Hopefully you’ve seen or can see Bryon’s posts here now.  I’ve been recovering from jet lag and general exhaustion so I apologize for the lack of posts so far.

After a marathon 2 day research/booking session I booked our flight out from SFO to Dubrovnik on 5/6 for a flight on the very next day, 5/7!  I also managed to book 50% of our hotels as well as all of our other flights.  I was pretty pleased with myself.

But maybe I really shouldn’t have been so pleased with myself.  Turns out, a 40 minute connection isn’t nearly enough time to transfer in Frankfurt (Franport, as they call it).  The lady at the United desk told us that you need at least 1.5 hours.  I think the United computer program needs some work since it suggested the itinerary!  Anyway, as Bryon mentioned, she was able to get us on a direct flight to Dubrovnik so it worked out (though we arrived several hours later and even more sleep deprived.  side note: if you can find 4 chairs together, the terminal chairs at Frankfurt make for a decent nap even though they don’t look that comfortable).  The descent into Dubrovnik is breathtaking, and I think makes this flight worth the effort.  It’s in fact the most beautiful descent I have ever seen.  We were fortunate to be sitting on the left side with all of the spectacular views (YMMV).  I would have taken a picture like the passenger in front of me, but I generally follow the no electronics rules.

After we arrived at our sobe (room), we collapsed from exhaustion until the following morning.

In the morning, we took the bus to try to get to Ploce Gate (Rick Steves’ suggested starting point for walking around the wall).  Dubrovnik is a small Medieval town surrounded by a castle wall.  According to Wikipedia, “It is a testament to the resilience of the ancient walls that more buildings in the old town were not destroyed during the bombardment (during the 1991 Siege of Dubrovnik); the ancient walls in fact were more effective at resisting modern weaponry than contemporary structures in the city’s periphery”.

We also took a cable car up Mt Srd to get a better view

Dubrovnik’s Walls from the cable car

View from Mt. Srd

All in all, it was  a fun day, with the Wall walk being the most memorable experience.  There were 5 cruise ships in town that day (that I counted) so there were a lot of people in Dubrovnik.

Today, we took an early morning bus to Split.  It was a long 4 hour journey.  There were times where it was almost frightening since it involves a lot of driving on 2 lane undivided winding cliff roads, but the views were great.  It’s still the best way to get from Dubrovnik to Split IMHO and costs about $15.

After arriving in Split and resting for a few hours we decided to head out and check out Diocletian’s palace.  This was a really interesting experience and very different from other Roman ruins I’ve seen because the Old Town of Split is actually built into the ruins itself.  This means there is an interesting mix of Roman ruins, medieval buildings, and modern architecture all mixed together.

Roman column inside a bank

Merged Medieval and Roman wall

Walking along the Riva (the main promenade) feels like walking along any boardwalk with it’s modern walkways and assortment of restaurants and shops along the side.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to take a ferry to the nearby island of Bruc to check out more pristine adriatic seashore.

From Bryon’s blog:

This morning, we rode a bus from Dubrovnik to Split. With stops, the ride lasted about 4 hours. The bus/train/ferry station in Split is very convenient to all the tourist sights in the harbor area and is located just off the east end of the Riva (main pedestrian street of the harbor area).  Valerie and I lugged our backpacks about 15 minutes to the other side of the Riva to our apartment, Peruzovic Rooms & Apartments. The son of the owner of the apartment was extremely helpful. He walked us around the neighborhood and showed us how to find the local restaurants, supermarkets, and attractions. The apartment is huge compared to yesterdays sobe and extremely close to the Riva (just a block away).

After settling in, we walked around to Diocletian’s Palace, which has morphed over the ages into an eclectic mix of Roman, medieval, and modern architectures. For example, the modern Split Bank building with a glass facade has a giant Roman column right in the middle of the teller area. We toured the palace cellars (one used for water then used as a dump) and the “smallest cathedral in the world”.

As Valerie pointed out, Split feels more crowded and less crowded. There are certainly more people, but the roads are wider and there is less human and traffic congestion. Overall, I like the feeling of Split more. It feels more relaxed.

Would I visit again? Probably not unless on a cruise. While Split is nice, it’s just not so amazing that I’d travel around the world to see it.

From Bryon’s blog:

Beautiful Dubrovnik

Today, we visited Dubrovnik, Croatia. Rick Steves says that you can see Dubrovnik in a day. He is correct. We started our day by visiting the 24-hour bakery near our sobe, then took a bus to the Old Town. We walked along the walls surrounding the Old Town. From the wall, one can get a great view of the Old Town and surrounding area. Afterward, we walked along the main street (Stradun) and around the Old Town before stopping for some refreshments at the slightly overpriced but pleasant Cold Drinks Buza II. Finally, we headed up the Cable Car to Mt. Srd. The top of the cable car offers a great view of Old Town  (and a terrible view of Port Gruz). We hiked around for a while at the top, but perhaps we shouldn’t have since, to paraphrase Rick Steves, while the area is officially clear of land mines, it was a war zone.

There were at least five cruise ships in Dubrovnik today: 2 tendering directly into Old Town (Costa and Seabourn) and 3 shuttling from Port Gruz (MSC, Norwegian, and Royal Caribbean).

