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Meteora (Greece) - In the heavens above
04 SEP

This is a place that I'd heard about and always wanted to visit, can't exactly remember when it came to mind but it's definitely been with me for a few years, even if popular belief is that it only dawned upon me after the release of the Linkin Park album - I can add categorically, 'not true'.

Rather than belt rubbish for too many paragraphs let me go with the very basics of how we got here and then you can dine out on some cold hard facts before I throw up the photos, which really, are the only way that I can do justice to the place. So, the day after U2 euphoria we made our way north out of Athens via the towns of Lamia, Larissa and then to the small town of Kalambaka which lies at the very base of these amazing sandstone pillars.

Now, to steal a few lines from Wikipedia as I'm not of the mindset to be overly or overtly creative this evening, 'Meteora is one of the largest and most important complexes of Eastern Orthodox monestaries in Greece...the six monestaries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars at the north western edge of the Plain of Thessaly'. OK, thanks for that Wiki - now for the photos.

Taken from the monastery of the Holy Trinity - Meteora - Greece

 

Monastery of the Holy Trinity - Meteora - Greece

 

The Holy Monastery of Rousanou/St.Barbara - Meteora - Greece

 

 

The Holy Monastery of Varlaam - Meteora - Greece

 

'Cloudscape' - near the Holy Monastery of Great Meteoron - Meteora - Greece

 

View to the town of Kalambaka from Meteora

 

V in front of The Holy Monastery of Varlaam - Meteora - Greece

 

Monastery of Great Meteoron - Meteora - Greece

 

 

 Meteora - Greece

 

Holy Monastery of Great Meteoron - Meteora - Greece

 

Holy Monastery of St. Nicholas Anapausas - Meteora - Greece

 

Athens - What time is it in the world? It's showtime!

Athens (Greece)
02 SEP - 03 SEP

Belgrade to Athens

Watching 'Video Hits' back in the late 80's it was hard to miss a young long haired lout that went by the name of Bono, sprawled out on the bonnet of an absurdly large and oddly shaped piece of motoring ingenuity somewhere on the Vegas strip singing the apparently gospel like song of 'I still haven't found what I'm looking for'. Put simply, I hated him, and I hated U2! They were everywhere and their songs were being played non-stop. Just when you thought  you'd escaped the clutches of their self discovery through America, along came 'Desire', and there was the young, earnest and politically motivated band oscilating between Vegas and San Francisco in their film clip. It felt like U2 were everywhere that you turned and if that wasn't enough their '89 Lovetown tour sold out so quickly at the Sydney Entertainment Centre that I secretly seethed internally and waited patiently for their inevitable demise.

A few years later my cousin, (V), made his way to Australia for the first time, elegantly dodging the tensions and conflicts that would grip the Balkan region for the next few years. At sometime during his stay he purchased a copy of Rattle & Hum and by sheer proximity I was exposed to the Americana inspired musings of Bono in such songs as Hawkmoon 269, God Part II and Angel of Harlem. However, it wasn't until my cousin strongly suggested a late night sojourn with that insipid and quite 'vacant' MTV host Richard Wilkins and a run of the Rattle & Hum movie that I fully took the U2 bait. Watching the moody and atmospheric intro to 'Silver & Gold' with Adam Clayton leading the way on bass, I could feel myself slowly being drawn into their realm. The black and white, (for the most part), rockumentary depicted this band's journey through America and the influence it had on it's newest creation, Rattle & Hum, an album that comprised both live versions of songs off the Joshua Tree album and some new creations. The movie progressed through such classics as 'Angel of Harlem', 'Bad' and 'With or Without You' but it wasn't until their performance of 'Where the Streets Have No Name' at the Sun Devil stadium in Arizona  that I had my U2 'epiphany'. With a typically red set design that I now know goes hand in hand with this song whenever it is played, the song commences with chorale like syntheziser notes as LMJ sits atop his drum kit, his silouette visible against the red backdrop, counting in the intro. Then in 'one' of the most recognisable guitar pieces in any rock song around , (yes, my personal opinion), The Edge kicks off with the song's hook, a repeating guitar appregio that utilised a delay effect. When Clayton comes in over that with the bass you can actually feel a wall of sound surging at you. At the end of the intro the whole stadium lights up like a Christmas tree...and that for me was it, I was SOLD! Several months later, somewhere close to the end of November '91, Achtung Baby was released, by which time I had already purchased my tickets for the entire U2 ride, for better or for worse. So with that said, and after now having followed these guys for nearly 20 years, once I saw the tour dates for U2360 and figured out that the logistics of getting down to Athens for a gig at the start of September was more than possible, I picked up two tickets as a kind of 'thankyou' to my cousin for having introduced me to these guys all those years ago. Once 02 SEP rolled around we were in our car and ready to roll!

