Budva and Kotor, Montenegro

Montenegro was the last country on our tour of the Balkans. Translating to 'Black Mountain'', the country shares a common history with nearby Serbia of being conquered by different empires over the centuries, due to its geographic location as the crossroads of 'East and West'. Our interest in visiting this country was the UNESCO listed Bay of Kotor. In order to reach this site, we flew from Belgrade to the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica and booked a private transfer to the coastal (party) town of Budva. In the height of summer, this town was buzzing with super-yachts and electronic music pounding the centuries old fortress walls.

Belgrade, Serbia

Belgrade - the capital city of Serbia, sits at the confluence of two rivers: Sava and Danube. Strategically, this location has been at the cross-roads of East and West; the site of wars between armies of the Austrian and Ottoman Empires and more recently the conflict that dominated the Balkan region during the early 1990s.

Our interest in history pulled us towards visiting this city and devoting three nights to sightseeing with little background research.
Overall we were enriched by the experience and place Belgrade on our list of recommendations -full of meat eaters where English is widely spoken and easy to navigate our way around.

Mostar, Bosnia

Mostar, famous for the bridge - Stari Most that was destroyed and rebuilt during our lifetime, was a place we wanted to visit for reasons other than ticking off another country. We wanted to see the locals dive off the bridge; reflect on the significance of the city as a cross-roads between cultures fueled by geo-political and religious tensions; and also learn more about war that had occurred during the 1990's.
We visited Mostar as an overnight trip that split (mind the pun) our days in Split. Easy to travel to, we recommend the journey and if we had more time, perhaps an onward trip to Sarajevo.

Hvar Island, Croatia

Hvar is an Croatian island a short ferry ride away from Split. Recommended by friends, it promised a mixture of historic sightseeing and small restaurants serving fresh seafood meals. Happy to escape from the package-tour packed streets of Split, we had plans to catch the ferry into Hvar city and then book ourselves onto a speedboat transfer to the Paklinski islands for a few hours of sunbaking.
Due to time constraints, we didn't manage to visit Stari Grad on the north side of the island, UNESCO listed and one of the oldest towns in Europe, first settled by Greeks in 384BC.

Split, Croatia

At some point in the 4th century AD, the Roman Emperor Diocletian decided to build a retirement palace and chose the seaside settlement of Salona (former name for Split) as the location. This massive building brought fame to the area and the UNESCO listed ruins drew our attention to visiting the city.
Our itinerary had us staying for four days, filled with sightseeing, island hopping and an overnight trip to Mostar, Bosnia - covered in a separate blog post. We arrived around mid-August, taking the overnight ferry from the other side of the Adriatic in Ancona, Italy.

Tallinn, Estonia

Our city break visit to Tallinn, Estonia in June was booked for a few reasons: 1) To see the UNESCO listed historical Old Town; 2) Experience a near-midnight sun; and 3) Finish our tick-list of visiting all the countries in the Scandic-Baltic region. Tallinn is a popular destination for cruise and ferry passengers with the port located near the medieval tourist center of the city. Our recommendation would be to visit Tallinn for a few days to absorb the history, architecture and eat the crispy pigs ears - a truly amazing and tasty beer snack!

Bratislava, Slovakia and Vienna, Austria

Our trip to Bratislava, started off with the simplistic intention of ticking another country off the list. Our knowledge of Slovakia was limited to being able to pin-point it on a map in central Europe, linked to neighbors by the famous Danube River. Distant memories of primary school days recalled the name Czechoslovakia; and an earlier visit to Prague had given us a history lesson in the 'Velvet Divorce'. A walking tour in this city gave gave us an insight into the pre and post Communist era that echoed the memories of locals we had met during recent visits to other former Soviet states.

Vilnius, Lithuania

Vilnius, capital city of Lithuania was added to our travel bucket list on the basis that the Old Town is UNESCO Heritage listed; and the city is also located a short bus ride away from Riga, Latvia (see previous blog post).
As our total time in town was on the short-side of 30 hours, we had an 'express' insight into the local culture.
To sum things up, the city offered pretty architecture, tall citizens (who are obsessed with basketball); and a tasty cuisine of stews and dumplings. In addition, the quirky and artistic Republic of Uzupis (declared independent on April Fools Day 1997) showed us the humorous side of this Baltic city.

Riga, Latvia

Given that our travel objective is to seek out new cultural experiences from around the world, we pounced at the opportunity to visit Riga - European Capital of Culture, 2014 (shared with Umea, Sweden). Once called the 'Paris of the North', this pretty Baltic city is full of art-nouveau architecture, talented street performing musicians, and living up to its reputation (according to Olie) of having very attractive women. Whilst this was a short stay - 1 night followed by a trip to neighbouring Vilnius, Lithuania; we enjoyed walking around the city and soaking up the cultural atmosphere.

