Ottoman Tour

Our 2012 Travels begin with the Ottoman tour on the 25th May and goes for 7 days across 5 countries. We begin in Croatia and continue on to Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria and finish in Istanbul. This tour we are travelling with Amie and Shelley (Amies friend from home that happens to live in the shire and we have a few mutual friends. SMALL WORLD).

Our flight from London to Split was a 6am flight which meant Sal and I were up at 2am getting dressed and lugging our backpacks downt to the night bus for a 235am bus to Victoria tube station to get the 330am Gatwick Express train to the airport. My first meeting of Shelley was me sitting on a train eating a steak pastry. Im pretty sure she would have had a bad first impression whilst I was covered in crumbs. The train took 30 minutes and we met Amie at the airport around 430am! Never ever thought i'd be up that early in London. But we made it and checked in our bags which weighed a whopping 18kgs for me and Sally the big packer was 20.3kg this year!! We went and got a drink and sat and waited for our dreaded early flight. We boarded our flight and pretty sure I fell asleep before we even took off into the air. I woke 30minutes before landing to see we were flying over the Swiss Alps which were absolutely beautiful covered in snow but also had me worried as to what the weather was going to be like as I had only really packed summer clothes.

We arrived in Split and got the local bus to our hostel which is Split Booze and Snooze hostel. I can tell you now that one night we stayed there we did not booze and definately did not snooze as a girl in our room was extremely loud and coughed the entire night and a guy in our room snored the house down. (not a great start to the 6months of hostels I can tell you that much) The good thing was that we spent the entire day at the beach soaking up the sun and maybe getting a little too burnt as we forgot our skin had lacked Vitamin D and any type of pigment for the last 6months as we are normallly covered head to toe in long sleeves and pants. So we were a little pink/ RED ROAR at the end of the day.

We had a few random creepy experiences this first day which included a guy getting up whilst we were eating lunch and pegging his newspaper at us and storming off and looking like he wanted to kill us. Which is funny now but at the time the girls were scared. I had no idea what was going on as he was behind me the whole time and I stupidly thought his newspaper must have blown off his table and right onto our table BUT NO he had it in for us for some reason. But thank god we didnt see him again that day. Another experience was the four of us sitting on the edge of the water taking photos and next minute a one toothed guy walks up to me and looks like hes either going to push me in the water or steal my handbag so obviously I grab tightly on my hand bag and stare at him thinking what on earth are you doing you freak?! but he just walked off.  Things normally come in 3s so we were waiting for the next awkwardly weird experience in Croatia but it never came. LUCKILY!!

We headed out for a cider and dinner then off to bed for a 9pm early sleep as we were so exhausted. But as I previously said that did not happen. It was a night filled with tossing and turning and another early get up to leave for Bosnia the next day.

We met out tour guide Dax and boarded our bus and off we were to our first stop.

MOSTAR- It was this beautiful little town and had this amazing bridge built right in the middle which was built for trading purposes back in the day. After the war though the original had been blown up so its a reconstructed version of the old bridge. And I personally think it was stunning. The water underneath was crystal clear fresh water which flowed through the town. There were cute little restaurants and houses and shops built around the river and the views were glorious. There was still alot of damage to the buildings which showed bullets holes and blown up walls and buildings.
Here we experienced a traditional lunch with our local tour guide which was Burek. Its thin pastry slices filled with spices and either potato, cheese, spinach or meat and then rolled up and cooked over coals and cut up.It tasted delicious. This restaurant was also the beginning of using squat toilets. Not so fun I can tell you.  We get back on the bus to our next stop which is Sarajevo.