On the road south - Southern Serbia

Macedonian flag - on the Serbian/Macedonian border

Pointing our vehicle south and lining up with our first checkpoint at the Serbian/Macedonian border, we made our way under relatively clear skies, cutting through Southern Serbia without too many problems until such time we skirted the pheriphery of Nis and closed in on the frontier. As the topography changed, becoming more mountainous with every passing km, so too did the nature of the freeway, turning into a two lane, high speed lottery. With Serbia being the short-cut access to Greece via Macedonia, you tend to find trucking companies of many EU states utilising this route to transport their wares into and out of the republic. The problem, like anywhere else, is that they're painfully laborious and thus for the typical Serbian driver whose patience and temperament is challenged even when waiting in line for some good 'ole fashioned cevapi, when presented with this scenario, they have a tendency of losing their head somewhat. The amount of idiotic and downright dangerous passing manouveres I witnessed in that short section of road even put the chaos of Vietnam to shame. In one particular instance we went head on with another vehicle and only avoided carnage by making use of the additional bitumen outside of the designated lane markings. I mean really, are a few additional minutes stuck behind a truck that infuriating that it can ravage ones nerves to such an extent that they're willing to accept the consequences of failure? F*** me !!! Crazy Serbs, this land is full of them, strangely enough!

'Somewhere' in Macedonia

The final '500'

Thankfully the rest of the drive down to Athens that evening was uneventful. We passed through Macedonia in just a few hours, it's mountainous landscape in some parts being quite captivating, and then once over the border and into Greece made our way down the Aegean coastline commencing from the outskirts of Thessaloniki. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, the great thing about Europe is that it's dynamic in the way that it's landscapes can shift so quickly and how the cultural influences on the spaces that you pass through are unique in that you can easily discern a Greek looking town from a Macedonian village from a Serbian city. Admiring the unique blue of the Aegean on one side and the mountainous landscape of the Olimbos range on the other, we bisected them on our southerly journey passing through the towns of Katerini, Larissa and Almiros. Chasing the sun for sometime as it decided to duck for protection behind the Othris range, we rounded the bay of Maliakos and its main town of Lamia as the night crept in and my cousin told me the story of how he first learnt to swim in this town some 30+ yrs ago. It's a funny thing but it seems that those 'first learning to swim' stories are never pleasant! It often involves 'someone', (a mature and usually semi-intelligent parent), throwing their child into the blue abyss with a literal 'sink or swim' intention. My moment of reckoning came on the Croatian coast when I was 3 or 4. All I remember was my dad placing some ridiculous yellow floaties on my arms, throwing me into space and then me sinking below the surface and into the darkness. There are 'special' moments in my life that I won't ever forgive my father for no matter how amusing he still thinks they are - with that said, if I ever have kids of my own ,well,  I'll be taking out my revenge on them!

These mountains are Greek - 'obviously'...?

Arriving in Athina sometime after 9pm with just on 11hrs driving behind us, I had assumed that our Google Maps print off's would be more than satisfactory to allow us to find our accommodation in Dorsia, a suburb approximately 20kms outside of the centre - they weren't. I failed to take into account that most street signs were written in cyrillic and the Google Maps print outs had kindly provided me with 'just'  their English translations. There were several occasions when Big V asked pointed questions of his navigator and the best I could come up with was, 'Man, I just don't know'. It took us hailing down a taxi and playing a little 'follow the leader'  to discover that we were only  within a 5 euro cabride from our destination, although we may as well have been a world away, there's just no way we would have found our digs without a little intervention. It was...wait for it...'All Greek to us', (oh, the crowd groans). Thankfully, even out here in the Athenian burbs, the cafes were still rolling along well after midnight and we were able to have a nice little meal and a few brews to close out our first day down south.

