Day 69 - Kosice to Siofok, Hungary

We woke up to the first blue skies for a few days, although the wind was cool as we drove towards the Hungarian border. On a nice new stretch of highway we were pulled over by the police and told to get out of the car, but we weren't told our crime. We went to a police van where a policeman sitting at a desk showed us a sheet with a sliding scale of speeding fines, our eyes were drawn to the €600 fine as we were told it was an on the spot fine and not the type we have at home, we had to pay on the spot. He explained that we were going 70km/h in a 60km/h zone and the fine is normally €40 but he would give it to us for €20. Who knew fines today were being offered at a 50% discount, Saturday morning special? M thought we had got out of it lightly and a few minutes later our phones pinged with a telecommunications message to say that we were in Hungary. We had crossed some invisible border, it must have been the last chance for the Slovak police to catch the tourists.

We stopped in the quiet city of Eger for a coffee, we also visited a museum of confectionery where everything was made out of marzipan, interesting ... but not that interesting!

From there we continued on to Lake Batalan, and by the time we arrived in Siofok on the edge of the lake the wind was ferocious and the kite surfers were taking full advantage of it while we were being blown to pieces. Siofok was much quieter than we expected so we spent the evening in the nice garden of our hotel.

Day 68 - Oswiecim to Kosice, Slovakia

The sky looked a little lighter as we started the drive south, we had gone as far north as we were goign to go on the trip so it felt like we were starting to head home as we drove back towards Slovakia.

We made another attempt to visit Zakopane as even though it was still very grey the rain seemed to have settled a bit. We went through endless Polish villages until we arrived at the very busy mountain town of Zakopane, it was full of tourists but they appeared to be local tourists rather than foreign ones.

We couldn't see the mountain because of the fog and low lying grey clouds but we joined the hordes walking up and down the long pedestrian street and had some good solid local Polish food for lunch. We then continued through the mountain ranges and crossed the border back into Slovakia past all the old derelict ex-border crossing buildings.

We ended up at the Slovak city of Kosice to spend the night. Here there was a nice long "square" split by a tram track, with bars, restaurants and shops either side. There weren't many tourists so it felt a little more "authentic" than some of the places we've visited.

Day 67 - Weilickzka to Ozwiecim

We woke early to grey skies and drizzle, we had plans to visit the salt mine and wanted to arrive when it opened at 7.30am to avoid the crowds. This all worked well until we bought our tickets and were told the first tour started at 8.30 - so there was no reason to get their so early!

We walked down masses of wooden stairways until we arrived at the entry to the tourist part of the mine. The mine is so big that we covered only 3kms of it which apparently is only 1%. There were carvings made by the miners and a huge cathedral complete with a statue of the Pope in salt along with wall carvings of biblical scenes. We had attended the salt cathedral in Colombia but in this one we received a lot of historical information and at the end thankfully there was a lift, where we were packed like sardines to return to the surface. We had decided not to buy a photo permit so we didn't take any photos, but it did seem that some people were taking them anyway.

We stopped at Krakow for lunch, the city was really interesting and the square was huge, complete with horses and  enclosed carriages for the tourists. 

Krakow was really busy and slightly spoilt by the continual touting of people trying to shove pieces of paper at you every few steps. The place was huge with a lot to see and in retrospect we could easily have spent a day or two here.

 We had gone online a few days earlier to get tickets for Auschwitz and were shocked to find that we were meant to have booked them months before even though the tickets are free. We were too late to join any tour groups unless we wanted to sign up for a tour in an obscure language. Our only choice was to take the individual tickets for 6.40pm, not ideal but we had no choice, apparently Krakow tour companies buy them in bulk so you are forced to use their services.

On our way from Krakow and driving to Auschwitz the rain got steadier and it looked like the dismal grey conditions had set in for the day. By 3pm we decided to go and see if we could get in earlier. There are two sites Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz 2 known as Birkenau. When Auschwitz was not large enough horse stables were ordered and built on the second site to house the prisoners, now there are buses that transport visitors back and forth the 3km between the two.

We arrived at the entrance and couldn't see any system or ticketing set up just groups with leaders walking around. We followed some groups until we found one that was in English and then we tagged along trying to be inconspicuous at the back. We were grateful that both of us look quite ordinary and can blend into a crowd, no neck tattoos on either of us. Ironic that we were trying to slip unnoticed into the very place where so many wanted to escape from.

