Croatia: Dinara (6/28)

We crossed the Spanish border into southern France. Our route, avoiding the tolls, took us along rural French roads, and through a picturesque mountain pass at Montgenèvre. We stopped at a lake outside of Turin, and relaxed with a cold beer on the shore. That evening, just outside the van, we watched a swarm of fireflies. With the camera tripod out, Anya took some long-exposure shots.

The next day we continued driving towards Croatia, stopping outside Trieste for the night, before carrying on through Slovenia – carefully avoiding the motorways to avoid paying for a vignette. We arrived just outside Zadar, in the late afternoon, luckily bagging the last available spot at the campsite. The campsite had access to the beach, and before dinner we went for a swim where Anya found a sea cucumber, I’d not seen one before.

That evening was quite still, and humid, which meant for a sticky night in the van, but it was made much worse by the invading army of mosquitoes. Much of the night was spent squashing, or attempting to squash, them – bittersweet when you got one full of blood. Despite our attempts we were both savaged that night.

In the morning we visited Zadar, an old, walled, coastal city. Firstly, we’re pretty sure we got ripped off for car parking; paying a man for a ticket in what turned out to be a free car park! We wandered around the city, along the coast to the sea organ – an organ powered by the waves, although due to the randomness of the waves, it doesn’t actually produce a very tuneful sound.

We wound our way back through the narrow streets, and through the old Venetian gate back to the van and set off to Krka National Park.

The national park is known for its spectacular waterfalls. It was very hot when we visited, and the shady trees, large bodies of water, and spray had a lovely cooling effect. We took the 2km circular walk along the footpaths and boardwalks taking in the crashing waterfalls, and the local wildlife, before stopping for a swim beneath the largest of the waterfalls.

There was also a brief, historical section explaining how this location had been used for hydro-power for centuries in the milling of wheat, and production of textiles. More recently it was the location of the world’s second hydro power station.

That evening we headed to the car park for hiking Dinara. We spent the night there to ensure we could get an early start the next morning. Setting of early to try and make the most of cool air, we took the well-marked path towards the peak. The path ascended consistently but not too steeply across the green, karst landscape. Spying a Croatian flag flying at the summit, we headed for it, arriving just before midday. We met a Croatian at the top – the only other person we saw all day. For some reason, which we never ascertained, he’d bought the large Croatian flag with him. He took our summit photo for us – next to the flag – with our much smaller version, before setting off back down the hill with his flag. The circular route we’d taken took us back down a slightly different way, but along much rougher ground before joining back with the main path.

The next morning we went to see the source of the Cetina river, which was located nearby. It resurges from the limestone landscape into a crystal clear pool, with lovely shades of blues and greens.

Our original plan had been to tackle Triglav in Slovenia, next. However the mountain hut was still closed as the winter’s snow had yet to melt, and was level with the roof. So we decided to postpone that and instead headed for Pula.

Pula was another interesting & picturesque coastal town. Previously a territory of the Roman Empire, it features a large amphitheatre — apparently the best preserved outside of Italy. We wandered round the town, stopping in the square for some refreshments, and had a brief walk round the castle.

The next day we paid a visit Baredine show cave, stopping at Rovinj on the way. The cave was very well lit, with iron-oxide stained calcite in the upper levels and pure white lower down. In the final chamber they also had two human fish or olm — skin coloured, amphibious, cave-dwelling creatures only found in the caves around Croatia & Slovenia. According to our guide, they actually reside lower in the cave, but they capture two of them every 50 days and bring them up to this chamber for public viewing.

From Croatia we set off for Faenza, Italy; to meet up with Mum who’s spending the summer there. We stopped outside of Trieste, again, on the way back. Stopping in a different car park, we discovered that there was climbing right next to us. We chatted to some climbers there and blagged a photo of the guidebook. The next morning we climbed a few routes, which were very polished – making it a little tricky in a few places.

