Croatia for some more sun

Slovenia is lovely and green cos it has a fair amount of rain. Seems to bubble up over the mountains in the afternoon and then tip it down in thunder storms until the evening. Decided to head south for some more sun instead of Austria, which was just as wet apparently, although we were only about 10 milles from the border at Bled. Guess what - more torrential rain on the way but it seems to have gone away now and at least it is always warm. Spent the first two nights on Istian peninsular in Croatia near Rovinj and caught some fish in the sea and bbq them for a (very small) starter. Me real hunter gatherer now! Moved a but further south to Pula to see the roman ruins and lie on the beach before we go round towards Krk island. The camp sites around here are huge, this one has 6000 in mid summer and more like hoilday camps with entertainment etc (if you want it) and Wifi. Hope to upload some photos later.

Final stop in Slovenia

We left Bled to head south for Croatia but spent one last day on the Slovenian coast. It rained all night at Ankaran where we stopped the night but the following day was much better (at first) and we spent the morning in nearby Portoroz on the Piran peninsular. This is a very young smart resort and we had a coffee in a hawain style bar on the beach.

A walk around Lake Bled

Spent most of one day walking round Lake Bled with stops for lots of photos and coffee. Its only 3 miles so should have taken a couple of hours. But thats not including the steep detour up to the castle on the cliff for the view over the lake. Stopped half way up for a break and panini in a lovely little pizza place. When we finally made it to the caste there was a wedding going on and believe it or not the bride and groom came from Blaby and Broughton Astley, villages near where we live in Leicesteshire. What a small world it is!

Lake Bled is Beautiful

Its 25th May, our wedding anniiversary, and we arrived at Lake Bled in northern Slovenia last night. Sometimes(!) the guide books are a bit OTT but the lake really is emerald green and with the Alps as a backdrop, the tiny island and castle up on the cliffs make this a beautiful setting. We took a boat ride over to the island by rowing boat and rang the church bell, to make a wish, as have countless other tourists, but it is a delightful place. The camp site is right on the lakeside and really peaceful, the bar and restaurant close at 09.00 pm. This morning a 'cheeky' jay stole a bread roll from our breakfast table and tried to fly off with it. Thought the begging ducks were bad enough.

Ljubljana - capital of Slovenia

Now in Ljubljana in Slovenia, very green and picturesque. Its taken five years and hundreds of sites, but we have finally stayed on a site with another Nu Venture motorhome! Not a Surf, but a Rio, and a couple just like us! When Slovenia declared independance in the early 90's, Ljubjana became the capital city. It is small by UK standards of course but a really young, fresh and lively place with a high student population. We had a thunder storm just after we arrived so stayed on site most of the day and went into town on the bus for the evening and then again to the castle and market the next day (I think we saw one policeman in all that time). Rosemary declared the market to be excellent and we came away with strawberries, cherries and some local cheese and wine.

Treiste (last stop in Italy for now) to Slovenia

We decided to have one last night in Italy to break the journey from Venice to Slovenia and headed for a sosta (from the book) at another grotta, but could not find it. Think we may have located a road/track leading to it but it seemed to be 'guarded' by several permanent Italian motohomes so decided not to investigate further. Instead we spent the night on the harbour car park in Trieste with 3 very friendly Italians who gave us a map of Croatia and told us what 'we must go to see'. A change of itiniary seems very likely! The next day we had breakfast Italian style in a bar in the square before stopping on the motorway into Slovenia. We spent an hour chatting to a Slovenian family with Sam(o) the son who spoke excellent English and interpreted for his parents, who loved our motorhome. Sam is still studying at 27 and hoping to get a good job abroad eventually, we swapped phone numbers and emails - good luck Sam.

