In the past six months I'd say that I've been to about eight countries, none of which I've written about in any detail.

I could ascribe this lapse to laziness, but I'd much rather consider this delay as a deliberate act of authorship. As Thomas Mann once said:

Time cools, time clarifies, no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.

Therefore you'll not suffer my clumsy attempts to relay the emotion of these travels. Such fumblings would simply do no justice.

Instead you will find random bulleted highlights, simply anything I consider of interest.

And while we've got the quote book out, courtesy of Mark Twain, I also have a suggestion for those of you looking for something less bland than my following observations :

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

With no further ado, here's eight countries in twelve days.

Croatia

- Capital is Zagreb. We toured the place in two hours between 1-3am on a Saturday night. Highlight was a church with a carpeted roof. We concur with popular tourist opinion: Missable.
- Believe what you (may) have heard. The Adriatic sea is absolutely beautiful, amazingly clear while near and deep blue from afar.
- Unfortunately, you should also believe what you (may) have heard. The beaches are all stony. And not just stony, but all manner of stone: tiny pebbles reminiscent of sand, giant jagged rock faces for sunbathing on, or simply concreted walls (no really, there are in some places... it makes the Adriatic look like some insanely big swimming pool).
- The lack of sand does have some benefits (see aforementioned "beautiful sea") but otherwise tends to inspire a lot of inflatable mattress envy from anyone too cheap to buy one or pay two euros to rent a deck chair.
- Go see Dubrovnik, its a walled fortress city that was famously shelled by the Serbs in the Croatian war for independence in 1991.
- Other places we saw that can be distinguished by their funny names: Krk (means 'throat' in Czech), Zadar and Split.
- Cheapest accommodation is arranged by finding (or being found by) people who are renting a room in their house. A little strange sometimes, but cost-effective at round 20 euro per person per night.

Key performance indicators
- Food - A lot of Italian influence, a lot of seafood, but nothing to distinguish Croatian food from anything else. Half a thumb up.
- Women - A bit of a mix, but still generally Slavic. One thumb up.
- Tourist stuff - Fantastic beaches, medieval architecture. One and a half thumbs up.
- Cost - Tourist areas are still cheaper than west Europe. One and a half thumbs up.

Recommendation:
- September weather wasn't quite hot enough, might be better to suffer the crowds June-August.
- Get a car and make your way down the coast as your mood takes you, there's plenty to see all the way down.

Bosnia & Herzegovina

- Lacking the tourism of a beautiful coast and Croatia's stronger relationship to the west, Bosnia seems to be struggling a lot more to recover from the civil war (primer for those of you who can't be bothered reading about it: the former Yugoslavia was a country shared by Albanian Muslims, Catholic Croats, Orthodox Serbs and Muslims)
- We only popped into the country to spend a night in a city called Bihac (pleasingly pronounced much like "Bee-yatch")
- This was a town that saw a lot of fighting plus bombing in the Balkan wars, the bullet holes and mortar damage still shockingly evident in the town centre (check out the photo page).

Key performance indicators
- Food: Only saw one pizzeria. I think it was ok, but no pleasant memories. Supermarket was pretty empty, not a good sign. Half thumb up.
- Girls: Slavs, but strangely didn't see much talent. One thumb up.
- Cost: Pretty cheap really. One a half thumbs up.
- Tourism: Interesting modern history if nothing else. One and a quarter thumbs up.

Serbia & Montenegro

- We only really saw some stunning coastline. Impossibly blue water hugging medieval stone buildings at the base of dry, rocky hills (again, see the photo page). Definitely the visual highlight of the trip.

Key performance indicators
- Ditto all comments to Croatia, although the coastline was superb, and well worth a mention.

Albania

- We spent a few hours trying to locate Albania from Montenegro. The two countries haven't historically gotten along too well, and as a result its a damn pain finding any road signs to the cities over the border. (I remember being frustrated upon arrival to Europe, and not having any road signs to the effect of "Germany is this way". Unfortunately, the locals seem to rely on drivers generally knowing which cities are where.)
- There is almost no-one on the roads, and seems almost no-one travelling this border. Its night-time, completely dark, and just to add to the ambience, all the road signs have been defaced somehow (and I mean ALL, these vandals were nothing if not thorough).
- Its maybe 10pm when we finally arrived at the heavily forested hill border, not without some trepidation of having enough gas, or being able to find the right place. The Montenegran guards were friendly enough, even taking some of their acquaintainces round the back of the border hut to give firearm demonstrations. After 15 minutes or so of small talk, comparison of mobile phone prices in Europe and appreciation of my 2004 Ford Fiesta in broken English, we were waved through to the Albanians, a kilometre or so down the road.