Faenza

We decided to have a holiday from van-life and visited Olly’s mum (Caroline) who is spending the summer in the Northern Italian town of Faenza. Throughout June Faenza has the Naballo Palio Di Faenza where the five “Rioni” (districts of the city) challenge each other to win the Palio (the standard). There are historical re-enactments, flag waving competitions, jousting with wooden lances and entertainment evenings with food put on by the different Rioni.

On our first evening in Faenza we were treated traditional home made pasta cooked by Romana who Caroline is staying with. The pasta traditional to the region is called strozzapreti which translates to “strangled priests”.

This was a delicious start to the Italian eating we were intending on completing this week. Over dinner we chatted, with Caroline translating between us and Romana — as we don’t speak any Italian and she a little English. We were impressed with Caroline’s translation skills especially as we threw in some odd phrases like ‘sea cucumber’ and ‘moon jellyfish’.

The next day we visited Parco Bucci, this little local park has an eclectic collection of interesting animals including peacocks, leucistic (white) peacocks, rabbits, an assortment of water fowl, and some chickens with funny feathery feet. Later Caroline took us on a guided tour around the town where we saw the piazza’s, market, interesting architecture and the ceramic studio that Caroline has been working in. She also pointed out her mosaic of the town that had to put up in the courtyard. This has been getting a lot of attention, however this is partly because the river is in the wrong orientation. We also noticed an ant trail going up a whole story, this is definitely the longest ant trail I have ever seen.

There are a number of bars in the piazza which, in a similar style to Spanish tapas, provide a mini buffet for their patrons. This seems like a great idea although the waiter was having to spend a lot of his time scarring the pigeons away from the mini pizzas.

We had a drink and some snacks in the lovely evening sun watching the world go by before moving to a restaurant and enjoying the second Italian delicacy on our to eat list; freshly made pizza.

Thirza and Paul arrived the following day and after some catching up, eating and drinking we made some plans to tackle a via ferratta route. We had read this was on sandstone but thought naively that the crumbing sandstone we have in the south east of the UK would be rare enough not to occur elsewhere. We were wrong, this was quickly obvious as the names of the climbing routes at the crag were engraved in the rock face.

Undeterred we set off, the route was actually quite a lot steeper and more technical than other via ferratta routes we have done in the Dolomites. There was the additional slippyness of soft sandstone, however I think this was a good level of “sporting ness”.

Half way up we reached a wide ledge which had many hard looking climbing routes, some of which had extra wooden holds hammered into the soft sandstone. The next section of via ferratta had quite a tricky crack climb section, on reaching the top we signed the visitor book and walked down to a small chapel which was also located on the wide ledge. Here we had some lunch, admired the view and watched some Italian locals tackle some of the hard overhanging climbing routes.

We headed back to Faenza, with a quick gelato stop, to be back in time for the evening entertainment put on by the black rioni. This was the most impressive volunteer run catering I have ever seen with a full a-la-carte four course menu. This was all cooked fresh and very tasty. Olly even managed to tackle all four courses.

The entertainment then kicked off which was a Queen tribute band. They were very good although I think Freddie was far more into it than the rest of the band and most of the crowd. However, by the finale he managed to get everyone up singing along.

The following day we had an outing to Brisighella, this is a medieval village only twenty minutes away from Faenza. Despite its close proximity the scenery is very different. Whilst Faenza is very flat, Brisighella sits over three hill tops. On the first sits a 14th century castle, the second a 18th century church, and the third a 19th century clock tower. We climbed the hill to the clock tower and were awarded with amazing views across the village and the hills. The clock is a little unusual as it only has numbers 1-6 with dots in-between to show quarter hours. Therefore to tell the time you need to know whether its morning, afternoon, evening or night.

The hills are rich in gypsum, which was transported from the caves above the village through a covered walkway behind a set of colourful houses. In the evening we headed to one of these mines to see a concert. This was traditional medieval music, however the band also played some more modern classics like “We No Speak Americano” towards the end. We exited the mine to see the bushes full of fireflies.

