juha's "SE Europe road trip"

In Prague we were welcomed by ticket inspectors (fake or real, I don't know) in the subway. We had read about these guys in a guide that warned us that they screw tourists. So did these guys try to do as well, claiming that our newly bought tickets were not valid. Or that's what we thought they were saying as you couldn't really make much sense out of their English. As we didn't pay one of them made a call supposedly to police (for about 15 seconds) but I'm betting that he called home to tell his wife to buy some meat as now they can rip off some stupid tourists. Well, we just walked away and disregarded the guys as they ran after us shouting something we didn't understand. Welcome to Prague... Otherwise an ok city, but having heard so much good about it was actually a small disappointment. Nothing too special about it. Except the torture museum close to the castle. That was cool in its own scary way.

I nice city but nothing really worth seeing. It was just a one night stop for us as we flew out of Ljubljana back to Finland.

Venice is not as nice as I expected it to be. :) Lots of (american) tourists. Mestre was much nicer.

Having again read much about how nice Split is I was disappointed. The price/quality ratio sucks big time and there really isn't anything to do here that I could think of. Notice the dead cockroach in the broken electrical outlet. The outlet was conveniently located on top of the bathtub so that we had to squat down to avoid hitting the socket while showering. Needless to say this didn't really do much good on our view on Split. Thus we decided to split the hotel and Split after the first night.

We decided to park our car and get a ship to an close by island called Vis and that was a great decision. Visiting Vis is a must if you're in the area. A million times better that Split. No tourists (well, a few dozen or so), lots of beaches and nature and all. It was a great place. A you can visit one of the hideouts of Tito as well. :)

Extremely beautiful lakes in Croatia. If you're in the area you definitely shouldn't miss these. If you like nature, that is. Not really for hiking or any "real" sports like that, more a walk gently downhill to watch all the clear lakes and fish. Really a beautiful place.

My first and so far only visit to Bosnia. It was great. Even though the infrastructure is a bit worn out it's not bad. People were very friendly, food was good and everything was darn cheap. Definitely one of the best days of the whole trip.

Bled is the sport vacationer's paradise. Mountains to hike in, canyoning, all the outdoor sports available you can imagine. All this in a small and nice village with a very good price/quality. One of the few places I could think of going for another time. We went hiking on the mountains, canyoning, rafting etc. Make sure to go rafting in spring or fall, not summer, as the river is quite dry then. Canyoning especially was nice: gliding down the mountain streams in a wetsuit. That's nice. :) If you want to conquer the highest mountain around, Triglav, make sure you reserve two days for it. It'll take you some time to get close to it so you can't make it in just one day.

Visiting Vis is a must if you're in the area. A million times better that Split. No tourists (well, a few dozen or so), lots of beaches, a few small villages and nature and all. It was a great place. A you can visit one of the hideouts of Tito as well. :)

We stopped at Zadar as someone had mentioned it to be a nice city. Well, we thought quite the opposite. Nothing to do, no people and a soviet-looking infrastructure. We quickly departed to Split. Which wasn't much better...

A very nice looking bridge but zillions of tourists. This is the one place that everyone in Prague goes out to see and you can definitely tell that from the amount of tourists...

A very nice town square but tons of tourists and everything is "tourist priced" i.e. very expensive compared to some less tourist invaded places in Prague.

A very big and cool castle with many interesting exhibitions.

This clock something that most guidebooks tell you to go and see. Boy are you disappointed when you see it. Tons of tourists wait for the clock to work and when about 10 seconds later it's done your only feeling is "was that it!?!?". I guess you need to see this while in Prague but don't expect too much.

This was by far the best place to go in Prague. Dreadful as it may be it was still very interesting. It was "nice" to see how cruel people can be to each other and how much effort and research has been poured into developing excruciating but not lethal (at least not instantly lethal) methods of torture. You should definitely go here if you're in Prague!

Be careful to choose a good time if you want to go white water rafting here. During the summer the river is very lame, perhaps class 2 at best. We were told that during spring when the snow melts it can be class 4 making it a challenging ride, especially for not experieced rafters.

Go canyoning. You'll get a wet suit and slide down the mountains along the very smooth rock that the melting waters have eroded during millions of years. It was a very cool experience!

A fantastic town with all outdoor activities that you can imagine. We went white water rafting, canyoning and climbing on the Triglav mountain. Breathtaking views and cool water. Recommendable to anyone who likes outdoor activities!

A regular east european capital: ok but nothing spectacular. Slovenia was great but we spent most of our time in Bled which was a really cool place.

We actually never got to the top of Triglav, as we didn't believe it would take two days. It does and so we only got half way and needed to turn back. Make sure to reserve the two days if you want to climb to the top.