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Welcome to my travel log! You will find here a lot more than in the travel reports, stripped from political correctness. Enjoy! 
Jul 13, 2010 06:00 PM Ustka (PL) - Another hot day
Not a happy day at all... but the sun keeps shining. The air is still in its high thirties Centigrade. Most of the day, I am spending at my family house. In the garden. Trying to grab some sunrays.
In the evening, my cousin and I go to the beachfront to relax a little. It is a nice evening. Mother Nature offers a pretty sunset. People trickle out of the beach slowly. Some still take a late dip. The water is relatively warm (about 22C), and after sunset it feels really pleasant.
I am back at home at about midnight.
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Jul 12, 2010 06:00 PM Bornholm (DK) - pragmatic and friendly
The boat ride from Ustka to Nexo on Bornholm takes 4 hours and 25 minutes. It is a long ride. The boat leaves the Polish coast at 06:20 am, and leaves the Dutch island's shores at 5:00 pm for the return journey. That leaves about 6 hours to visit the island. This is not much, as there is actually plenty to see on Bornholm. Surely, one can do the highlights in this time, but it is a rather pleasant place, and one should consider a longer stay. Perhaps in the future, Ustka and Nexo will establish a regular ferry service, more frequent than once a week, at least in the summer. Otherwise, one would need to leave Ustka to get there and return to Darlowek, some 50 kilometres west along the coast from Ustka, on another day.
Anyway, Bornholm surprised me with some great sights. It had unique round churches built by very famous knights, the largest Medieval castle complex in the whole of Scandinavia, and a bunch of very pleasant villages and beaches. Astonishingly, the islanders accepted the Polish zloty as a regular form of payment in many shops, restaurants and cafes. One (a Pole, or a person arriving from Poland in this context) did not have exchange any money to survive on the island. Very convenient and very pragmatic.
I opted for an organised tour, since I could not locate a car rental company in Nexo, and taking a car from Ronne or Gudhjem was not convenient at all. I could also pay for the tour in PLN! The tour lasted 4 hours, and did the highlights of the island - one of the largest round churches, Gudhjem village and its fish smoking facilities and a windmill, and the Hammershus castle. The coach, however was struggling to lower the temperature inside, as the air-con kept failing in the heat. It was a rather sweaty tour.
The boat, Lady Assa, was an older vessels with two poorly stocked bars and a restaurant serving almost no food at all. It had a sun deck on top, and a shaded deck in the middle. The sitting area around the bar dated back to the 1970s but appeared clean. The comfy couches in the restaurant area were equally old, but allowed to stretch ones' bones, and the air-con was effective. The return to Ustka was timed almost perfectly with the sunset.
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Jul 11, 2010 06:00 PM Ustka (PL) - Not fully civilised yet...
Well, perhaps this is too harsh. However, I have to admit that I was disappointed to find out that it was impossible to pay for the boat ride from Ustka to Bornholm in Denmark with a card, be it credit card or debit card. Those tickets are not necessarily cheap (PLN190 day return for an adult), and when one wants to go in a group, the Zegluga Gdanska, who operates the route, expects them to carry a wade of cash. Not cool at all. Also, the personnel selling the tickets and who is supposed to provide information about Bornholm (a way of marketing to encourage people to go on the ride), was not well informed and rather rude.
Anyway, the tickets are now acquired, and as the sun keeps on heating up the air, I should only relax and take it easy. My friends from Kobylnica Slupska joined me and my cousin today. I would not call it a bar crawl, but we did have to sit down every now and then for a drink to replenish all the water lost through our skins.
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Jul 10, 2010 06:00 PM Ustka (PL) - The heat gets greater
Today, is even hotter than yesterday. The beaches are busy, people show off their toned and tanned bodies (at least some of them bodies are toned), who must be pleased with themselves to have chosen Ustka rather than Hurghada in Egypt, where temperatures are a few degrees lower today.
I have not had any plans for today. Just spending time with my family and friends. Weather like this means that it is only bearable in the shade. Fortunately, my family house has a nice garden and a giant parasol, under which a large table stands, where we can party. At the seafront promenade, by the lighthouse, the City Bar has a few tables in the shade, sometimes visited by a light breeze. The service is patchy, but who can blame anyone forced to work in 39C ?!
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Jul 09, 2010 06:00 PM Ustka (PL) - Here I am...
... sweating! The temperature today reached a very nice 38C, which means that it is about 3C hotter than usual. Still, people on the beach did not tend to hide from the sun, frying their skins.