For our final full day in Faenza we enjoyed a typical Italian lifestyle, we had morning coffee in the square, cycled to a pizza restaurant and had a drink in a bar before heading to Caroline’s exhibition opening evening. The exhibition is titled “Faenza in pieces” and Caroline’s ceramic artwork depicts areas of the town. Despite the rain there was a good turn out. We celebrated a successful opening with a final dinner out, Olly managed to squeeze in a couple more culinary experiences including an Italian version of a trifle (zuppa inglese) and some lemoncello.

The following day we headed to Ancona to get the ferry over to Greece. Stopping on the way to admire the fields of sunflowers and a flock of flamingos.

Greece: Mount Olympus (7/28)

Leaving Faenza we headed to Ancona to catch our ferry to Greece. Originally scheduled so we’d arrive in Patras in the early evening, and could enjoy the sunset along the scenic route to Athens. Unfortunately it’d since been delayed twice and we’d now arrive at 01:00 in the morning.

The ferry ride was pretty uneventful, and we killed time on the ~24 hour crossing, by watching the new, hit TV show Chernobyl — which we’d thoroughly recommend.

Disembarking in Patras we drove straight to Athens. Our friend Oli had some time before starting her new job, and joined us for the Greece section of our trip. We arrived at our Airbnb at 4am, and got some much needed sleep.

After a lazy morning we headed to the Parthenon. First, we visited the museum which hosts a large number of the archaeological finds from the acropolis. On the upper floor it exhibits the friezes from the Parthenon, some touched up with plaster replica and also empty spaces left for the ones held at the British Museum.

I found it interesting that, as the Parthenon has been seen as so historically, religiously, and architecturally important throughout the ages it’s been repurposed as both a church and mosque.

After we’d been around all the exhibits we headed up the acropolis to see it up close.  We walked round the base, before making our way up to the top. From the top we could appreciate the Parthenon in the late afternoon light. The smaller temples to Poseidon and Nike were just as impressive and in better condition.

At closing time, with the throngs, we retreated to a outcrop just outside the gate to watch the sunset. That evening we sampled some tasty Greek food — including some octopus, souvlaki, calamari, and baklava — at the humbly named God’s Restaurant.

The next morning we left Athens, and after navigating the rush-hour traffic, we’re headed for Meteora. Meteora had been recommended to us by two people independently, so we decided we had to visit.

It’s a collection of rock pinnacles on which a number of monasteries have been built. Originally built in the 1300s, they perch precariously on top, previously only accessible by removable ladders.

We’d arrived in the late afternoon, as the monasteries were closing and so toured the scenic road, admiring the landscapes from various vantage points.

We camped nearby, seeing our first ever wild tortoise!, and the next morning went to visit one of the monasteries. Inside the church was heavily decorated in gold and illustrations in a typical orthodox fashion.

After a brief tour in the monastery, we set off for Mount Olympus. We’d decided to split the hike over 3 days, to minimise the amount of ascent and descent in a single day — managing to book the hut the day before. We started hiking in the early evening, for a short 2 hour hike to the hut, making it there in time for dinner and well-deserved glass of wine.

The next morning we got up early, and after some breakfast and large amounts of faff, we set off uphill. A friendly Danish gentleman had explained the route to us over breakfast, and stated that the first hour was shaded in sparse tree-covering; the second hour was up steep scree path; and the third and final hour scrambling along the ridge to the summit. Our route followed pretty much as described.

This was definitely our most technical peak yet, with a grade I scramble to reach the summit. This was also one of the more popular peaks we’re climbed, with some people obviously struggling on the scramble; and others refusing to attempt it.

On our way back, we made a small detour to a subsidiary peak, which had been recommended earlier by our Danish acquaintance. From here you got an alternative viewpoint of the main peak.

Then we headed back down to the hut, where Oli left us. She’d planned to meet her Mum in Bulgaria for a holiday, so she continued downhill to hitchhike to town, in order to catch a bus to Sofia. She later told us her ‘calves and thighs were on fire’ after that mammoth day.

