For a Brit living in Japan, it’s a bit strange to go to Europe for a holiday without visiting the UK to see family and friends but that is exactly what happened 15 years ago. The plan was to fly from Tokyo to Zurich in Switzerland with my return flight to Japan’s capital being from Croatia. I then had to decide how best to fill the fortnight in between. This is the third and final part looking back on the time I spent in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovena…

A fairytale-like tiny island on a lake with only a church on it in the north-west region meant that the town of Bled was the obvious choice for my main port of call for my 24 hours in the Slovenia. On arrival just after 5:00 pm I finally found my hostel thanks to some help from some very pleasant and kind locals.

With night-time drawing in, I walked on down to Lake Bled and then took the short but steep hike upto the castle which supposedly offers some of the best views of the town’s centre-piece. I say supposedly as I didn’t go in due to the high price. However, I did walk round the back of the castle and scrambled up some rocks to confirm that the views were indeed amazing.

The heavens opened up when I returned to the lake again but I guess that I was lucky that it happened at that moment rather than 20 minutes earlier! At 7:00 am the next morning I returned to take a two hour stroll round the beautiful lake but decided that it wasn’t really worth hanging about to take a gondola over to the island church.

The view was sufficient enough for me so I headed back to the hostel, checked out and took the 9:30 am bus to Ljubjana. My train from there to Zagreb in Croatia wasn’t until mid afternoon so I spent a few hours strolling round the city centre which was a fairly picturesque place.

After Slovenia, it was time to move on to Croatia where I had to spend about four hours in Zagreb ahead of my night-train down to Split. One great thing about Croatia’s capital is that there is a free transport zone so I took a tram from the station in the lower town to the upper town which had a huge open square to just sit in and do some people-watching in between seeing a couple of pleasant-looking churches.

A steep walk up some steps to get a panoramic view of the city was thankfully rewarding in terms of the view.

I left Zagreb at 9:30 pm and I was lucky enough to be in a cabin with just one other person which meant that we could have three seats each and get a solid amount of sleep during the eight hour journey. As soon as I arrived in Split I went next door to the bus station and took a fairly immediate bus down to Dubrovnik which pulled in at about 11:00 am having travelled through some stunning coastal scenery on the Adriatic coast albeit with a quite rude Polish guy constantly leaning across me to take some poor quality photos through the window!

It seemed like I had been on the move for about 48 hours so my plan was to hit the beach in the afternoon to finally chill out by the sea and enjoy the 30+ degrees sunshine. Before that, I had to find a place to stay which took a while as I underestimated the walk from the bus station to the outskirts of the famous old town!

Having got lost I somehow ended up at the YHA which was full but they said to just enquire at any house which had the word ‘sobe’ outside it. I enquired at the first house I saw, but the lady had no rooms available. However, she enquired for me at the neighbours house and within a few minutes I had myself a room in a house across from the YHA at a cheaper price. Furthermore, it was only about five minutes away from a beach which I went to straight away and I enjoyed some much-needed relaxation time on the pebbles.

The enclosed Old Town was my destination late afternoon which was a marvellous-looking area full of marble streets and rose-tiled roofs but after all the glowing reviews I’d heard maybe I was expecting even more. The mere fact that it has since featured in a Star Wars film (it portrayed the lavish, high roller city of Canto Bight in 2019’s ‘The Last Jedi‘) makes it more appealing now!

I started walking up to a lookout point but was too tired to go all the way to the top. Besides, I was content with the views from a little lower down.

I had an early night and left early to get on the 8:00 am bus to Mostar in Bosnia & Herzogovena but was gutted to find out that it was already full so had to wait around for five hours before the next bus meaning that I had to stay there rather than leaving later that night.

Mostar was a touristy, cobbled shopping street running parallel to the river over which Stari Most (Old Bridge) crossed. Not just any bridge though as it was a reconstructed one due to the old one being destroyed in November 1993 as part of the Bosnian War resulting from the collapse of Yugoslavia.

It now holds World Heritage status, and is the main feature of this place. Some local boys even jumped off the bridge in return for cold, hard cash from tourists. I would have liked to try it myself but just wasn’t equipped for the occasion, and no tourists were doing it anyway so probably a wise decision on my part.

The main street was lined with small cafes, restaurants, artists studios and souvenir shops selling a mix of tacky stuff as well as former-Yugoslavia goods.

These included badges, coins, stamps and military stuff which I thought was quite fascinating as indeed was the Helebija War Photo Exhibition. In terms of local costs, the Є2.5 entry was expensive but it was something that I really wanted to see. Some of the photos on show were not surprisingly quite brutal but the idea was to show the real, raw face of war and its absurdity.

It was then time for some local food; cevapcici which is like a kebab and inspired by Bosnia’s Turkish heritage. It was simple, tasty, cheap and filling too.

After that I explored Mostar a bit more with particular regard to buildings damaged in the war. I needed a few beers after all that and sat on the hostel rooftop chatting with some other backpackers which was nice as I had done very little socialising on this Euro trip not that there was ever too much opportunity.

The next day I was in Split at 11:00 am after a four hour journey from Mostar, and after enquiring at a few private homes I soon realised that the price would be more than what I paid in Dubrovnik. Every owner seemed to be charging for the price of two people which wasn’t much use for a lone traveller! Eventually I found a place to stay the night and took  the bus soon after to see the ancient ruins of Solin.

While certainly not on the scale of those in Pompeii, they were still impressive. On top of that, the place was almost deserted and I saw less than 10 people over the two hours I was in Solin which also included a visit to a second century amphitheatre.

On the main road nearby was the bus stop for Trogir; a UNESCO World Heritage site with magnificent Romanesque and Renaissance arhcitecture. Having seen Dubrovnik’s old town only two days before I wasn’t overly amazed by Trogir or maybe I was just getting tired of seeing places on this two week trip. I later visited the historic site of Diocletians Palace (having passed through it earlier in the day) for a proper look round.

A quick swim at a popular beach near my accommodation was on the agenda early evening. A local band was playing beside the beach, and indeed there was more live music and performance art going on back at Diocletians Palace where I went to get some food after that. It was absolutely packed but made for a good atmosphere and was quite a nice way to bring the curtain down on my Euro trip.

Click here to read ‘TF Flashback: Euro Trip Vol. 1 – Sneaking Into FIFA, Feeling Under-dressed On A Beautiful Mountain & A Popping In To Europe’s 4th Smallest Country (2010)’

Click here to read ‘TF Flashback: Euro Trip Vol. 2 – Big Movie Locations, Beautiful Buildings Aplenty, Wonderful Lakes & Canals, A Bucketlist Football Stadium & A Hint of Shakepeare (2010)’

Click here to read ‘TF Top 10…….Longest Bus & Train Journeys I Can Remember Doing!’

Click here to read ‘TF Flashback: 4 Nights In Rome On My First Italian Encounter (2009)’