It really is coming towards the end now- there's a weird feeling of loss as we're on our way back into France, the closest we've been to home in nearly two months, recognising this part of my life is nearly over. I'm glad though, to look back on the trip so far and say wholeheartedly that I don't feel like I've let a single day pass me by. Every morning has been an invitation to new stories, sights, experiences, and whether it's placebo effect or not I don't know, but I do feel like I've grown and matured massively. In the most cliché way possible, I've gained such a new perspective and I'm hoping I can take that back into daily life at home. Whilst it's not going to be new cities every day back in Bracknell, I want to keep this mentality of everyday offering new opportunities. One of my favourite books, The Alchemist, puts this best:
"When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises."
A few days back in France, then Belgium, and then a week and a half in The Netherlands is all that separates me now from putting that into practice. And in the meantime- I'll pick up where I left off, on my way to Zagreb, Croatia.
We'd originally planned two separate locations in Croatia- its capital, Zagreb, and the coastal town of Rijeka. When revising the itinerary after feeling burnt out from multiple short stays in the early part of the trip, however, we reconsidered our plans and decided to just stick to Zagreb; it made travelling onwards to Slovenia less difficult as well. We arrived in the early evening, and were pleased to be greeted by a shop at the train station selling warm pizza slices, the perfect accompaniment for the journey to a staple of the trip at this point; we had to try out Croatian McDonalds. This was maybe our first discovery of the best part of Croatia- everything is ridiculously cheap. Croatia only joined the EU earlier this year, and so the cost of living in euros is incredibly affordable, only having recently changed currencies. We've gotten used to the weird looks as we walk up to the ordering machines with bags as big as ourselves now- in fact I think it'll feel strange going into a McDonalds without one once we get home!
Zac and I each bought a chicken box of 9 nuggets, 6 tenders and 2 small fries for only 10€, which even we struggled to get through with our hungry backpacker stomachs.
We then headed down the main high street to our hostel- again, comparably cheap at 20€ a night- and were greeted by an incredibly friendly front desk guy who offered Zac and I both bottom bunks, which we took gladly. It's funny that when I was younger the top bunk was so appealing; now, having to get up and down a ladder to get out of bed feels like the biggest inconvenience ever.
Whole Wide World Hostel perfectly embodied exactly what I expected the backpacker experience to be. Nightly events in the downstairs bar meant there were always great chances to socialise, the drinks were cheap, and everyone we met was so friendly. The first night, we just had a beer each and watched the others play beer pong, hoping to get a decent sleep in to make the most of the next day.
I did- Zac wanted to sleep in a bit, which was fair enough after the day of travelling we'd just had, so I bought myself some breakfast at the shop conveniently on the corner of the road next to our hostel and looked at what we could do in the area. I'd seen loads of people online recommending the 'Museum of Broken Relationships', so decided to take a walk up to it, atop a hill with a brilliant viewpoint over the whole city. The museum was possibly one of the most interesting things I've experienced on the trip so far- rooms filled with different items donated by people across the world. It had started as a touring collection, collecting a range of objects from broken-hearted lovers from New Zealand to England, Syria to China. I must have spent nearly two hours there reading every description, wondering what relevance a parachute, or a model of Godzilla had to people's love stories. There were final love letters from widowed soldier's wives, pieces of art dedicated from mothers to their children, and my personal favourite, a toaster- labelled the 'toaster of vindication'. The caption simply read, 'When I moved out, and across the country, I took the toaster. That'll show you. How are you going to toast anything now?'
I met back up with Zac, and we headed to another museum- Zagreb's 'Museum of Illusions'. Like the rest of the city, it was very small- four or five rooms, we only spent around an hour looking at the different exhibits, but to be honest you could have done it in twenty minutes. Zagreb was a very quiet city, particularly for the country's capital. With another full day to make use of the next day, and wanting to do something other than more museums, we decided to book in for a day trip to somewhere I'd wanted to visit since getting into the idea of travelling- Croatia's stunning national park, Plitvice Lakes. It's crazy how these things work out- this whole trip started because I'd made a list of places I want to visit one day, and told Zac about it, Plitvice Lakes being one of the first places on that list. Yet, when planning these 3 months, we'd decided we wouldn't be able to make it there. But there we were, buses booked, tickets bought, to visit the very next day. It felt like a real full circle moment.
