The final country .... Romania

Mua for everybody ;)

The toughest thing is Sumen was actually waking up, because we were sorrounded by such hospitality at every step we took. The thermometers showed numbers starting with 4, so we went to the monument and the museum only in the afternoon. Our first target must be a lovely museum for any Hungarian, since, as we got to know, even that far away from our motherland, there are monuments tributing for Lajos Kossuth, who was a refugee for a while in Sumen after the revolution. Aftet that, Sziszi climbed up to the hill on foot, meanwhile Tomi and I got there by car, where the gigantic stone statues not just resembled huge transformers, but were also amazing to look at and provided enough shadow for a bit of unwinding.

After a long farewell, we headed towards Varna, where we were given the glad hand by Elvira – and it felt like we were in a ”hospitality contest”, because everything just seemed so fine! If we wanted to list all the drinks and different dishes, which had been waiting for us on the tables we sat down to, we would need another blog post – in addition, sometimes the conversation was held on 4 languages. In Varna we ended up having a naked swim in the sea, and the next day – that time already wearing swimming trunks – we ”fought” with the waves for about 2 hours. Being true to ourselves, regardless how much we got used to the warm water, we did not spend there a night more either – in the late afternoon we could already admire the sea in Chernomorec. As an evening program, we tasted some sea food in Sozopol – which is kinda complusory when being next to the sea. The next day we had a very irregular programme - we went to a local, naturist beach, which seemed to be a good way of passing time after overcoming the first shock, till the young showed up wearing swimming suits ”from head-to-toe”. We quickly grabbed some mussels for the lunch, then we left for Romania.

After a quick 250 km – which turned out to be considerably boring and uneventful-, we crossed the border, and arrived to Varna Veche, where we immediately headed towards the sandy beaches. We looked for a place to sleep both for us and for the car, and however in the last 3 weeks we had some upscale places to sleep, that night was truly breath-taking. Before laying down on the sunbeds, placed only a few meters away from the water, we walked along the long shore, where we did not really get involved in the ruling hippe-feeling and partying-till-the-early-hours. Instead, we focused on the stars, which we could have a wonderful view at, like we had been laying on the top of an astronomical observatory. The moon just showed up on the horizone, and even the morning was full of surprises for us.

The next day at around 5 am we were all awake – me - because of the sun rise, the guys - because of the couple having some fun next to us, but the buzz was hard to be described anyway. Despite a lot of clouds were flocking together over the horizone, that sunrise was one of the most beautiful, which we had seen during our trip. Out of a flush, i even took a swim among the morning waves, and after getting dry, we packed our stuff, and left for Bucharest. It started similarly to Bulgaria, but getting a flat tire at 90km/h quickly put us off from the pleasent trip. On the highway – after more, than 3 weeks – it turned out that we had had a lifter, so after a quick wheel changing, we rolled to the next gas station, where we got our ducks in a row.

The first thing, which caught our eyes in Bucharest was definitely the traffic. After red, there is no amber, green comes instantly, you always need to be careful, when you are at the beiginning of a line. It is not that rare either, that double four-lane roads end up in a roundabout – which is partially closed due to road works… But at least ”giving way” seems to be just some sort of legend. However the best one was that, when we finally managed to adjust to all these things – as in we immediatelly go, when it is green -, and then 3 lanes of cars started flashing, sounding the horns and showing the middle finger, however we were at the right place. In the evening it started raining a bit again, but fortunately ”Yuppi Camp” had interceded for us, and we were let to stay in the Balassi Institute. The next day we charted the city – mostly on foot, and before we left for Brasov, we went to the Parliament and to the Triumphal Arch by car.

Star Wars rebel pilot

Out of 4 tires, we already had 2 of them, so mathematically speaking, our chances decreased to have another forced stop in the next few days. After arriving to Brasov, it was obvious, that all of us were very tired, so instead of the planned sightseeing, we ended up having some beers. We spent the night in a friend’s friend’s garden, where we had a few square metres for us, and Biceps was safe as well.

