Croatia Slovenia and now Italy again

Thursday 10th September

Buongiorno from Italy

We had a thoroughly great week exploring the Croatian Coastline. It truly is beautiful! We have stayed in Pakostane, Rijeka,Rovinj and Vrsar. The latter three having been small fishing villages but now quite touristy but still quaint. Croatia itself is now really geared up for the tourists, there are camping grounds everywhere and they are huge, some even catering for over 10,000 people. We had also heard that Croatia is really cheap which we have to disagree with as did other people we spoke to there. Up until last summer it was cheap but with so many people now going the prices have risen with the tourist numbers. Not that it has put people off – we have often joked in the last 10 days or so that we wonder if there are any people left in Germany, the camp grounds we have been to have been 97% full of Germans, 2% Italians and us.
Whilst in Croatia we also crossed over the infamous Bosnian Border – we thought that we would have crossed this with another campervan in case one of us broke down or something untoward happened to either van as our insurance doesn’t cover us in Bosnia. The strip of road is approx 30kms long and we were in and out of there without really realizing it. We came across border control who just waved us through and the next thing we saw signs with a different language, petrol prices in a different currency and then see another border control who also waved us through and we were back in Croatia – no problems!! We can now put down Bosnia as a country we passed through. It is very unusual to have a country split by another country.
Sunday night saw us sitting with a bottle of wine in Vrsar watching the most spectacular sunset we have every seen in our lives. Croatia is well known for it’s sunsets.
We left Croatia on Monday morning and drove through to Isola in Slovenia which was also a pretty fishing village. We stayed the night here and the camp site was up a hill where we had lovely views of both Croatia and Italy.
Tuesday saw us back in Italy in a wee place called Jesola di Lido which has the best camping ground we have stayed in yet. As part the price you get free internet, catamaran ride, paddle boats, canoes, entertainment programme, cable TV at your camp site, washing machine, dryers, dishwashers, tennis, swimming complex, spa pools, hairdryers, kids club, shooting range, golf, tennis, sun loungers and umbrellas to name a few. I am typing this blog sitting by the pool after having already spent two nights here and we are staying tonight also – the temp is 30 degrees but autumn has certainly arrived over here with the nights now getting cooler and leaves falling from the trees. We hear that spring has arrived at home and people are now having some warmer weather.
The very best thing about this camping ground is that it is only 40mins by boat into Venice where we spent the day yesterday. Venice is just what we imagined it to be and more, we weren’t expecting some of the buildings to be as spectacular as they actually are. One of things we have heard numerous times about Venice was that you will probably get lost – well that is one thing we divinely achieved – I think we spent the day lost even though we had a map each – I am sure people reading this that have been there are remembering when they were lost there. We are only thankful that we weren’t having to find a hotel room in the dark. Along with all the canals Venice also has lots of small narrow alleyways that just seem to wind around each other and then you cross another bridge and do the same thing again. We went up the canals on a small taxi boat and it was great seeing all the houses and hotel rooms that you pull up to on the boat and step out onto the red carpet and enter the hotel. It is a very romantic and quiet place. The only noise you hear on the canals is when an ambulance boat comes flying up the canal with its siren going – yes even the hospital has an entrance from the canals. After a beautiful very late lunch we were back home at 7.00pm, another great day.

As I mentioned earlier we are leaving here tomorrow morning and heading to Lake Bled in Slovenia. When we leave here we both know that it will be the last time we will be swimming in the sea until we get back home to Motunau so we are making the most of the afternoon.

Ciao