Melissa and Klas's Journey: November 2007

History in Berlin, Fjords in Norway

Hello fans. We hope that everyone is doing well. We got back to Sweden yesterday and we are loving it. The past eleven and a half weeks have been great, but it will be nice to stay put for a while. By now we have figured out have we like to travel,which I believe is the main reason we have enjoyed this second leg of the trip even more then the first leg. We have had a good mix of large cities, small towns, hiking and city sightseeing.

After we left Krakow, we spent a few days in Berlin. We really enjoyed this city a lot. It has a lot of historical buildings and monuments related to World War II and the split of the country between east and west as well as a massive shopping area. There are so many things that seem to affect the perception of each place such as weather, accommodation, cost and if you take a tour, the guide. In Berlin we had a great tour guide even though at first we thought we had ended up in a horror movie (see photo below). The guy had multiple facial piercings, the back of his head was coloured green, and he was wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles jacket that he had traded for payment at a tattoo parlour where he worked previously. Remember folks, never judge a book by its cover. This was by far the best tour guide we have had - very knowledgeable and funny.

Next, we caught a flight to Norway to the beautiful city of Bergen, where it only rains on average 300-330 days a year. The first day there was beautiful. The second day was the most miserable day of our travels so far. It was cold and rained/snowed so we spent most of the day on the internet and watching TV. Luckily the internet was 'free' in the hotel.

If you go to Norway, you must see the fjords as they are beautiful. The trip from Bergen to Oslo via train, bus, boat, and train again is amazing. However, Norway is by far the most expensive country we have visited, especially Oslo where the hostel we stayed at was crap considering what we paid. We did like Oslo as a city though and did a lot of walking around, including visiting Holmenkollen. Holmenkollen is a place every Norwegian treasures since cross country events take place here and they are usually very good at it, unfortunately often better then the Swedes :(.

We will be in Sweden for two weeks before we get on the road again. We look forward to spending time with family, seeing some friends and eating lots of meatballs.

Guess who wrote this blog post?

Our tour guide in Berlin (see description above)

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

Cool picture of the Reichstag - here you can look down to keep an eye on the German government during parliament sessions

Remains of a section of the Berlin Wall

Bellevue Palace - German president's residence in Berlin

Bergen, Norway

Bergen - fjords in the background

Norway's fjords

Cool picture - it looks like the train is going so fast

Ski jump at Holmenkollen, Oslo, Norway

Oslo, Norway

'Czeched' out Prague, Froze in Krakow

We've almost finished our tour of Eastern Europe. I (Melissa) was a bit nervous coming to this side of Europe because I wasn't very knowledgable about the region. Did they speak English? Was it really safe? How easy would it be to find our way? We've been pleasantly surprised with how beautiful these places are, how much they've progressed and feel like the rest of Western Europe, how well people speak English, and the good public transportation system.

After we left Vienna, we spent two full days in Prague, Czech Republic. This seemed to be the most visited city of all the Eastern European cities. There was a lot to see here. Most buildings are in their original form as they weren't damaged by the World Wars. We explored the Jewish Quarter, Old Town, Prague Castle, U Fleku pub (several friends recommended visiting this pub and I can see why - the beer was easy to drink), and their black light theatre (used mime instead of words so there wasn't a language barrier). The city was very vibrant.

We caught the night train to Krakow, Poland. It was interesting that our carriage conductor advised us to lock our door at all times because of thieves. We didn't have any problems. It was a little hard to sleep well since we were woken up in the middle of the night for Passport Control. However, it was a productive way to spend 9-10 hours on the train.

We walked through the town, which looked awesome with fresh snow covering the city. It's freezing here. We visited Auschwitz - it wasn't a fun day but we believed it was important for us to see. It was disturbing to learn about the horrible things that occurred here. Today was a lighter day as we visited a nearby salt mine that was pretty cool. They don't mine for salt here anymore but it was mined for several centuries. Everything in there, including statues, chandeliers, floors, chapels, etc. was made of salt.

Tomorrow we are heading to Berlin with a detour through Warsaw. It will be one week until we're back home in Sweden, which we're pretty excited about.

