No Guts, No Glory: 4 Day Hitchhiking Tour

VENICE

It started at the moment our Greek journey ended. On August the 1st we landed at Treviso airport and took a bus to Venice. Our hotel, as we found out later, was situated in an industrial district of the city. It was hard to find a street, because none spoke English and there weren't many people around at all. It was dark and we went through neighborhood with prostitutes, junkies and gypsies. It was one more unpleasant moment that night. But finally we met some nice man who looked like a Danny DeVito and spoke English a little. He led us to his hotel where we asked about how to get to our hotel. Then we go further through the dark streets and took a public bus and found the hotel at last. It was small hotel with a room in Venetian style.

1st DAY: VENICE - LJUBLJANA

As it was our first hitchhiking experience and we knew about it a little more than nothing, so we got up early and went to a supermarket to buy food, water, a black marker and the blank sheets of paper. We got to the exit road out of Venice and started to hitchhike a car in direction of Trieste. Luckily for us, we didn't wait long. An Italian stopped and lifted us. It was really an interesting person, who told us about his journey to The South African Republic, safari tours and his plans to move there. He dropped us at the turn to Udine and we stopped a van, driven by an Albanian. He lifted us to Maggia. It's on the border with Slovenia. We thought that it would be

easier to stop a car to Ljubljana, but we'd mistaken.

We stood beside the ex-border control station and there were a few cars and most of them drove to the gas station near around and back. So we really spent much time there. Finally, I saw a women at the parking who sent me a sign to approach her. I did it and she said that she'd seen us there a few hours ago, so she would lift us to Koper. As we knew later, she had been a hippie and traveled a lot in her youth. She had 5-6 children (we don't remember exactly). In the end she gave us an advice to try to stop a car at gas stations.

When she left us at the gas station, we stopped a car with two men. The driver has no front teeth but it's okay if it's okay for him, we didn't mind ;) It appeared that they both didn't speak any language except Serbian. I showed them a word Ljubljana written on the paper sheet, they nodded and drove with us. On the way to the city one of them took out a joint and started to smoke. He offered it to us and after we'd refused he gave it to the driver. After that we were a little nervous, because the driver behaved himself not well. He tried to drive faster and faster, always turned around to look at us, not watching the road. But I caught myself with a thought that he wouldn't be able to drive faster than 140-160 km/s because of tight traffic at that time. The other one always talked on the phone and as I managed to catch some words, he told about us. It seemed to me like a horror movie, and they looked like criminals, going to chop us. He asked me to show where our hostel was situated. I said to my wife that when we got out of the car, I would delay a little just to let her take our bags out of boot. They dropped us in the center of the city, and as we knew later, it was a 5 minute walk to our hostel. We'd been mistaking with them, they appeared to be the nice guys.

Our hostel was a former bank building, so it was decorated that way: the quotes referred to money, the rooms were like the money vaults, metal grills instead of the doors. And it was very clean. We really liked that place. So remember Tresor hostel

when you go to Ljubljana.

We left our bags in the room and went out to eat something in the evening. We walked down the narrow and beautiful streets. We saw many modern arts there like the statues with ripped chest or fish instead of head, hanging shoes, cow on the ceiling and etc. Also many really scary religious reliefs were on the walls and around the gates. We wanted to visit the castle, despite it was close at night, but it wasn't enough light there and we found it hard to lead us by touch. I'd like to mention a bridge over a small river. One thing about it was that you could walk upon the glass floor and see water beneath you. I even jumped on it to scare my wife.))))

2nd DAY: LJUBLJANA - VIENNA

It was one of the easiest part of our tour and for our surprise we really fast got to Vienna. First, we were lifted to the gas station on the road to Maribor where a car with a pair picked us. They told us that we were the first who they picked up on the road. We told them about our first hitchhiking experience. They were cute, even asked whether we were hungry or something else. On the next gas station they bought an ice-cream for us and we gave them a Greek olive soap as a memory about us. The driver was a rocker and a biker. Bless him! ;) They headed to Graz, so they drove a few miles away to leave us at the gas station. We really thanked them for that.

At the gas station almost at once we stopped a car. The driver explained us that he'd come with his father to take back his brother car, while his father drove in front of us. He also apologized for an old car, that it's not so comfortable. But we said that f**k it, we're happy to drive in a car. He drove to Bratislava but he said that he would go a circle and drop us on ring-road around Vienna.

And there we realized that we'd got a problem. It was highway. We couldn't stop a car on that road, so we went to hotel nearby. I tried to ask people how to get to the city, but they didn't speak English. I took a look around and saw only Romanians or the Turkish there. It was hard to ask them, so we got back on the road. No one had picked us up until one Mercedes stopped. The driver was an young Arab with a suit on the back seat, he asked us where we were going and then picked us up. He said that he was going from Vienna but he would get back and drop us at the tram station. So we got our hotel fast.