Athens 03 SEP

Waking up to an absolutely bluebird day, there were only a few items that we needed to tick off our itinerary in the next few hours, 1) Check out a bit of Athens, 2) Make it to the Acropolis  and 3) Get to the Olympic stadium for the U2 gig. Heading out of Kifissia via E75 into the heart of Athens I thought at times that all three objectives were at some point going to come a screaming halt up against some concrete barricade. The motorcyle riders in this town are maniacs, ducking in and out of traffic at something like triple the speed limit, you take evasive action on their behalf because obviously their brains are located roughly in the vicinty of where their bike seats are. These guys,(mostly guys), are urban missiles, let loose in their bitumen playground, seeking to hunt out and destroy the sound barrier by weaving through spaces that I'd find difficult to walk through even if both vehicles were stationary. Mad men, just plain mad!

The Parthenon - Athens - Greece

The Parthenon - Athens - Greece

Having survived the journey into the Athens proper, it was then time for Big V and I to 'guess' our way around as 'ofcourse' we didn't have a map. So there we were, driving in the midst of Meditteranean traffic chaos, small low rise buildings pathing the way in a place whose status in the world is almost mythical. Athens, as a city, is often considered to be 'one of' the oldest cities in the world with a recorded history of something like 3500 years although human existence can be traced back in this area for something like 7000 years. In terms of global importance however it is known as being the cradle of western civilisation and the birthplace of democracy, something of which, (from a democratic standpoint), that people have been questioning over the last 20 days with Gillard's appointment as PM from the perspective of primary vote% andtotal seats gained in the house of reps - (if you need an explanation of how it works, send me an e-mail, more than happy to go through the details with you! :). Moving through Athens quite intuitively, with the split second views of the Parthenon on the Acropolis as our reference point, we managed to guide ourselves quickly in and then,somehow, quickly out of the city centre in one evil loop. It took some tactical 'guestimating' from V on the return journey to get us both into the city centre once again and close to our main destination, 'The Acropolis'. We ended up parking near the station of Petralona and then jumping a cab for the rest of the distance. It always feels more than touristy and just a little cheesy when you ask a cab driver to take you to the most well known attraction of a city - and in this case, one of the most well known

in the world. For some reason I felt a little embarrased to ask the man to 'take me to the Acropolis', like I had somehow failed in a mission of the blatantly obvious.

Entrance to the Parthenon - Athens - Greece

The sprawling 'white city' over the Attica plain - Athens - Greece

Catching the first glimpses of the Parthenon from the cab, the first thing I thought to myself was, 'they were able to build that freakin' thing up there!!?'. This thing is enormous, even these days you'd marvel at the audacity of building something of that magnitude on a large flat topped rock which stands proudly above the plains where Athens makes its home. On this day also, we were a little fortunate with the weather that we encountered and hence the climb up the acropolis to view the Parthenon was made that much more spectacular by the marvellous blue sky which provided the perfect backdrop to this sprawling white city. From up here It's obvious why they chose this place to build a temple whose dedication would be to Greek Goddess Athena. It is located at one of the highest points in the city and the command that it has over the area gives it a most ethereal feel. Walking up to the top of the acropolis you're able to get your bearings on this sprawling city. This magnificent place is now home to somewhere over 4 million people, and viewing it from this location, you're able to see how the city stretches from the port which makes its home on the Sarconic Gulf, north-east along the plains of Attica (also known as the Athens basin), and is bounded by large mountains on all sides - Mount Aegaleo to the west, Mount Parnitha to the north, Mount Penlelo to the north-east and Mount Hymethus to the east. What's more, the buildings of Athens are very much uniform in terms of height and colour, it's basically a sea of white that lays out before you on the plains, and then when the city 'hits' the bay you get a beautiful contrast with the dark blue of the gulf. Even better still, on a day such as this when then sun was beating down on this white city it feels as though the sun's rays are amplified and you kind of begin to understand the beauty and vibrancy that lies behind a Meditteranean Summer in Greece.