Our next day was much more leisurely as we made our way down to the van. Although we did get caught up in the Mount Olympus Marathon, a gruelling race up and down the mountain. So as we descended gently a number of people passed us at much greater speed.

Before making our way to Bulgaria, we decided to spend some time at the beach. We wound our way to the second finger of the Chalkidiki peninsula, to a pretty beach overlooking the next mountainous peninsula. We had a brief snorkel in the crystal blue sea; spying fish and sea urchins.

We spent the night overlooking the same view from a beach slightly further down the coast. With a brief coffee stop the next morning, in the slightly-too-quiet off-season beach town of Sarti we made our way to the Bulgarian border.

Bulgaria: Musala (8/28)

We’ve been using Google to avoid toll roads and most of the time this works very well. However, as we neared the Greece Bulgarian border, Google started telling us to do some odd manoeuvres. We pulled off a dual carriageway and then had to do a U turn before coming back to the junction and crossing the 4 lanes of traffic. We then followed a service road for a couple of kilometres to bypass the toll booth. I wasn’t particularly keen on having to repeat the same manoeuvre but to this time also push into stationary traffic.

The highways agency have obviously cottoned onto this little bypass, when we got to the turning there were bollards and a large pile of soil. We watched someone attempt to mount this and subsequently bottom out their car; so thinking better of it, we turned around and paid the extortionate €2 toll.

It may have been worth doing this stressful manoeuvre however in order to get further up the border queue. It took us a whole hour to get the kilometre between Greece and Bulgaria.

After this craziness we quickly bought a vignette online and headed for Rila Monastery. It was quite late by the time we arrived so we decided to pick a nearby lay-by and head back in the morning. The monastery sits in the hills and so we had a pleasant cool nights sleep and I even managed a discrete bucket shower.

In the morning we were some of the first people in the monastery and it was great to have a look around before all the crowds arrived. The monastery is a UNESCO world heritage site. It was founded in the 10th century and is regarded as one of Bulgaria’s most important cultural, historical and architectural monuments and still houses around 60 monks.

We then has some decisions to make. There is a cable car part way up Musala, the highest peak in Bulgaria, however it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. We thought we’d like to walk up, but also get the cable car down to save our knees.

This issue with this was the largest hut was also closed on Monday and Tuesdays, we had read about a more basic hut, nicknamed “Icy Lake” (as the lake it is situated by is partly frozen all year round). They didn’t have a digital booking form only a couple of phone numbers on a Bulgarian hiking website.

We gave them a call but it quickly became apparent their English was as good as our Bulgarian. No worries we thought, there is a tourist information in the larger town nearest the peak. We headed there and said to the guy we wanted to hike Musala, it quickly became obvious that he didn’t speak much English either but told us the cable car was open and the hike to the summit was only 10km from the valley so obviously not a problem.

This made us a little unsure as we are definitely capable of hiking 1600m up and down in a single day we are trying to limit the decent time for Olly’s knee. The other option would be to carry camping equipment just in case the hut wasn’t open.

We decided to drive to Borovets which is the little ski town in the bottom of the valley below Musala. Ski towns are always feel like ghost towns in summer, and this one had a distinctly Soviet feel. We managed to find another tourist information and this time the lady spoke excellent English. When we explained what we wanted to do she seemed alarmed as the hut we wanted to stay in did not even have electricity. She very kindly rang the hut and confirmed that they would be open the following evening.

Although still a little sceptical we headed off to find somewhere to stay for the evening before getting an early night. We found some nice pine forest half an hour away which was next to a pretty river. It was all very lovely until some horses came past and then following them a hoard of biting insects. We were still at 1000m altitude which meant a nice cool nights sleep.

