Belgium

I spent my first night in Belgium in Antwerp. Scandalously, I did not sight see in Antwerp (or buy a diamond). My main goal in northern Belgium was to visit the town of Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog. Baarle-Hertog is a Belgium enclave within the southern part of the Netherlands. The Belgium bits are not continuous, but are scattered around the town in sections. The result is that, as you walk down the main street, you cross the border of Belgium and the Netherlands several times. Border markers on the main street-

The Dutch part of town is called Baarle-Nassau. A map helps to make a little more sense of what I am talking about-

There are border markers in some parts of town. Otherwise, the most obvious sign that you have crossed the border is that the number plates on the cars change. The locals have taken advantage of the situation. For example, there are several shops selling fireworks in the Belgium parts of town- the sale of fireworks is more strictly controlled in the Netherlands. And in the Dutch parts of town there are several brothels, for corresponding reasons. Me in front of the house with two buildings numbers (because the border passes through the front door!)-

I spent two nights in Bruges. Bruges is another place that had a golden era followed by hundreds of years of relative poverty, in Bruges's case because the canal leading to the the city silted up. So the city was preserved and is now home to many many Australian backpackers. Bruges is lovely-

The city of Ypres is about an hour's drive from Bruges (nowhere is very far from anywhere else in Belgium) and is another war themed destination, this time in relation to World War 1. Ypres was on the western front throughout the war and was completely destroyed. The battle of Passchendaele was fought nearby. I visited the very good In Flanders Fields museum, which has exhibits relating to the various battles for Ypres and the horrors of the war generally. Ypres was rebuilt after the war. The older buildings are exact replicas of the pre-war buildings. I visited the nearby "Yorkshire trench", which was excavated about 10 years ago. The trench system has been partly recreated. It is in the middle of an industrial estate-

On Saturday I took the ferry from Calais to Dover. I had a fantastic six weeks in continental Europe.

Germany

I spent a few days in Germany on my way back to the UK. I started in Dresden, a relatively short drive from Poland. Accommodation was hard to find and I ended up staying at a camping ground. If I had done a little research I would have discovered that it was the weekend of Dresden's annual festival. So I was quite lucky, as there were many free concerts and a carnival atmosphere. Although Dresden was in the former East Germany it does not look like a typical "Soviet block" city, with some exceptions-

Dresden is famous for its Baroque buildings. But it is most well known because of the destruction of the city and those buildings by Allied bombing during World War 2. The centre of the city has largely been rebuilt and it now looks much like it did before the war. I went on an excellent tour of the buildings. The guide showed photos of the burnt-out buildings taken after the bombing, to contrast the now perfectly reconstructed buildings. This view shows the Elbe river and the dome of Frauenkirche, a church that was destroyed in the bombing and which only reopened in 2005.

From Dresden I went to Rothenburg. Rothenburg had been a very prosperous town but it then fell on hard times. The happy result was that its medieval buildings were preserved. It is now a hugely popular tourist destination.

My final stop in Germany was in Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe is a very nice city and home to the German Supreme Court. But my reason for going to Karlsruhe was to visit my friend Linda. Linda and her mother Liliana were very hospitable and Liliana made very nice Croatian meals. Linda took me on tours of Karlsruhe, including her neighbourhood and the botanical gardens, as well as of nearby Ettlingen. We also went to Bad Herrenalb, a town on the northern edge of the Black Forest. We went for a pleasant walk in the Black Forest. Liliana, Me and Linda-

It was then goodbye to the autobahn and on to Belgium.

Poland

My first stop in Poland was Krakow. It was quite strange visiting Poland. It is one of those places that seemed very distant and "exotic". Krakow is the most popular tourist destination in Poland. Unlike many other Polish cities Krakow escaped destruction in World War 2 and is now a World Heritage Site. Krakow was the seat of Polish royalty for hundreds of years. I visited the Cathedral, which contains the tombs of royalty dating back hundreds of years. The central square of Krakow is huge and contains many spectacular buildings:

Not far from Krakow is Auschwitz/Birkenou, the complex of Nazi death camps. I spent the afternoon on a tour of the sites, which still contain many of the original buildings. It was very sobering seeing for real a place that I had only before seen in documentaries and movies. It is hard to comprehend that more than a million Jews were killed in that one area. But seeing the sites brought home to me that those events really happened, that the perpetrators and victims were real people and that the Holocaust really only happened relatively recently.

From Krakow I travelled to Wroclaw, a pleasant city with many Gothic and Baroque buildings. I had a day off in Wroclaw and took it easy. From Wroclaw it was a relatively short drive to Germany and the end of my travels in eastern Europe.