We spent some time walking around the city, still getting used to not having the summer air to keep us warm, then headed back to the hostel to cook another rendition of Zac's famous tomato tuna pasta. As I was happy to discover- it happened to be Karaoke night at the hostel, and Zac reluctantly got involved. It turned out to be a really good night- we eased our way in with Ed Sheeran, built up to 'Don't Stop Believin'', and ended with a bang with a classic bit of Bon Jovi.
It's safe to say that the alarm to catch our bus to Plitvice Lakes the next morning wasn't the most welcome.
Back on a FliXBus, which if you'll recall, we have the fondest of memories of, the two hour drive proceeded to the lake. We snacked, healthily as ever, on cookies and soft drinks, and wound through dodgy one-way mountainside roads that I've never been a fan of, hoping the payoff would be worth it. And I've got to say, the first view overlooking the park made me forget the early start and cramped bus within an instant.
It was like something out of Avatar- towering pillars of mossy rock, expanses of blue-green lake walkable on raised wooden walkways, and stunning paths leading you through its several incomprehensibly big waterfalls. As the postcard I bought in the giftshop deemed it- it really was 'heaven on earth'. We spent four hours just getting lost in the natural beauty of this place, wondering how something like this could be so close to the admittedly bleak city that was our home that night. The bus home wasn't filled with the same buzz of apprehensive excitement as the earlier journey had- returning to Zagreb that evening, the prospect of another train ride the next day ahead, we were pretty low on energy, to be honest.
But, as all good party hostels do, that mood was lifted when the beer pong table came out, Zac and I going undefeated that evening. We said our goodbyes to the friends we'd only said hello to no more than two hours earlier, and got a good night's sleep in- tomorrow, once more, was a new day and a new country.
Three hours of trains felt like absolutely nothing to us by this point, so the journey into Ljubljana actually wasn't too bad. Google took us the strangest route to our hostel though- crossing over train tracks by foot, walking through parks and industrial estates: it was all very odd.
We stayed at Hostel Tivoli, right by the side of Ljubljana's massive Tivoli Park, which was really nice to walk through on an evening.
The hostel was basic, but cheap, and suited us well enough for three nights- Zac's girlfriend, Ashleigh, was flying in on the second day to join us in Ljubljana and Lake Bled, so it was good to have a decent base to come back to. We got ourselves set up at the hostel and took a nap before heading across the road for dinner. I took a gamble on the menu item that literally translated as 'thick noodles and fish', which turned out to be an interesting take on salmon gnocchi, which I ended up actually enjoying whilst Zac turned his nose up at it and ate his calamari. We stopped off at a little shop on the way back to the room, where I bought myself a bar of chocolate (I must have spent in the region of one hundred euros on them by now) and got an early night in, me planning to explore the next morning whilst Zac took a bus to the airport to meet Ashleigh.
So I woke up the next morning, Zac already on his way to the airport, washed in the comically small shower cubicles, and took a stroll through Tivoli Park. I think there must have been some sort of kid's sports day event, because there were at least twenty different coaches parked up, thousands of children, and parents watching from the sidelines. Unsure if I was intruding or not, I swiftly left the park and walked instead towards the city centre and into the old town for some key bits of sightseeing. I walked along the riverside, overlooked by Ljubljana castle and its waving flags, crossed the triple bridge and got plenty of photos of its colourful old town buildings. Much like Vienna and Zagreb, Ljubljana had this very relaxing feel about it, and I really lost track of time until Zac called me to let me know they'd made their way back to the hostel.