Venice

We left Italy on Tuesday after spending 4 nights in Venice, or at least just a 30min ferry ride away, and a night on the harbour wall in Trieste. Venice was really nice although teeming with tourist in all the hot spots and it was expensive. Rosemary refused to have a coffee in St Marks square cos it would have cost a 10 pounds per cup. The gondolas are a rip off as well, as you might expect, but the water busses for which you can get an all day 'rover ticket' are much more convenient way of seeing most of the sights. There is a real maze of narrow streets and canals, everyone has a map and everyone seems to be lost! The camp site on the seaward side of the lagoon which 'contains' Venice was very busy considering there are around 20 large sites on that stretch alone.

San Marino what a location

Close to Rimini is San Marino, an independant republic with frontier post, governor and its own army. The old town sits along the ridge of a 2000ft rock/mountian. We took the van right to the top having missed the cablecar car park - we seemed to be going up and around for ever. The views all around were amazing. We walked up to one of the towers right on the ridge and had lunch in the 'Falcons Nest' pizza restaurant and it certainly felt like it. There were some very impressive cars in front of the governers office and lots of saluting by the guards - must have been something important happening. An annual vintage car rally passes thru the old streets every May (we missed it by a week) - must be quite a spectacle.

The East coast resorts

We hit the east coast at Riccione (near its better known neighbour Rimini) and had a couple of stops both here and at Cervia a little further north. This is 'lido' country and the fine sandy beaches are mostly operated by concessionaires who have established vast fields of brollies and loungers with bars, play areas and anything else they can think of to attract the punters from their neighbours. The going rate for a brolly and 2 loungers is about £10+ per day in the season.

Where are we now - Sunday 13th May

About 30 miles from Ancona (on the East coast) crossing the Appenine mountain range which runs down the Italian peninsular. We are actually in a 'sosta' in the huge car park for the Grotto di Fassisis which is an area not unlike the Cheddar gorge. We have just spent 5 days relaxing around Lake Trasimeno (on two really nice sites) followed by 3 days exploring Umbrian villages. We are running out of superlatives to describe the special places, like St Francis's Basilica in Assisi, that we have been to visit. More 'tales' later when we hit the big sites around Venice with WiFi. PS Our weather is perfect now and we have just clocked up 2000 miles.

Two free nights in Sostas

We had not tried the Italian sostas (camper stops) until now. Rosemary selected one south of Assisi at Trevi in the Spoleto valley - except it wasn't. It was 500ft up the side of the valley 'in the most spectacular position of any of the hilltop villages' - guide book quote. I was a bit apprehensive about trying the hill but it was getting a bit late and the Twurp hasn't let us down yet. We got some some very funny looks when we appeared in the village square - and we were the only van in the basic sosta - what a surprise. Lovely village with steep windy streets, boxes of geraniums everywhere and spectacular views. We stopped in Bevagna the next day, another pretty village actually in the valley, which was teeming with locals in Sunday best after a confirmation service. We walked around the village a bit and then they were gone - presumably to lunch. That seemed a good plan and we had an excellent, simple, lunch in the main piazza beside two Germans who were cycling to Rome. There was a much smarter, bigger, sosta here with 6 motorhomes staying but we moved on and stayed in the huge car park of the Grotto de Fassis, which is a bit like Matlock Bath, on our way through the mountains to the east coast. This time we just had a senior Italian couple for company and Rosemary did some more fraternizing. The announcer on the nearby railway station woke us the next morning - I think it was the 6-50 to somewhere.

Assisi and the Umbrian villages

Umbria has 6 of the top 10 'pretty' villages in Italy and it shows. They are mostly on the tops of hills of course and the most famous of these though hardly a village is Assisi, the home of St Frances. We left the Twurp in the hospital car park caught the local bus to join the many American tourists in the main piazza (they all found the right car park!) The first sight of the basillica is amazing (gee - I'm overwelmed). It is huge and built on two levels clinging to the side of the hill. We were able to see St Francis tomb and relics and tour the churches but not the monastry. We had a coffee in Bar St Frances with some nuns (!) and found the hospital bus and got on, but it took off in the wrong direction. Fortunately it was a circular route so we saw all the rest of Assisi in the half hour journey - which was really nice!