We were shown the tiny wooden railway carriages the prisoners arrived in and where they were then lined up into groups. 70% were deemed not suitable for work because they were children, too old, or not well enough, we followed their route to the gas chambers where they were told to get undressed as they were going into shower .... and we all know the rest from there.

The groups of tourists were all very quiet and somber and the continual drizzle of rain and grey outlook seemed very fitting. We went via the appalling sheds where they were housed, seven to a bunk which were just elevated wooden slats on dirt floors with no toilet facilities. We were then told that we were to meet back on the bus in 10 minutes, so we wandered off and joined another group to see the other side. This group seemed to be American Jews and one of the tourist's father had been a prisoner here. The guide then mentioned Birkenau and that is when it dawned us that we weren't at Auschwitz but Birkenau! It was now about 5pm and we finished that tour and got back in the car to drive to Auschwitz.

At Auschwitz there was someone on the gate and there were turnstiles and security scanning, very different from the casual visiting at Birkenau but there was no problem being scanned through earlier that the time on our tickets. Here the different buildings were set up with different exhibitions and displays, each one telling another appalling story of the atrocities. 

 There are huge glass cabinets full of human hair, prosthetic limbs, suitcases and cabinets of shoes. This give some perspective to how many people were killed here. The rain became more and more intense as we moved from building to building giving some small insight into how dismal the place was. After about two hours we felt we had seen enough and we joined the few stragglers leaving about 7pm.

Day 66 - Bratislava to Wieliczka, Poland

We pulled into the central Slovak town of Banksa Bystrica mid-morning for coffee and cake and a wander through the old town. The town square is called the Slovak National Uprising Square as a tribute to the historical fight of democracy against communism. The square is more of a very large rectangle with lots of pretty cafes and a clock tower that unusually plays sweet music once an hour. 

There seems to be less English through these areas and so we were grateful for the translate app where you hold your phone over the menu and the English translation is shown on the phone screen.

We decided to head for the mountain area of Zakopane in Poland but just outside Ruzomberok. However, it started raining so we changed our mind and headed for the Polish border near Chyzne instead. The rain continued all the way into Poland and the temperature dropped to 13 degrees, there were signs on the roads telling you not only the outside temperature but the temperature of the road, it must be important in snow season.

We booked into a hotel in Wieliczka next door to a supermarket with very unfriendly staff,  not a nice welcome to Poland!

Day 65 - Budapest to Bratislava, Slovakia

We collected a hire car and stopped for coffee at the little town of Szentendre, which was right on the Danube and as it was early it wasn't too busy yet.

From there we followed the Danube Bend to Esztergom where we visited the large Basilica.

The Hungarian countryside is very agricultural and we drove through large paddocks of giant sunflowers all facing the same direction with their faces towards the sun. Along the way there was some sort of road blockage causing traffic to slow right down, so we pulled in to a roadside restaurant for lunch, where M had the chance to try some authentic Hungarian goulash soup, which was actually pretty tasty.

We stopped at Gyor for a quick look around and noticed lots of people eating ice cream sundaes at a place in the town square, it was a sunny day it it looked like the right thing to do, so we thought we'd join them.

This time just before we crossed the border to Slovakia we saw the signs to buy a vignette, they were a lot more obvious than at the the Croatia-Slovenia border. Our city for the night was the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, which is at a triangular border also with Austria and Czechoslovakia. The Austrian and Czech influence is very obvious in the old town, all these towns are quaint and colourful.

Day 64 Budapest

We hadn't joined a walking tour until now because as there were so many people in Budapest for the weekend we thought waiting until Monday would be better. We arrived at the meeting point with about 200 other tourists, the most we have seen on a walking tour anywhere, we were divided into groups of about 50. Our guide taught us a few Hungarian words, the word for goodbye sounds like hello!

By the time we had crossed the Chain Bridge to the other side of the Danube we decided we had had enough of the tour. Although the guide was great it was lacking any substance and history, we really hadn't learnt anything about Budapest or Hungary.

We walked along the river until in front of Parliament we found the sobering Danube Shoe Memorial. Along the edge of the river were brass shoes of different styles and sizes as a memorial to the 20,000 Jews who were lined up at the bank in 1945 and told to remove their shoes and were then shot so they would fall straight into the river.