Ljubljana, Slovenia

When we started our travel adventures in Europe almost four years ago, the 'must do list' contained the usual suspects - France, Spain, Italy, Germany; plus a sprinkling of historic capitals - Athens, Istanbul, Vienna. At that time our knowledge and awareness of ex-Communist Eastern Bloc members was limited and not part of our 'to do list' of Europe. However, when we started actively 'country ticking', these countries made their way into our travel plans. This post on Slovenia kicks off a series on countries that we feel should feature more often on the itineraries of anyone doing a European tour. 

Zagreb, Croatia

Our visit in November to Zagreb, capital city of Croatia; was based on surfing Skyscanner for cheap flights and stumbling across this destination that was almost unheard of amongst our friends. Zagreb is an old city that was foundered when two opposing towns - Kaptol and Gradec decided that it would be more beneficial to unite than to continue brawling with each other over rights to resources, trade and taxes.  The river that divided the two towns has now been paved over and is lined with cafes perfect for beer, coffee and people-watching.

Athens, Greece

This blog post is the final installment of our 10 day Greece trip.
We chose Athens as the final destination in order to get direct flights back to London.
Our desire to visit Athens was based on an interest in visiting several icons of ancient civilization including:
- the Acropolis,
- the Oracle at Delphi
- the fortress city of Mycenae.
And also to eat plenty of souvlakis, a dish that is common in Melbourne, but we hadn't eaten a lot of in London.

Santorini, Cyclades Islands

We arrived in Santorini with very high expectations, as many friends had visited the island for travel and had only good things to say about the trip.
Accolades included:
- one of their top travel destinations
- beautiful scenery
- place for the most amazing sunsets in the world
And we were not disappointed, slotting Santorini near the top of our favourite and most romantic places to visit in Europe.

Heraklion, Crete

Our 10 day trip to Greece had been organised as a replacement for a cancelled tour of Egypt as a result of the civil unrest and UK travel warnings. Late October is not the typical tourist season in the Hellas but this was good news for us - an absence of crowds at the tourist sites, beautiful warm mid 20 degree weather, clear blue skies, free museums (first Sunday in November); and experiencing the cultural street celebrations of Ohi Day - the anniversary of Greece's entry into World War II when the Prime Minister denied Italian soldiers (fighting for Mussolini) free passage through Greece.

St Petersburg, Russia - Part 2

Following on from Part 1 of our adventures in St Petersburg; the next stops in our travels were to visit: One of the most popular tourist sites in the city - the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood; the interestingly decorated St Petersburg Metro stations; and Peterhof Palace - constructed by Peter the Great who took inspiration for the design from the Palace of Versailles in France. On this trip, we were lucky to have great weather, a friendly tour guide and would highly recommend a trip to St Petersburg to all our friends, especially during summer.

St Petersburg, Russia - Part 1

Visiting St Petersburg had been on our 'must do' list for many years. The glamour of the Russian aristocracy shown in films like Anna Karenina or documentaries about the jewellery house of Faberge; inspired this trip. Interestingly, the famous Faberge eggs are exhibited in Moscow (Kremlin) and not in the Hermitage, St Petersburg (although there are plans for a private museum in the future) so although we were disappointed that we didn't see any more eggs from the collection; we had seen a couple exhibited at Buckingham Palace in 2011.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

The luxury of blue skies, 24+ degree weather, eating seafood, people-watching and lounging around on rocks next to the ocean in nothing less than a 2-piece is something to look forward to on a weekend trip. Europe offers so many options for escaping reality and on this occasion we were headed for Dubrovnik, Croatia. London by contrast has been fogged up to its eyeballs - so much that it has been impossible to distinguish Tower Bridge from the Tower of London as both were almost invisible when looking out from London Bridge. Winter is here and it is only October.

Budapest, Hungary

Our recent trip to Budapest (pronounced Buda  Pesh) was a mixture of history lesson, hot house (a top temperature of around 37 degrees Celsius) and wonderful Baroque architecture.
The cities of Buda and Pest were established on either side of the Danube River and came together during the formation of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Budapest is often left off the 'must see' European city list - but we think that it should be. The people were friendly, food and drinks cheap and there is plenty to see and do - even just relax in the numerous public baths around the city.

Prague, Czech Republic

Fact: The Czech Republic has the highest annual consumption of beer per capita in the world. Whilst the source of this piece of trivia may be wikipedia, it was verified by the Easyjet magazine and our Prague free street tour guide who is a teacher - teachers don't lie, right?
Prague was on our 'to do list', based on other friend's reviews of scenic streets and picturesque buildings. Our trip to Prague was accompanied by three friends - Wai, Farrah and Steph. We hung out together as a group, exploring the city and getting in touch with the local cuisine.

Krakow, Poland

We added Krakow to our travel 'to do list' when cheap flights (Ryanair) caught our eye back in June. Our knowledge of Krakow's cultural history was fairly limited, so we expanded on this by reading the UNESCO World Heritage site listing and our usual travel forums. On one hand Krakow is known for its pretty architecture that survived the bombings of World War II, however it is also scarred by the horrors that occurred at the nearby Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp - a visit that left us with feelings of sadness and anger.