I got to Mostar via a bus from Split. I got up early the day I was leaving and went to the bus station to get a bus ticket to Mostar. It was a difficult decision, as Split was the first place I had had to rest since leaving London and I could have easily stayed another day, but if I did it was going to be because I was lazy, as I had already done everything that I wanted to do in Split. The next bus was in about 2 hours, so I bought breakfast and went via the main hostel reception to pick up my laundry.

I got to the bus station and the bus conductor asked me to pay for an extra ticket for luggage, which I wasn’t totally sure about so asked the bus driver to confirm if this was correct before doing it. I had never seen this before and it was correct, so I paid the extra fee and left my bag underneath the bus. The trip to Mostar was long and not particularly eventful, although there were good views as we travelled along the coast towards the border crossing. This was slow and we had to wait about 20 minutes to cross into Bosnia and Herzegovina, but one we were in we changed shortly after for another bus to Mostar. Bosnia and Herzegovina was noticeably poorer than Croatia and the theme park rides at the bus stop exemplified this.

I got to Mostar and walked to the hostel, which I found by wandering around. Shortly after arriving and whilst I was having Turkish/Bosnian coffee, Grace/Geomseo, who I had seen on the bus turned up. She was from Korea and we went for a walk around Mostar shortly after arriving.

The next few days were spent going to Blagaj with Geomseo and two other people she met on the bus, which was a cave, river and hill-top fort which we didn’t actually get up to, despite setting off. On the way down from the fort, we met a Vietnamese girl and another Korean woman, who also turned-round and we went for lunch together. The next day was spent walking around Mostar and going up the ex-bank building that was used as a sniper’s nest during the civil war in Herzegovina. This I did with Geomseo and Kali, a New York-based American-born Chinese girl who was staying in the same hostel. We actually set out to do different things that day, but I was wandering around Mostar with the intention of going up the tower and bumped into both of them outside as they were about to go in!

I got to Split via a train from Ravenna to Ancona and a ferry from Ancona to Split. I ended up staying for 2 days in Split, as the weather was good, the food was cheap and there was only 1 other person staying in the hostel!

I got up early on the day I was leaving Ravenna to pack and have enough time to walk around Ravenna and get to the train station in time for the train. I said goodbye to Dom and got some fancy bread from a bakery and made my way to the train station. The train was on time and got there only a few minutes before leaving. The train journey was fairly long and uninteresting and I was pleased to get to Ancona, a big port city with plenty of history.

I had to get a shuttle bus from the train station in Ancona to the ticket office for the ferry, where I exchanged my reservation for a ticket. You had to get the same shuttle bus from the ticket office to the ferry terminal and an Australian woman asked me if I spoke any English, so that I could explain what to do next. I did and I could, so her and her friend were thankful that I could explain which bus you needed to get on and to which terminal, as it wasn’t completely obvious from the signage until you were able to spend some time looking at it. I got the the ferry terminal, dumped my bag and went exploring around Ancona, which was totally different to Ravenna. I ended up climbing to of the hilltops in the bay and got some good views of Ancona and the port/bay. I got a slice of pizza for €1 as a snack until I got onto the ferry.

I was early boarding the ferry and sat on deck watching the sun set and waiting for the ferry to depart. I ended up eating in the posher restaurant, as the cheaper on didn’t have as good food and the environment wasn’t as nice, but I ended up having a kind of fried frankfurter anyway, so the food wasn’t substantially better than in the cheaper one! I got upgraded from a 4-bed shared cabin to my own 2-bed one, as I think there was plenty of space on the boat.

We got to Split and I got up early, as I thought the boat was docking earlier than it did. I disembarked and was the first person through passport control and into Split. I found the hostel and unpacked and an hour or so later, Martin, a facilities manager from French-speaking Canada joined me in my room. We had the whole apartment to ourselves for 2 days, which was great.

Whilst in Split, I wandered around Diocletian’s Palace, which was effectively the entire of the old town and was a very interesting maze of back-streets and alleys. I ate a lot of cheap food, climbed up to the Vidilica viewpoint and went to the complex used for the Mediterranean Games in the 1970s, which now had a lot of graffiti on it. I also managed to wander around inside, but almost got locked-in!

I got to Ravenna via a Eurostar from London and then an overnight train from Paris to Milan. I got another train from Milan to Bologna and then another one from Bologna to Ravenna, which required a change in Ferrara!

I got the train from my parents’ house to London St. Pancras, where I boarded the Eurostar train to Paris, which I had never got before. The journey was uneventful and the woman sat next to me was about as interesting to sit next to as a sack of potatoes. We got to Paris having made no eye-contact and no attempt to communicate whatsoever. When I got to Paris I got the metro from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon and attempted to leave my bag in the left luggage section, but as the X-Ray machine was not working, I had to wait around for about an hour until the secuity guard was willing to let me through with just a visual inspection of the bag. With the bag in storage, I was able to get a map and find something to eat.

After finding something to eat, I got on the train for Milan. This took some figuring-out, as the berth number and carriage were marked on the ticket, but it wasn’t clear from the numbering on the train which my compartment was. Once I got someone to explain this, it was only obvious which number your bed was from the number on the bed itself, which was on the underneath. Once I’d been shown my compartment, someone inside the compartment pointed out that I had found the right bed/berth.

The people I was sharing the compartment with were 2 Canadians, 2 Italians and an Indian man. The Indian man didn’t speak much English, so the Canadians, Italians and I ended up playing a type of charades using an iPad before going to bed. As the Italian woman had been through the Alps before with the window open, she insisted it was closed, which meant that the compartment was really hot. I put up with it and got to Milan at 06:00am.

I got off the train and went in search of another train to Bologna. I found this almost immediately and sat on the train until Bologna Centrale. As I hadn’t eaten anything since the day before, the first thing I did was go in search of something to eat. Once I’d sat down with a croissant, I realised there was a train to Ravenna leaving in 1 minute, but as I didn’t have a ticket, I decided to get the next one. This was to Ravenna, with a change in Ferrara. What the ticket didn’t say however, was that the change in Ferrara was 2 hours! I filled the time in by getting something to eat, which was considerably cheaper than what I’d had in Paris the day before. After much waiting around, I made it to Ravenna, where I met one of my friends from university and we spent the next 3 days wandering around Ravenna, eating and drinking. It was very good!