We spent the afternoon catching up with Ashleigh, our first real contact with home since seeing my family for three days in Spain nearly 2 months prior, took an evening stroll through the park (now childless, thankfully), and returned to my favourite gnocchi restaurant where we all had pizzas for dinner. We planned ourselves a busy day ahead- firstly, for me to show Zac and Ashleigh around the old town (I was essentially a fully qualified tour guide at this point), and we had also booked in for a wall climbing session at an indoor trampoline centre on the outskirts of the city. Because what else are you meant to do when in Slovenia, right?
It turned out to be a really great hour's session actually- we raced each other up the climbing walls, fell many times, and laughed at Zac who couldn't hold on to one particular ride- which involved being winched up a slide by your arms- for longer than Ashleigh and I.
The evening, however, was the highlight of the day. I managed to convince the two of them to tag along for a bar crawl, which went exactly how you might expect a Slovenian bar crawl to go. The hosts were two admittedly unhinged, seemingly sadistic, girls who enjoyed watching each of us regress with the more alcohol we consumed over the course of the night. We stopped at three different bars- the first, just a warm up, the second, promising my favourite, of course karaoke, and the third a student bar which gave us a good feel for the real Ljubljana University scene. The night culminated at Cirkus Klub, the strangers who I had met no more than three hours before becoming my dance partners in the early hours of the morning, and parting ways at around 5am with promises to meet up again in each other's hometowns- Stuttgart, Melbourne, Istanbul. And I really hope we do get a chance to call back on those promises one day.
Much like the karaoke night followed by Plitvice Lakes in Croatia, my rest was cut short the next morning by the alarm that signalled it was time to get up, attempt the free hostel breakfast, and catch our train to what many seasoned backpackers had told me would be the highlight of my trip- Lake Bled.
Lake Bled is about an hour's train journey north of Ljubljana, but you could easily think it was way less as you get lost in the scenery out of the window on the way. Mountains, white-rushing rivers, and (courtesy of the time of year we were arriving) vast expanses of woodland fading between different colours of amber to deep greens, leaf litter like carpet stretching for miles. The smiles Zac, Ashleigh and I shared all communicated the same thing; we already knew, the next three days were going to be brilliant.
We arrived in Lesce, the town around 10 minutes drive from the lake itself, and took a short walk to our home for the next two nights, 1A Adventure Hostel. It was very simplistic, but to be fair we weren't planning on spending much time in our rooms; once unpacked, we made our way back to the station and called a local taxi to take us to the lake for the afternoon. The winding countryside roads took us to the West of the lake, and the feeling the first time we got to see the water itself was incomparable. No number of photos I'd seen in the build up, planning this trip, could have prepared me for how incredible the real thing is. The most scenic, beautifully blue water, buried amongst the mountains encased entirely in the evergreen trees, partially shrouded in the low lying clouds. With the outskirts of the water's edge dotted with fairytale houses and cabins- not to mention, the castle on the mountaintop to the East, and the iconic one on the island in the middle- it's no exaggeration to say it was like walking into a Disney movie. This day, our first, was fortunately relatively clear weather, so we managed to have a nice walk for a while before enjoying a meal at Restavracija Central Bled; Zac and Ashleigh treating themselves with a steak, myself having a schnitzel. We taxied back to the accommodation and planned an exciting day ahead for Zac's birthday; boating on the lake, tobogganing on the mountainside, and a meal courtesy of Zac's parents as his birthday gift.
We were promptly woken by the church bells at 7am the next morning- and by the time we'd dozed back off, again at 7.15, then at 7.30. By the time the 7.45 bell came around, I was out of bed and getting my towel out to go and have a shower. The church bells every fifteen minutes weren't the only annoying thing to wake up to though; it was absolutely hammering it down with rain outside, jeopardising all of Zac's birthday plans. I put on my raincoat and went out to brave the weather to get some breakfast, my trousers getting drenched in the process, but the thought of a good sausage and bacon fry up with my supermarket purchases keeping me going.
When I arrived at the Spar, I found it closed, so I walked across the road to Lidl. Also closed. Aldi? No chance. Then I realised, how lucky I am, that it was Sunday, so everywhere in the country basically stopped functioning. Almost everywhere- the golden arches, like on many occasions on this trip, shone at me from across the car park, the saviour to my hungry belly.
