, great mix of local and in-house guides, lots of destinations and there were no stops at some place where they just wanted us to buy some things. The later part could of course be good, but often it's just a drag.



On the first day we had booked a trip inside the city with a visit to Erebuni and the Erebuni

Tsitsernakaberd

museum as the first stop. This is an old fort where the city first was built. Not the most exciting, so in a way it was okay that it was the first part of the trip and not the last, then to Tsitsernakaberd, the memorial site for the genocide in 1918 as well at a visit to Matenadaran where they kept most of their old scriptures. There was supposed to be a "short city sightseeing" as well, but this was very short as it was purely done from the bus. On this tour we met some girls who was doing their practice with Hyur before becomming guides themselves.

Cascade

On the evening we took the expected walk around the city and found the Cascade, which I of course had to climb. That prooved to be about twice as long/high as expected, but what a view of the city it presented. We also visited a local market where there were mostly handmade items. The prices were very friendly and the craftmanship was good. I ended up buying an old russian winter hat, a pin-roller and some minor souvenirs. Not really what I had expected to bring back home, but at least the pin-roller should come in handy as my current is near dead.
 

one of many churches

The 2nd day we went out to Echmiadzin, also called the church-town just outside Yerevan. Armenia being the first country to accknowledge Christianity as their state religion in 301 did of course have a lot of old relgious history to show.

Zvartsnots

At the end of the day trip we went to Zvartsnots, ruins of an old church where there was a beutiful view of the biblical mountain Ararat in the background.
Zvartsnots has also given the name to the local airport.

view of Mt Ararat

Day 3 was probably the highlight where we left for Garni and Geghard.
On the way there we stopped at a view point of Mt Ararat which really was worth the minutes we took there, as seen on the picture to the left.

Garni

Garni is a spectacular old temple which had been left by the many wars the country has endured as this is more a regal building than a religious.
The monastary of Geghard further up the countryside is still in use, but was also open for tourists. Not that there are a lot of tourists in Armenia at all, but we had our minibus with 10-15 people and there were a few others there as well.

Khor Virap

After the arranged tour we also booked a private tour to Khor Virap where Gergorian the illuminator who had brought Christianity to Armenia had been imprissoned in a deep pit for 13 years, the name Khor Virap means "the pit", but the building was older and was converted to a monastary after Gregory had been there. Khor Virap is placed just on the border to Turkey, barely 100 meters from the neutral zone and did also display a great view of Mt Ararat. The local guide we had booked was a mountain enthusiast and had a lot of info on both these mountains as well as the others in Armenia, and even some from the rest of the world. He himself had scaled mt Aragat (highest in Armenia with 4090m) about 40 times, but due to the bad relations with Turkey he had yet to climb Mt Ararat.

Saradarpat

On our last day we woke up to heavy rain and feared the worst, the streets were almost flooded some places, and the 5 mins walk to Hyur would have been enough to get soaked if we hadn't brought decent clothes. The rain did however, as written earlier, stop during the ride to Sardarapat which was our only destination for this day. A bit longer from the city than the other places we visited, but at least for the Armenians among the by far most important historical sites. This is where the armenians fought off the turks when they invaded Armenia just after WW1. A sentence we heard many times during this day was that Armenia as a nation would probably not have excisted if they hadn't succeeded defending Sardarapat.
After this final showdown Armenia was so broken that they view the inclusion in the Sovjet union as their only chance of further survival. The monument and museum was built in stages from the 50yrs aniversary until the 60th.

This dog was just about to wake up when I took the photo, I love how she stretches her legs just before opening her eyes - quite surprised to find me laying to be ground with my camera.

The city also had lots of great buildings and statues, mainly erected during the Sovjet period. Statues like this one made an impressing view, we even went down to the south of the city purely to take photoes of this.

One of the quite interesting pieces of art displayed while walking up the cascade

It's on my list

Susan Sontag

"It's on my list" is something you hear a lot of people say, but how many really have a list and how many uses this as another way of saying that something sounds interesting - but that they usually will never get to it.

One of the first things you learn on how to reach your qoals in any part of life, but still quite few pay attention too, is that visualizing a goal makes it easier to reach. Telling others about your goal makes it harder to break than if keep it to yourself, and just let down yourself. Dividing a goal into smaller pieces makes it easier to reach as you don't have to chew over such a large piece of the pie every time you take a bite. Might also help you savor the taste and get a greater overall experience.


An example that easily comes to mind was back in Angkor - one of the most amazing places in the world - but we even got a bit filled by looking at these spectacular temples day after day. Still one of my favorite places in the world and one I am quite sure I will return to one day.

There are so many saying about travelling and experiencing things, but all are individual. If someone wants to go the same island in every year, stay at the same hotel, eat at the same resturant and go to the same bar and place on the beach, then that's their choice. It's not for me, but for some this is exactly what they want.

