Welcome to Vienna

We arrived in Vienna on Saturday evening after driving 10 hours from Poland, through Slovakia and the Tatra Mountains and into Austria. Peter and Ana, Couchsurfers hosting us in their apartment in Vienna.
On Sunday morning Ana and Peter had organised breakfast with four other Couchsurfers for us all to meet. There was one from Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Guatemala and Austria. It was a great time sharing stories and discussing where to visit next.
Peter and Ana were great hosts, sharing their home, taking us to places, providing meals and helping with all those IT tech issues with our blog and downloading thousands of photos. Fantastic people and Tony has met his match - Peter has a great sense of humour and Ana is really sweet. They've hosted over 100 people in Couchsurfing.

Driving the Tram in Vienna

Our host Peter was a tram driver in Vienna. This enabled Tony to drive the tram a little way - and it was of great delight to him.

Belvedere Art Gallery

Belvedere is considered to be the best baroque palaces in the world with its fine buildings, gardens and art galleries. It houses the collection of Gustav Klimt. Sitting along side Van Gough, Degas, Monet and many more. I was keen to see Klimt's work in real life and in particular his "Poppy Fields" painting. It was a much more relaxed Gallery than Victoria's National Gallery. You were allowed to photograph, look very closely and take your bags in with you. A young artists had even covered some of the classic statues with modern art and it looked really effective.

Hundertwasser - A great artist of buildings

For those of you who know Hundertwasser, he has designed some spectacular toilets in NZ. These toilets won an award in England for the best toilets in the world. I didn't realise that Hundertwasser was Auatrian until I got here and there were signs of his work everywhere.
We saw a recycling depot and a block of flats. Both very spectacular and it would be good if the Shire could incorporate them into some of their public buildings - Maybe the Healesville public toilets.

Slovakia

We drove through Slovakia, through the Tatra Mountains another very spectacular site. As with other Eastern European countries that landscape was scared with hundreds of tower blocks of flats to house thousands of people during during Communism. However they (the people and the flats) were still there. Also every time we drove through a beautiful valley there would be a huge dirty black industrial monstrosity next to the river.

Poland - Krakow

We arrived in Poland not knowing what to expect, as it wasn't on our itinerary but we felt we owed it to Savaad to visit. It was very modern and Western and not at all how we expected. Everything was also very reasonably priced.

Krakow was a great place, the square is the biggest in Europe. The food was also terrific.

Auschwitz - Krakow

"The past must be remembered so history does not repeat itself."

The place was full of tourists , the sun was shining, the streets and the air was clean, the rooms were empty and yet you cannot forget it was an awful thing that happened here 60 years ago.

Hungary - Budapest

Our hosts Chris and Kati, Couchsurfers, were wonderful host.

Very generous and helpful. It still amazes me that strangers can be so hospitable and welcome you like friends instantly. We had dinner on the balcony on the sixth floor. They made a traditional hungarian dish which we have noted and put into our collection of recipes.

Budapest Central Market

We were very impressed with the MArket. A huge hall of Hungarian food delights.

The building was also very impressive, designed by Eifel.

The Communist Statue Park

All the communist statues were taken out of the city and put in a park on the outskirts of Budapest after communism fell. It was full of over powering and intimidating statues. It was a very weird experience. You can see Tony at the foot and the huge singular statue.

Thermal Baths - Budapest

One building we were particulally impresed with were the Thermal Baths. I'm sure they were built for the gentry. The buildings were extreamly ornate, inside and out.

Pokijuke National Park - Slovenia

A beautiful walk along boardwalks suspended over the river

Sovenia - Lake Bled

Slovenia is a beautiful country with a range of mountains running through it.
We visited Lake Bled situated in the mountains. In the middle of the lake is an island with a beautiful old church sitting on it. Also a castle sits high on a rock over looking the lake.
We walk to the top and drank a well earned beer - well two, after walking about 10 kilometres. The view was like a scene out of a fairytale.

The Otherside of Croatia

Whilst Croatia was a beautiful country, when we went inland only a few kilometres, the remains from the war in the early 1990's was very evident. Every house would have bullet holes, many houses had been abandoned - old, new and unfinished houses. They had been left by the Serbs after they'd been forced out of Croatia. But fifteen years later these house were still empty.

Krka National Park waterfalls

An amazing NP with the best waterfalls I have ever seen. They fell about 54 metres. There were boardwalks along the top, meandering over large pools and through lush forests.

First night of camping

Seeing as we,d bought camping gear to help with our accommodation budget, we thought it was time to give it a go. We even cooked a great dish of Pasta as we were missing our Italian friends.

The next morning we were sore and ached and both very grumpy. I was ready to give it away, but after breakfast we mellowed and thought we should give it another try. I packed my bed with as much padding as possible. I folded the doona or duvet four times and Tony dug a hip hole. The second night was much better. However we haven,t done it since. We keep saying - oh on we can,t camp it,s looks like rain. We have to camp for a total of 5 days for the tent to pay for its self. I,m sure we can manage that.

Dubrovnik

We visited Dubrovnik, a very old walled city. During the war in the early 199Os it was attacked repeatedly for two years. Much of it was severely damaged, but because the stone walls were so thick it managed to survive. UNESCO helped to fund the repair of the city and now it is an amazing city that Croatia takes much pride in. We climbed the wall of the city which gave us an amazing view.

Off to Croatia

After a fantastic time in Italy, meeting great people, it was time to move onto another place. Next it was Croatia. A little scary, never having been to an Eastern Europe Country. Also we didn't have any couch surfers to meet. So we,d be on our own. We caught the ferry from Ancona, Italy across the Adriatic Sea to Split, Croatia. What greeted us was fantastic. Dramatic coastlines and coastal roads and clear aqua blue sea.

Eroding town - Bagnoregio

Luciano and Anna took us to see a hill top town that was badly eroding. It was a few thousand years old and you could see where houses had fallen over the edge of the cliff. Leading up to the town was a really long walkway and bridge. Crossing it was like something you would experience in a dream - very scary

Luciano,s Place

Luciano is a couch surfing host in Montefiascone, Italy.

He, his wife, Anna and daughter, Monica, live in a cute house overlooking a very large lake.

Luciano is a photographer and has produced some really interesting work.

We got to know the family really well and feel we made some good friends. Tony got on particulally well with Luciano and exchanged every cultural, political and social detail possible.

One very interesting thing they both had in common was they both burn the food, whether it be on the BBQ on the outside pizza oven because they love to talk.