Our next day way virtually the last one from the first part of our trip – it was very unusual for us to spend such little time in the car, but we stopped at many interesting places. We got to Prazsmar in the morning, where we visited a rightly famous fortress-church, and also, Tomi appeared to be our guide a bit as well. After that, we spent a few hours at Segesvar too, where we really enjoyed the shadow in/of the castle, that we heard more and more Hungarian words and we were getting closer to Szekelyudvarhely. We rolled through the familiar gate in the early afternoon, and the joy of our arrival gave us enough energy to unpack everything and clean the car thoroughly. We also took a shower, and ate as much as we could from Tomi’s mom’s rightly famous dishes, since we were leaving the next day to Tusnadfurdo. It was the 28th ”Free University and Youth camp of Balvanyos”, where we met our friends from uni. We will let You know in the upcoming post what happened to us over there!

Bence

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Bulgaria with the mountains and the sea

Dear readers!

For starters, we would like to apologize from everybody for the desultoriness of the posts, but for us the time seems to pass a bit differently during traveling. The moment of the departure does not seem so far away, however it feels like that our first stop in Crotaia was months ago. Probably our eventful days cause the disturbance, given that our last few days turned out to be also quite adventurous.

We did not plan to stay so long in Macedonia, we only wanted to check out the lakes of Orhid along with the orthodox monastery. For dinner we ordered the local specialities, and we were made to really wait for them, tho the view totally compensated us for the delay. After a short walk and the observation of the freely walking peacocks, there was an extra surprise, that is, there was no entrance fee to the abbey, we were just kinda ”sheperded in”, in order to get a bit more cultured. After a long discussion, we left for Bansko in the evening, thus night found us on the road, therefore we slept in a parking. Tomi and I in the car, Sziszi slept in a sleeping bag next to the car.

 

 

Roughly one third of the 6 hours long trip left for us, but at least our arrival ended up being smooth. Bansko is a holiday resort, virtually specialised for skiers and for winter sports, which meant two things to us: closed supermarkets and groundlessly cheap accomodation. We could pretty much ”own” a whole 4 storey hotel, from where we explored the area the next day. Since on the first day we got to the zero point too late, we could only go for a few hours long trip leading to a maar, and along the way we could also admire a 1300 year old tree as well. For dinner we had again something regional, which truly impressed us, then we went to sleep considerably early, so that we will have energy for the long trip the next day.

Our alarm went off at half five in the morning, but just like during the night, before the dawn it was extremely cold, so we opted for the snooze. But 2 hours later we left ”in warpaint” just to climb up to the highest peak of the Pirin mountains (Vihren, 2912 m). Besides, that it was almost unpleasently tyring, it was wonderful as well. The higher we got, the more we could see from the more and prettier mountains. On the top we could even play snowball, then we descended on a steep cliff to the valley, where our paths aparted. Tomi, facing distress, went back to the car through the valley, however Sziszi and I climbed up to the Koncheto. This is a ridge, which connects the second and the third biggest peaks, where we could only move while holding on the thick cable, tho it was an incredible buzz! After crawling up on the rocks – not once on all fours – was also ”incoronated” with a thunderstorm, which luckily got us on  the way back, and not on  the mountaintop. Even tho we got soaking wet, we still kept our positive attitude, and after getting back, we changed for dry clothes, and continued the journey to Sofia.

 

After the 3 hours long trip, the traffic in the city was a pleasent surprise, we easily found our next dwelling in the city, which has the population of about 1 million. We spent 2 nights in the flat of Sziszi’s cousin, where – probably for the first time on our journey – there was hot running-water (which we definitely upvalued along the way).  The centre was 10 minutes of walk and 2 subway stops away, where we visited the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and another few memorablenesses. After that – regarding the swelter – we sat into a bar, called Raketa Rakija, which had been previously suggested. Martin, the waiter, greeted us, like there has been a years long friendship between us. If we just mentioned anything from the menu, he made sure that next time he shows up with tasters of it. The cozy convo ended with a tasty dinner and swapping phone numbers. We made him promise, that if he comes to Budapest in the future, he would definitely look us up.

