Our wedding photos have been posted :)

Greg and Melissa's wedding photos by Traci Griffin

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Dubrovnik is to Croatia, what Disney is to the wallet. It's expensive, lots of tourists, loads of shops of wears, and funny enough, it could fit into Disney itself. You can read all about the historic crap here. After a 9 hour night ferry from Bari, where the cheapest ticket possible, should you choose it, is a first come first serve 'stake your claim to some space on the deck', and some annoying ass Swedish teens doing the all night disco-tech a mere 50feet from us, we arrived in beautiful Dubrovnik.

One night, on this ferry...

I mean, this shit is BEAUTIFUL (all caps deserved for emphasis).

The waters are crystal, the scenery is story book, and the weather...well for us, it was cold, because as it has been with the rest of the trip, the rain just loves us. But putting that aside, we procured an apartment after a hefty vertical trek up the side of the hill.

not even a fraction of the climb

May not seem like much but with all your crap and over a 100 steps, it was well earned

We spent a good day exploring Old Town Dubrovnik proper, an old fortress town nestled on the coast. It doesn't take much time really, it's quite small. The many churches are free to explore, but the old protective wall and anything else of interest require some Kuna. We had a few hours of sun, which the pictures show, but our old passenger, rain, quickly returned to hang with us.

A hole in the fortress wall lead to this private "beach"

sunset view from our apartment

This is actually a rather boring post. The only notes of interest were us eating some "nachos" at a vegetarian restaurant, and enjoying a much needed night of rest. Most of our second day was us getting our arrangements to Sarajevo. Since there were really no safe roads for us to comfortably travel by bike, we took a bus and 7 hours and a load of beautiful scenery later, we arrived in Sarajevo...

Italy, a retrospective

I’m currently comfy and cozy in a hostel in Sarajevo. It is amazing how lovely it is to be able to sit on a couch with your feet up and a white noise of How I Met Your Mother in German (of all languages) in the background that can bring you some calm. My handsome husband (the title still sounds a bit weird, even after a month) sits across from me plotting our route from here to Belgrade as I write this post I’ve been planning for days now.

Greg finds inner piece with the strings

When I look back on my posts through Italy, I must admit, I sounded like a whiny little brat stomping her feet on the ground because she didn’t get her pistachio gelato cone (amazingly tasty btw, much recommended). I must say in my defense that the start of this trip was hard as hell. I didn't train and my riding was at best, an average of 4-6 miles a day and the occasional longer ride. I basically went in cold turkey and hoped my body would adjust and survive. We had a deadline to reach Rome in 2.5weeks for Dan’s flight back to the states, all while trying to soak up the local scenery along the way from Venice. Things like riding in cold ass rain, sometimes hail, and wind only to end up in front of a giant fire place in a tiny old Italian B&B down a 2km dirt road, is actually quite rewarding. 

some wet socks roasting on an open fire

By far the worst day for me was the ride from Greve di Chianti – through Siena (got lost within the city walls) - Casiano di Murlo. It was grueling because the day was all climbing, 80+km, a 10 hour day. It wasn’t all bad. I had the satisfaction of knowing I was riding on hills that professionals were training on but with 40lbs of gear. Plus I got a beautiful assist by Moby’s "In my heart" while climbing a bend the opening piano built with beautiful lyrics, and what unfolded before me at the top of that particular climb was this old ass church

Food in Italy. I couldn’t tell you how many calories we were burning but riding as many hours and kilometers a day that we were, you work up quite the appetite. It seemed like our main options were pizza, pasta, or meat and cheese sandwiches; after 3 weeks, those options get quite old. I will say that every coffee and every wine I had was good and very cheap. Greg has developed quite the addiction to Olive Oil with pepper flakes. Before the trip I watched the last season of Top Chef and witnessing Sara’s  prowess of Italian food, I foolishly thought I’d come across some of what she was cookin'. Sara, if you read this, help a sister out, cuz apparently I was missing something.

