Ljubljana, Slovenia.

As I began to write this post we were around 8 hours into a 13 hour coach ride in Croatia (supposed to take 10 hours).Travelling from from Pula to Split. What a scenic route we have taken. After sleeping on & off & reading half of "Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brookes I thought I could make a good start on our Slovenia jaunt & then update the blog when I have internet connection later. 

Up until about 2 months ago I do not think I could have pointed Slovenia out on the map. But it was recommended & since then lots of other travellers have also told us how greater place it is.

The place with what appears to be an unpronounceable name. Ljubljana "Lube lee arna". Rhymes with lovely arnt a. And it really is a very lovely little place. 

Month 1 in Summary

Greetings from Pula, Croatia. On Friday we celebrated our 1 month anniversary of travelling so I thought I would do a re-cap of the first month of travelling.

Italy food & drink

A lot of people go to Italy for the food, Russell's favourite cuisine in the whole world is Italian but I can take it or leave it. Apart from prosecco & tiramisu I'm not too fussed for Italian food & drink, it would be way down the list of my favourites - in case anyone cares, my favourite is Mexican.

So anyway, after 3 weeks & 3 days in Italy I've changed my mind. It was awesome!

Venetian Blinds

In July 2004 me & Cat discussed visiting Venice. The city of romance, the city of water, the city of whatever, the names go on.  Nine years passed by like a rocket. The lure of Venice diminished. I think it is fair to say our expectations were a little on the low side. Pessimistic? perhaps?

Torino

The first thing we noticed about Turin, before we even got off the train, was how blue the sky was. It was like a Disney film! The next amazing thing we noticed was a woman in a park with a pigeon sat on her head.

24 hours in Milan

What is there to do in the high fashion capital that is Milan? Visit a bone church of course! Just a few minutes walk from the city’s famous Duomo (Cathedral) is a church with a tiny chapel in the back that’s packed full of bones. The church of San Bernardino alle Ossa is pretty unremarkable when compared to the rest of Italy's churches, but the bone chapel is what sets it apart.

La dotta, la grassa, la rosso - Bologna

Ahhhh Bologna, the first place we have truly fallen in love with. We originally booked 3 nights but after being here a few hours we knew that wouldn't be enough. The hotel receptionist must have been annoyed with us - it seemed every time we saw him we were asking to stay longer!

Bologna has a catchphrase - La dotta, la grassa, la rosso which means the learned, the fat, the red. The learned is because Bologna has the oldest university in the Western world. The fat due to its delicious food - bolognese and lasagna were invented here (more on the food in a different post) and the red because it really is the red city.

Arcidosso.

We were looking for a place to couchsurf in Florence. Couchsurfing is staying with a local for free check out https://www.couchsurfing.org Lorenzo saw our request and offered us a bed in Arcidosso which is about a 3 hour coach drive away. We thought why not? Lets give it a go & if we don't like it at least we tried it early on in our adventure. We also liked the idea of going somewhere no one has heard of (we found that this included almost all of the Italians we asked about the place)

Not Italy's largest leaning tower

Yeah, I know right! Pisa isn't even the biggest broken tower these guys have. Crazy!

I expected to hop off the train & see the tower straight away. This wasnt the case at all. It was a 30 minute walk through Pisa town.

Street Art

On our train journey from Rome to Florence I saw a really cool bit of street art. It was Homer Simpson eating his way through the wall. We were going too fast to be able to take a photo. So I searched the net & unfortunately cannot find the one I saw but I have found this other ace Simpson's stuff. 

http://www.ufunk.net/en/street-art/20-graffitis-simpson-selection-de-street-art-jaune/