Venice is weird...

...Really weird. It's hard to believe it is a real town, and not something constructed by Disney. Our first experience with Venice was riding the vaporetti (boat bus) from the parking lot to Piazza San Marco, which was packed with tourists and pigeons, as well a being partially flooded. It all disgusted us a little. Especially the pigeons.

Apparently, it is romantic or novel to come to Venice and feed the pigeons in Piazza San Marco, because there are plenty of people doing it, and plenty of vendors selling pigeon food for €1 per bag. The result is that those of us who don't want to get crapped on have to dodge between groups of birds and people being enthusiastically photographed by their traveling partners. Ick. It was even grosser when we found several dead pigeons sat the edge of the square.

After this unfortunate first impression, we managed to get away from the tourists and pigeons and start to enjoy ourselves a bit. We went to an architecture exhibit at the Biennial Garden, where the theme was Cities, and there were some excellent displays. If we hadn't done that, though, we probably wouldn't have stayed more than 24 hours. (Remember, these are jaded tourists talking!)

From Venice, we went to Genoa, where we met Lucy, Christian, and Eric and stayed in their home. Christian took us on a tour in his sailboat, which was magnificent. Genoa really looks different from the water. It was so nice to stop feeling like just a tourist and to be able to to see the local perspective! Thank you Lucy, Christian and Eric for sharing your home with us!

-SK

Mozart and Mazes

aka Whirlwind tour of capital cities in eastern europe (WTOCCEE)

After a few days in Hungary trying (and failing) to master "hello", "goodbye" and "thank you" in Hungarian and looking for some good wines (luckily succeeding), we met our friends Jennifer and Wendy in Budapest. We like Budapest! It is big enough so that it doesn't feel overrun with tourists and has truly beautiful vistas across the river. The perfect theme music (even though it was written in Vienna) is Strauss' Blue Danube. It works for the traffic around the big round-about and the people swimming in the whirlpool at the Turkish baths.

The only problem with our trip to Budapest was its correspondence with the weekend. Like in much of northeastern europe, lots of things close at 1:00 Saturday afternoon and don't reopen until Monday morning. But thanks to Jennifer and Wendy's superior planning (they had prepared a down-to-the minute itinerary, complete with subway stops and opening hours... don't laugh, it actually worked!), we managed to see lots of sights, including the part tacky/part arty/part scary labyrinth near the old castle.

When we got to the cathedral we wanted to see though, it was closed.

But then it happened. Something we've been waiting for this whole trip.

The cathedral was closed, but Craig noticed there was a performance of Mozart's Requiem later in the evening. We asked the guard where to get the tickets and he said "Oh, they're free." So three hours later we were inside the cathedral listening to a fabulous choral concert!

Then we went to Vienna, where we saw a crowd-pleasing sort of "Best of Mozart" show and successfully navigated the maze at the Schonbrunner Schlosspark (don't you love German?!) and quickly left for Prague...

... which we hated at first (Jen and Wendy having an icky hotel experience and all of us feeling crowed by mobs of tourists and general seediness), but warmed up to after escaping the crowds in the mirror maze in the big park near the castle. We did not see a Mozart concert in Prague, but we had a very interesting experience trying to get to a certain restaurant, where we had to walk around a sort of DMZ and past armed guards to the entrance. (Turns out it is in the same building as Radio Free Europe, which the Czechs think could be a terrorist target.)

Photos: Cathedral in Budapest, Maze in Vienna, Crowds (old town square, Prague)

-SK

The "FYRs" (Former Yugoslav Republics)

Croatia, in particular the Dalmation coast, has become a tourism hotspot, billing itself as "the Mediterranean the way it used to be", so we decided to visit it with Gary and Margaret (Craig's parents). We were a bit disappointed because it is not really that well-developed for tourism (hard to find campgrounds, and not enough hotels) and it is definitely no longer a cheap place to visit.