For the afternoon we had planned to visit the famous Budapest Szechenyi Spa, so after going home to collect our bathers we caught the train to the beautiful deep yellow building, buying a Hungarian cinnamon chimney cake on the way ... yum, these countries make nice cakes. There was a long line to get in so while we were waiting our turn we looked through the large window overlooking the pools and had a change of mind. There were heaps of people either standing in swimming pools or lying on sun lounges (it wasn't warm) watching the soccer on the large screen with large drinks of beer in their hands. It really didn't look like our scene at all especially as K had gone to Peninsula Hot Springs on the Mornington Peninsula the week before we went on holidays and to her this wasn't a patch on that place!

Instead we walked to the Hero's Park with its beautiful statues and arches, though unfortunately it was blocked off and difficult to see because they were setting up for a concert, it would be an awesome setting for an outdoor concert.

At this stage M decided to walk home while K opted to take the train. When M got home and K hadn't arrived he  knew something had to have gone wrong. As it turns out K had taken a wrong turn after leaving the train and also hadn't saved the apartment's address to her maps, so she was a bit lost! A couple of WhatsApp messages and "find my phone" traces and M tracked her down. 

The guide from the morning had recommended that we visit a ruin bar, which is where they have converted derelict areas of the city into trendy eating and drinking areas. We chose the one closest to home and the drinks were cheap, though we had the distinct feeling we were back home hanging out at a bar in Collingwood. When we finished the evening with Indian take away in our apartment we felt that we almost could have been at home!

Day 63 Budapest

As the Chain Bridge was closed for the weekend because of the Air Race we walked to the Buda side of the river over the Elisabeth Bridge, then through the Castle gardens to the Fisherman's Bastion. 

As we had watched the planes the day before we didn't feel we needed to see it again but it was impossible not to watch, every viewpoint of the city showed the races and every viewpoint seemed better than the previous. How many times do you need to watch planes fly under a bridge, do a slalom course and loop the loop?

At dusk we joined a cheap hour long boat cruise of the river which was a great way to see all the beautiful Budapest buildings lit up at night, although by the end of it we were quite cold.

Day 62 Budapest

We wandered from our apartment down to the Danube admiring the architecture of so many buildings and found ourselves at the Air Race. It was pretty hard to miss as it had taken over the river, which has the areas of Buda on one side of the Danube and Pest on the other.

We stopped in front of the splendid Parliament building and watched the Air Race trials for a while as the planes flew under the famous Chain Bridge. There were plenty of vantage points for the race, no matter where we were we could find a good spot to see the show. It would be difficult to imagine any city better than Budapest to watch something like this. 

In between the races they had Jet Pack Man flying around, it was very noisy and unfortunately he didn't come over our side of the river, when they interviewed him afterwards it turned out he was Australian.

Day 61 - Zagreb Croatia to Budapest Hungary

It was surprising to wake up to pouring rain and a temperature of only 13 degrees when we thought we were only going to be experiencing warm summer weather. We walked the couple of blocks to the bus station in steady rain to catch the 9.30am bus to Budapest, lucky we weren't visiting Plitvice today, it would have been horrible.

It took quite a while to do the border crossing between Croatia and Hungary, as normal all our passports were gathered up by the bus driver but a little later we were told to get off the bus. Then one by one our name and country were called out and we had to collect our passport and get back on the bus.

Once we arrived in Budapest we tried to get a taxi to our apartment but the driver made all kind of excuses for not wanting to take us, including its a busy weekend this weekend .... who cares aren't you a taxi? We ended up tackling the metro and finally made it to our lovely apartment where the owner told us that it was a big weekend in Budapest, something called the Red Bull Air Race was on, we had never heard of it.

The streets seemed to be full of groups of tourists, including young English girls and guys apparently on cheap weekend breaks.

Day 60 Korenica to Zagreb

We had read lots on how overwhelmingly busy the Plitvice Lakes are so we arrived at Entrance 1 just after 7am when the gates opened. There are a number of routes you can take to see the lower and upper lakes, with parts of some routes including boat and bus legs. We chose to do route C which starts at the most popular largest waterfall on the lower lake.