The next they we were already on our feet at 5 am, so that we could do the bigger part of our trip to Veliko Tarnovo.  The plan was immaculate, but tiredness was stronger, so we rather rearranged the departure to 10 am. The wind seemed to be very useful again, tho in the city striking swelter was horrible. We literally suffered from that 1,5 hour walk which we took from the car to the old town and to the castle, and then back, so we couldn’t wait to arrive to Sumen. We were put up again at some relatives of Sziszi, who were waiting for us after the long day with that typical ”grandparents like love” and of course the portion of the dishes was ”grandparents like” as well. Tho we did not speak any common language, the atmosphere was great around the table. In the evening a soon-to-be-a-relative showed us the area around. We planned to check out the monument only the next day, tho the view from the neighbouring hills was amazing. The night ended with an open air cinema, where we did not understand a single word, but it was still enjoyable.

Next day we are planning to visit the rightly famous socialist monument, and also, the musuem named after Lajos Kossuth, and then in the late hours we are heading towards Varna.

If we seem like nice guys, please support ”Yuppi tábor”, because they are cool indeed!

Albania with da Lada

Hello there!

It has been a week since our last blog post, so let the story get started! After we unbended ourselves at our dwelling in Teth, the next day we headed for the mountains reenergised, in order to find the ”Blue Eye” waterfall, and take a nice swim in it. Pjeter (our host) had told us at the very beginning, that it takes 4 hours to get there, and the same to get back, that’s why we took along some muesli bars with us – just in case. It was not easy at all to get there, there was a bit of mountaineering, and then a bit of wading through a mountain river, but fortunately, even when we got lost, there was always a local, who directed us in the right direction by waving around heavily. Along the way we saw a water power plant and a hundreds of years old water mill while operating. After we got there, it really seemed like a real Paradise, crystal clear water, and such a blue colour, which would be quite difficult to describe. Needless to say, that we barely could wait to splash into the water – we even brought along a ball just for fun. The only thing we did not take into consideration, was that the water was 4 degrees, so we didn’t play the ball, there was only a wee bit of bathing… :(

All in all, the days we spent in the Albanian Alpes were the most tranquile, tho the most active ones as well, and all of us agreed, that we must return once. The day has come (on the 5th of July), when Lada had to climb up on the stony, dreary pass, where 4 days before it took it 3 hours to descend from above.
No need to say, i was a bit nervous, kept fingers crossed, so that we wouldn’t get stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
During that 1,5 hour, we encountered two IFA-s, and 3 jeeps, with whom we were virtually ”dancing” for a few minutes on the wide single-lane road. Fortunately, both the car and us survived, so we headed for Tirana.

The trip was quite okay, till we got to the capital. For me, ”chaos” itself got a whole new meaning, sometimes we spent about 5 minutes in some of the roundabouts, because there is no such thing like ”give way”. Sometimes the police overtook us, sometimes a truck cut in on us, so it was a total relief, when we arrived to Edvina and Paola’s (our cool hosts) place. Edvina is a collegaue of a high school friend of mine, and she engages in the Hungaraian-Albanian trading relations, and Paola is her sister. The first night we went to the main square, because that day Gumball3000 just arrived to the city (Gumball300 is a luxury car race from Riga to Mykonos), and we wanted to take some nice pictures of the cars. It turned out, that one of the racers was Hunagraian, so we had a word with him at the parade.
When all the ”car craze” was gone, we immersed ourselves in the nightlife of Tirana. We went to dance latin dances, then to a night look-out tower, we befriended a stray dog, and finally we retired to our comfortable double bed.