Would I visit again? Yes, on a cruise. Dubrovnik has no train station and flights to its small airport can be redirected to Split (4 hours away by bus) if there are strong winds. In addition, flights in and out of Dubrovnik can be expensive. From a cost and convenience perspective, a cruise ship seems like the best way to get to Dubrovnik.

In case any random travelers happen onto this blog, I’m including a tips for travelers section below.

Tips for Travelers:

• A bus ride costs 15 kuna per ride if ticket is purchased from driver. The driver can provide change. To validate your ticket, the orange arrow should be facing toward the validator machine and the picture next to the arrow should be facing the ground. This may seem counter-intuitive because it is.
• As far as I can tell, the buses only run one direction in a loop. Bus stops are indicated by a yellow area in the road (usually with the word BUS).
• There are a lot of ATMs and ice cream vendors (only 10 kuna for a cone!) on the Stradun.

From Bryon’s blog:

On Friday, June 7, Valerie and I began our vacation to Eastern Europe. Valerie gathered up our Star Alliance miles and booked a flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia. We will be working our way northbound to Split, Plitvice Lakes, Ljubljana, Lake Bled, and Budapest before boarding the Norwegian Star in Copenhagen for a cruise of the Baltic Sea followed by a few days in Paris before our flight home.

The first days (Days 0 & 1) consisted primarily of traveling to Dubrovnik. We flew from San Francisco to Frankfurt where we missed our connection to Vienna. Luckily, the good people at the United Transfer Desk were able to re-book us on a flight directly to Dubrovnik that departed about 4 hours later. (Amazingly, our luggage arrived in Dubrovnik on the same flight thanks to the fine efforts of the people at United and Lufthansa.) We took a shuttle to the main bus station in Dubrovnik where we were picked up by the daughter of the owner of Jele Rooms, the sobe (room for rent) that we are staying at.

Upon arriving at our room, we promptly fell asleep. Our room is a small, but clean room with private bathroom and two twins beds. The owners are friendly and helpful. Jele Rooms is about 1 mile (uphill) from the Old Town and conveniently located next to the 3 and 8 bus lines.

Thank you everyone for your support during the difficult time after my grandmother’s passing.  It was a tough time for my family, but I’m glad we were all there to support each other.  I absolutely made the correct decision in postponing my trip.

After a 3 week visit home (in the OC), I’m ready to get back to trip planning mode.  I’ll post an update on the trip as soon as I figure out when and where we’re going.  I’ve also been requested to write a post on how to pack for such a long trip.  I hope you find the posts useful and follow along!

Valerie

As I find myself typing this from my hometown of Fountain Valley, CA, I realize how quickly life can change. A week ago, I was frantically packing for the first leg of my grand voyage. However, on Monday, May 13, just one day before I was scheduled to leave, my father called me with sad news that my grandmother had passed away. My grandmother has always been a central point of our extended family. Our family would often get together to celebrate special occasions. She’s always been a prominent figure in my life and it’s difficult for me to accept that she’s no longer with us. Consequently, I have postponed my trip in order to spend time with my family during this difficult period. However, this experience has not discouraged me from continuing with my dream; rather it has reinforced the knowledge that even at 85 years, life is short and that it is important to take all the opportunities you are given to make the most of it. Hopefully, you will follow along when we begin our journey even though it will be slightly delayed from our original plan. Best wishes.

People have been asking me recently about where we’re going.  While I have only a vague idea of all the places that we will be hitting in the next 1-2 years, I have a pretty good idea of where we’ll be going in the next 1 month or so.  Like last time we will be following the words of wisdom of our European travel guru Rick Steves’.  Check him out on PBS if you have time.  And if you are planning any trips to Europe I encourage you to pick up one of his guide books.  It is $20 well spent.

For our itinerary this time, we will be hitting the following cities (in this approximate order):

• Istanbul, Turkey
• Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Bled, Slovenia
• Plitvice Lakes, Croatia
• Split, Croatia
• Dubrovnik, Croatia
• Copenhagen, Denmark
• Budapest, Hungary
• Vienna, Austria
• Krakow, Poland

Can you spot the odd one out?  Is that a typo?  It’s not a typo, we are really going to Copenhagen, Denmark between Croatia and Hungary.  What?  It doesn’t make sense to you?  Well it doesn’t make sense to me either that it should be cheaper to buy an airplane ticket that goes from Croatia to Denmark, and Denmark to Budapest than to fly from Croatia to Slovenia to Budapest.  But cheaper it is and so to Denmark we go.

For those of you (like me) who are not good at geography, here’s a map:

Here’s our flight from Dubrovnik (DBV) to Budhapest (BUD) via Copenhagen (CPH). Yes, this was really cheaper!

We actually stopped in Copenhagen on our last visit to Europe, so we will only be staying over night.

I have decided to try to start blogging again in order to keep people up to date on where I’ve been and what I’m up to.  Hopefully I can write a blog entry for every new city we stop in and also post some pictures about what we’re up to.  Bryon will also be blogging (either here or at http://bryonross.com/blog).  Hope you will follow us along for the journey!

Valerie

Wow I’m incredibly impressed with the ease with which wordpress was seemlessly installed and configured. I hardly had to do anything! With all of Ryo’s horror stories, and all my horrible experiences trying to install in Linux, I was really worried this was going to be a challenge, but I’m thrilled to see that hostpc has been ingenious enough to really simplify it so effectively!