The final instalment of the Iron Route Journey. East, West, Good, Bad, Win, Lose, Draw.

Another look at 1989.

Sometimes things go wrong in life. The printer at the car hire company breaks, the sat nav doesn’t work, the journey is longer than you’ve been told and you turn up very late.

Sometimes other things go wrong

Who needs cobbled streets and medieval mysteries when you can have psychedelic colours, wonky lines and hearts full of passion? This is the John Lennon wall in Prague and it’s the perfect antidote to the sobering Museum of Communism I’d just visited as part of the…

I arrived in style, travelling from the aged grandeur of Keleti Pu station in Budapest to the ultra-modern Vienna West Bahnhof in a first class carriage with a waitress-led drinks service. After the cities I had been travelling through, the razzle and dazzle of the bright lights, tinsel and golden baubles of Vienna West provided a little jolt of culture shock.

On the other hand…

You have to put yourself in my shoes.

Boots, really, with thick rubber soles to keep out the cold and to keep a foothold on the ice. Boots that worked hard and worked fast, striding between commuters in a winter-worn Budapest. Five feet, six inches above them, a troubled mind tangled through what it had just seen.

I stand in the queue, a man turns me back.

I stand in another queue. Alone, in silence. Paperwork in one hand, a heap of clothing in the other, limp yet heavy like the body of a sleeping child. It’s cold outside.

I wait.

I queue.

I hand over my camera…

The steam rising out of the drain cover caught my attention first. It was a cold, vengefully cold mid-winter morning in Hungary as I paced along the tarmac, limbs mechanical yet numb, face frozen, eyes rimmed with weather-induced tears.

Everyone was…

This Photo Friday, I bring you Croatia’s Capital at its warm and wintry best. Check out more about the #ironroute over here and watch this space for the words…They’re on their way…

Cold War. Iron Curtain.

Four words, two phrases, several meanings.

When I went to school, a third of the world lived under “communist” rule. Travel was restricted…

I hope to bring Ljubljana to life for you here on Inside the Travel Lab, piece by piece, over the course of 2012 as part of my #IronRoute Project. Yet to spare you the overload experienced by my hard drive, oh long-suffering reader, I’ll start with this bite-sized list and fill in the gaps later.