Dubrovnik is beautiful, but completely overrun with tourists and overpriced attractions (like €7.50 per person to climb the wall). Hvar, supposedly a jet-set yachting destination, has a so-so setting, an exposed harbor, and is also overrun with tourists. Split is interesting, originally a roman city and castle which is now the center of town. We arrived there on Friday night, and the only hotel option was a communist style room (small and spartan) facing an alley for €150. We ended up staying in a private apartment, which quite frankly, is probably the best way to go everywhere in Croatia. They are less expensive than hotels, usually bigger, and usually have kitchens.

For our money though, we'd take Montenegro over Croatia any day! For one, it is cheap! Craig and I spent our anniversary in a hotel (it was dark and we couldn't find a campground) with a sea view and breakfast for €30. That is less per night than the campground in Hvar. The old Montenegran towns of Kotor (on a fjord-like inlet as spectacular as some in British Columbia) and Budvar (sort of a mini-Dubrovnik) are charming and not quite as overrun as the Croatian towns.

We also liked Macedonia (officially "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" because Greece has some issues with the name "Macedonia"). Or at least the very small part of it we saw, which was Ohrid, a beautiful town on a big lake. We parked the camper along the waterfront promenade walking distance from the town center, and spent the night there. We ate a fabulous dinner for under €25 and the drinks at the bar with the best DJ came to about €2.50 for two of us.

The photos here are from Kotor, Montenegro and Ohrid, FYR Macedonia.

-SK

Highlights of Greece

We spent three weeks in Greece (including Crete), which is really not enough.

It will take another trip to feel like we have the full picture. Hopefully when it is cooler so that we can hike!

We saw:
+ The Pelion Peninsula
+ Delphi
+ Athens
+ Crete
+ Eastern Peloponnese
+ Meteora
+ Northwestern Lakes

We missed:
+ The Islands (except Crete)
+ Mt. Olympus
+ Pretty much all of Western Greece

Our favorite places are the Meteora, the Peloponnese (specifically Epidavros, Monemvasia and Mystros), and northwestern Crete. We were disappointed by Delphi (too crowded, too much imagination required because very little is standing)and pleasantly surprised by Athens (not as smoggy or seedy as we had imagined with some interesting neighborhoods).

Here are some of our overall impressions of Greece:

• It is trashy. There is garbage all over the roadsides. And no recycling containers to be (easily) found. The majority of the trash is plastic bottles (everyone seems to drink bottled water) and plastic bags, which are given out freely by retailers. Even if all you buy is a bottle of water.



• Greece has some of the best mini-marts in Europe. They ALL have cold drinks, and sometimes even vegetables. And they are anywhere and everywhere that someone might need one. Like on the busy arterial near the campground bus stop in Athens.



• You almost always get a glass of water when you order a drink at a bar, and a straw when you buy a drink in a can.



• English is spoken widely and well. (Road signs are often in Greek and English, which is very nice if you can actually see the sign.) ...Speaking of which...



• Signage is terrible. There is plenty of directional signage, but it is inconsistently placed and often obscured by plants or graffiti. Also, there is not much attempt to remove obsolete signs, so you may find yourself slowing down to 40 km/hr for a tollboth that no longer exists, or following an ancient road to your destination instead of the new highway. It has been our most challenging navigation yet. (Coverage for our fancy computer navigation ended when we left Austria.)

The photos here are from Agios Galeni, Crete, and the Meteora.

-SK

Too hot in Greece

After our long wait to clear the Bulgarian border (see our Bulgarian Odyssey entry) we managed to escape from Bulgaria, but not from the heat.

Our first days in Greece were unbearably hot, so instead of climbing Mt. Olympus, we stayed on the coast, exploring the Pelion Peninsula and its beaches.

We decided we could handle some exercise, but only if it involved getting in the water often, so we managed a short hike (only 6 km!) between three different beaches.

Here they are!

-SK