Parthenon - Athens - Greece

Both V and I walk around the Parthenon for quite some time before descending the acropolis and making our way into the area of Plaka for some lunch. It's just one taverna after another and choosing one to stop for a short while was not too hard a task. It's funny, but even if you spend a short time in a city you can quickly get a feel of its vibe and already on this day we figured out that Athens is 'alive'. First of all the people appear to be very friendly, warm and good natured. They were willing to assist us at each turn even if there English was very basic. Then there were the tavernas which were plentiful and filled with tourists and Greeks alike, I mean you could call it a typical  Meditteranean town but that would be doing the place a grose injustice. It's specifically Greek, it's vibrant and it has an energy which is kind of infectious. It may not be the most attractive place around but I guess its heart and soul make up for that in spades.

View to the port - Athens - Greece

As the afternoon wore on and our time spent walking around Athens drew us closer to 'go time' at the Olympic stadium, we booked some accommodation down in Kallithea, an area between the city centre and port, and then primed ourselves for the gig. Somewhere close to 6pm we headed for the Olympic station of Irini via the Attiko metro, a lesson in patience and resilience if there ever was one. Now let me say, the Athenian metro is very good, the stations are well maintained, the trains run with reasonable efficiency and the system makes sense. The issue for us, which we only realised once our train terminated far from our destination was then several stations on the line we were travelling on were 'out of service' , (thanks for the notice). A simple 25 minute run turned into a multi-change, 20 station, near 90 minute escapade, where following Greek speaking, U2 t-shirt wearing, individuals meant that you were on the right track. Never the less, with a touch of guile and some good 'ole internal fortitude we made it to the Olympic precint by 7pm, in time enough to see Snow Patrol do their set and warm up the crowd significantly for only their second Greek date ever.

Olympic precinct - Athens - Greece

Olympic precinct - Athens - Greece

V - Olympic precinct - Athens - Greece

Olympic stadium - 'ready to go' - Athens - Greece

The boys doing their thing

The band at work

Mysterious ways

City of blinding lights intro

'Crazy tonight'

Now for those that have never been to a U2 gig let me just lay it down for you in a few words, 'it's an EPIC event '. Filling stadiums in the vicinity of 50,000-70,000 punters night after night is no mean feat but then being able to do it year on year is incredible. The stadium, whilst not at capacity on this night, would definitely have been in the 50K-60K range and the crowd were obviously in the mood from the moment the boys walked out. Whilst I have seen the guys play in Sydney a few times, for Zoo TV in '93, Popmart in '97 and twice in '06 for their Vertigo tour, it's the first time that I've seen them play outside of Australia, so the setting, the environment and the fact that I was finally able to get my cousin along to a gig, all made this a fantastic night for me...and for me, they didn't disappoint. It was a great mix of old and new with the highlights for me being Beautiful Day,  I Will Follow, City of Blinding Lights, One, With or Without You and Moment of Surrender, but as always, after a now rarely played version of MLK was being faded out and the familiar chorale like synthesized chords opened the way for Where the Streets Have  No Name, well, all I could do was immerse myself in the moment and watch the rest of the crowd come along for the ride. To me the live version of the song always felt like it was able to lift you from where you were and take you to a specific location or perhaps it was even akin to the building of a musical landscape. I've read quotes from Bono where he likens the song to  'sketching a location', and that description to me feels about right. In any case, on this night the location was the Olympic stadium in Athens and I'd managed to fulfill the promise that I made to myself years earlier that if I had the means and if U2 ever played a gig in the vicinity of Belgrade, well, then I'd be taking V along as a big 'thankyou' for introducing me to them nearly 20 years ago - MISSION COMPLETED!

Belgrade - Films about ghosts

Belgrade (Serbia)

20 AUG - 01 SEP

There's something about the sharpness of colour, the clarity and definition between the lush greens of the tall trees that surround the area of Topcider and their contrast against the rich blue of the skies that makes this time of year in Belgrade special. It reminds me of mid-April or mid-October in Sydney, the weather is mild, the skies appear to be brighter and the high running winds bring along those wispy sirrus clouds that almost look like brisk white brush strokes that you might find in an Impressionist piece.