- The Albanians were also quite interested in our arrival, and perhaps even more so the aforementioned Fiesta. We're quite used to getting attention in our car, however the attention in this case was somewhat unique in that the guards seemed to be engrossed in the wheels and underworkings of the vehicle as opposed to the bright red paint job and giant white square smiley face on the bonnet.
- We handed over our passports to one guy, and he headed off to his guard shed to find an atlas. A dodgy looking second guy presented us with a 5 euro invoice that we duly paid, and had stamped for our trouble. Then a guard in some different uniform waved us over for some paperwork at a second guard shed, which we presumed to be customs. Al went to go deal with those friendly people while I spoke to a guard in front of the car in basic English about directions to the hotel and town we were looking for.
- All was well up until now, and my paranoia toward Albania after reading some tourist advice online ("Travel in car fleets") was starting to abate. All of a sudden a dirty white 80s model Mercedes pulls up to the border post right behind us. Four guys emerged, and with great excitement proceded to examine our car. I would like to believe they were simply captivated by our bold company branding, but in truth, the way they were kicking the tires, and checking under the engine as if I was not there was making me a little nervous.
- Al was over at the customs shed trying to explain something to some old guy inside with sign language while I was standing stupid in front of the car while these guys gave the car a good top to bottom, all the while chatting with the border guards (who they clearly knew and seemed to be on good terms with). I don't know where they were from but they were speaking some kind of Slavic language, because I could make out some parts of their conversation, which seemed focused on how much the car was worth. At this point these random guys approached me and one asked in whatever language it was, where we were going. I was about to rattle off something vague in Czech, hoping he might catch it, but instead my helpful border guard pointed out to him the town I was looking for. Which hotel, this random guy wondered, and was duly answered by the same, decreasingly helpful border guard. Random guy and his friends found that hilarious for some reason, and he said something else that I couldn't make sense of. Luckily, the guard could provide me with some translation: "He wants to know if they can show you the way to the hotel."
- I expressed my appreciation and assured them, via the guard's translation, that we would be ok to find it ourselves. Again Mr Random & Co found this incredibly funny, and after confirming the name of the hotel again, they piled back into the Mercedes and with much yelling and noise disappeared off into the Albanian darkness ahead. "He said that they would meet you there", the guard helpfully supplied.
- Maybe they were considering to take the car. Maybe they were just friendly. We won't ever know, but at that point I was sure as hell that this was not a point when I would start to rely on human kindness.
"Al!" I yelled out, "I don't want to go to Albania".
Al looks up from his round of charades, mystified.
"What?"
"Those guys that were just here, I think they want to steal the car."
So Al takes a few steps back toward the car, and the expression on his face says "Dave's lost his mind and gotten hysterical".
I explained to him what had happened, and while I'm not sure he considered the risk unacceptable, to his credit he could tell I was freaked out about the meeting with the Mercedes and wasn't going any further than this border.

The guards couldn't understand precisely what we were discussing, but the tone of our voices and the amount of pointing I was doing at Albania was clearly making them nervous. When I announced that we were turning around and going back to Montenegro the border guards seemed stunned. The custom guard however, who was completing the paperwork with Al, lost the plot entirely and started cursing and throwing his papers and pen around. Al tried to explain that he could keep the money but the nature of the problem seemed to be that he had started some papers and didn't want to cancel them.

Meanwhile I tried to explain to the border guards why I didn't trust those other guys and why we were heading back. They seemed completely confused why I would think that and tried to dissuade me. Quote of the night was an attempted reassurance from one of those border guards that "Albania today is not Albania 2001". Heartening as that sounded, once we had our passports from the border guys we jumped back in the car and were about to leave the scene when the customs guard bursts out onto the road in front of us and starts yelling and waving his hands. We stop the car again and Al goes over to try to work out what the problem is (even the customs guys have guns here, makes sense to listen to them). The agitated customs guy is trying to get us to do something, but its not entirely clear what. Al is waving the stamped invoice to show we paid five euros, but it doesn't seem to be helping.

The border guards are clearly embarrassed by this guys behaviour, and start yelling at him to (we guess) leave us alone so that we can leave. In the end a border guard shepherds Al back to the car with the customs guy yelling angrily at him and us and other border guards yelling back. As we're waiting for the yelling to subside with some sort of instructions, the guy who we paid the 5 euro to shuffles over and sheepishly hands back the 5 euro. Here, a minor revelation. Whoever the hell this guy is, he doesn't seem to be affiliated to either the border guards or the customs people. Who is he? And why is he invoicing us? And why are we paying him? As Al and I agreed afterward, he did have a stamp, and that lent him more than enough credibility for us to be paying on demand.