Prague's Town Square

Prague Castle

Prague

Wawel Castle, Krakow - this should be a postcard

Krakow's Opera House

Salt mine, Wieliczka

Smoky Croatia, Beautiful Budapest, Lovely Vienna

I (Klas) am back - we have free internet access at the hotel so it will not cost us a fortune to have me type. First, I did not eat all of Plate Lipa on my own (see last posting). Second, Plate Lipa cost only €20.90.

We have spent the past 10 days in Croatia, Hungary and Vienna with quite a bit of the time being spent on the road.

On our way from Ljubljana to Split (Croatia), we stopped in Zagreb (capital of Croatia) for a few hours before continuing to Split. The train ride from Zagreb to Split (6 hours) was not a pleasant one. We were not able to get seats in the non-smoking cart. However, Melissa found some people in the non-smoking area to to switch with us, but that ended up just being slighty better since the air from the smoking section was transferred to us through the air vents. We learned later that their buses are non-smoking, so that would have been the way to travel.

Though visiting Split during the summer probably would have been better, we still had a good time walking around the city and taking day trips to Trogir and Krka National Park. Both of us prefer smoke free environments, but can usually handle it if it is not available. In Split we did not even go to a resturant or internet cafe because they just reaked of smoke - there has to be something different with the tobacco they use because we haven't experienced anything like it before. This was a shame since we missed out on the local cuisine and culture a bit.

Next, we caught a flight to Vienna on our way to Budapest. First we visited Buda and then we visited Pest. I am not kidding, one area is called Buda and the other one Pest, ie Budapest. We really liked the city a lot. It has so many beautiful buildings and statues. Our favourite sites were the Heroes' Square, Castle Hill and Andrassy Street. Budapest actually reminded us of Paris quite a bit which I guess makes sense since some people refer to it as the Paris of the east.

Currently, we are in Vienna or Wien as they call it here. The weather has been all over the place while we've been here - snow, rain and sunshine. We have also done quite a few different things here such as attend a string quartet concert and part of an opera, visit the Hofburg Palace and the Schönbrunn Castle as well as walk around the city seeing beautiful buildings while learining some of the history of the Habsburgs who ruled the Austrian empire for over 600 years.
Finally, we spent a few hours in Bratislava, Slovakia. We saw both some beautiful buildings in the Old Town as well as some ugly concrete apartment areas reminiscent of the previous era. A few hours here was enough.

Next we are off to Prague.

Zagreb, Croatia

Trogir, Croatia

Krka National Park, Croatia

Laundry day - lots of socks

Split, Croatia

Split

An old palace in Budapest, Hungary

Buda at night - Chain Bridge and Castle Hill

Heroes´Square, Budapest

Snowing in Vienna, Austria

Concert at Mozarthaus, Vienna

Opera House in Vienna...standing tickets only €3.50 each

Schloss Schönbrunn (former summer residence of the Hapsburgs), Vienna

Hofburg Palace (former home of the Hapsburgs), Vienna

Palace in Bratislava, Slovakia

Concrete jungle from the previous era in Bratislava

Do Re Mi...

This is the debut for me (Klas) writing on the blog. My usual contribution to the blog is posing for the photos, which at times I do not feel like doing.

After leaving Bolzano, we have visited Salzburg, Austria and Ljubljana (the capital of Slovenia). The only reason we went to Salzburg was so Melissa would be able to take The Sound of Music tour. Since I did not want to go on this silly tour, I joined a similar tour that did not include any singing. However, since my tour guide was as interesting as a piece of wood and Melissa had a great time, maybe I should have joined the other tour.

Even though I did not enjoy my tour guide's commentary, I am glad we visited Salzburg since it is a beautiful city with nice lakes and mountains nearby. We have seen a lot of churches but the cathedral here is our favourite one to date. We also visited the home where Mozart was born as well as the home where he spent most of his childhood.

Eastern Europe was not on our first draft of countries to visit, but so far we are glad that we revised our itinerary. We have really enjoyed Ljubljana and could definitely have used another day or two for day trips to other parts of Slovenia. Being in Ljubljana does not feel any different than any other capital that we have visited so far. If you ever go to Ljubljana and are starving, go to Restaurant Pod Lipo and order Plate Lipa unless you are a vegetarian (see photos below).

Well, I took at least twice the time it would have taken Melissa to write this, so I hope you have enjoyed reading it. I expect plenty of comments if I am to write again.