I'm sitting in relatively large wooded area at the end of the street where my aunt/cousin lives. The leaves of the trees break down the sunlight into a type of beamed scatter gun affect, lighting up bits and pieces of the woods by its own design and will.This for me however is one my very favourite places. I remember walking through here as a five year old, my small hand clasped in the older weathered hands of my grandmother, taking me down to the local grocery store and me being excited as I knew that there was a playground in the park close to the store where I'd be able to play on the swings. Then there are also the memories of neighbourhood warfare and the toy guns that my cousin would fashion from planks of wood, a clothes line peg and a box full of elastic bands in true McGyver fashion. There are many memories, emotions and thoughts that I've left out in these woods over the years that I've been coming to Belgrade, the ghosts of which seem remain long after the time I've returned back home to Sydney. Occassionally when I walk through here I run into one of these ghosts unexpectedly and then for just a split second I'll be that 21 yr old guy that's just had his heart broken, and in that very instant I swear I can feel that same gut wrenching helplessness that I experienced years earlier (yeah Micha, you know what I'm talking about! ;) ... or at other times I'll run into that 30yr old guy who was completely disillusioned and who betrayed his own better judgment by trying to maintain a shambolic marriage. Conversely there are some ghosts that I do deliberately seek out and sometimes I have the good fortune of running into that happy, optimistic 16yr old or even that 9yr old that felt it was perfectly normal to have most of his family on the other side of the world and be able to visit them nearly every year. Sitting here and listening to the sound of the rustling leaves as the wind carries the ghosts of my past memories through this space I wonder if maybe one day I'll walk through here again and be lucky enough to run into that 35yr old guy that stepped out into the world for a minute and took some time out to enjoy himself, get a little perspective and recalibrate. I think that if I ran into that guy I'd be more than happy to sit down here for a while and look out aimlessly into these woods with a nice little grin on my face and know that I made a decision that was 100% right for me at the time.

In the same sort of vein, my dad went chasing some ghosts of his own a day or so earlier. On this occassion my dad took my cousin and I around the area where he grew up until the age of nine, until such time that the Americans kindly dropped a bomb on his family's flat and buried them all for something like 6hrs. As we walked around his old territory and started wondering along his street I noticed his tempo pick up and can tell that his mind is working overtime as a hundred memories come flooding back to him. We enter through the gate of one apartment residence and walk into a back garden. He shows me where he and his cousin used to play football and then tells me the story of how his cousin had the capacity to make any kid cry, specifically telling me of one instance he can vividly remember. He then looks into an empty space between the standing apartment blocks and points out an area where his family home use to be. He's uncertain of where the bomb hit exactly but explains that in the immediate vicinity there were three or four people that died, how all his family survived is something that he can't answer. I look around this place and wonder what may have happened if that bomb hadn't hit and how highly probable it would be that if it hadn't,well, perhaps I wouldn't be standing here with him as the whole chain of events that were set in motion at that point wouldn't have existed. Life can be kind of arbitrary in that sense. As we stand there in silence for a few moments I look at him and can see his mind ticking over, probably thinking how strange it is for him that some 70 yrs ago he had a life in this very space that is now vacant - I think to myself how odd that must be, and how unfair it is that such abrupt changes were made on his life without having any real opportunity of choice.

Some time later we walk the few hundred metres to the school that he attended until his family were made to leave Belgrade. On this day the school is empty as it's the day before the start of a new school year. Walking up to the door he somehow manages to encounter the headmaster who kindly listens to his old stories and takes him on a short tour of the halls that he use to know. Watching him walk through the doors that are the entrance to the school I'm certain that for while on this day my dad also ran into a few ghosts of his own and the films of those memories that played in his mind would have for an instant have taken him back to another time and another place.  I think for all of us those memories are kind of nice to have and sometimes chasing those ghosts provides you with the opportunity to immerse yourself in a certain place in time, and even if it's for the briefest of moments - it ain't bad.