After being served by a robot (a new experience), and demolishing the gift that is Slovenia's McDonald's waffle fries, a chicken burger and a chocolate milkshake, I took on the rain once more back to the hostel where I was greeted again by church bells. Spoiler alert; they're a recurring piece of my Lake Bled experience.
After meeting back up with Zac and Ashleigh, we took a taxi again to the Lake, hoping the weather might find it in its heart to clear up for Zac so we could make the most of his birthday. Boats weren't allowed on the lake in the wind and rain; and the brakes on the toboggan wouldn't work if they were too wet, so that was ruled out too. Unfortunately, Bled isn't famous for its indoor tourist attractions, so we got as far as the gift shop before feeling very deflated about the day's course. The rain lightened up a bit however, so we took a walk around the lake a bit more and got to see what it was like in the fog as the night drew in behind the clouded sky. About halfway around the lake, we found a restaurant, and decided to eat there, having a great meal and the restaurant essentially to ourselves, a benefit of out-of-season tourism. We once again called up the taxi company, the same guy who answered the phone the last four times getting pretty bored of us by now, and called it a night, somewhat salvaging a pretty bleak day.
The next day was Ashleigh's last with us, so we agreed to get up early and catch the hostel shuttle bus to the lake and try to make the most of the morning, before we took the train back to Ljubljana for the airport. The weather couldn't have been more different from the day before; clear blue skies made the autumn trees stand out more than ever, and you could finally see how far into the distance the mountains stretched. There was only one thing for it; for €30, the three of us rented a boat, and I got my first upper body workout in months with an oar in each hand, taking the role of rower and taking us out onto the lake. It took about fifteen minutes for the fear of capsizing to settle down, then reaching the point where we could really appreciate where we were. We will never again be this age experiencing this many adventures in such a short time frame.
We caught the bus back to Lesce, relaxed in the hostel for a couple of hours, then took a train to Ljubljana where some of the most chaotic few hours of the trip would unfold. We took the bus with Ashleigh to the airport, which was absolutely rammed, me having to sit with my rucksack in my lap the entire time. Zac spent the entire journey trying to talk to his girlfriend, but being pestered every two minutes by a guy who had randomly decided to make conversation with him at the bus station, and it was rush hour, so the journey took twice as long as it should have. After much stress and many checks of Google Maps, we arrived at the airport, said our goodbyes, and confronted the journey ahead. Zac and I had originally intended to get an overnight sleeper train from Ljubljana to Bern, where we could meet up with his Swiss family, but for some reason mobile tickets wouldn't be accepted- once again we had to turn to our good friend FliXBus, and planned an unnecessarily complicated annoyingly viable route to Freiburg, Switzerland.
It involved a 9-hour overnight bus into Karlsruhe, in the South of Germany, where we would then take a train over the border into Basel in Switzerland; Basel to Bern, then Bern to Freiburg.
So, after the bus back from the airport, we stocked up on snacks at Lidl, and waited for the bus leaving at ten past midnight.
The next twelve hours of travel weren't the most comfortable or enjoyable, and I lost a hat along the way, but sure enough we made it into Freiburg by midday and were greeted by our saviour and tour guide for the next week, Héloise. I loaded my backpack into the boot, and Zac's bag and guitar shared the backseat with me whilst he sat upfront and caught up on all things Box-related with his cousin. Driving through Switzerland is incomparable to anything we could experience here in the UK, except maybe for the Scottish Highlands. Winding on the sides of mountains, or driving through thick, low fog, is a daily occurrence there, and Héloise found it hilarious how astounded Zac and I were by things she had called normal all her life.
