Rijeka

Dobar dan!

From Ljubljana I took a bus to Rijeka in Croatia. This time I did notice the border. While Croatia is in the European Union it's still outside the Schengen Area, so there's a good old-fashioned passport check at the border. Most of the passengers had EU passports that they simply waved at the border guard like Jedi knights but we did have to wait a while for the two Australians to have their passports properly inspected and stamped. Because you you can never be too careful when it comes to Australians... I of course hadn't bothered to bring my passport, I just hid under the seat.

When I got to Rijeka I immediately fell in love with the city. I mean just look at the above picture, that was the first sign I saw in Rijeka. How can you disagree with that? And just like Bologna they have their own leaning tower.

Rijeka of course just means river in Serbo-Croatian. Depending on what variety of the language you speak it can also be spelt Reka or Rika. Here's a picture of me on the main street.

On a side street I found the good ship "Dobro More 2". I'm still not quite sure what it was good for. Maybe it was an art installation of some kind. I don't know but it was rather rusty.

After a while I got tired of being the captain of a rusty head of metal that wasn't going anywhere. So I decided to climb a lot of stairs to get to the Trsat Castle where I met this guy.

He wasn't the only mythological creature I encountered there. You may remember from my Top 5 list of statues and sculptures that I met and defeated a basilisk all on my own.
The view from the castle was magnificent. You could see the whole city and more.

What you see in the background is the Istrian peninsula, which was my next stop. See you there!

Top 5 statues and sculptures

Hej hej,

Some time in the future the world will be full of statues commemorating Vanja the Great, Vanja the Conqueror, Vanja the Awesome and so on...
But while we're waiting for the rest of the world to discover my amazing talents, let's have a look at some of my favourite statues from my travels.

1. A Crab/frog/whatever in Slovenia

Last summer I met this dude (whatever he is, maybe batfrog?) on the Mesarski bridge in Ljubljana. For some reason he has a padlock in his mouth. He wouldn't tell me why.

2. A Croatian Dragon

Did you know that my middle name is Lord of Dragons? (Julius' is "Pain in the Ass"). Well, I try to live up to my name by taming any dragons that I come across.

This is a basilisk from the Trsat Castle in Rijeka, Croatia, that I defeated with my own bare paws. It was a great moment, I felt as powerful as Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones.


3. Charles Darwin

Here I am with Charles Darwin in the Museum of Natural History in London. I'm not a big fan of the theory of evolution — I mean look at Julius, something clearly went wrong there — but I feel Charlie and I could have had some stimulating and interesting discussions had he still been alive.

By the way, the Museum of Natural History is worth a visit if you happen to be in London. And it's free! (Not that I normally pay for museums, I just sneak in.)


4. Shepherd and Sheep

Speaking of London. Julius and I went there last November. The city is almost too big for me. There are too many statues and monuments you can climb on. We were quite exhausted.
We found this funny sculpture in Paternoster Square behind St. Paul's Cathedral.

Sheep are stupid, you don't need to be Charles Darwin to prove that. The silly things refused to move no matter how much I shouted and kicked.

Come on now, move it, I'm in a hurry.

5. The Cordwainer

I quickly lost patience with the stubborn sheep, so we went to Cheapside were we met this dude.

We played shoemakers for a while. The man held Julius in very tight grip (he could hardly breathe) which gave me an idea. I went for ice-cream in peace and quiet while he held on to Julius. Thank you, shoemaker!


You can't write a blog post about sculptures and statues without mentioning the Vigeland park in Oslo. I went there for Easter 2017 and it was (literally) freezing cold. But I'll tell you more about that tomorrow. Until then, here's a preview:

Staring into the abyss.

While you're waiting for my next post you can check out my other top 5 lists: tops, sports and drinks.