Stockholm to Belgrade - Gumball rally (part 2)

Stockholm (Sweden) 17-18 AUG

Stockholm to Belgrade (Serbia) 19-20 AUG

Waking from the coma that was induced by the white lines of the highways in the Swedish back country, Big V and I managed to combine enough of our faculties to start the engine of our vehicle and direct it into the centre of Stockholm. I'd been fortunate to have made my way to these neck of the woods four years earlier when a good friend of mine, Jay, was co-habitating with his Swedish girlfriend in the suburb of Nacka Strand, so I 'kind of' had an idea of the direction we were heading. Utilising our fantastic Serbian GPS guidance system for a while and then deciding to go 'off the grid' due our serial distrust of its actual geographical and logistical aptitude, we made our way to the high island of Gamla Stan - the Old Town of Stockholm,  where Big V's education in all things Swedish would begin. Although 'strangely' he was already well versed in all aspects of the 'blond ambition' that was amazingly pervasive on the good 'ole streets of the 'holmes. 'Ahh Sweden, to the world you will provide blondes - God made it so and saw that it was goooood!'.

It's a hostel!!! - Stockholm - Sweden

Looking out onto the Baltic - Stockholm - Sweden

So now, what about a little bit of background on where this place is and how it came to be. They call Stockholm 'The city that floats on water' and no doubt this appears to be a particularly apt description. Located at the confluence of the Baltic Sea and Lake Malaren, the city is spread across a number of islands, districts and 'green zones' that give the impression of loosely connected minature towns/cities that interlock to make the whole that is the Swedish capital. From an historical perspective it is said that Swedish history can be traced back some 14,000 years to when the think blanket of ice that covered the continent subsided and nomadic tribes of hunters and fisherman followed the receding ice cap northwards and decided to settle. Various tribes settled around Lake Malaren approximately 5000 years ago but it wasn't until approximately (850-1050 AD) that these tribes, who were able to dominate their neighbours via their sea faring exploits, inclusive of dominating the 'poxy Danes', heralded in the Viking era. The area from which Big V and I were kicking off our sightseeing excursion, Gamla Stan, was basically where the town of Stockholm was founded back in 1252 due to its strategic position at the eye of the watery whirlpool that is the Baltic to the east and Lake Malaren to the west. These days Gamla Stan still carries the old style bohemian vibe and period stamp of the 15th and 16th century , cobbled streets, winding lanes, mansions, palaces and soaring spires. It's a fantastic place to loose yourself in for a few hours especially with the aid of a few kind ales to motivate you along to future successes, although with that said, the prices are 'very Scandinavian' and you may quite easily find yourself with tears in your eyes the next morning after reviewing your bank statements.

Still Stockholm - noticing the pattern?

An ode to King Gustav III

Obviously Stockholm has a lot going for it. At a glance you can easily recognise that it has to be one of the most naturally beautiful cities going around. It has a harbour that is only outstripped by a handful of other places, i.e., (Sydney, Rio & San Fran), has a boot load of monuments, museums, restaurants, bars, etc, and has bunch of citizens that makes you realise quite quickly where the 'good looking gene' is centralised. On the down side, if there is one, the Summer or 'sunny season' is relatively short and once you make it into mid Winter, well your turn around time on the sun dipping under the horizon and reappearing can be in the vicinity of 20hrs! Also as a people the Swedes are quite conservative, can appear to be a little distant and cold but do have a decent social and moral compass...and no, if you're wondering, this is not my assessment over just the two days that I spent in Stockholm but rather it's a judgment that runs in tandem with my previous excursion, discussions I've had and various bits and pieces of anecdotal evidence. If you have a complaint regarding my assessment please send to: Idontgiveatoss@reallyIdont.com.au

Katarinahissen in Slussen - has an elevator up to a platform with some great views of the city

