Stops: Tiny Home Kotor Kecil, Church of Our Lady of Remedy, Tvrđava St. Ivan (St. John’s Fortress) (Days 198-199) When your online friends who have been to Montenegro say things like, “I assume you are going to Kotor.” and “You simply must go to Kotor. I can’t stress this enough.” the bar is pretty high.…
Stops: Beograd Centar, Bar Station (Days 195-196 ) Finally! A sleeper train! My attempts to take a sleeper from Warsaw to Budapest were thwarted by the massive flooding along the Danube. I wound up flying and completely bypassing Krakow and Bratislava, so it was doubly unfortunate. But, I finally got one. The trip from Belgrade…
Stops: AirBnB, bridge over the Danube, and wandering. (Day 184) I was supposed to arrive in Budapest early Sunday morning on a sleeper train from Warsaw. Let’s just say that did not happen. Polish Railways can die in a ditch. I got an extra beautiful Sunday in Warsaw which was nice because I had finally…
Stops: Malkinia Station, Stacja Treblinka, Muzeum Walki i Męczeństwa w Treblince (Day 178) Web guides don’t really recommend going to Treblinka. “The museum is not that great, and there is nothing there.” Ratings on TripAdvisor? Really? The web suggests Auschwitz as somehow “better.” But, Trebinka was a good choice for me. Recent flooding made me…
Stops: Some industrial park at Paavalinkirkko, Arabia, Löyly, Eira (Day 163 ) After a couple of days of art and architecture and urban hiking around Helsinki, I thought I’d take a day trip out of the city to the small town of Porvoo. It is supposed to be scenic as all get out and seeing…
Stops: Hestia Hotel Barons, Freedom Square (Vabaduse valjak), Russian Embassy (Day 164) Ukrainian flags are everywhere in Estonia. Everywhere. This huge pairing of the Ukrainian and Estonian flags covers the front of the Ministry of Transportation. Every government building I passed had a Ukrainian flag on it. This one is especially important not just because…
Stops: Semarang (Day 130) Packing up for a quick hop over to Jakarta this afternoon then a red-eye back to Tokyo. After 130 days on the road this trip–and many other trips before this, it is time to retire one of my most faithful companions. U.P. Renoma Aloha, you did well. How it started: April…
Stops: Sigiriya, Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple (Day 67) We decided to do an excursion for the day with a rented car and hired driver. SWP Eco-Lodge hooked us up with an excellent chauffeur and we headed out for a full day of UNESCO World Heritage–and awesomeness up in the sky and below the earth. First,…
The start of June was all in Sri Lanka with Et-chan and I did no watercolor practice at all and very little drawing. So, after a bit of a hiatus I sat down again in Kuta Lombok to get back into it. The place: Sitting outside at Surfer’s Paradise. On the right, the first attempt.…
