Photos and Update

So, I am currently in Venice, Italy - after spending one night in Trieste.

It has been quite a while since my last update so I will try and brief you a little on my activities.

I have been very fortunate in my travels. Croatia was amazingly beautiful with perfect weather - if a little hot at times. The adriatic sea is a beautiful blue and it is lined with white rock cliffs. There is no sand, or very little, on the beaches, but the rocky shores mean the water is nice and clear.

The old town of Dubrovnik is amazingly beautiful. It is surrounded by high city walls that you can walk along. I did this between 5 and 7pm (it is a long walk) and it is uninterupted views of the old town on one side, and the adriatic beyond. Out in the bay there are many sailboats and yachts cruising around.

From Dubrovnik I took a 22 hour ferry ride up the coast to Rijeka. The ride itself was very nice with beatiful sea views and wonderful stops at little islands along the way. It was a great trip.

Rijeka itself is nothing super special. It is an industrial town, but sports a nice castle and has a nice central square. I passed the day touring around with an Australian girl I met on the Ferry.

Following Rijeka I took a train into Ljubljana, Slovenia. Here I prompltly got a cold and the weather turned to rain. It was rather unpleasant for 2 days, but I got a good feel for Ljubljana - a nice small town feel in a city of about 200,000. It has a much more simple European feal to it. I had an excellent meal at a cafe that involved goulash and potatoe - traditional mountain fair.

After 3 days in Ljubljana I signed up for an adventure tour. This took me though Lake Bled - a clear lake with a castle on a central island. Following that we went through the highest pass in Slovenia - 1600M above sea level. This lies in the Julian alps which are right on the border of Austria. The views coming into the valley were amazing.

Now comes the adventure part - canyoning. This is where you follow a stream basically from its source down a mountain. We started by putting on wet suits and helmets and climbing up the mountain for about 45 minutes. Then we got into the stream. We learned the basic techniques of descent - jumping and sliding. The stream forms a sort of natural waterslide that you can go down most of the way. At first, there were a few small slides and then they gradually got bigger. We got to a 4M jump and it took some courage. Next was a the deapest canyon pool and rocks on the side that you can jump off of. I started with a 9M jump, did that 2 more times, then tried the 12M jump. It was super scary because you had to jump out as far as you can in order to ensure you clear the rocks below. I was one of only 3 people (out of 12) who did it, but it was awesome.

Following that, a few more small jumps (7M seems easy after doing a 12M jump). Then the final part was a 15M waterfall. You basically get in the path of the water fall and launch off the edge. It was amazing. It was the only jump where the guide said that safety was not guarenteed - but he assured us that hundreds of people have done it. It was awesome. I went first and it was quite scary but an amazing rush at the end.

I am running out of internet time, so I will keep the rest of this short.

I then spent a day in the amazing caves in SouthWestern Slovenia then moved on to Trieste Italy - great pasta. I am now in Venice.

I had a good first day - up until somebody slipped some walnut into my pizza slice - who's ever heard of walnut in a pizza slice. I coudn't find my antihistamine and the pharmacys were closed so a made a treck to the hospital - fun stuff. Here I had an injection and saw a doctor, then a specialist - I think they were a little bored. The specialist decided to keep me for the night because I had had the peanut reaction in January. So, it was a not so fun night and the morning was filled with the beuarocracy of Italian paper work and the language barrier - not so much fun time, but hey it was a great cultural experience.

I just had excellent linguini with clam sauce and I am feeling much more human again.

Until later, (PS: there would have been more pics but time ran out)

Here are some photos of where I have been in the last little while.

Dubrovnik - Old Town





New Town


Internet in the park


22 Hour Ferry Ride up the Coast