Rome, as well as Venice, are both stunning and so visually fulfilling, I’m truly glad I got to visit them, but they are just too touristy, as well as expensive, and we found ourselves craving the quiet life of smaller towns. I highly recommend setting aside a good chunk of time to visit places like Rome, or even Florence, as well as a lot of cash. There is so much history and it shouldn’t be rushed. Tours and museum admissions will add up. We found Rick Steves walking audio tours on podcasts through the iTunes store, they're free, you can play them through your phone or MP3 players and they are a surprising wealth of information. Food in these places will be expensive as well, if you're brave, branch out from the major touristy areas to the more local hangouts, the prices tend to be a bit better.

A quick note on the Vatican in Rome, it is impressive, with their collection of art, the grip of power they attain, and the sheer ego they display with themselves in the massiveness of the St. Peter's Basilica. Freely stating they wanted to be the biggest and best church in the world, thus displaying markers on the floors where other massive popular churches would fit within their walls.

Details of St. Peters

The Dome, St Peters

We left by train from Rome to Bari on the east coast, and by the time we got Bari, it was just under 3 weeks in Italy and we were very ready to leave. The journey from Rome to Bari was an illegal subway train ride with our bikes (only allowed on commuter trains on Sundays), four train transfers throughout the day and into the night, and then stuck in Bari for a few days before we dealt with the hassle of procuring our tickets for the ferry to Dubrovnik. Once we landed in Croatia the weight of the struggles through Italy and leaving it, left us. Riding bikes through Italy is surprisingly easy, if you've got the legs and the time. Some roads were narrow and sketchy, but we found ways. Drivers in Rome where crazy unreal, I highly suggest not attempting biking around that city. We're having a tougher time trying to navigate our way to the Danube from Dubrovnik, but I'll write on that when we've succeeded.

If ever you want to travel through Italy on a budget, trains and buses are great options. If you're in American and you're bitching about gas prices in the shadows of the $5.00 mark, let me tell you that Europe is paying upwards of $9.00+ a gallon for gas. We're too dependent on our vehicles. If you need places to stay their camp grounds are actually quite nice. They're more set up as destinations for people with campers. Most have small markets, places to eat, cleaning facilities for clothes or dishes, showers, and wifi. Lots of them have bungalows you can rent if you don't feel like pitching a tent. They tend to be the cheaper option, even over a hostel. The downside is that they're out of the city's centers and you must walk or take transit to get to your tourist destination. Mostly, we prefer the campgrounds in Italy, they are quite posh, considering.

Two quick meaningless things of note:
A. the cars in the cities of Italy are small. We are now in love with the old Fiats

B. People smoke an insane amount of cigarettes. Be prepared, be forewarned, and don't be shocked when you see a small child amidst the smoke. They're not as fat here, and they're not as concerned about cigarettes

Post-Rome update. Made it to Croatia.

The trip so far has seemed like a dream with a few nightmares thrown in for balance. It has been a blur of beautiful landscapes, statues, historical buildings, churches, and paintings. Along with those came long and painful hill climbs, fast downhills with great views and the sun suddenly making an appearance, rain, rain, and more rain, missed turns that took us miles out of the way, sleeping in tents at campgrounds,  trying to stay at a bed and breakfast in Grosseto but not being able to connect with the owners so we could check-in, having to admit that finding a McDonald’s saved us from likely not having a place to stay by providing free wi-fi with our sundae purchase, staying at a cheapish but nice resort where Mel could take an actual bath, riding on highways with no shoulder, and some of the sketchiest traffic ever while trying to find our campground in Rome. The longest we stayed in any one city before Rome was about a day and a half. I think I will focus on what’s fresh in my mind for the earlier parts of the trip, while amazing, are losing traction in my again brain. I’m going to again need to rely on photos to try and tell that story.