The greater part of the next day or was spent exploring the scattered series of sheltered water filled bays and islands that make this place so interesting. A lot of the exploration, for better or worse, was a direct consequence of our GPS taking us on 'geographic burnouts' of the town. Once we'd looped a few islands, somehow seen the same place travelling in both directions and covered nearly 100kms we kind of realised that we'd be sold the 'You're on Candid Camera' GPS model! As tears welled up in our eyes at the slow dawning realisation that our lives would be lived out in perpetual motion on the pheriphery of Stockholm we somehow made the 'right' turn in all the confusion of our incidental sightseeing and ended up in Slussen, directly across from the island of Gamla Stan, the home of our main man and  contact in Stockholm, Nebojsa .....now follow me here... he (Nebojsa) is the son of the friend we were staying with, who is actually my aunt's friend, who in turn is Big V's mother...(got me?)...Alright, so the specifics don't matter so much as the end result, which was the target being successfully isolated, searched out and found! So by the time I'd made my way to the island of Kungsholmen and organised a postal vote at the Australian embassy in the 'Never Ending Story' of an election we were able to make it back into Slussen for what we intended to be a quiet and comfortable afternoon before heading for Belgrade the next day. Now as I've said many a time before however, the best laid plans and the best intentions can unravel quite quickly and fall into a burning heap when those infamous words of 'why don't we just go for one' are spoken. For better or worse on this occasion these words were uttered to me in Serbian, rather than by me, so can I really be held accountable for what followed? Being 'forced' to drink by Nebojsa we were guided through Slussen and further afield on the island of Sodermalm, a place that once was the working class district of Stockholm but one that is now more bohemian in style, filled with art galleries, clothing boutiques, restaurants and bars...those damn bars, DAMN YOU! As the twilight of another Scandanavian evening drew us closely into her arms the three of us chatted for virtually hours, we ended up having three defacto dinners, one a typical Swedish hangover style meal called tunnbrodsrulle (frankfurts, mash potatoes, gherkins and seafood sauce all wrapped in a tortilla), and hence by the time midnight knocked on our door and the restaurant that we'd tumbled into was closing up it was time to make it home for a short sleep, some 8hrs after we had originally intended!

Tunnbrodsrulle - 'get that into 'ya'

 Stockholm to Belgrade 19-20 AUG - the Gumball Rally return leg

As my alarm sprung me to attention at 3:30am and I sat upright in my bed I quizzed myself as to where that dry whiskey taste in my mouth had originated? Hunching over my bag and feeling the slow onset of that familiar giddy throb at the back of my skull it didn't take me long to figure out as to where I'd been led astray. Waking Big V at 4am I saw the pain of realisation on his face when he came to terms with his 'accomplishments' of the previous evening and also the knowledge that today was potentially going to be EPIC. This was to be the launch point of the Gumball return and one where we'd see ourselves slice Europe in half with some legendary motoring antics, a chapter that quite obviously was preparing itself to become a standout in the Janic-Elisher book of legendary feats.

'Cloud trees' - early morning mist - south of Stockholm

Busting through the gates of Stockholm at somewhere close to 5am we were away motoring down the E4 in the coolish mist of another Swedish day. As per our day of arrival, the Summer weather was having a bit of a laugh on this morning and we were getting heavy 5 min downpours followed by a 30 min 'cooling off' period and then  it was back onto engaging the waterworks. Seriously, the weather had that manic-depressive element to it and making the near 700km journey just to get out of Sweden at the conservative tempo of 120kms per hour meant that it would be somewhere close to 11am when we'd be breaching the border with everyone's little 'secret pleasure', Denmark. Sure to form, we were through Malmo and onto the Oresund bridge on the low side of high noon but this is where our pace setting came to somewhat of a halt. I'm not sure what the deal was on this day but every Dane and their pansy poodle was out on their main roads making their way to who knows where for who knows what reason. I did do some research in the days that followed but wasn't able to find a Danish cheese festival large enough that would have comfortably accommodated for this anomaly. If that wasn't enough, it also appeared  that it was the one day of the year that the Danes had factored in to fulfill their obligations to the EU and conduct extensive roadworks. The run through this treasure trove of pastries, cheeses and strangely tanned cyclists was arduous, hence by the time we had sighted Flensburg and were into the Bundes-republik of Deutschland the reins were let loose and we upped the ante on the speedo to sit comfortably between 180-190kph. Ahh, 'the art of movement' through Germany, a sweet waltz that requires timing, a sense of space, determination and a half freakin' decent motor vehicle that will at least allow you to rent the inside lane in the time frames where someone isn't pulling 250kph + in order to get to their bratwurst eating contest in Stuttgart.

Windpower - Denmark

'The green light' - you're in Germany - pedal down, off you go!