The next day it turned out, that the departure got to be delayed, because the electric starter had broken down. After quite a long discussion, we found a repairman – just on the neighbouring street. He promised us to have a look at it and fix it at 10 in the morning, but unfortunately it did not happen. At around 7 pm we pushed the car over to his’, and roughly in 10 minutes, he fixed the problem. As it turned out, a washer got stuck, and it had to be replaced, thank God, ever since it has been working properly. When we asked him how much would it be, he told us - with a waggish smile -, that for this kind of car, he didnt wan’t any money, so we got away with this without expenses.

 

The third day we got up at 8 am to get to Macedonia, and to visit the Orchid lake. After the touchy farewell, we got out of the capital, and didn’t stop on the Albanian motorway till we reached the boarder. The road was kinda smooth again till the end, but as we were approaching the boarder, the water started boiling, so I was just trying to keep the car in motion, which actually caught the eye of a boarder warden that much, that he ordered a whole car check up. We were not happy about it, but no need to say, it was quite a new experience. We were asked if we had hasis, weed, even a detection dog barked at us. After they found everything okay, we crossed the boarder on a different route, like bosses, and we finnaly arrived to the land of Alexander the Great, the dreary Macedonia.

If we seem like cool guys, support ”Yuppi Tábor”, because they are inded cool!

www.ladatour.mozello.com/celjaink

 

 

What goes around, comes around

 

By day 6 we kinda got used to the semi-nomadic life style, thus after a refreshing sleep, we left smoothly to the bridge of Mostar to find a parking slot. Interesetingly, on the way over there, 3 dudes waved at us offering free places – one of them even spoke a bit in Hungarian -, but it turned out pretty quickly, that parking is completely free on the street and the public safety is okay as well. In a stall - disguised as a boutique – we got to meet the ”divers”, who gave us some basic information about the jumping off the bridge, then we left to the stand nearby to practice a bit. We jumped a few times from 7 and 10 m heights while contantly focusing on the right technique. We were warned in advance, tho the 10 degree cold water really didn’t seem so cold – maybe because we were full of adrenaline even by those heights. Tomi’s reflexes felt like rather avoiding the water getting into his nose, than focusing on the possibility of having offsprings in the future, so John (the instructor) advised him to not to jump at all, however 2 of us were waiting for it pretty excited! Before us, there were already 2366 people, who have ducked from above – Sziszi had been wanting to pass this test for a while by that time. However after that, we were licking our wounds for days, still, it was an incredible experience! Bence needed like 1,5 minute to ”concentrate” on the jump, which he actually did without any sorta protecting outfit. He might have leaned forward a bit in the moment of entering the water, but other, than that, only his ears were buzzing – but at least for the whole day. Sziszi simply just took advantage of the situation – so much, that the chief wanted to call off it completely. After we managed to convince him that Sziszi actually wanted to jump, it was just the wind blowing so strongly, they let him try it one more time. After the splash, he got more permanent marks – even today a bruise, size of a palm, is still visible on his rear thigh – despite wearing a neoprene garment. Of course all these things seemed to be nothing compared to the buzz they experienced! After that we had a lunch somewhere on the nearest pedestrian street. We can only give our opinion about one restaurant – where we were served something else two times out of three, but one does not start to be a stickler for these nuances on the Balkans!

On the way to our evening destination, we got Bagaj on our road, which was a bit of a disappointment, in addition we got there in the worst swelter. The cave-and-waterfall combination would have been actually nice, tho it was converted into something else in order to try to please wealthy tourists, because swimming was frobidden, and the road was full of expensive restaurants. We got to Kravica in the afternoon, which was rather our cup of tea – beautiful waterfalls, where we could not just take a swim, but also climb up to them. After a well deserved ”soaking”, we got back to the parking, which was used both as a kitchen and a place to sleep. While enjoying the awesome view, we cooked our dinner, then ate it with a lots of pleasure while playing cards and listening to music. Then we started to look for a place, where we could actaully go to sleep. We were considering different options bearing in mind that we wanted to see the stars and also safety was important as well, but before the final decision, we encountered another, itty bitty problem.