SARAJEVO- I loved this place. It is amazing. By far my favourite place where I've loved learning the history of it even though its very modern history. We arrived around 530 and checked into our Motel and then showered and got ready for our 4 course meal and even more excitedly we were meeting up with Tess :) We went to a little restaurant called Pod Lipom and for 10 euros we had Chicken and Lemon soup, Salad, a Mixed meat tasting platter of Bosnian foods and Apple Baklava and a glass of Vino (wine). Food was absolutely amazing and got us even more excited to keep trying more the following day. That night we went to a local bar and watched eurovision and  had a few too many vinos then ended the night as we had another early get up. The following day we had a walking tour with a local guide around the war torn city and then took a bus to the tunnel that kept the city alive which they call the Tunnel of Hope. The tunnel was 1m by 1.6m and 800metres long which was connected from a house in Sarajevo to the airport and took them 4months and 4 days to hand dig this out so the country could try and survive whilst under attack. The tour guide was 8 yrs old when the war started in 1992 and she told very heart wrenching experiences of what it was like to live in a city whilst under attack. She looked as though she was going to cry everytime she spoke of the horrible things they went through and I found it a very traumatic experience. Its hard to picture what it would have been like to be living there when over 11500 people/family members of these people were killed by bombs and snipers and machine guns from serbians. The worst part is the city find it hard to move on when the people are still suffering from mental and physical problems caused from the bombs. She said many of the young kids die young as they grow up with cancer from the gun powder and bombs chemicals and alot still wake up in nightmares of being under attack and thinking they could die any day.  I think after having Ben in the army away in Afghanistan for the past 6 months that it really hits home when you see the damage that has been done to the buildings and lives over here and really thats what hes dealing with over there. So it was quite scary to think that everyday that ends is a day closer for him to come home and be safe and another day you have to pray he will come back in one piece and 100% mentally and physically. So yeah I really liked that tour and its really made me fall in love with the city. After the tour we got a bus back to town and met up with Tess and had Cevapi. Which are little sausage type meats cooked over coals and put in a bread case with cream cheese. They were huge and very tasty. Highly recommend everyone tries them if they come to Bosnia.

SERBIA- Belgrade- After a long bus ride to Belgrade we arrived in the afternoon and went on a walking tour. We had a local guide who was very informative and as we were on the walking tour we walked up into an old castle and watched the sunset over the River Sava. It was beautiful. After the pubcrawl we arrived at a restaurant where our group had dinner and then went on an underground pub crawl. This was the first time busabout had been on this pub crawl and it was pretty funky and different from the other pubcrawls we had done in the past. We went to bars that were illegal in peoples houses and in caves and in deep dodgey backstreets. haha Now that Ive scared you all they were all completely safe. One place was a tattoo studio by day and a really cool chilled out bar by night where everyone sat around and relaxed and just enjoyed everyones company and the walls that were covered in drawings from people and the bathroom was an eyeopener as it had a lounge in it and the walls were covered with naked women.?! STRANGE! There were a few random bars inbetween and then the last bar was in a cave along the river it had homemade wine which you could taste every single ingrediant in it and it tasted aboslutley disgusting.  Lets say one sip and I was done trying to drink it. We also tried Honey Rakia which is the local drink. Then we strolled home as we had an early start on the bus to get to BULGARIA.

BULGARIA- 1st night we stayed in Sophia. We stayed at Hotel Rodena which was pretty fancy compared to what we were used to . Still only about 1-2 stars but still. In our hotel we had a strip club on the roof top and also a piano bar which overlooked the entire city it was awesome views. Once we arrived and checked in we got ready for the night and then went on a walking tour which half way through began to aboslutely bucket down with rain and we all got soaking wet so the bus picked us up and took us to our Gypsy night out. The gypsy night out was all you can eat food / MEAT and gypsy dancing and singing. It was by far the best night on the trip. We ate so much meat and drank so much wine that next thing we know we are dancing on our seats and tables whilst everyones eating dinner and then the whole restaurant is up and dancing on the tables and the gypsys were belly dancing and singing it was amazing. So much fun. We had a really good night and then got the bus back to the hotel and had the bus pumping of music and then went to the piano bar and then a few of us stumbled into the strip club for about 10 minutes then left as it was some ridiculous hour.