The Big V and I treated Germany somewhat like an actual rally. Stops were only to be required for fuel, outside of that the pedal was firmly pressed down and as navigator I'd been given the task of calling the shots as to what was coming up, where we needed to go and where we needed to be. Aiming for Hamburg initially we made it down most of the way before I took us high and wide above the breaches of Hamburg and onto the E26 heading east to Berlin. Then skirting around Berlin on the E55 which is basically acts as a ring road around the city, we exited on the south side and headed straight to the border adjacent to Dresden. From memory I think we were in and out of Germany in something like 5.5hrs, it just like a McDonalds drive through, with that courteous 'thankyou, please come again' attitude. I have to hand it to Germany, it's the world capital of practicality and efficiency, it just works.

Somewhere west of Berlin on the E26

This however was the point in the journey were things became a little surreal. We had entered the twilight zone whilst silently slipping into the Czech Republic and from here on out we transcended through various spheres of truncated reality as we guided our vehicle closer to the boundaries of the EU.

From here on out everything was hazy, including the photography!

Firstly, after having been none too kind to the Danes as to the state of their road network, I know felt the need to apologise to them profusely as they weren't playing in anywhere near the same league as the Czech Republic when it came to the shambles and ordinary state of their roads. Entering via Dresden you'd imagine that the equivalent of 'Highway 1', the main line to their capital Prague, would get you there quite directly and successfully. Some 50-60kms over the border however the road narrowed into a two lane, third grade, pot hole filled bumper car ride of an excursion that traced routes through hillside villages to what felt like the middle of nowhere. I would have been more assured of finding my way via the rabbit fence to Tibooburra than trying to navagate us to Prague on this stretch. In fact we did at one point end up at some type of roundabout on this 'main arterial' with no sign posts other than a wooden Prague pointer sign laying on the side of the road to what we suspected was the correct way. Just like a 'choose your own adventure' story, sometimes you need to go with instincts and gut feel, thankfully the consensus on this call was correct and we rounded Prague sometime after midnight, approximately 20hrs removed from our starting point of Stockholm.

Motoring our way between Prague and Brno I started to feel the onset of extreme tiredness. The hallucination faery came to visit me in those moments where my visibility of the road turned into just a haze and for some reason I thought I could see large white rabbits darting across the road. We were some 22hrs into this ride from Stockholm and here I was conjuring up fictitious bunnies darting across the highway. At the same time I was trying to remain as alert as possible as Big V had been in the saddle for all that time and I couldn't imagine that he was in any better state than I was in, although he still looked ok. As my head rocked back and forth in what would looked like a pathetic Stevie Wonder impersonation, I saw V's eyes drop below the horizon and remain closed for what to me felt like and uncomfortably long time. Addressing him in my 'stern' younger brother voice I told him that if it happened again we were pulling over. By the time we had entered the Slovak Republic and were on the outskirts of Bratislava I had a moderate flipout and asked him to stop as I swear I saw him 'clock off'again, he tells me that he was simply looking at the dash but after close to 24hrs I don't know how anyone could register that type of data with their eyes wide shut. Thankfully my histrionics made an impact and we camped out for 90 mins so as to recollect the wits that we'd left somewhere out on the lonely roads of the Czech Republic.

As you can see, Slovakia was taken at speed!

Commencing our second morning on the wild plains of Hungary the final sector to the EU frontier, i.e., the border of Hungary and Serbia, felt relatively pedestrian. Border hopping for the sixth time in 27hrs we now entered home territory and were lined up for a direct assault on Belgrade. For some reason once I hit the Serbian border I couldn't stay awake at all and I must have looked like a mental patient as my head pounded constantly against the head rest as I tried as best I could to remain awake. Somewhere on 28+ hrs after leaving Stockholm our vehicle pulled up at a familiar residence, we exited our travel capsule victorious, having split the European continent in two. We'd covered somewhere over 3000kms+, equivalent to driving the distance of Sydney to Melbourne, Melbourne to Sydney, Sydney to Melbourne and then a partial return, in a little over a day. Slightly nuts? certainly...but don't blame us, that Serbian blood entitles one to be a little crazy! Experiment completed and case closed, it CAN be done, we're proof of that!

The flash got me with a golden preemptive strike - Bratislava - Slovakia