After charting the area, we got back to the car and got to realize, that Biceps’ first right tyre virtually deflated. We did not panic, and sticking to the protocol we found out (with the help of a camping German tourist), that the problem we got is supposed to be inbetween the setting of the inner tyre and the valve. Given that we could not deal with this problem on our own, the next day we drove to a garage very slowly, where they fixed it for 5 euros, and then we were all set to go.

The quality of the roads were mostly okay, tho the curves and the uphills seemed more and more groundless. Inspite of this, we went on well, till the point, when Tomi’s stomach started to recall the dinner from the previous day. We tried to understand the moral of the story, as in Sziszi’s stomach can deal with a whole lot more things, than two of us will ever be capable of. Furthermore willy-nilly we got in touch with some of the locals anyway, most of them were quiet helpful, tho there was one, who wanted to call the cops on us, because we parked our car in front of their gate on the mountain. That day’s trip got even longer because the GPS just would not cooperate, thus all of us were more, than happy, when we finally arrived to our accomodation at Cetinje – true that, we had to look for it for like an hour, because simply there were no house numbers displayed on the buildings. Tomi started to feel better, tho after some medication and a nap, he engaged in a colloquy with the swallows, and Bence – like it was compulsory or something - , started to play Tomi’s part.

The night seemed excruciatingly long, especially, that at around 1 am, the water got turned off. I really do not want to go into details, everybody can solve the puzzle on their own anyway...  Fortunately, we felt a lot better the next morning, however we had to skip Budva from the original route, and at once we headed towards Lovcen. There could be a debate about who was more shattered: Bence or the car, but some water did appear to be useful for both of them, so they could enjoy the breath taking view. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit cloudy, so we couldn’t see the bay, but having seen the beautiful landscape full of mountains, we almost completely forgot that there was a bay at all. The distance left to be taken did not seem too long to Teth – only 100-120 km till our accomodation -, but it turned out quite quickly, that it was actaully a lot. Because of the slopes, the ascents and the pebbly dirt roads on the mountains it took us 5 hours to accomplish this relatively short distance to our accomodation in the mountains, but hopefully we won’t start a tradition of these arrivals.

As of now, we are considerably far away from the civilisation in the proper sense of the word, but the house, where we are spending 3 nights, is specifically highbrow. Our water supply comes from the wells in the mountains, and the electricity is produced by a generator run by water as well. As it turned out, we were lucky with this, because at similar places the installed electricity comes at unpredictable intervals. Our hosts are so nice, like in the movies, and by the way for all this we have to pay only 5000 HUF (18 EUR) worth of currency for a night for 3 of us, which includes breakfast as well! The first day was basically only for relaxing, we washed the car, did our laundry, pulled ourselves together. The next day – for the first time on this trip – we are planning to put on the hiking boots, and hopefully we will be able to see more from the must sees of this area – like it was not enough to just sit for days and watch the clouds slowly showing up in between the passes of the mountains.

Our next stop is a wee bit far away time wise, in addition it is just a presumption, that we can go back on the very same way which we used to get here. If we manage so, we will probably check in from Tirana, till then follow us on facebook (www.facebook.com/ladatoor) for the up to date check ins!

If we seem like nice guys, please support ”Yuppi Tábor”, because they are indeed! 

www.ladatour.mozello.com/celjaink

 

Jajce, Sarajevo, Mostar...

Getting along,

The third day we also managed to get up early, and we immediately got good news to start the day with: however this was only marked with a big question mark in our plans, finally, we had the chance to raft on the most beautiful river stretch in Europe, which we were not fools to skip! We could refute the commonly believed prejudice related to the people of the Balkans again, who were nothing, but nice – again. They came to pick us up at our accomodation, we got to the zero point, where we were provided by all the neccessary information and we took the water. Our journey went through the territory of the Una National Park, where we encountered 3-4 m high riffles as well. It was a fanatstic experience for all of us to raft, in addition in the meantime we could even have a bit of a swim too! After the 4 hours long (!) water trip, we were taken back to the car and we continued our trip to the town of Jajce.

