Week 5 Update

Howdy all

Since I emailled you last I've been in Dubrovnik mainly, and arrived in Athens last night.

A lot of people on this email list talked up Dubrovnik and gave me heaps of advice.

To be hones I was a bit surprised with what I got with Dubrovnik. First of all it is expensive. Almost Western Europe expensive. Ten euros for a meal is a bit steep in this part of the world.

Also, while it's off the map for Ryanair and EasyJet, and very hard to get to really, it's full of older tourists, which usually means it is well and truly touristy (and probably explains the prices).

There's still plenty of fun to be had - touring the local islands (and getting quite sunburnt) was a great highlight, and walking the city walls offered some amazing views, even if I seemed to be going slowly so a few oldies could get up and down stairs.

The highlight though was the much talked up Buza or Cold Drinks Bar, which sticks out through a hole in the wall onto a rocky outcrop over the water (the Croatians claim Buza means hole). Magic at sunset, and it enabled me to jump off the outcrop and into the sea. Great fun.

Really, it is an utterly beautiful city, but I think the touristy element was a bit of a disappointment for me.

That was followed with a trip I like to call Highway to Hellas. It involved a bus trip from Dubrovnik to Skopje (supposedly 10 hours, really 13), train to Thessaloniki (supposedly 6 hours, really 9), and then a train to Athens (supposedly 4 hours, actually an excruciating 7 and a half sitting next to a bloke with shocking BO and trying not to wretch). So after setting off at 5:30pm on Monday night, I got into Athens at 12:30am this morning. Thirty hours travel, including five different countries (and three different alphabets) in 18 hours:

- Croatia, obviously
- Montenegro (full of Russian holiday houses and, obviously, money launderers; I saw the sun set from on my bus on a barge on a fjord in the Mediterranean - weird)
- Kosovo (you should see the investment pouring in to the capital, Pristina - so much new housing)
- Macedonia (Skopje is an absolute hole, one of the worst cities I have seen - and definitely the worst train station I have ever seen - but the rest of the country, or the parts I could see from the train, were gorgeous)
- Greece (who made their dislike of Macedonia more obvious with an hours wait at the border for no good reason)

Finally Athens today, and I saw the Acropolis, Dionysius' Theatre, Temple of Zeus, the original Olympic Stadium, the Ancient Agora and Plaka all before lunch, had a siesta and then saw the sun set from Lykavittos Hill, which was beautiful, thanks to he pollution.

I'm off to Instanbul tomorrow night (19 hours by bus) for four nights, including Gallipoli, then Munich for the castles and Freiberg for the Black Forest. Again, ideas and suggestions are welcome.

OK must go. A bloke who has been loudly whingeing about a computer not being available (he's American - he's been doing everything loudly), had just pulled out an Egyptian lute and is strumming it with intent. He's also claiming it's "deliberately out of tune."

Serenity Now!