In the morning with many sandwiches packed (in case we were unable to buy breakfast or dinner at the hut) we headed back to Borovets. The hike started with a steady incline in the pleasant shade of the pine trees. We then passed through a surprisingly boggy section which reminded us of Scotland, we assume all the water must be coming from snow melt. We didn’t see many other people and two hours later we got to the first (closed for summer) hut. There is a small lake here and a new shiny ski lodge is being built. After some snacks we carried on up the more rugged path past some more lakes until we eventually reached the icy lake hut. We even spotted a chamois and baby chamois on the way. There didn’t appear to be anyone in but the door was open. We assume the owners must have been having a siesta. We ate some sandwiches and tackled the remaining two hundred meters of ascent to the summit.

On the summit is another small hut, (closed to the public) and two weather stations. The newer looking weather station is sponsored by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Institue for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy. I looked this up later and it seems the weather station was involved in the research of cosmic rays.

We had our summit photo and admired the view for a while before heading back down to the hut. When we arrived the owner was there and we managed to mime that we wanted to sleep the night and have some dinner. She showed us inside, the building is an interesting triangular design with no natural light downstairs. I assume this is because the snow can be very deep here in the winter. The bunks were situated upstairs, which had many windows, we actually ended up with a private twin room.

The lady then explained to us that the toilet was “the panorama” to the left outside of the hut and the drinking water was the stream to the right of the hut. We hoped we guessed this mime right as this would be a bad thing to get mixed up. I now understood what someone who had written a review about the hut on google meant when they said the toilet was “outside”.

Olly discovered that the left hand side of the hut was the toilet as when going for a pee he discovered a lot of other peoples “panoramas”. We then sat in the pleasant afternoon sunshine for a few hours. When it got dark the hut owner started up a generator to light the dining room. At this point we were keen to have dinner but weren’t sure whether she was going to provide it in her own time or whether we were meant to ask. Eventually one other person we saw in the hut asked for something in Bulgarian and was presented with some lentil soup. We followed his example, ate some tasty soup and headed for bed.

In the morning we headed back down the hill a slightly different route towards the gondola station. We were pleased to realise the gradient was relatively gentle and flat from the lower hut. As we approached, we met streams of hikers who had caught the first lifts of the day. This confirmed we had made the right decision by walking up when the lift was closed as we had successfully avoided the crowds.

I found the gondola a little nerve racking as part way the gondola cabs unclamp from the single wire and clamp onto the lower one. Olly assured me that obviously the cab wouldn’t move unless it was clamped to the wire so it was fail safe. We then realised that the way the cabs get pushed onto the new wire is by being bumped along by the ones behind it...

I also wasn’t reassured that the control panel for the gondola looked worryingly similar to the control panel of Chernobyl reactor 4 in the recent TV series.

Twenty five worrying minutes later we were safely at the bottom station. We had decided to stay a night in the beautifully soviet-looking ski lodge which was very cheap on booking.com. We thought we would just walk in and see if we could get it cheaper but unfortunately when Olly went into enquire he was told they had no rooms for the night. Perhaps it was the t-shirt he had worn for three days hiking.

Instead we stayed somewhere cheaper further towards the Romanian border. This hotel was also conveniently located near to the Prohodna cave known as “The Eye’s of God”. Thirza and Paul had been climbing here before so in the morning we set off to have an explore. The cave was much larger than I expected and impressive in itself, it was even more beautiful because of the two eye shaped holes in the ceiling which beams of sunlight penetrate through.

We spent a while taking photos and tackled one climbing route near the right eye. Whilst on the route a family walked through with someone playing some kind of bagpipes made from a goat skin. They actually sounded pretty good considering it looked like a goat had been inflated and had its legs replaced with pipes. The climb was interesting and had a large more tricky section with no bolts, it was also covered in spider webs so after one route we decided to call it a day and head in the direction of the Romanian border.

