15/07 Croatia and Italy

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It has been such a long time since we have "blogged" apologies to all, I will try and remember everything which has happened. After departing from our host mother at our little bed and breakfast we have heard of so many stories of people free camping on deserted little beaches and having a spectacular experience so we chose a peninsular heading north and went forth. 

Poor hoot had a stressful day climbing the winding alp range which was really well sign posted of how fast you should be going into the corners and little villages with door steps that open onto the road.

We finally made it to this little town called vlasici and parked on the wharf that was connected to the beach. This quaint little town has the population of 200 and we had about 15 other people sharing our beach. It was bliss with being in a gulf with crystal clear water and the beach changing from sand to pebbles to rock and back to sand. That evening all the local fishermen attended to there boats for "man time" with the lads and escape home life while lee and I cooked Croatian spicy meat fingers and potato cakes (very exotic). The following day we awoke nice and early and decided to head north to repeat the following days experience of finding a gem of a beach. We decided on the peninsular further north and was off, we had to back track because we didn't want to stress poor hoot out with taking the alps road.

We finally arrived 5 hours later bothered and wanting a swim. Somehow we missed the turn off and arrived at a dead end road at a caravan park. We spoke to the reception and she said that the caravan park is on the beach and spoke up the park quite nicely so we agreed and parked up Excited for a swim. 

We commenced our stroll to the beach passing numerous caravans and looked onto what she called the beach. With hundreds of screaming kids, overweight parents and sunburnt pomes crammed into an area less than 50 meters. The water had a lovely sunscreen oil tinge, with a glamorous  view of the industrial sector in the distance. We loathed her for calling it a beach. 

Lee and I turned the experience into a game, playing high school celebrity and running out of categories with the biggest geek, drop kick, sunburnt lobster, cheer leader, snobbiest and so on.

The following day we put the experience behind us and just decided to head north without choosing a town but just to have a scenic drive. This turned out extremely well with hitting a tourist town named Rabac with beachfront hotels, km's of lovely beaches and no shortage of glamourous scenery. In the evening the beach was still alive with shops selling all there little things and restaurant trying to loure you in. Thankfully 2 minute noodles had already been eaten for dinner. After our three hour stroll we turned in, the only problem was we parked sideways on a hill so lee had the lovely task of sleeping on me most of the night. 

Whilst  traveling north of Croatia we noticed a lot of abandoned houses with no upkeep and no visual reason of why they should be deserted. We had to retake story time again (please understand this is luke impersonation of story time so  wont be completely accurate) that in 1991 Croata became independent. The Serbians which lived in croatia were afraid that this would decrease their rights so they claimed independence from croatia. This lead to war, 10,000 people losing there lives and mass numbers fleeing from croatia, explaining all the abandoned houses!

The following morning we left Croatia (thankfully no trouble leaving) and entered into slovenia and 30 minutes later was entering into Italy. We both have a huge stereotype of Italy and Lee has been looking forward to Italy for such a long time that we have decided to be here for a little while and have not got the slightest idea of where we are heading apart from Tuscany and Rome. The following evening we looked into our little wicked camper book and found a recommendation of a park in another coastal town with plenty of facilities. Whilst heading towards the recomended park we passed a tourist information center sign so after parking we headed towards the sign. After 20 minutes of walking the correct direction in a 43 degree day we arrived at an intersection saying beach this way. We then both had the same idea. BEACH! We went straight into the water wearing everything that we had on, we didn't expect to go swimming so we didn't have any gathers with us. To our surprise the ocean is actually warm water, around 25 degrees. Thankfully the way home was twice as short seeing as though we walked in a huge circle. The park was a great recommendation and the town was such a true tourist town with MILLIONS of sun beds and no shortage of beach front hotels.

The following morning we awoke with Mosquitos buzzing around our heads and ants on our pillows. Luke managed to park under a pine tree and sap had run onto the roof which attracted a swarm of ants. After a morning run and biking it to the beach we were able to enjoy a morning swim before our next adventure ahead, Venice!

When leaving the tourist ville we passed 15kms of nose to nose traffic going the other way. We had a little chuckle and then realized that we were heading to a even bigger tourist attraction and weren't  looking forward to the thought of the traffic. an hour and a half later the inevitable happened so we had quality time to do some research on caravan parks and to update our expenses but before we knew it we were off and our little stop was only for 20 minutes and was because of a traffic accident.

We arrived to the caravan park and almost got heat stroke opening up the door of the vehicle with the temperature being 43degrees. After making a packed lunch we hopped on the local bus to Venice. 

We arrived in Venice and walked for half an hour sweating and not appreciating the beauty of the most beautiful city in the world ducking and weaving our way to the center square aiming for shade along the way. The city is a fortress of alley ways and is amazing with a ancient centre so so many bridges and so so many gondolas. Dying from the heat we called it an early day after walking around for three hours and having an hours nap in a park. 

Awakening nice and early on the Sunday we decided to head down to bologna, after arriving and looking through the town for three hours we found it boring and decided to adventure onto Florence. Not knowing much about Italian roads we managed to go on this incredible alpine winding road which was made to be riden on by motorbikes. Surprisingly we passed hundreds of ducatis going the other way. Once we arrived near Florence the steers became more dense and the place which we were going to free park was non existent so we settled for a little shopping centre car park on the side of a hill overviewing Florence in the distance.

The following morning we put hoot in a car park and caught the bus into the city centre of Florence. We decided that we would like to see all the attractions of Florence so we paid the money to go on a bus tour, however we didn't look properly at the broucher before we purchased it and we ended up being taken around the outskirts of the city, and not to the top sites. 

We were able to make our way into the center of Florence and was amazed by the duomo. In the distance it appears to stand out and to stand beside it is understandable that it took 200 years to build.

After Florence, we decided that it was time to visit some small little towns, and skip the traffic and congestion of the sites. So we found ourselves in radda in Chianti, which is a village in the middle of Tuscany. We loved it so much that we stayed for two nights, doing day trips to sienna and san Gimignano.

Radda in Chianti is in the middle of the wine country, it has the typical rolling hills, vine yards, olive groves and century old houses. Part of it's charms are the amazing restaurants, delicious food and friendly residents. On our second night we once again went out for dinner. The restaurant owners kept the wine flowing and nibblies coming. Unfortunately we both had a little too much to drink and woke up with hang overs and sore heads. After spending the morning in the hoot (Luke lying on top of the hoot) we decided it was time for a hotel and escape the heat, so we drove to the next town and booked in, so we could recover in luxury.

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