There was only a sprinkling of people there that early so it was a very pleasant walk following the boardwalk around the lower lakes and the waterfalls. We arrived at the jetty for the electric boat in time for the first one of the day at 8.30am to take us to the start of the upper lakes, the boat was so quiet and quite slow. It was also starting to warm up so we were happy we'd made the right decision to come so early.

Plitvice mightn't hold records for the largest waterfalls but they certainly have the prettiest, as around every croner we were faced with more cascading water. We saw signs mentioning bears but unfortunately (or fortunately perhaps) we didn't see any.

By 10.30am we had completed the three hour walk around both upper and lower lakes, so we took the bus back to Entrance 1 where our car was. We felt quite smug when we saw the hordes of tourists lined up trying to buy tickets as we were leaving.

We were heading for Zagreb to return our rental car so we stopped for a break at Slunj, which has a river and waterfall right in the middle of town, before continuing on. In Zagreb we were staying near the bus station so we caught the tram to the center of town to discover that Croatia were playing in the World Cup that night. People were dressed in red and white checks and ready for a party. There were lots of screens in the town square, bars and restaurants, as well as home made entertainment from locals letting off flares.

Day 59 Zadar to Korenica

From Zadar we started heading inland again to see the Krka waterfalls, which are a very popular day trip from Split and have a reputation for being ridiculously busy. As we didn't want to experience this we took the online advice and got out of bed very early for the hour drive from Zadar.

Once we arrived at Lozovac we had to take a bus to the entrance and then follow the one way boardwalk through the park, past the waterfalls and tributaries until we reached the major waterfall Skradinski buk . Getting up early was definitely worth it as there were only a handful of people there. We continued on the circular path and as the morning progressed it noticeably getting much busier.

At one point we both realised the path we were in was looking familiar, we realised we had started the loop again! We walked against the oncoming crowds until we found the turn off we wanted to take and bought tickets for the boat trip to Roski Slap. We had to wait until 11am for the boat so spent the time planning some further travelling for the next few days.

The boat for Roski Slap first stopped at Visovac monastery which is on an island similar to Bled, interestingly it wasn't originally an island but a pile of rocks, the monks built the island by bringing everything from the mainland. From there the boat continued to Roski Slap, which is a smaller waterfall where we stayed for a while before returning to our car happy that we had missed most of the crowds.

We continued on to the small town of Korenica for the night so we would be close to Plitvice Lakes for our visit the next morning.

Day 58 Rijeka to Zadar

We chose the coastal route south rather than the inland highway and this worked out well as the road hugs the coastline with lovely views of the Dalmatian Coast. Along the way we passed people on the side of the road selling pork on the spit.

We turned off for lunch following a sign we saw to Jablanaca and found ourselves in a small port that looked like a mini Hvar. It was very quiet and the only other tourists who seemed to be in town were the Aussies at the table behind us, we can't seem to get away from fellow Australians. As they had come from Italy they seemed to think that the Dalmatian Coast was nice and quiet like this stretch, they will be in for a rude shock when they reach Split and Dubrovnik.

After a lovely lunch we continued along the coastal route until we arrived in our stop for the night in Zadar, where the old town is on a peninsula. Zadar has an unusual attraction that we haven't seen anywhere else - a sea organ, where the waves of the sea push air through various holes in the surrounding concrete to make ever changing music.

Day 57 Trieste Italy to Rijeka Croatia

We left our B&B in Trieste and drove along the waterfront, there were many people out sunbaking on pieces of concrete early in the morning, which didn't look appealing as it wasn't that warm. We drove on to Koper in Slovenia, thought the border was hard to notice as both countries are in the Schengen area and it was difficult to tell that we had changed country.

Our morning coffee break was in Koper, once our coffee was finished and we were trying to leave we managed to take a wrong turn and ended up driving through the middle of the main square (oops), only to find we couldn't get out on the other side, meaning we had to drive back through again (there was no swearing involved.......). After leaving Koper we crossed the border back into Croatia, holding our breath as we left Slovenia that we wouldn't be hit with a €300 fine over the vignette. The border crossing on our side was easy but the people driving into Slovenia and Italy had a different story with kilometers after kilometers of cars queuing, most of them seemed to be holiday makers with more camper vans and luggage racks than we have ever seen in one place, maybe lots of people were starting their summer holidays that week.

Pula on the coast was our lunch stop where we found a car park right outside the ancient Roman amphitheatre which has been partly restored and impressively resembles a smaller Colosseum. 

