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Rome, Italy, Part 2

On our second day visiting Rome, we walked in town, visiting Plazza de la Republica, fontena del Triton (unfortunately it was in a box), fontena de Trevi (a lot bigger than we expected.. and really crowded) After losing ourselves in the little streets filed with official shops and random people selling random stuff laid out on blankets, we visited Templo Adriano and the Pantheon. We saw Piazza Navona and walked on street Coronari until Ponte Sant’ Angelo. On the other side of the Fiume Tevere, we saw Castel Sant’ Angelo. We kept walking to the Vatican. The basilica Sant Pietro is HUGE.. and so was the line-up to get in! We met an Australian girl in the line so the 40 minutes wait went by a lot faster. We passed security and decided to start with the Cupole to get a nice view. The stairs are wide at first but get narrow and somewhat steep. There is a nice footbridge almost at the top which allowed us to see the mosaics on the walls. We climbed more stairs, getting narrower (good thing we are not overweight) all the way to the top where a nice view of Roma awaited us. We came back down to visit the actual Basilica. It was really impressive. According to Lonely Planet, if you only have one church to visit in Rome, it should be the Basilica. They were right. After spending quite a bit of time in the Vatican, we walked back to our room.

 
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Rome, Italy, Part 1

After a good night sleep, we went to visit Roma. We walked all day, but spent most of our time in the Palatino and the Colosseo. The area of the Palatino is pretty big and it is full of ruins, mostly palaces and church like buildings. There are also a few arches that are still standing. The Colosseo is huge, they could fit between 50 000 and 70 000 spectators. It is truly amazing to see old buildings like that still standing. Today’s architects should probably revise their notes on how to build durable infrastructure… Rome is a pretty city. At moments it feels crowded, but it is probably because Italians are used to bumping into each other. Everybody seems to think that they have the right of passage all the time, on the sidewalk, in the street, in line… anything really! We have to adjust and get in the traffic as well.

 
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Matera, Italy

We took a train to Matera. We were going to leave our bags at the left-luggage in Bari, but it was too expensive, so we brought them with us. Matera is an older village built in the rocks and caves. People that lived there were pretty poor and had big families. We visited one cave, Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario, that has been refurnished as it was in 1950 (when the government realized it was inappropriate to have families living in the same room as their horse, pig and chicken.) It was a really impressive visit in the Sassi. After our visit with our backpacks, we took the train back to Bari to catch our high speed train to Rome. Matera is a must see and should be on everybody’s list when coming to visit Italy.



 
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Dubrovnik, Croatia

We got up early and went for a walk in the Diocletian Palace in Split one last time and came back to the apartment to get our luggage before heading out to the bus station. It is pretty special to see Sarajevo written as a bus destination but that day we were heading to Dubrovnik. After a long bus ride with pretty cool scenery, we got to our destination and had to get out of the ‘cold’ of the bus to get back walking in 30+ degrees. On our way we made a little incursion in Bosnia, maybe an hour, but enough so we want to go back to visit. Our home for a few days is a bedroom in a 3 bedroom apartment, including a private balcony. We relaxed at night, enjoying the AC in our room.

 The next day, we woke up late, took it slow and went out to visit Dubrovnik Grad (old town). The city within the wall is really nice with all the small cobblestone streets. The view of the Adriatic sea is pretty cool too. We walked around for a while and went through a small doorway in the wall where we had an amazing view of the sea PLUS there were stairs to get in the water.. so we did! Water was warm, but felt cold with the tropical weather outside, it was also turquoise and salty. We had a wonderful time!

 We had a second full day to enjoy in Dubrovnik which was great as it is very beautiful and relaxing here. After over a month moving a lot we are getting exhausted and we need to relax from time to time. We went for another nice walk back in the old city. We looked at a few places to swim but decided to go back to the same spot as yesterday. We enjoyed the old town some more before coming back to the apartment and spent some time on our wonderful balcony.

On our last morning here we got ready to take the boat to Italy. It wasn’t in the plan to visit Italy but from here it was a good option to keep using the train pass which is not valid in Bosnia or Montenegro south from Croatia. The boat left on time, at noon, after the border control to leave Croatia.
 

 
 

 
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Split, Croatia

We spent 2 nights in Split. The night we got there we just relaxed as we were really tired from a long bus day including the stop in Plitvice National Park. The next day, we visited the old town called Diocletian Unesco Palace for a while, went around the market, walked on the Riva waterfront promenade and got on top of Suma Marjan Park where we had a nice view over the city. We went to Bacvice beach, which was really crowded, but swimming in the Adriatic Sea cooled us off for a while. We then relaxed in the small studio we rented for the rest of the evening.

 

 

 
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Plitvice, Croatia

The park is amazing with it’s 16 lakes of turquoise water. They are all on different levels and have waterfalls in between. The views are breathtaking and it is worth the detour. There are a few paths that go around all the lakes and it is would be easy to spend a whole day walking around. The bus took us from Zagreb to here in a little over 2 hours and we had to take another one in the afternoon to continue our journey to Split. We definitely have a lot more interest for the nature than the capitals as we feel way better after a day visiting something like this or the caves in Divaca than walking around Zagreb or Oslo.

 
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Zagreb, Croatia

We were in Zagreb for 2 nights. We didn’t do much more than walking around town and also visited the Mirogoj cemetery. We didn’t know we were gonna be in Zagreb for Seb’s birthday but we didn’t do anything special. We had a few beers at the bar downstairs and there was a whole rugby team partying all day and night in the hostel. At 8 AM they had to be in the bar to resume the party and they were sleeping everywhere in there as well at random times during the day. We are not sure what the occasion was. Zagreb was interresting to see as it is a nice capital, but capitals are looking similar after a few in different countries. They are good for a lot of shopping and partying, but we don’t have room in the backpack or the budget for the shopping, and partying there or anywhere is mostly the same.

 
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Ljubljana & Skocjan Caves, Slovenia

We had a stop in Ljubljana, Slovenia for a couple nights as we wanted to visit the capital city, but mostly to go visit the Skocjan caves not far from there. We took the morning train and after around 1.5 hours we got to Divaca. A shuttle bus was waiting for people from the train that wanted to go visit the caves and the bus was free. We didn’t know what to expect from the caves but we were really impressed. We took a 2 hours guided tour underground and it was one of the best things we’ve visited so far, comparable to the Fjords of Norway or the Arches in the desert of Moab. We were 100 meters or so underground and there was also a river running in the middle. The ceiling is covered in stalactites and the floors have a lot of stalagmites. We could also see signs of the first explorations and tourists paths with staircases carved in stone. The new path is way easier than the original and has a bridge going across the river. We ended the visit by a couple museums waiting for the shuttle to go back to the train station.

Unfortunately, taking pictures is forbidden on the tour. We have a few pictures of Ljubljana and also some pictures after we were outside the caves.

Dragon Bridge
Ljubljanica River
An old street of Ljubljana

Skocjan Caves

Ljubljana Castle
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Bled – Vintgar George, Slovenia

Vintgar George is really close to Bled, Slovenia. It is a river that dug a canyon and they built some wooden paths so visitors can walk along it. It has really clear water and the falls are really impressive. In some areas, it looks 30 feet deep and we could still see the bottom as if there was no water. It was really worth the 6 km roundtrip from the Traveller’s Heaven hostel which had free bikes we borrowed.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Bled, Slovenia

Bled is a small town in Slovenia. It is famous for its church in the middle of  the lake and is a really touristic place for a town this size. We found it really pretty and enjoyed our night there. We didn’t stay very long but we just wanted to have a quick look and it was worth it.