Summer interrail 2017 (31.5. - 14.6.2017)

Hola! Here we were again, in Barcelona, on our way to Stockholm to run the Asics Stockholm Marathon. It turned out that the most cost and time efficient way to get from Grenoble to Stockholm was to spend the first day (out of five in our Interrail passes) to go to Barcelona, and then fly to Stockholm on Vueling.

Again we visited Barcelona Beer Company for dinner and beers.

On our way back to the hotel Tomi spotted this tiny beer bar.

They served two beers on hand pump: Vibrant Forest Brewery's Citra and Signature Brew's Roadie.

A lone troubadour singing Leonard Cohen in the dark of night.

Barcelona makes a superb city for early morning runs. Since our flight was only in the afternoon, we took advantage of the opportunity.

Casino Barcelona.

We just love seaside promenades, and apparently so do many others, since there were quite a few runners out before 7am. And also some rowdy young Americans who were finishing their evening out.

Breakfast at Black Remedy cafe: toast with avocado and feta, and sandwich with Catalan white sausage.

Fast forward to the next day (Friday, June 2) and we were on the morning run in Hagaparken in Stockholm. The sun had risen way before us, at 3:42am to be exact.

We had lunch at Sushi Yama Skolan before heading to the marathon expo.

Tomi bought new (Asics) running shoes at the expo.

The Vasastaden neighborhood where we rented an Airbnb apartment.

Two days fast forward to Sunday, June 4. On the day after (the marathon) we were on our way to Moderna Museet (the museum of modern art) in Skeppsholmen.

Kungliga Slottet (the Royal Palace) seen from Skeppsholmen.

After the museum visit we strolled in the old town.

Under the chestnut tree.

Asian tourists in the old town.

Riksdagshuset (parliament building).

Stadshuset (city hall).

We started our last day in Stockholm going to the Finnish embassy to leave our passport applications. Stockholm has a very good public transportation system, but they have made buying tickets super difficult; the tickets can be purchased at metro stations and some dedicated purchase points, but not on bus or tram stops nor buses or trams. On our way to the embassy we managed to buy the tickets, but not on our way back, so we walked all the way to the town.

At the embassy we waited for more than an hour to be served. We were the last customers, and left there more than hour after their official customer service time had ended. Mission accomplished!

Stockholm's metro stations are one of the coolest in the world. For instance, CNN news site has featured them in several occasions.

We finished the Stockholm visit having dinner with Tei's cousin and his fiancee at the restaurant Le Nom. We were a bit apprehensive of his choice of a French restaurant, but were very pleased with the dishes --- not anything we can find in the French Alps. We started with beetroot with coconut and dill.

Tei had scallops two ways for the main.

And Tomi had salmon and new potatoes with horseradish.

The dessert was rhubarb and ... (unfortunately we did not take notes and their online menu has changed since) The food was super good. As was the service. And the company.

The next morning we were on our way again. This time with Norwegian to Budapest. We did not have any particular reason to visit Budapest, other than to get to Croatia the most cost and time efficient way.

We stayed in a small Airbnb accommodation next to the Keleti railway station. The place was cosy and the host very friendly and helpful. Unfortunately our stay was for only one night and even that was short since we arrived late and left early in the morning.

Before dinner we went to Keleti to buy tickets to the next morning's train to Zagreb.

For sheer convenience our dinner choice was restaurant Csulok Csarda right next door to our apartment. The food was ok, on the very heavy side though, and it came with some more or less weird companions: first a Brit who was interested in the language we were speaking, and then a Swedish guy who owned a business in South Africa and traveled around the world, and seemed to know everything about every place. He also told us that our English was surprisingly good for Finns, but on the other hand he did not know anything about languages.

We were up very early, since the train left before 7am. The six-hour trip to Zagreb went quite uneventfully, with the exception of series of passport controls at the Austrian-Croatian border. We had no problems, but two couples were asked to leave the train and return to Budapest to get Visas, since Croatia does not belong to Schengen whereas Hungary does.

A section of the trip was covered by a bus which involved a lot of waiting. Then we changed to a new train that was cool, clean, and comfortable.

We were one hour late in cloudy Zagreb. This is Zagreb's art pavilion.

We stayed at hostel Chic.

With the hostel's recommendation we headed right away to Mundoaka Streetfood restaurant, founded by one of Zagreb's best known chefs. We did not have a reservation, but still could just walk in.

Tei's nettle soup starter.

Tomi's risotto starter.

Pork ribs and sirloin steak for the main that we shared.

With their namesake beers brewed by Sesma Brewing from Spain.

After lunch we headed to Zagreb's upper town. This is Zagreb cathedral.

This is what 90 years do to stone. The original exterior sculptures (example on the left) date from 1901. All of them have been replaced by new ones (on the right) starting from 1990's.

Aftermath of the market.