My cousin from Berlin arrived this morning. This means that we will try to do some partying. Beach bars and discos on vessels would be the first port of call for sure.
It is good to see Ustka enhancing its facilities. The seafront promenade has been re-modeled until its current end, and might be extended further, towards the hotels and holiday resorts in the eastern end of the town. Now, there is also a fountain there as well, which is a bliss in this weather.
After the entire day of wandering around the town, I ended up at the Dragon boat, which switched on stereo systems and opened up a disco. It was a great idea, as people partied on the decks rather than in a closed venue with failing air conditioning units, like the Viva Disco right in the harbour, about 50 yards from the Dragon. Sometimes, the Dragon goes to sea, and the party takes place there, but this time, the boat was moored in the port. Music was a jolly nice selection of tunes spanning several decades. And the crowd was a good mix too. The only drawback was the selection of drinks. Not great.
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Jul 08, 2010 06:00 PM Ustka (PL) - I am coming again!
Given a string of unfortunate events, I am going to Ustka again this year, within few months from my last visit. Not all of it joyful, but weather is promising, so I will make sure to make most of my short break from work.
I chose, yet again, to fly with Wizzair. They are not the cheapest airline, but definitely the friendliest of the cheap airlines. Well, at least amongst those, who fly where I want to go. The direction is Gdansk, where a friend of mine will collect me from the airport and we will drive some 130 kilometres to get home.
Not all Wizzair flight leave and arrive on time, but this time, it looks like my flight will leave as scheduled, and I should land in Gdansk at about 11:20 pm. Luton is not the best airport to leave from, as the shopping is not great, particularly for whiskies, but the dining facilities are not that bad (although terribly overpriced), and the East Bar in the main concourse sells Hoegaarden beer, which suits me very nicely.
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Jul 07, 2010 06:00 PM Picture of June 2010 - Berat's little old church
Thank you all for the congratulation on the POM Award, and your kind words.
I would probably have not taken this shot if it had not been for the local guide, who found me at the gates of the citadel. He took me around the ruins, showed me the churches, the mosques, the old markets, the abandoned houses, the little alleys, the Turkish prison, and the best spots to take pictures. I think he came up with the idea to take me to the best vantage points around the hill as soon as he saw my indiscrete, heavy, old and dilapidated digital camera.
Well, it paid off! ;)
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Jul 03, 2010 06:00 PM Belgrade (RS) - Bohemian Quarter
Partying all night with the Serbs at the Element, probing šlivovica (lethal plum-based vodka) and the Gorki List (eng: Bitter Leaf, quite nice Jaegermeister-like sweet vodka) left me a little hangover in the morning. The place was packed with teenagers, but the service staff was at legal age, so I stuck with them. They warmed up slow, as some did not speak English, but I must have grew on them as the night developed.
I waited almost to the last minute to check out of the hotel, and strolled slowly towards the train/coach station. I surprised myself considering a train tip back to Belgrade. But one lemon ice tea later, I came to my senses (sort of), and diverted myself to the coach station. A quick question at the information desk, a visit to the cash dispenser, 605 dinars spent, and I was sitting on a coach waiting for my departure.
The driver took exactly an hour to reach Belgrade via the motorway, and about half an hour to navigate the traffic in the capital until I disembarked at the coach station. My plan was of course to pass by the embassy to cast my vote. I quickly found my way there, asked one very difficult question about the flag, which in opinion was wrong, put a cross against one of the names, and 15 minutes later I was ordering food at the Bohemian Quarter. This time, I opted for a local dish. It was a flat burger called pljastnica, and it came with chips, so not so local. It was not very nice; over salted and terribly lardy. I had to sweeten myself with some ice-cream (frozen lard, I know!), which was much better, shame about the awful strawberry, I think, syrup, which I did not order.
I lift myself up and went on discovering the rest of the Bohemian Quarter. It was cool. I like one of the streets with interestingly painted buildings. As I moved a little deeper into the district, I found a few really cool, trendy, and fashionable clubs, bars and lounges, a couple of very beautiful ladies and a guy with rather ostentatious erection. So, I went to the pedestrianised zone in the old town and chilled in the sun until the time of my bus to the airport.
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Jul 02, 2010 06:00 PM Belgrade (RS) & Novi Sad (RS) - forts rule!
