Venice – Medjeva, Croatia

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So we leave the hot and deserted beaches of the Venetian coast behind, having not actually seen the City! It was several hours of bus and ferry travel into the city (no cars allowed) so we pass over the city tour and vow to take a break here in the future sans Horace to see it. We head for the Slovenian border looking for a place to buy the famous vignette.



A word about tolls, they can be expensive but that’s because we don’t have them much in UK. The alternative is usually a lot worse so we normally pay. It’s like using the A4 and having all the hassle of negotiating towns like Marlborough and Hungerford or paying to use the M4 and moving quickly on your way. The tolls are either paid at a flat fee as you enter the motorway or by taking a ticket and paying when you leave the motorway network. The vignette is a one off fee for Slovenia, buy a ticket and display in the windscreen for a period of seven days ………. this is boring even me and I’m writing it, enough about tolls. You pay ‘em ‘cos you have to, right!



As we drove the Venetian highway the Alps on our right looked kinder and less threatening. So we drove and sang songs and ate snacks and the miles passed by. When we were in Dik and Henne’s house in France that drunken evening, Dik played some tunes that we sang along to and I was surprised to find I could remember all the words to “Me and Bobby McGee” (Chris Christopherson or Janis Joplin – depending on how raunchy you like yer country music?!) So it has become a bit of a travelling anthem for us. Also if you like tears after a few beers get someone to sing “Empty Chairs” by Don McClean after a session and you’ll be weeping in your Chardonnay! Of course the Big Sing Thing (Our community choir) repertoire still features in our travelling songs, but the words are a bit rusty. Honestly, it’s like the Britains Got Talent auditions in the car sometimes as we travel the highways of Europe!



We crossed the border into Slovenia without noticing it and until we saw the road signs! Language-wise we’re not too bad at English, my French will get us a meal and we manage, our Italian involves adding i and o to the end of each word (doio you havio anyio breadio?) but when you lose even the familiarity of an alphabet you may as well just speak English but a bit louder! Dee said “The next town we need to look for is ……..” after a long silence I said “Well?” “How do you pronounce Hjrk…!!” she said! If there are no vowels in the first four letters of the word your buggered really, so we make up our own way of saying the places that sound different every time we say them, but we get by.



Finally as we entered Croatia there was a proper border crossing. One where an official takes your passport and another is supposed to hold a gun menacingly with a look that says – “Don’t try anything, right. Because I’ve got gun” but Dee said the guard at the Croatian border looked more like the commissionaire at a London hotel welcoming you to Croatia and offering to show you to your room. With his long grey coat and gold braid around his peaked hat, not nearly menacing enough!



The landscape did change suddenly though and we were awe struck at the simple beauty of the rolling hills and small neat towns. Pretty houses peeping out from the forest on the skyline of the hills, what a view they must have. All the rolling hills seem to be thickly wooded and so green it looks as if someone has carpeted Croatia in a good quality Axeminster. There is a lot of sport here, mountain biking, canoeing and the like. It seems as if they want to market themselves as an activity holiday destination and why not, they have the hills and lakes they need. As we drove over the crest of a ridge the Adriatic opened up before us, the Islands in the bay of Northern Croatia and the coast of the central region away to the east. Every hill and island covered with green forest with an emerald coloured sea surrounding it. - It were right lovely it were!



The rain has joined us again today (7^th May) so we delay getting up by writing these notes. We will travel today to one of the Islands in the bay to stay for two nights before heading north back to Slovenia to visit Lake Bled that our friends Dave and Wendy have told us about. Then on to Austria and beyond.

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Photos

Cornflakes
Dee thought this was interesting!