Bicycle paths on sidewalks were quite narrow.

The next day was sunnier and warmer. We spent it walking up to Sljeme mountain. It was an easy walk of about 12 kilometers with total ascent of 1107 meters, mostly in the shade of the forest.

We met two women who were looking for mushrooms. They got worried that we were lost and may have followed them as they pretty randomly wandered around, and then directed us to the right direction toward the top. We did have a map, though, so we thought we knew where we were.

Later we met again a bicyclist, whom we saw starting climbing from the bottom of the mountain about the same time as we did. He was quite exhausted and asked us for a sip of water. We would have had enough water for him to fill his bottle, but he did not want to.

Since most of the trail traveled in the forest, we did not have many opportunities to admire the surrounding scenery.

When back in the town it was time to do laundry.

The guy who ran the place owned a pub next door. With Croatian matter-of-fact style of politeness he exchanged coins for us and helped to use the machines. While the laundry was getting done, we had beers at the patio and watched tennis on the pub's wifi.

Our (secondary) dinner choice for the night was the seafood restaurant Ribice, after we had been turned down at Oris - House of architecture with "it is not working." We did not know if it was the restaurant that was not working or our outfits.

At Ribice, we followed the server's recommendation, again expressed in that matter-of-fact but polite tone, and had a fish and seafood platter for two.

Come Friday, and we were on the train to Split, from where we were going to continue to Dubrovnik by bus.

The scenery between Zagreb and Split was awesome. However, whoever designed the route or laid down the tracks must have been completely wasted. There was no section of the railroad that was straight.

And thus, because the train kept constantly turning, it was impossible to take good photos.

After a tranquil train ride, once in Split we were suddenly in a churning sea of noisy tourists. It was also excruciatingly hot there. With our backpacks on we tried to navigate past numerous souvenir stalls, ice cream bars, and pubs to find something to eat, other than pizza, burgers, or kebab. We found Tavern Favola within Diocletian's Palace and ordered salads and two pints of Tuborg. We were not impressed.

The bus for Dubrovnik left on time, it was completely full, but well air-conditioned and quiet. The scenery along the way was once again unforgettable.

We made a number of short stops, the longest one being at the Bosnia-Herzegovina border for passport control. The immigration officers barely looked at our passports, but collected them away from our fellow Asian travelers. The guys slightly panicked when the bus continued without them getting their passports back. The passports were returned once we crossed the border back to Croatia.

Due to frequent stops and slowly moving traffic in front of us (for which I am eternally grateful, because otherwise the driver would have sped to keep up with the timetable on the narrow and curvy road with a sudden drop to the sea) we arrived in Dubrovnik an hour late.

The next puzzle we faced was how to get to our Airbnb accommodation. Since there had been no reply from the host to the emails and SMSs (it turned out we sent them to a landline), we tried to call what we thought was the host, but was his agent. The agent promised to alert the host, and we took a taxi to the apartment. This required some negotiation (amongst taxi drivers), since the apartment was in a tricky location to be reached by a car.

When out of the taxi on a dark street in the upper part of Dubrovnik we were lost again. With the help of locals we were able to finally find our way to the apartment.

Our genuinely friendly and helpful host offered to take us to a supermarket so that we could get something for dinner and breakfast. We did not find a supermarket open, but a tiny convenience store provided us with the basic items we needed for a simple pasta dinner.

Dubrovnik called it a night, with a splendid sunset.

Despite our late arrival, next morning we were up on our feet at 7am. on the way up o Mount Srd (412m). We partly walked, partly ran.

The trail zigzagged up and was quite rocky.

At every turn there was a metal panel depicting various biblical themes.

View from Srd to the walled old town and Lokrum island.

Fort Imperijal, built 1806-1812 by French during the French occupation.

The scenery beyond Fort Imperijal reminded us of Southern Spain.

The cable car was built in 1969, but was destroyed in 1991 bombings (in Croatia's war of independence 1991-1995). Only in 2010 it was repaired and resumed operation.

A cross made of limestone originating from the island Brac. Limestone quarried from the very same island was also used to build the White House and Diocletian's Palace in Split. The cross was also destroyed in the 1991-1995 war.

After the breakfast and laundry we were ready to descend to the old town.

The walled town was crowded by tourists.

As soon as we saw this sign we stopped for a beer, even if it was barely noon.

We had these, from Visibaba Brewing Co. (Zagreb).

We walked for one more quarter and decided to have lunch at Aquarius. We had fish and seafood platter "Aquarius" for two.

The British tourists at the next table offered to take a photo of us when they saw us photographing the dish.

Dubrovnik viewed from the walled old town. Our apartment was up there on the hill.

Aquarius seen from above. Their distinct asset was the shady and cool outdoor patio.

After the lunch we took a self-guided wall tour, which was a bit pricey but worth it. We had a very scenic walk and were pampered by the cool breeze on this very hot day.

