Blogs from Istria, Slovenia, Europe - page 4

Motorhome News from Europe 39 3rd - 13th June 2010 Off to pastures new - Eastern Europe - To Slovenia via Bavaria and Austria .........and a brush with the law in Austria Dover - Dunkerque, Luxembourg, Neuschwanstein Castle, Berchtesgaden, Oberammagau (above panorama), Grossglockner Pass, Zell am See, Julian Alps, Lake Bohinj, Lake Bled, Ljubljana and Portoroz Things were a little different back in 2004 when our epic 18 month motorhome journey through Europe started. But Eastern Europe now beckons the tourist; the strife of war has passed into peace and harmony with any luck and adventurous motorhomers like us can now venture into calmer waters with happy hearts. There are now five of us on board our Burstner motrohome, Bertie. There's Janice the navigator, Todd, our well-travelled bear, Suzie, (Todd's blonde floosie), me, David, the driver ... read more

Mauro picked us up this morning about 7:30 and we drove closer to Udine where we met up with his wife Sandra. Here we distribute ourselves between the two cars and drove closer to Trieste, taking a series of smaller roads up the hills above the city to a very modern church which looks out over the ocean and the city. After a few minutes taking in this view, we got back in the cars and drove to the border with Slovenia. As Slovenia is also part of the European Union, there is no stop at the border ( much to Joshua's dismay) and we drove right through adding one more country to our year's tally. In Slovenia, we drove through the countryside until we reached what looked to be a conservation area. After a short ... read more

Today was a much more restful day. Our travel time was much shorter. We stopped at a National Park (Skocjanske jame) whih is a UNESCO site. It is home to the largest underground cave in Europe. We walked through the interior of eleven caves (both dry and with a flowing river). The stalagmites & stalagtites were really amazing. Unfortunately interior photos were not allowed. At the lowest point we were 170 meters underground. At the end of the trip we took a vehicular trip back to the top. The car stalled abruptly on the way up causing a minor amount of panic on the part of the passengers. Fortunately nobody was seriously injured. We then went to Lipica to view the stables of the Libizzan horses. They have been breeding the horses here since 1580 and ... read more

We left Pula feeling a little down so we were very exicited when we found ourselves in the beautiful towns of Potoroz and Piran, both are on the Slovenian coastline which is only 43kms long. These towns are very different. Potoroz is the Slovenian version of the French Riveria, a series of hotels along an esplanade. We decided we would stay in Potoroz and then drive the short distance to Piran for dinner. We spent the morning looking around and the afternoon laying by the pool area of our hotel, which was very nice. We travelled into Piran for dinner, but not before dowing a few cocktails at the local Irish Pub overlooking the Adriatic Sea. It really doesn't get much better!! Tim's team also travelled to Piran for dinner so it was nice to ... read more

Yesterday, after partying with a big group of Erasmus (European) students on Friday night, I took off with about 18 of them to a beautiful little town called Piran. The day started out pretty slowly, as they didn't realize how long it would take to rent cars. Car rental places are a little reluctant I think when a group of 18 or so 20 year old show up! Anyway, one girl, Malic, from Austria had her own car there, so after about an hour and a half of waiting for the rest of the group, 5 of us decided to take off on our own. One of the neatest things about our little group was that we were all different nationalities! There was Malic from Austria, our trusty driver. Sylvia is from Poland and she navigated ... read more