We arrived in the early evening hours, tho we only planned to visit the rightly famous ”Pliva” waterfall. In the city we easily found what we were looking for, we could park the car quite close, and we didn’t even have to buy the parking-ticket. The waterfall is fascinating indeed, tho our thoughts were elsewehere, given nothing had been booked for us for that night.

Those, who follow our page, already know where we slept, for the rest of You I won’t even try to describe it with words, because I won’t manage anyway… The place where we put u pour tent was facing the waterfall, the castle was also visible, we slept exactly there, where Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka painted his famous painting, the ”Waterfall of Jajce” in 1903.

In the morning we continued our journey towards Sarajevo. Everything went smoothly, tho in the finishline, we did fight to get to our accomodation on the spiral roads of the mountain. There were places, where we had to clamber up in gear No 1 or 2 at 45 degrees (or even steeper) to the pass. In the evening we walked down to the city – of course we thoroughly came around the city, and visited the bridge, where Franz  Ferdinand was assasinated. Besdies, it was a completely new experience to enter a Turkish mosque, where we were given some information about the religion, the building and the city itself – in Italian. It turned out, that in the city – which was founded by Ottoman conquerors – the religions get on well with each other without any kind of problems. For instance, in the most highly visited church, everybody is welcome, be a Christian, a Muslim or an Orthodox. We also got the pleasure to try out 2 of the local specialities: we tasted the best Ćevapčići in town, which was followed by some Baklawa. The last thing on our to do list for that day was the well  not so far away from our accomodation, from where we could in fact view the whole city with the night lights, and i guess it is needless to say, it was beautiful.

Being true to ourselves, we didn’t spend a lot of time here either, the next day at 10 am we were on the road again, heading towards the city of Mostar. The car works without rebuke, even if we wanted so, we couldn’t highlight any malfunctions. Despite that, Tomi was truly convinced, that it’s got a 40 l fuel tank, but today it turned out that it was not really like that. The benzine level meter sometimes ”lied down”, but every time we refuled Biceps on time. Today we agreed upon the gas should be enough till Mostar, given it is a city, we might end up getting away with paying less. Roughly like 40 km away from our final destination, on a hilly part the rev started to decrease, and suddenly it converted to zero. We were lucky, that on the long, mountain roads we could pull off, because the 2 trucks behind us did not really understand the situation…

After examining some essential problem sources, Sziszi was picked up by a bunch of Hungarian (!!!) bikers, who we had waved at previously by the way, and they took him to the nearest gas station. Tomi and I were waiting for the gas laid back, but after a while, we started to hitch hike with cardboars saying ”FUEL” and ”HELP”.

Meanwhile Tomi was picked up by a very friendly guy – who only spoke Bosnian tho - thus 3 of us were trying to solve the problem literally in three different ways. After 1,5 hour of anticipation, the expected fuel supply arrived from both directions, and we filled up the tank, and after the third attempt we could finally start the engine and continue our journey towards Mostar. At the end of the long day an excellent place was waiting for us for in total of 10 euros – 2 bedroom apartment, AC and everything else! Moreover after we arrived, it turned out, that the owner is a local guide, so he was happy to help us about the local must sees (tho Sziszi had planned everything beforehand, so he couldn’t really tell us anything new). When it came to paying, there was a small misunderstanding between us: we booked the whole apartment for 10 euros, but he had wanted to advertise the place for 10 euros for each person. After a few minutes of querying, we checked the booking, and even tho we were right, we gave him some extra tips, so that nobody would feel bad after a mistake like that. By the way, we were the first guests of this place! This boldly cheap accmodation is just 10 minutes walk away from the old town, so most probably, we will check the bridge thoroughly out, which we are planning to jump from the next day and will have a feast from the local specialities.

According to the original plan, we are supposed to arrive to Dubrovnik tomorrow, but meanwhile we got to know, that due to a holiday, there are loads of tourist arriving to the already packed city, so most probably we will skip this destination, and the next one will be Kotor then!

Bring it on Yuppi, tally-ho LadaTour! 

First days of the trip