First, I checked with the embassy in Belgrade what time on Sunday I could come up to vote for the President, and was impressed to find out that it was the normal 06:00-20:00. I did not think embassies would work on Sundays this long if at all. Once, when I was in Lis Angeles and wanted to vote there, I was shocked to learn that voting in the US was always happening on Saturday, a day before than normal.
Then, I went to see the giant church of Sveti Sava, apparently the largest Greek Orthodox church in the world. And I was almost disappointed. It was practically in the middle of a car park and a building site. There was work going on inside the church and building material was dumped just outside the temple. Not a pretty picture at all!
Then, I rolled myself towards the fortress. Now, this one I really liked. It was large, well preserved, and had interesting characteristics as well as an open-air military museum. The views from the ramparts toward the confluence of the Danube and the Sava rivers were spectacular.
When I saw what I wanted, I thought it would be good to make a move to Novi Sad. I originally planned to take the 15:15 train, but as there was one at 13:30, I took it.
Unless one is addicted to long, excruciatingly slow train journeys in dirty carriages, I would not recommend the 2h (theoretically) long trip from Belgrade to Novi Sad. The Serbian Railways put two short carriages only, which filled up and overcrowded really quickly. There was no air conditioning, and the temperature exceeded 45C within minutes. The train was making 25 km/h on average, and made long stops on stations. It was ridiculous! Some windows were locked, and people lighted their cigarets blowing smoke like locomotives. I seriously regretted not taking a coach.
The train arrived, finally, 35 minutes late. So, it had taken it 3h25 to travel 96 kilometres. A taxi driver told me that I should have expected that. Trains in Serbia were notoriously slow and late, but also dirt cheap. From Belgrade to Novi Sad, second class ticket cost me 288 dinars (€2.76). A coach, apparently, would cost about 700 dinars or 800 dinars. But it would also just take an hour or so to travel the same distance.
I checked in, took a shower, switched in the air-con, and transported myself to the old town of Novi Sad. In the meantime, weather collapsed a little, and the sun was gone. It was still sticky hot, though. The hotel equipped me with a great little map of Novi Sad, so I found my orientation quickly. The old town was lovely. Merchants' houses had their facades painted brightly, the pedestrians only alley had shops and cafes with tabled and armchairs on the pavement. People were sitting there watching Mirek Klose riding Maradona's men as if they were bold llamas. Oh well...
I crossed the Danube to have a closer look at the fortress. It did look fabulous on a hill right by the river bank! The little houses on the other side of the Danube looked less spectacular by their facades. Work still needed to be done to give them fresh paint. A lot of work.
So, I returned to the old town to sit at one of the parasol on pavement cafes for some drink, and maybe more. I found the alla Lanterna restaurant and there was more! And it was yummy. I washed everything down with Nikšičko Pivo from tap at the bargain price of just 140 dinars per pint (0.5l).
By the way, Novi Sad had free wifi in the old town. Just bring your own laptop, netbook or wifi-enabled mobile device and off you go checking latest weather, nightlife recommendations in the area, and recent Globo entries. Here is mine...
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Jul 01, 2010 06:00 PM Belgrade (RS) - arriving at my 133rd country...
Technically, Serbia is the 133rd country that I am visiting. I boarded the plane just as Brazil lost their match with Holland. When I landed in Belgrade, Ghana was winning with Uruguay 1:0.
At the immigration desk at the airport, I put the accuracy of the information on the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Poland website to test. And instead of my passport, of which I held two with me, I presented my ID card. Already in the queue, I spotted that the officer must have been new, as she took longer than her colleague next to her. She was a bit unsure what to do and tried to hide it. Eventually, she consulted her colleague, and there was a lot of nodding. So, it seemed that the Poles did not need to carry a passport when travelling to Serbia. The information at the website was correct. As it turns, I could have tried this also in Kosovo and Macedonia last week, but I did not take my ID card then.
The taxi from the airport was 2,000 dinars (€18). The trip was taking very long for two reasons: a/ there were roadworks on the motorway leading from the airport, and b/ my taxi driver was not a very clever driver at all, took it slow (other cars kept flashing their headlights!) and even lost the way missing an exit.
I arrived at the hotel three minutes before full time of the Ghana v Uruguay match. And then watched to the end in horror as Ghana squandered three chances to score in extra time, as one Uruguayan got a red card for defending at the goal with his hand (this goal should have been allowed), then Ghana missing the penalty for it, and finally losing in the penalty round. Just in case someone did not know - life is not fair! So unfair for the Africans especially.
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