We made it to the apartment that Zac’s family really kindly let us stay in for the week, set down our bags and familiarised ourselves with our new roommate; Freya the cat, or as we dubbed her, ‘Steve’. Steve had some funny habits; (s)he claimed one particular stool at the kitchen counter that we were banned from sitting on, and also made herself at home in the bathroom sink on more than one occasion. We took it easy for the first night; I cooked up a beautiful tomato pasta and cut up some bread, served with presentation Gordon Ramsay would be proud of, and we relaxed on the balcony with the guitar to round up the evening. We spent the next morning recovering from the limited sleep we’d afforded on the overnight bus the night before, adventuring out of the apartment just after midday to get some food and buy myself a new hat. We knew that we couldn’t visit Switzerland without at least trying what their McDonald’s had to offer- and to answer that for you, it’s overpriced food. 4 Swiss Francs will get you a small fries- and they currently have statistically the most expensive Big Mac in the world, for 6.70CHF. That’s around £6- we pay around £4 even in Central London. After getting my McDonald’s rant out of the way, we took a walk a bit further into the town we were staying in and found a New Yorker, a clothing store that we don’t have in the UK but I saw in Vienna and saw loads of really cool things that I’d have bought if I had the bag space then. I thought surely they would have a good replacement for my long lost baseball cap that was now keeping someone else’s hair warm somewhere in Germany, but found myself completely out of luck. The next store down however was a sports shop, where I found myself a Yankees cap, setting me back somewhere in the region of 20CHF, but it didn’t matter as long as it covered the state of my hair from two barber-less months.
Héloise invited us to meet her back in Freiburg for a local gig at her friend's university that evening, and Zac and I thought why not? We took the train and met her at the station, then walked to a kebab place with some of the best chicken I’d had in a while. We took out some cash as our euros would be of no use here, and walked over to the venue, a really cool underground bar, where we spent the evening listening to a band who were obviously Swiss but sang in English- which was quite funny, as they had picked up words in songs from different countries, so switched between American and British pronunciations every few lines.
The next day Héloise drove us into Bern, somewhere I’d been really excited to see as it’s Switzerland’s ‘technically-not-quite-capital’. When the Swiss Federal Constitution of 1848 was drafted, the title of capital city was never assigned, and to this day no Swiss law states that Bern is the capital. But for touristic reasons, and the fact it lies between the German and French sides of the country, it is often recognised as such. I absolutely loved Bern; maybe it’s simply a Swiss thing, but the city had such an amazing way of integrating nature with its architecture. The river flowing its centre is a focal point of the city, with bridges and riverside housing built to accommodate and accentuate it, rather than take precedence over it. We even got to spot a brown bear at the city’s Bear Park, the bear being the symbol of the city featuring on both its crest and flag. The Old Town itself has earned a place as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and that is clear with how well kept it is- though, you could say this about Bern as a whole. Its almost Gothic architecture style allows for an incredibly beautiful, walkable city, but it also has its modern viability; we spent a good amount of the time in the city shopping, browsing through vintage stores and music shops, and even having a beer in a crowded but lovely bar not far from where we had parked the car. Wrapped up warm in a new jacket I had bought myself in Metro, we headed back to the apartment, getting a Burger King on the way (marginally less expensive than McDonalds), and again relaxed for the evening in the apartment with the guitar and Pirates of the Caribbean on the TV. This was the thing about Switzerland- having somewhere comfortable to stay, that was ‘ours’ so to speak, relieved a lot of the pressure that hostel life presents. Having someone like Héloise that really knew the area, that was so kind throughout to take us everywhere, made our Swiss experience an undeniable highlight of the trip. We felt safe; almost a holiday from the holiday itself.
The next day was planned as this; Héloise and her mum, Zac’s aunt, had told us about these thermal baths not far from where we were staying, somewhere in the valley overlooking the mountains, and without a moment’s hesitation Zac and I were on board. We’d been looking for an excuse to go swimming again since being in the lake in Garda, and with Bled being far too cold for that, this was perfect. We took the short drive (again- incredible mountainscapes, rolling green fields in the mist) and were not at all disappointed with the Gruyere Thermal Baths- although, by the end of it, our hands had shrivelled as if we had aged eighty years. Going between the warm outside pools, competing who could stay the longest in the saunas, and taking a plunge in the Nordic ice bath, the hours we spent there absolutely flew by. We were then invited back to Héloise’s house for dinner, and had one of my favourite meals- fajitas. I tried my first ever apple strudel for dessert, then we headed back home again, listening to The 1975 in the car, much to Zac’s distaste.