At the hotel we had one more problem. We were told that we hadn't booked any room and we had already stayed there one month ago. At that moment I realized my mistake: when I'd been booking a room on the hotel website, it'd been crashing any time, clearing all the information, so I had been typing

it again and again, missing month in the end. It was my mistake, but one thing was unpleasant that they even showed me a signed paper by kind-of-me, staying there a month ago. We paid again and went out for a supper. Night Vienna was looking safe. Unfortunately, we didn't see much as we had spent a lot of time to find a supermarket on Saturday in the evening. We also looked at some buildings and after that we headed to the hotel. The most amazing thing in Vienna was the Danube. That river really impressed us. What a strong feeling you get when you're looking at it!

3rd DAY: VIENNA - PRAGUE

The police, nerves and the hours of waiting. It was the hardest day. In the morning we faced the thing that the highways in Vienna went through the city but was enclosed with walls to prevent entering of the people there. We spent about 5 hours to get out of the city. When we walked on the highway the car stopped beside us and told us to leave the highway. It was the police, who threatened us with a fine if they would see us again. We came to the gas station and I approached to a car with a German number. I asked a man to drive us out of the city somewhere in the direction of Prague. He told us that he'd come to Vienna to visit his father and now was heading to Munich to help homeless people and the day after he would drive to Prague, so he offered us to go to Munich with him. If we had known, we would not have paid our hotel in Prague. It was an interesting man, about 55 years old. As far as I could understand, he was rich, but you couldn't say that, looking at his small car. A real German modesty. He dropped us at the gas station where we tried to catch a car on the exit road to the highway, but the police car warned us again.

We returned to the gas station and I saw a person looking like a business man. I asked him if he could lift us. He agreed and told me that he were not going to Prague and he could lift us to the road in 100 km from Prague. It was great! In the end he presented us an umbrella because it was gonna rain. The sky was really raging, so we were hurrying to stop a car and we succeeded. As soon as we got in the car, the strong rain started and the stormy wind blew. A young man dropped us at the gas station, where we awaited the storm. Even electricity crashed at the station. We saw a van with four young people and I asked them if they could to lift us to Prague, they answered that they had seen us before and headed to Prague, so they picked us up. They were the students from some religious school. We had a pleasant talk.

Eventually, we got to Prague. All our challenges were worth it and even more. It was the masterpiece of an architecture. We couldn't help enjoying walking down that streets at warm night. When the hunger revealed itself, we saw a funny man with a train on his neck, who invited us to have a meal at the restaurant. Why not?! It appeared as a theme place. Train kept a rollin' and our beer had been served. Cheers!!!

Night Prague really impresses. All those churches, religious statues looking menacingly, Charles Bridge and squares with a plenty of the narrow winding streets. There were also many African people who pushed drugs on the main square near the policemen. It was like a Gothic fairytale with crows circling around towers above. The clocks were poisonous yellow. To enter the bridge we faced a large tower with the open gates. The statues on the Charles bridge that hung over us, with the looks that made shivers go up and down our spines and made us feel numb. I wondered why they looked not like martyrs but like tormentors. It has remained enigmatic for me.

4th DAY: PRAGUE - KRAKOW

On the next day we didn't want to leave Prague, we wanted to stay there for at least 3 more days to explore that place. One day we'll be back. A road to Krakow was left to go. It wasn't too long to get out of the city. Then we stopped a car. the driver was an interesting man who asked my opinion about the right to shoot someone who invades your house. He had a gun and he told me that it's not a good that he couldn't do that in his country. It was a little bit weird talk, but interesting. He dropped us near Hradec Kralove. Then we weer picked up by a man, who worked as a truck driver. He tried to find a truck heading to Krakow with his hand-held radio. We made a mistake when we had agreed to drive with him to the small town in Poland right after the border. I guess it was Klodzko. We had been stuck there for a long time and even thought that we would have to spend a night there. Trains didn't go to Krakow, so we stood on the road, but no one stopped. At last, when we started to give up, a car with a pair picked us up. They were

the Poles and spoke only Polish. We understood them a little, so they told us that they'd lift us to the highway, because it was impossible to catch a car in that town. We were really thankful to them.

As soon as they dropped us we were picked up by a truck. I even hadn't drop my bag when I heard my wife calling me. The driver told us that he had seen us two times before on the road, but he couldn't have stopped because of the traffic. He was heading to Gliwice, so we asked him to drop us on the highway somewhere. When he drove by a gate on the toll road, we got out of the truck and tried to catch another car, but soon we saw a gate worker, who forbid us to hitchhike a car. It was getting dark and we started to worry. There was only a parking with a few trucks and a small cafe. But it shouldn't have ended like that. The Lady Luck was by our side. a truck driver saw us and drove at a parking and picked us up. He dropped us at Krakow's ring-road. We crossed the road and got a bus stop in a few steps. But our challenge hadn't ended...

As we got to our hotel, we was confused. It was a different room that was on the website, looking like someone had died there before. The room was messy, old and smelly. Maybe it was ok if we booked the cheapest one in the city, but I had chosen not a cheap one with the best photos, according to the website. Hungry, angry and having a problems with the accommodation, we went out to have a meal. As it was almost midnight we found a street cafe, where we had a grilled ham hock with a cold polish beer. It really made us relaxed and calmed us down. Then we talked about a situation we were in. We decided to refuse that room and get to Warsaw by the night train. So we packed our bags fast, refund our money and went to the railway station. Our hitchhiking tour had ended with the escape from Krakow...