Anyway, the the yelling doesn't really stop, so finally the most sympathetic guard orders us to ignore customs guy and just drive off in the midst of the feuding border and customs officials. While pleased to be turning the vehicle around, we failed to depart with the respect of anyone: First failing to have the gumption to enter Albania at all, and then stalling the car in the middle of the three point turn.

Of course the Montegran border was quite surprised to see us again. We had some difficulty explaining what happened, the highlight of which being a diagram I prepared on the spot, showing masked robbers killing us and turning the Fiesta into money. Soon the guards were nodding sagely about the savage Albanians, and after some promises to sell them subsidised handsets upon our return to Prague, we were heading back to the Montenegran wilderness with our tails between our legs.

Thus ended our almost-Albanian adventure. Anyone who has actually seen the country should let me know what its like. I would love to believe its really quite safe and tourist friendly, but in lieue of evidence to support that, I think a healthy sense of paranoia is far more practical for the time being.

Key performance indicators
- Food: Only had some biscuits purchased en route to border. Pass.
- Girls: Didn't see any. Pass.
- Cost: Spent 5 euros getting some meaningless paper stamped. One thumb down.
- Tourism: Warm welcome from locals upon arrival to border. One and a half thumbs up.

Slovenia
- Capital Ljubliana is great, albeit unpronounceable.
- Combine Slavic people with Austrian living... strange after seeing so much of Czech Rep and Slovakia
- Great canal in the middle of town, ideal for weekend markets and brunch

Key performance indicators
- Food: I don't remember eating a thing in this country. Pass.
- Girls: Slavic, but with more Germanic influences. One and a half thumbs up.
- Cost: The pension out of town was a great deal, otherwise standard Euro pricing. One thumb up.
- Tourism: Ljubliana is nice, surroundings were pleasant enough. One and a quarter thumbs up.

Italy
- One night in Verona
- Doesn't have much going for it especially except the reference from Shakespeare and just the fact that its an Italian city (which is entirely enough to make the food, shopping and ambience 3x better than almost anywhere else in this part of Europe)

Key performance indicators
- Food: Pretty much everything tastes better. Two thumbs up.
- Girls: Progressive fashion, but a lot of makeup, and otherwise not what we had been lead to believe. One thumb up.
- Cost: Maybe slightly higher than average? But pretty much standard Euro fare. One thumb up.
- Tourism: Even nothing seems to be something worth seeing. One and a half thumbs up.

Austria
- They charge you for highway tax, even if you're only driving thru in a few hours, and then they charge you for a bridge that you need to go over. Boo. By way of payback we did a U-Turn in one of their 20 kilometre tunnels.
- Had a really tough time trying to find the way through Austria. Its not that big, but then again, neither was Austria on the map we were using (you could see Mediterranean at bottom and North Sea at the top). Part of the problem was that we were looking for the recently built German castle that inspired the design of Disneyland, which funnily enough didn't feature on this particular map.
- Driving through the Alps was stunning... second biggest visual highlight behind the Montenegran coast.

Key performance indicators
- Food: Austrian Milka chocolate is great, nearly as good as the Chocolate Mozart Balls. One and a half thumbs up.
- Girls: The woman in the toll booth was cute. One thumb up.
- Cost: Double charging for a highway of lower quality than in Germany? One thumb down.
- Tourism: The Alps. One and a half thumbs up.

Germany
- We got to see that castle... Neuschwanstein... built by mad king Ludvig II of Bavaria in 19th century (yep, so Disneyland castle you would have seen was based on something that was itself a 'fairytale' castle). Was pretty cool on outside, we got there too late to go inside unfortunately. Even the scenary was great from that castle... looking out over the plains, dairy cows mooing in the distance. Yay old school Europe.
- The night was spent in good old Munich, which is a fine city to hang out in. Then hit up Nuremberg the next day - not too much to say about that place. Its a nice German city with a massive old church or two, and the Germans are very clean and polite.

Key performance indicators
- Food: Hearty Bavarian fare. One and a half thumbs up.
- Girls: Nothing so impressive in general. One thumb up.
- Cost: Typical Euro level, but good range of prices. One thumb up
- Tourism: Always something to see, well organised for tourists. One and a quarter thumbs up.

And thats it. Big update, but it was a big trip.