Personally I would like to visit at least one country where I haven't been before every year. Quite close to Dailai Lamas famous quote "Once a year, go someplace you've never been before". There are lot of similar translations of the same quote, personally I prefer the "as often as possible" start to the quote. Why set limitations and of course it's not correct to stop exploring the world for almost a year if you've visited a new country in january. You have still reached your goal and can be happy with that, but there's always more out there.

there are lot of very similar translations of the same quote as well

Back to the list. I did write down my list some time ago. My list is however not just fixed entries I absolutely have to do. It's ever expanding, and it's not really something I would like to ever complete. The worst thing would be if there is nothing more I would like to do, but I can't really see that happening. I am also allowed to write down things I've done which were amazing, just to remind myself of them later. After all, my list, my rules.

1 Visit 100 countries
2 Akropolis - Athens, Greece
3 Angkor - Cambodia
4 Swim in a warm lagune - Iceland
5 Swim with dolphins
6 Reach the summit of the highest mountain in Norway
7 Reach the summit of a famous mountain abroad
8 All seven continents
9 See a concentration camp
10 Visit one of the worlds 15 least visited countries
11 Bowl a strike
12 Drink bourbon from North-Korea
13 Christ the Redeemer statue - Brasil
14 Colosseum - Rome
15 A game of cricket (in one of the countries where they actually know how to play)
16 Cruise in the Carribean
17 Disneyland/world
18 Dive in a coralreef
19 Deepsea fishing
20 the Eiffel Tower
21 Go on a rivercruise that lasts some days
22 Go to a game in the worldcup or european championship (football/soccer)
23 Spend a week or more without cellphone or internet
24 Be an extra in a Bollywood-movie
25 Be an extra in a Hollywood-movie
26 Go to a F1 race
27 Parachutjump
28 Fishspa
29 Fly on first class
30 Galapagos Islands
31 Eat gellato in Italy
32 Geysir
33 Giza pyramids
34 Gondol in Venezia
35 Great Barrier Reef
36 Eat a steak in Argentina
37 Go to the bathroom in a "hole in the floor"-toilet
38 Helicopter-ride
39 Hurtigruta (see the norwegian coastline with one of the cruises)
40 Whales (in the sea)
41 Get to an altitude higher than Norways highest point
42 Walk on a glacier
43 Icefishing
44 Jetski
45 Sing karaoke in Japan
46 Karneval in Rio
47 Great wall of China
48 Buy a ticket to a plane without knowing where you're going
49 Drive a car that is worth more than 3x your salary
50 Go to a concert with a world star within classical music
51 Louvre
52 Make dinner for more than 20 persons
53 Hot airballon
54 Machu Pichu
55 Madagaskar
56 Eat streetfood in Bangkok
57 NHL game
58 NBA game
59 NFL game
60 Northern light / southern light
61 Northpole
62 Southpole / Antarctica
63 Charter-vacation
64 Octoberfest - Germany
65 Olympic games
66 Spend a night in a castle
67 Perta - Jordan
68 Pizza in Italy
69 Portwine in Portugal
70 Premier League game
71 Publish a text in a national/interantional paper
72 Publish a picture in a national/interantional paper
73 Camping in Antactica
74 Easter Islands
75 Travel for a month or more (in one trip)
76 Ride an elephant
77 Ride a camel
78 Resturant with 2 or 3 stars in the Michellin guide
79 Drink rum in the Carribean
80 Safari in Africa
81 Drink Sake in Japan
82 Eat sushi in Japan
83 Salar de Uyuni - salt dessert in Bolivia
84 Go to an active vulkano
85 Drink snakeblood
86 Drive a snowscooter
87 Solar eclipse
88 Gamble away money in Las Vegas
89 Spitsbergen
90 Stand-up in USA
91 Beachfootball
92 Bungeejumping
93 Swim in the Atlantic
94 Swim in the Pacific
95 Swim in the southern Icy Sea
96 Taj Mahal
97 Waterski
98 Monstertruck rally
99 Universal Studios
100 British Museum
101 Vatican City
102 Van Gogh museum
103 Vodka in Russia
104 Whiskey in Scotland
105 Trainride for several days
106 Ha Long Bay - Vietnam
107 Cu Chi tunnels - Vietnam
108 Terracotta-army - China
109 Stonehenge - England
110 Mount Fuji - Japan
111 Killing Fields - Cambodia
112 Arashiyama -  bamboo forest outside Kyoto
113 Neuswanstein Castle
114 Grand Canyoon
115 Icehotel
116 Firework festival
117 Bonfire season - Nara 
118 Demilitarized zone between North- and South Korea
119 Giants Causeway