Lake Trasimeno

This is the 4th largest lake in Italy, about 8 miles square with camp sites all around, and is situated in Umbria. We spent 5 relaxing days around here on two different sites. The first site in the NE corner was OK and ideal for fishing (did not catch anything :-( but it suffered from too much snow, not the 'wet stuff' but the fluffy stuff from the trees, so we moved after 2 days. The second site was near to Passignano, one of the larger villages on the lake, and in the grounds of a very nice villa hotel. We took the boat ride out to Isola Maggoire one day and walked up to the top of the island for the views. Also met and lunched with a very interesting couple with lots of experience of caravanning in Italy and who gave us some good tips. Had a few cappuccinos and a typical lunch with fish (perch) from the lake in Passignano - excellent. It would be a great place for sailing Frisby and Catluem.

Florence in the rain

Since leaving the coast on 2nd of May we have 'enjoyed' 5 days of wet weather. Rain, thunder and heavy showers with the odd sunny spell and the UK basks in sunshine! However we have been doing culture this week so it did not really cramp our style. Siena was a little gem of an old town with super doumo and huge campo. Florence is just wall to wall 'art and history' from Galileo's grave to Michel Angelo's 'David' (amazing!) and needs a month to do it justice - we did a couple of days! Good place for a future weekend break. In between Chianti is a beatiful landscape of hilltop towns, sweeping green hills and the trademark fir trees. The wine museum in Greve was a real treat, we even sampled some £50 bottle wines. We are leaving today to go to Umbria and the sun is shining again. A few days chilling out around Lake Transimeno then to Assisi and thats as far south as we will go I expect.

Florence

Florence was just a 40mins bus ride away from the site a Troghi, so very handy and cheaper than the in city site! We spent just 2 days in Florence but even a week would not have been enough. Although everything is quite close together and within walking distance there is just so much to see. We managed the Duomo (better on the outside than inside) its gold fresco'ed babtistry (vice versa), the Pita Palace (now seen enough 'Madonna with Child' from every known old master), San Groce (everyone who has been anyone is buried here - from Galileo, to Dante to Michel Angelo) and the Academia. The latter has the original David sculptured in marble by Michel Angelo, its 17ft high and absolutely stunning.

A drive through Chianti country

Between Siena and Florence is Chianti country with its famous DOC vineries. The scenery is really nice, rolling green hills, vineyards and picturesque hilltop villages. We stopped at Castellina, Rada (most ornate loo Rosemary has ever graced) and Greve (the wine capital of Chianti). It was a bit hairy at times negotiating the steep windy roads in thunder storms. In Greve there is a wine museum where we purchased a sample card (10 euros) which is then used in automated wine dispensers. There are over 140 different wines to sample from 100euros/bottle downwards. We tried a few and bought a bottle (or 2) before descending into the Arno valley for a campsite near to Florence.

Siena

Siena is a beautiful old walled town perched on a hill with a huge shell shaped plaza fronted by the old town hall and tower, now a museum. The marble cathedral is also huge and contains many sculptures and works of art by the old masters, Pisano in particular. We saw all the sights including the creepy crypt and I went part way up the tower to take some photos. Enjoyed coffee and cakes in Nannins (the place to go apparently) and wandered the lovely narrow streets before returning, a bit tired and wet, but having dodged the heaviest showers.

The Tuscany culture trail

By the end of May day (with typical wet bank holiday weather) the locals had disappeared and we were almost alone again on our 'en suite' pitch (fee included private shower room and kitchen with thatched eating area!). But after 5 days it was time to move on to Siena via the rolling hills of Tuscany and stopping at the old hill town of San Gimignano. It has many stone defence towers that stand out on the landscape like medieval sky scrapers. We missed the car parks and ended up in the old town where only locals are allowed to venture - we were quickly directed out again! Not far away is the beautiful city of Siena which has a campsite just outside the city walls. However it was closed, for no apparent reason so Plan B took us into to the hills where we could catch a bus into Siena. It rained heavily in the night and we were under a lot of trees - we moved.