HeatherandJohn

Friday 31stMay to Wednesday 5th June Cres-Losinj Islands The forecast has improved and we are in for some sunshine again. The ferry to Porozina on the north of Cres was straight forward. Cres is the second biggest Croatian island but is sparsely populated and seems only to have one road from the port along the island. The road is in the process of being improved and made for an interesting driving experience as traffic unloading from the ferry met traffic coming towards the port. We stopped off in Cres Town for provisions before crossing the narrow channel at Osor (a tiny walled town) that separates Cres from the island of Losinj. This was to be a two centre visit where we enjoyed exploring the islands both on foot and by bike. Our first campsite was about ... read more

Sorry, I'm a bit behind with my blog - to busy having fun...………….. Thursday 2nd May to Saturday 4th May Ston We are now retracing our steps back to Split. We passed Ston on the way down to Dubrovnik but the nearest campsite didn’t open until 1st May. The campsite is about four kilometres outside of Ston at Prapratno tucked into a steep sided small bay with the car ferry to Mljet leaving from a jetty at one end. It is an idyllic setting. We found a walking path to Ston that avoided the road and took us past smallholdings with vegetable patches, strawberry fields, cherry orchards, vines, olive trees and beehives. I have seen a few snakes on our walks up in the mountains but today John overtook me in the snake spotting stakes after ... read more

Happy Easter. Yes, it is that time of year and we are back on the road again. For those of you we haven't already bored silly with our plans, we are exploring Croatia over the next couple of months. We left Manchester two weeks ago and arrived in Croatia last Tuesday. We stopped off a couple of times on the way down to catch the ferry from Ancona in Italy, the first being on the France / German border at Neuf-Brisach. It is a fortified town designed and built by Vauban at the behest of King Louis XIV in 1699. If you read our blog last year then you should know all about Vauban. I certainly feel that I now have a good grasp of his talents and have admired most of his fortifications. The ramparts ... read more

Saturday 2ndJune We have left the Loire valley and are heading east towards the Jura Mountains. We have broken the journey with a stay in Saulieu in the Natural Park of Morvan in the Burgundy region. There is plenty of walking in the area which is undulating and mainly forested. According to the leaflets, Saulieu has a number of selling points including it being the capital of the Christmas trees, exporting hundreds of thousands of trees each festive season. Before our walk today, we had a look around the town. The weekly market was in full swing with shoppers being entertained by a lovely young man on the guitar playing the most amazing flamenco style music. The only thing letting him down was his choice of shoes, horrible trainers with individual toes – yuck! We found ... read more

Wednesday 2ndMay We are camped at Port l’Epine on the opposite side of the bay to the town of Perros-Guirec. The coast-line is a little less dramatic than the Côtes D’Armor, there aren’t any high cliffs. Instead, the bays are decorated with pink granite rock formations. We have walked a little more of the GR 34. After setting up camp yesterday we walked east, admiring the knitted sea life creatures that were scattered around the village and port (think scarecrow festival but with all sea related things knitted). Today we walked around the sweeping bay to Perros-Guirec which is a lovely little town that straddles a hilly peninsular with a harbour on one side and golden sandy beaches on the other. The sea was out when we walked back so we were able to walk across ... read more