The next day we got on the bus around 12pm and drove to Plovdiv which took 2 hours. We did a walking tour through Plovdiv where we found a statue that looks exactly like dave with his ears and everything so Sal got a photo with him :) We went out for a group dinner this night and I had chicken in a clay pot and sally had chilli concarne it was really good then we headed home for an early night. 

Last night on tour was in ISTANBUL - Love Istanbul its such a beautiful city. We went on our last group walking tour and then went into the Turkish baths. They were awesome we sweated it up on the marble stone then had topless ladies scrub and massage us then we went into spa baths then had a massage it was amazing. That night we had dinner and drinks with the group was a really fun night. The next day we went to Blue Mosque, Spice Market and the Grand Bazaar. Then Dave arrived and we went on a boat trip which was supposed to be to the Asian side but we got on the wrong one and just went to a different part of the european side. So silly of us. But was still fun. That night we had an early night as we had an early get up to go to Dalaman to our turkey sail.

Poland - Krakow and Zacopane

Early January I went to Poland with Tess and Lauren. We flew with Ryan air and thought buying the cheapest flight would work out best for us as we'd only take hand luggage for the week we were away.
But we were wrong. How can 3 girls pack enough warm clothing to last a week when we were going to be in the snow every single day. WHAT A MISTAKE. I think my hygiene standards really dropped this week as I wore the same white long sleeve (and only long sleeve) top the entire week it was that cold.

We arrived in Krakow and stayed 3 nights in Greg and Toms party hostel. We went to the salt mines which was amazing. We went hundreds of metres below ground through hand craved salt mines. It was incredible and Id highly recommend everybody to go.

From Krakow we also went on a day tour out to Auschwitz concentration camp. The weather suited the day and place we were at very well. It was cold dreary and dark. Not an ounce of sun. The concentration camp was very interesting but very sad as well. It hadnt been snowing at the time we were there but when the tour guide was telling us how the Jewish people had to live with nothing but stripped clothing no socks, no shoes, no jackets and had to work and stand in the snow and rain for days on end with no sleep and no food; it really made you realise how good we have it and how badly they were treated. We walked through all the buildings and there was photos of hundreds of thousands of Women, Men and Kids that were killed in the concentration camp. There was a huge room full of all the hair that was shaved of all the Jewish people that were in the concentration camp and a room full of hair and tooth brushes and even a room full of shoes. It was really really sad especially hearing the stories the Tour guide told. The entire place was roped off the barbed wire and metal and concrete poles and the rooms that had beds were just metal frames, no blankets and no mattresses. It was truely apaulling that anybody could treat another human being like that.

That night we went home and decided we would go to Zacopane up in the mountains of Poland. The hostel owner even picked us up in his own car and drove us the full hour to Zacopane. We ate Polish pastries the whole drive up and then we finally started driving through snow. Huge amounts of powder everywhere. The trees were covered and our hostel was more like a house/lodge. We walked through knee deep powder to get to our hostel door and then it was warm and toasty inside. We were so excited about the snow that we walked down and took hundreds of photos and just ran and jumped all through the snow. We walked down into the town and even bought snow boots which were a bargain. That night we went out for dinner and ate traditional Polish food which was amazing. We ate Perogi which are similar to dumplings and also Buckwheat groats. Which were really good. They had this amazing soup which was served inside a big damper bun and u had the soup then ate the bun :) was delicious!!! The next three nights we just drank hot drinks inside our cabin and went out for lots of polish food and enjoyed the snow. Lauren and I even went skiing one afternoon which was really fun as we skiied watching the sunset :) another day the three of us went up the mountain which had a view of the entire city which was lovely but Freezing cold!! We definately didnt have the clothing to be up there but we had lunch and took lots more photos.

Then on our last night we got the bus back to krakow where we went on a pub crawl with everyone at Greg and Toms hostel which was really fun and involved shots with tobacco in it . YUCK!!!

Then we sadly got up the next day and got our ryan air luxurious flight (NOT!) back to london to head back to work!