We had about 6 or 7 days in Dubrovnik, Croatia before my flight to Copenhagen so we spent some more time chilling and checking out the old town which Dubrovnik is so well known for.

It is an amazing place, although we had got used to paying Eastern European prices for everything and now we were back onto the tourist rates.

We walked the wall of old town and had dinner inside. We stayed at a really cool hostel and the owners known as Croatian “ma” and “pa” for their homely appeal and shot of honey port (or something like that) on entry.

Ryan booked his ferry ticket to Italy as he was going to learn Italian and make some wine for a few months.

This was good bye for a while but with the interwebs it is easy to stay in contact. I left my bike at the hostel, I told them i would be back in 30 days, i don’t know if it translated but we will see.

So after 6 nights not sleeping in a bed we caught the train to Belgrade and then onto Zagreb in Croatia.

We checked into a hotel for the night and all five of us slept. The next day everyone slept in but I needed to get my medical completed for the ship, this is harder than you might think as I was told there were only 3 or so doctors in Croatia who were licensed to do it. I was lucky to get some help from an emergency doctor who made some calls and found one of these doctors. The next day I had my medical done and off to Holland America Line.

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We then planned to continue traveling with our English friends to Split and spend some time there in an apartment. Here is another thing to remember, high speed trains everywhere don’t take bikes. So we missed another train from Zagreb to Split; they got it and Ryan and I cycled to the bus station and managed to get transport that way. easy.

We then spent an awesome five days in Split overlooking the water and a walk to the beach. It was a really good time and I think what was needed after EXIT.

It was time to say good bye to our English friends and get the bus to Dubrovnik where we would spend sometime before I flew to the Baltic for training on the ms Eurodam.

EXIT festival was big. It was held in a castle on the shore of the Danube and there were a lot of people there.

It was far to hot to camp but thats what we had tickets for. We stayed with the English kids that we met on the train and then Dan and Jess from home were there so they stayed with us as well.

EXIT was 4 nights; this is far to long for a festival but was really good fun. Below are some generic photos because mine did not come out to well.

We had many issues on the train from Bratislava to Hungary and then onto Novi Sad in Serbia.

We were refused entry to about 4 trains, then rode to the outskirts of Bratislava to buy a car….we were frustrated.

Bratislava has a rule that you need to have a local license to purchase a car so that was out. We then sprinted back to the train station and got the 11pm train (the first train we missed was at 8am). The 11pm train was coming from Germany and had a bike section so we were saved.

We got into Budapest, Hungary at some point (it is a but fuzzy) and then there were many backpackers all heading to Novi Sad, Serbia for the Exit Festival…..we were worried about the train and getting our bikes on.

So when the train finally arrived we ran past the guards and threw our bikes on. Then we chained them to the train so they could not be thrown off.

The bikes stayed on and we were lucky to meet some English people who let us in their booth thing.

Ryan got hauled off by the Serbian Army at the boarder crossing as they took one look at him and instantly came to the conclusion he was running drugs…..forgivable mistake.

We finally made it to Novi Sad for a four day music festival in a castle on the Danube.

I think Vienna may have been the city that I spent the most time in, I would have been there a total of about 7 days which was about 3 days longer than anywhere else. So I was ready to move on to the next place.

We headed off and managed to get out of the city more easily than we were expecting however this is where it got fun. The cycle way from Vienna to Bratislava was nothing like what we had been used to from Passau to Vienna along the Danube.

So we made a few wrong turns and ended up on an island in the middle of the Danube, then had to turn around, climb some steps to get onto a bridge and then continue to make our way up the river. There were also a few points where the cycle way disappeared, but appeared further down the road, it was not as well signed ether which made it more difficult. Either way we managed to make it to Bratislava which was quite different to Austria even though it was right on the boarder.

It was a bit longer ride than we thought it would be but this was ok as we left early in the morning and our hostel was in the center of town which was handy.

I had a few days in Vienna on my own after flying back from Rotterdam. I managed to look around the city and see some sights, Vienna is a nice city but by this stage I was starting to get a bit cultured out.

I stayed in the Wombat hostel, guess what he primary nationality was there? Australians. But it was good fun, a defiantly think that hostels need a bar, it makes them far better.

We had left our bikes at the Palace hostel that was quite far out of town on a hill, so after I had finished at the Wombat hostel I headed to the Palace hostel to make sure our bikes were still there. Lucky for us they were there and we will be able to continue our trip to Bratislava. Ryan returned the night before we were cycling to Bratislava he had spent a long time waiting for ferries and flights from Greece to get back to Vienna. Fun times.