Day 18 of 19 – travelling!!!

For 12 hours according to Nigel and I guess he should know🤣 last hotel is in Belgium. I’ll be back before you know it😆🤞

Yup with toilet breaks and lunch about 12 hours🙄

A few photos of our group

And some ‘natural ‘ photos as Sue calls them that she sent me where she’s caught us in the photo

The best, the worst, the memorable and the not so memorable

Thought I’d put the 12 hours travelling to good use!

The best hotel for the room was the Radon plaza in Sarajevo. You can tell it has a 5 star rating. Restaurant was nice however it’s been pipped at the post in the meal stakes by the hotel in Budapest

The worst hotel has to be the ferry! The room in Belgrade was okay however the rest of the hotel felt like a hostel. That was the Garni Capital

The best for food was the Novotel Budapest Central. This was because it was the only hotel that didn’t give us salad for the starter. Instead we had lovely goulash soup the first night and pea and shrimp soup the next night. Yes I picked out the shrimps! The meat both nights was moist.

The worst for food was the Yantra Grand Hotel in Veliko Tarnovo by a mile. Rice was sloppy and meat so tough

Highlights of the whole trip, in no particular order was

Bran Castle obviously

Peles Castle

Mostar for the bridge

Sofia for the cathedral and hot water springs. Wish I lived there just for that really☺️

Plovdiv for the amphitheatre

Veliko for the light show at night

Bucharest for the Parliament building and the lovely fountains

Brasov for the views from tampa mountain and the atmosphere sat in the main square

Budapest for the Parliament building, the market and the monument to the Jewish people that lost their lives

Vienna for the former palace and the cathedral

I would recommend the following;

Mostar as we didn’t have enough time here and only explored the old town and the bridge. There was so much more to see and they had a new town too

Sarajevo as so much world war history

Sofia also so much history and they’re still uncovering roman ruins and of course the hot spring water!

Plovdiv because like Mostar we only got to see the old town and the amphitheatre and only had a couple of hours here. It’s also got a new town

Bucharest as it was just too big for one day and so many buildings to go in and visit with more time

Bran for the castle and Peles Castle

Budapest just because it was so vast and we only had time to walk past everything really. I’d have liked to have gone up to the Palace and gone into the Parliament building and also the house of terror. Also because the citadel was under repair we didn’t get to go there and it was a pity there was scaffold all around the Saint in the hill side. And obviously there’s also the spas !!🤣

Vienna has a lot of lovely buildings to go into instead of walk past and the swarovski shop obviously! so would be worth another trip ☺️

The following were nice however small enough to see in a few hours.

Sighisoara was quaint. If I went back there I’d probably go up the clock tower and the shoe makers tower. They probably have a new town but I didn’t really see anything.

Veliko Tarnovo was also small enough to walk round although there were places that we could have gone into like the prison museum. I’d go to the Fort if I went back again.

I think Belgrade was the only place I wouldn’t return to and I’m not sure if it’s because the weather was so bad. We tried unsuccessfully to get to Titos monument and went to the fortress. I don’t remember anything else about it🤔. Will look back at that days blog to refresh my memory😆

I should have started with the people that make your holiday however I’ll end with them🤣

So firstly everyone bar maybe two or three on the tour are much more travelled than me. How do I know this! Well not only do they talk about places that wouldn’t even be in my top one hundred places to visit they talk about booking their next holiday to Jordan, Armenia, Syria or Albania 🤷🏻‍♀️

So in no particular order..

Liz and Johnny Vegas have been entertaining throughout and I wouldn’t have wanted any other tour managers

Daryl my drinking partner from Ipswich. The one thing he’ll take away from meeting me will be that he lives in the pigs bum😆

For those of you that don’t have a scoobie doo what I’m on about! 🤣

Sue from Bolton who knows everything😆. She has done a number of interesting jobs including seamstress but she doesn’t want to alter my size 18 coat for me! 🤷🏻‍♀️

Michaela who was bright, breezy and so cheerful throughout. Like a breath of fresh air, along with sister, Eleanor and mum Tracy from Middlesbrough ☺️

Andy and Ian (not a couple! ) also solo travellers who were very well travelled and spent a considerable amount of time discussing various wars or historical events. Ian did try to escape from time to time. When he did he talked about his really bad diet and how much he loves salt and sugar😆

Elaine was the other solo traveller and she was from Leeds. She wore a lot of jewellery which she’d purchased from the various places she’d been to. Mind you if she bought and wore an item of jewellery from everywhere she’d been she wouldn’t be able to lift her arms😆🤷🏻‍♀️

So for various reasons people make your holiday memorable and they’re also there to take the photos🤣

During this tour I’ve been to and through the following countries;

UK! France, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and will be going through Belgium and then back to France and home! ☺️

Forgot to say that after a slow start in France and Italy I was able to replenish my toiletries collection and my bag weighs a tonne! Where you didn’t get toiletries you tended to get complementary bottles of water, which was always welcomed.

So yesterday we were stopped by the police and today there’s a van on fire 🔥 🤦🏻‍♀️