We got to stay in Rome for five days without the hassle of looking for a different place to stay each day. It took some work getting to/from the tourist sites but it was worth it to have the same place to come back to each night. We were thoroughly impressed with the sites of Rome. One must see them all for themselves to really appreciate the Coliseum, Roman Forum, Trastavere, Pantheon, St. Peters Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum, and the quieter side streets of Rome. All we could have asked for was a little less rain, way less people trying to sell us umbrellas, less pushy tourists, less drivers, and some more gelato.

Dan was with us through all of this but today left on a flight back home from Rome. It was hard to see him go but it’s nice to start the part of our trip that will be more honeymoon-like. Mel and I are sitting on a train to Bari while I write this. Well actually we are sitting on the third of six trains we will be riding today. We first rode our bikes from the Camping Roma campground through the same sketchy traffic to get to the Metro station about 15 minutes away. We knew we probably weren’t allowed to take our bikes on these trains but the alternative would have been several hours of riding in the horrific traffic and pollution to get to a train station on the opposite side of Rome. We carried our bikes down several flights of stairs, then down several escalators, rolled them through the fare gates, then carried them down more stairs. We got on the train without issue and rode the ten or so stops to where we would need to switch trains. We went up another escalator and then got stopped by a couple security guards who told us bikes are only allowed on Sundays. Mel used logic and asked if they could recommend another way for us to go. I only said that the trains seemed empty and we only needed to go four more stops. I think they decided it would be easier to let us go then to explain in English what we should do so they let us up the one last escalator to catch the train. We arrived at the Roma Tiburtina station with one hour to spare before our four-hour train to Pescara. Then we will have a layover for a couple hours before catching a train to Termoli where we will have eight minutes to catch the next train. Fingers crossed on that transfer. Then hopefully we are on our way to Foggia where we will have thirty-three minutes between trains. We will get to Bari at 11:43pm if all goes to plan. We will then have 17 minutes to get to where we are staying or will be charged a 10 Euro penalty if we get there after midnight.


Update: We made it to Bari and were there for a couple days. Guess what. It rained and the campground we tried to go to wasn't yet open for the season. We did find a place to stay though and we enjoyed the city but were ready to get out of Italy. We booked a ferry online to go from Bari to Dubrovnik, Croatia and then decided we would go to the ferry terminal on foot about twelve hours early to make sure we would be able to get on without a problem. Good thing we did because it was confusing. We had someone who wasn't too helpful say we needed to go somewhere two kilometers away and that there was a bus that went there. We went outside trying to make sense of what he said. Really, we have to go two kilometers away to get tickets for the ship sitting 100 yards from us? We got on the first bus we saw and sure enough we were dropped at several closed ticket windows about ten minutes later.  At least we now knew where to go later.


Here is a stream of consciousness to make a long story short: Walked to place we left our stuff, grabbed our bikes and bags, tried to go to a supermarket but nothing was open, rode back to the ferry terminal then rode the 2 kilometers to the ticket counter, waited an hour and a half for the counter to open at 6 or 7pm (we had been told it could be either), met an older couple from Australia who we had a nice conversation with, got our tickets, went and found an open supermarket while dealing with the crazy drivers of Bari, got on the ferry and found a place to camp out (we bought the cheapest tickets to save money so we basically just found the quietest place we could to set up our sleeping pads and sleeping bags), watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall on our laptop, tried to go to sleep but some teenagers decided to stay up all night dancing and singing about 50 feet away, got to Dubrovnik at 7am tired but had a place booked to go take a shower and a short nap (up a steep road, past a car rear-ending another one, up a bunch of stairs, and up another steep road), went to old town Dubrovnik and saw that it was absolutely beautiful, craved Mexican food but you don't find much of that here, drank a beer at the Old Port, went back to where were staying, and saw one of the most beautiful sunsets ever. Now we've moved to a campground for tonight and will be taking a bus to Sarajevo in the morning.


Loving this trip. And especially loving Mel.

Photos of Rome