Tourists resting in shade.

Basketball court.

Fort Lovrijenac.

People actually live in the walled old town.

Beautiful Adriatic sea.

After leaving the old town we went looking for a supermarket. We walked quite a while before spotting at a bus stop an older woman with a plastic bag from Tommy (a supermarket chain). We pointed to the bag, and with a combination of gestures and "supermarket?" we tried to ask her where we can find it. In quite good English, and again with that matter-of fact style, she told us to continue straight ahead and there it is. She was very helpful but almost disturbingly solemn, with no smile and no reaction when we thanked her profusely for help and wished her a good rest of the day.

We decided to stay one more night in Dubrovnik, and our host kindly found us a room at his neighbor.

The first thing next morning we cooked breakfast, prepared our lunches, packed our backpacks, and moved them to our new room. Then we headed to the harbor, where we caught a ferry to Polace on the island Mljet.

We hiked in the National Park that comprises the Western part of the island.

We started on a trail that looked like not many people had traversed it recently. It was narrow and had some very short but steep climbs.

Eventually we hit something more resembling a forest road.

Before starting the biggest climb of our hike.

It got a bit tricky, but not much.

The day was pretty hot, and we forgot to take our swimwear. This would have been a perfect location for a dip in the water.

We walked to the very end of the island, just to find out there was no shuttle bus going back to Polace as we thought. We were advised to walk to the lake (Veliko Jezero) to catch the bus. We figured out that it would make an equally long walk all the way to Polace.

So we grabbed a quick beer, bought two huge bottles of water, a bag of cipi chips, and started walking. We had one hour for a 4.6km walk, and we made it fine. We both snoozed all the way back in the ferry.

Another early morning and we were on a bus (with a working wifi) to Split.

At the Bosnia-Herzegovina border the passports were collected from all of us, and they were returned when we crossed back to the Croatian side.

This bus took a different route from the one we took to Dubrovnik, and mostly followed the coastline of the Adriatic sea with magnificent views.

Market in one of the many villages we passed.

On our way to the AirBnB accommodation. Our host was nice and super verbose and explained us everything possible in the town for our short one night visit.

Rubbing this toes is said to bring good luck. Our guess is that it just gives you germs.

The toe belongs to the statue Gregory of Nin (erected in 1929), a medieval Croatian bishop.

As all other tourists, we visited the main tourist attraction of Split, Diocletian's Palace, a palace built for the Roman Emperor Diocletian in 4th century AD.

It looked more like a walled city or a fortress rather than a palace.

We followed the recommendation of our host and chose the tiny restaurant Villa Spiza for an early dinner. We were really lucky that we could get seated very soon.

We ordered a rumsteak,

and a lamb dish.

Villa Spiza's vegetable storage.

After the dinner we continued our stroll around the old town.

And the seaside promenade.

The evening was still young when we returned to our residence.

Next morning we were up early for a run to Marjan hill (128m). We took mostly stairs up and tried to find a runnable trail back down.

The hill is covered in dense pine forest, but from the very top we had a great view to the surrounding city and the sea.

After the breakfast we took our backpacks to the storage at the railway station, and returned to Diocletian's Palace and the old town.

The old town is completely pedestrian; not even delivery trucks are allowed in. Therefore, deliveries are done on this kind of carts, which rode rather recklessly among the pedestrians on the narrow alleys.

For the lunch we chose Konoba Korta that advertized home made beer. This is Tei's monkfish dish.

The beer was from the Croatian brewery San Servolo Bujska Pivovara from Buje. The beers available were light (lager), red, black, and golden (IPA and APA were not).

Fast forward to the early evening in Zagreb, and we were in the overnight train to Munich. The train ride from Split gave us a slight scare since at some point the train was significantly late and we were supposed to have quite a small marginal to switch trains in Zagreb. Eventually we were only 5 minutes late, and had enough time to buy some dinner items: cheese and crackers, and some fruit and veggies, which we enjoyed once the passport control on the Slovenian border was completed.

Early morning in Austria, approaching Salzburg for another passport control.

The conductor surprised as with a small breakfast when we expected only coffee.

We arrived on time in Munich. The selection of sandwiches and salads in various booths at the railway station was so impressive that we had a hard time deciding what to get. We ended up buying two sandwiches and a (tandoori) salad. The quality was also very good. That was not the case with the "fitness" salad and chili con carne we bought on the Zurich - Geneve train --- those were not only not tasty but actually quite bad and very expensive.

This photo of the red brick roofs of the beautiful Dubrovnik wraps up our Interrail trip from Barcelona to Stockholm to Budapest to Croatia. This was our first visit to Croatia, but it is certainly a country where we want to return in the future. It has everything a tourist can wish for: delicious food, magnificent landscapes with mountains and the sea, friendly people, and reasonable prices.