After Pula we went on to Rijeka for the night, a port town on the coast, though not as pretty as its name, or many of the other coastal cities in Croatia.

Day 56 Ljubljana Slovenia to Trieste Italy

We started the day with a walk along the river in Ljubljana, there was a Sunday market with lots of interesting knick knacks for sale, a bit different and much more interesting than the ones back home.

From there we headed off to our planned trip to the Lipizzaner Stud Farm in Lipica, the oldest stud farm in the world and where the Lippizaner horses are bred for the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.

The grounds are quite large but the farm itself seemed quite tired, the paddocks were not in good order and the stables not kept as well as you would expect. The indoor school and the show seemed quite amateurish compared with the one in Vienna, maybe this is to be expected as it is the breeding and early training centre from which the top horses are sent through to Vienna. If you are in the area it's worth seeing but I wouldn't recommend making a special trip to Slovenia to see it.

Our stopover for the night was in Trieste, Italy which is very close by. Trieste is a seaport with the largest square in Europe that opens to the sea. The buildings around the square are architecturally beautiful and ornate but the square itself was very quiet, maybe because it was a Sunday evening.

Day 55 Bled to Ljubljana

We decided to start early to hopefully miss the bus loads of tourists we were expecting to descend on the tiny island with the church in the middle of Lake Bled. We hired our own rowboat and M was even wearing his black and white striped Venetian gondola style tshirt. The weather was perfect and we had that part of the lake to ourselves as we crossed to the island then moored our boat for a quick walk around the island just as boat loads of people started arriving. We would love to know who was the smart person who decided that they would charge €3 a tourist to ring the church bell and list it as a "must do", it was ringing non stop, ding ding ding ....ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching!

We had a little bit of trouble getting back into our boat as a bunch of Asian tourists had started using it for a prop for their photos, M was under a bit of pressure setting off as they all filmed us rowing the boat back, luckily we were off to a good start but it was embarrassing when we realised halfway across that we had been rowing it backwards!

It was such a perfect day for a walk we set off for the 6km walk around Lake Bled, first stop was in Bled town to have morning tea on the lake and sample the famous cream cake that the area is famous for, which is very similar to a light vanilla slice with cream, and by the look of the cream filled beak of the sparrow on our table the bird life enjoy it just as much.

An international rowing regatta was being held on the lake and by the time we arrived at the finishing line they were awarding medals, its difficult to imagine a more  beautiful spot to have a regatta, except for the continual ringing of the island church bell, ding ding ding ....ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching!

We had been told that Vintgar Gorge was closed as they'd had a very bad winter with flooding and rock collapses so were still cleaning up the area to make it safe but we decided to go along for a look anyway and there was access for a little way.

From there is was on to the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, on arriving at our apartment M was asked if he was Slovenian as his Italian surname is apparently very common in Slovenia. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the bars and cafes along the river in Ljubljana which is a very pretty capital city.

Day 54 Zagreb Croatia to Bled Slovenia

We collected our hire car for a week of driving around Croatia and Slovenia and drove north to the border, we still had to do the passport control unlike other countries in Western Europe where formal border crossings don't really exist. We hadn't been in Slovenia for long when we started seeing signs about a vignette, this sounded vaguely familiar to us from our previous European trip. A quick internet search told us that we should have been advised by the car rental company, as they knew we were going to Slovenia, and failure to have a vignette results in a €300 fine at the border when you leave, ouch! We took the next exit sign and purchased a vignette from a petrol station,  hopefully we won't get fined!

We drove through the township of Bled and headed for Lake Bohinj, stopping for some lunch near the stone bridge before driving onto Vogel and taking the gondola up the Julian Alps and into Trivlag National Park. Once at the top of the gondola we took a chair lift up to the ski slopes where M took advantage of the patches of snow and hit K with a snowball.  

We took our time heading back to the chairlift to head back down, and when we disembarked at the other end we saw a sign saying that the chairlift stopped at 4pm, and it was 3:57! We were lucky we made it, it would not have been fun to have ended up stuck at the top of the mountain having to walk all the way down.

The next stop was Slap Savica which was a climb of 550 steps to the highest waterfall in Slovenia before driving back to Lake Bled and our Airbnb in the tiny town of Selo where we were staying.