Romania: Moldoveanu (9/28)

We paid the toll and crossed the Danube into Romania. We presented our passports at the border control, and then were asked for the vehicle’s documentation. I’d left the V5 at home. We didn’t have any documentation. We we’re asked to park up, just past the gates, and a border guard approached us. He asked us where we we’re going, and ‘what we could do to resolve this?’. I showed some electronic documents on my phone, this wouldn’t get us off the hook. I thought I’d understood some of the subtext of his questions and took €25, and laid them on the driver’s seat; asking if this would resolve matters. He took €20, agreed that it would substitute for the documentation, and told us that we should get out of here.

Stopping just outside border control, to buy our Romanian vignette, we were approached by a stern looking Romanian border guard. We’d only cleared the Bulgarian border, and had failed to clear the Romanian border. Apparently €20 was too little for this type of bribe. He wanted €100. We, truthfully, said we didn’t have the money and he replied that we’d have to go back to Bulgaria then. We followed him back to the border gate; him walking, us crawling behind in first.

He took our passports and shortly returned telling us we really should have the documentation, and that he’d let us off this time, and that at the next border crossing we should just tell them we lost it instead.

And so, relieved, we took to the road towards Moldoveanu — Romania’s highest peak. We stopped overnight overlooking a dam, while looking for the spot we followed another VW Transporter along the gravel road, and so concluded we must be in the right location.

After a visit to the supermarket we headed for the car park at Stâna lui Burnei. When researching the hike here we’d consistently seen trip reports of 4 day hikes to access this peak, however one blog post outlined a route where you could hike up and down in a day. This was logistically much easier for us, and so we opted for this. It did involve driving up a gravel track, which we carefully navigated over 2 hours to cover 35km.

In the car park that evening we met Adam & Iain, in their GB registered car. Adam’s is attempting a similar, but harder challenge to us by climbing the highest peaks in the 48 countries of geographical Europe. We shared some of the interesting tales of our adventures. You can follow his progress on Instagram at @europeanpeaks.

Early the next morning we set off, with a number of other groups, up the steep track signposted to Moldoveanu. Passing a steep waterfall we gained the plateau, and crossed it where some donkeys grazed nearby. We climbed steeply again to gain the ridge, where a red roofed mountain hut perched on the saddle. By this point we’d passed all the other groups, and after passing a final one on the summit ridge we had the peak to ourselves.

For some reason, unknown to us, there was an Irish flag flying alongside the Romanian one. With no one around we struggled to take our summit photo, but after several awkward self-timed shots we got something vaguely acceptable.

We headed off the summit in the opposite direction to the one we’d come from, taking a circular route back to the van. We passed a group of shepherds grazing their sheep on the lush high-altitude grass, before traversing round and descending steeply through pine woods to the car park. With no-one around we took the opportunity to wash in the icy cold mountain stream.

The next morning we headed back down the gravel track, briefly stopping to allow a herd of sheep & donkeys pass us.

We made our way to The Transfagarasan Highway, a winding mountain road across the Fagaras mountains. It was made popular by an episode of Top Gear, and is now one of Romania’s most popular tourist attractions.

At the top of the pass, the Capra tunnel cuts through joining both the roads. When we reached here we had to queue in traffic for 30 minutes, in the tunnel, as people queued for a car parking on the other side. We decided to skip this chaos and drove a bit further down a lay-by, where we could admire the scenery just as well. We ended up staying the evening here before setting of for Cluj-Napoca in the morning.

Anya had a work conference scheduled so caught a flight back to the UK. Meanwhile I holed myself up in an Airbnb in Cluj-Napoca for a few days.

When Anya returned, we set of for Hungary via a salt mine in Turda. We’d expected a low-key historical exhibit but it was actually a bustling tourist attraction. The main chamber was a 42m deep, parallelepipedal chamber which featured a Ferris wheel and bowling alley.

Another 50m down, in an adjoining excavation a lake had formed once the mine workings had been removed. Here you could hire a rowing boat for 20 minutes and row around, which we did.

After overnighting next to a second Romanian dam, we reached the border. With the V5 in hand, which Anya had picked up on her trip back to the UK, we crossed smoothly into Hungary.