Slovakia

I eventually made it to Slovakia, after returning to Croatia to pick up my clothes. My goal was the "High Tatras" in northern Slovakia. Because of the delays caused by my own forgetfulness, I did not make it all the way to the Tatras on the first day. Instead I stopped in the city of Lucenec, only because it was a useful stopping off point. I stayed in a two star hotel, which was quite luxurious compared to camping and staying in hostels. The lift had an exterior door but no interior door, so I could see the exterior doors passing as I went up. I have never seen a lift like that before, except in my nightmares. I only used it once and after that walked to the 4th floor. In the morning I drove to the High Tatras. The Tatra mountains are the biggest mountain range in central Europe and the highest part is in Slovakia. The highest peeks are a bit over 2600m although they do not seem that high from a distance as the elevation is already about 900m. I camped but did not rough it, as the food in the camp restaurant was good and was very cheep. The High Tatras from the camp:

I spent two days walking in the Tatras. On each day I walked up to around 2000m. At that height it was pleasantly cool and the views were great. It is possible to take a cable car to one of the highest peeks, Lomnicky stit. There are no itermediate pylons holding the cable, simply one very long cable which takes the cable car from about 1600m to over 2600m. It looks incredible and absolutely terrifying. The chicken in me came out again and I did not use it. It was great getting out and about in the outdoors and getting some exercise.

Before leaving Slovakia I went to the Dobsinska ice cave, which is a world heritage site and, as the name suggets, a large cave filled with ice. Visitors are taken through in large groups with a guide. Unforunately the guide only gave his commentary in Slovak. However, the cave was amazing.

Dubrovnik, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Podgora, Zagreb, Osijek

Dubrovnik is always a nice place to visit, if for no other reason than to swim in the amazingly clear (if a little chilly) waters.
It was very hot while I was there, so going for a swim was a must. I visited Srd, the hill behind Dubrovnik, where there is an old fort. In the fort there is an interesting exhibition on the Serb attack on Dubrovnik and surrounding areas and their unsucessful attempt to take Srd, which was the key to their plan to take Dubrovnik.

A couple of hours from Dubrovnik is Prevlaka Peninsula, which is at the very south-eatern tip of Croatia. It is a a key strategic point as it guards the entry to Montenegro's Bay of Kotor. Prevlaka was administered by the UN after Serbian forces withdrew and was only returned to Croatia in 2002. It is now a park. It had the scariest spiders I have ever seen- their webs were strung between trees at least 3 metres apart and the spiders themselves were enormous. The most interesting part of Prevlaka was exploring the many abandoned army buildings.

From Dubrovnik I drove to Lake Skadar, in Montenegro. It is a large lake and is partly shared with Albania. It is continuously refreshed from springs at the bottom of the lake.

Driving in Montenegro is fairly terrifying. The roads are bad and drivers love to overtake on blind corners.

From Montenegro I drove back to Croatia and then to Mostar in Bosnia. Mostar is and was famous for the old bridge which linked the Muslim east bank of the Neretva river with the majority croatian populated west bank. The bridge was destroyed by Croatian forces during the war. When I visited in 1996 the Muslim areas were largely rubble and a small rope bridge had been put in place of the old bridge. The Croatian areas were intact. It was a very disturbing place to visit- at that time I did not feel comfortable taking photos, so I didn't. There was far more traffic on the roads when I visited this time (in 1996 UN APCs were a common sight), the old bridge has been rebuilt and the old Muslim section rebuilt. It was nice seeing the old part of Mostar as it had looked before the war. However, many of the other bullet-ridden and bomb scarred shells of buildings are still there, I guess because no one can afford to demolish them. From Mostar I went to Sarajevo, a city I could not bring myself to visit in 1996. There are visible scars from the war but it is also obvious that much of the damage has been repaired. I did a very interesting tour to the tunnel which was the only land route into Sarajevo during the Serbian seige. It was interesting that in both Mostar and Sarajevo most women were dressed in a way that was indistinguishable from Croatian women. Head coverings were rare and I did not see any women wearing the burka. The language spoken by Bosnian Muslims is very similar to Croatian, but is called "Bosnian". I won't go into the politics of language here.

From Bosnia I headed back to Podgora and spent a pleasant few hours with Niksa and Ana. I then set off for Zagreb. I spent the weekend in Zagreb with Nena. We visited her nice bach in the country by the Kupa river. Nena's friend Goranka fed me very well and Goranka's son Ivan was his usual rambunctious self.

From Zagreb I went to Osijek, a city in the northeast of Croatia. That part of Croatia is largely flat and is a significant agricultural area. Osijek was nice if not terribly exciting. I visited Vukovar, a city to the east of Osijek, and nearby Ovcara. At Ovcara there is a memorial to civilians and soldiers from the Vukovar hospital who were massacred and buried at Ovcara by the Yugoslav army and serbian irregular forces after they overran Vukovar.

I set off from Osijek to Slovakia on Wednesday morning. I experienced my first rain in three weeks. Over an hour into the journey and just after crossing the Hungarian border I realised that I had left a bag to dirty clothes at the hostel in Osijek. So I headed back to Osijek and back through the Hungarian and Croatian border posts. I picked up three Polish backpakers at the Croatian border post. They were trying to get to Osijek. It was a bit of a squeeze but I felt sorry for there as it was a public holiday in Croatia so there were no cars heading to Osijek from Hungary. They were lucky that I am so forgetful. I retrieved my clothes from the hostel and headed north again.