Further Wanderings

I had these grand dreams that Europe was where I’d finally catch up on my ‘blog writing, as we had several lengthy train trips in quick succession. Instead I seem to have fallen further and further behind, because, as we are moving quickly from place to place I’ve just felt to busy to really do that much writing.

Ah well. Onwards, ever onwards. Both in terms of my writing, and for the narrative of the ‘blog.

Our last stop in the Balkans was the little nation of Slovenia. It’s actually debatable whether Slovenia is actually a Balkan nation. It usually gets lumped in there just because it was formerly a part of Yugoslavia. But in fact Slovenia seemed to have a lot more in common with Austria or even Germany than with the other Balkan nations we visited. As soon as we’d crossed the border on the train the contrast was evident. Run down old buildings punctuated by communist era concrete hulks gave way to a general sense of prosperity and neat villages full of highly sloped, orange tile roofs on modern alpine-styled homes.

One of many brightly coloured homes in the Solvenian village of Apace.

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Croatia received the shortest visit of any country on our trip. Even shorter than Turkmenistan, where we were only legally allowed to stay for five days by the terms of our visa. A mere 40 hours.

Despite the briefness of our visit, and despite the fact that it was all spent in the town of Osijek, the largest city in Slavonia province, far removed from Croatia’s famous sea coast, we still managed to make a new friend, see a bit of Croatian history in the flesh and get a fabulous taste of Croatian food and wine.

Local wine caves built into a hillside in the village of Zmajevac.

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No pun, not alliteration, but at least it rhymes and has good metre :) Our trip to Belgrade (or Beograd, I'm not sure which spelling I prefer) may have been the first and only time where we were pleased that our ... [Continue reading this entry]