We took the train into Lausanne the next morning, meeting up with Héloise’s sister Charlotte and her boyfriend to visit the only city in Switzerland with a metro network. We first visited the art museum, which had some of the best (and on the other hand, also some of the strangest) art I have ever seen. From intense realism to absurd modern art, the museum offered everything, and I bought two different postcards in the gift shop of my favourite pieces to remember it by. We then travelled a bit further into the city, exploring some more of the clothes shops and bookstores, and had a pint at a local brewery. Here I added another beer mat to my collection- on top of postcards, I’ve been seeing how many different beer mats I can collect, and I’m about twenty strong by now. We then took the metro to the station on the outskirts of the city, where Héloise’s mum picked us up, and we drove a little while for the fanciest meal of the entire trip. It was Zac’s great-aunt’s birthday, and a full family gathering was in order. Around the table of fifteen, Zac and I were absolutely lost trying to comprehend any amount of French that came in our direction, and Héloise took great pleasure in refusing to help translate. I could only say ‘C’est incroyable’ about the food so many times before its comedic effect wore off- I wasn’t wrong though, the food was incredible.
Coming into our last two days of the time there, Héloise wanted to showcase the best of Switzerland- our time in the country would not be complete without a visit to the Cailler chocolate factory, where we were given a tour of the history of chocolate, a first-hand view of how the chocolate is produced, and of course the highlight, taste testing. I was heavily scrutinised by the other two for enjoying white chocolate, and forced into the backseat as we drove from the factory to Héloise’s friends house, whom we were heading back into Lausanne with that afternoon. We grabbed a meal at a really nice burger place they knew of, and- kindly declining to join them for a screening of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour movie- instead booked tickets to go and see Scorsese’s new movie Killers of the Flower Moon. I didn’t think it was an incredible movie, and Zac was very vocal about how it was ‘four hours of his life he was never going to get back’.
Our last full day in the country began, as always, with us packing up our bags and cleaning the apartment, then Héloise came and met us to take us to Vevey, a town on the side of Lake Geneva. It was a really nice, small town; we grabbed a hot chocolate and took a walk through it, visiting a second-hand clothes shop where Héloise bought herself a new hoodie after multiple different try-ons. We sat by the lake a while, the now winter-approaching sky growing darker earlier, the mountains that surrounded us actually quite daunting. All of this completely juxtaposed however, by the random fork that was propped up in the lake not far from us. Héloise told us that it was a model put up by the local food museum to celebrate ten years of opening; I have no idea if that is true however, as she often liked to make up fake Swiss facts just to see how gullible the two British tourists were. We went back to the apartment, ordered a pizza (maybe somewhere in the region of our thirtieth or fortieth of the trip?) and each toasted a can of beer to our time in Switzerland.
It was almost a mad dash to the train station the next morning- a quick shower and change, bags piled into the car, Zac’s rucksack in the back seat with me once more, and making the drive to Freiburg. It’s not quite as easy to appreciate the Swiss countryside when you’re worried about not making your way to the next location, but I did try to, looking out of the small backseat window. The vivid greens will be on my mind until I return, which undoubtedly will, just perhaps with a bit more money in my pocket next time.
The train pulled up to the platform not long after we made our way onto it. We said goodbye to Héloise, thanked her massively for taking a week out of her normal life to look after us, and for making Switzerland one of our favourite places of the whole trip, and, as every section of our lives in the last two months has ended, stepped onto another train and tried to find somewhere safe to store our bags.
Every place we visit finds a way to mould us and change our perspective in an entirely different way. I think that’s the best thing about travelling. When I’m home, even though it will be the same Bracknell that I left, the world will seem so different now, so much bigger, so much more colourful. Everyone should travel, it brings a vividity of life you couldn’t experience otherwise. And I’m just incredibly grateful I’ve been able to experience that so early on.
Thank you for your patience waiting for this blog,
As always,
Cheers for the read,
EV.
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