When I booked this beautiful Italian hotel just outside Venice, I wasn’t aware that in addition to free wifi, breakfast and parking it would also include an emergency hotel evacuation at midnight. When you are woken out of a dead sleep to an overhead announcement on 4 different languages to leave at once you put on your jeans, grab your purse and of course iPhone, while leaving things like passports. Having to pee is another great concern, up there with having to go badly while at the border with no change. The pale skinned older guests linger at the entrance, brown people on the 2nd floor decide what to bring and never fully exit the premises, while we sit in the car. The Asian tour group we have not seen yet at all as I didn’t hear their language on the tape. Hmm. Yawn. No fire trucks, no cops, and no sleep.
And, then 4 hours later we woke to the 5.9 earthquake 130km away. And thanks to my hotel choice, we are fine! Almost evacuated, but then the shaking stopped. Had passports this time. Tell you more later.

Back on the highway in the early morning we left a mediocre breakfast, empty pool and stark white hotel behind and headed for a change of scenery in the Plitvicke National Park. Here, there are a series of 16 lakes joined by amazing waterfalls and you can choose your route around the park by distance and time spent. We did our 2-3 hour trek with Withell speed, in just under 2, with lots of photos, and the feeling of fresh air and tired legs. With a dirty tourist trap sawdust burger to tide us over we made the trip to Pula, using a combo of Elizabeth and our paper map. I think paper won at least three of the discrepancies today.
We’re staying a little north of Pula in a town called Porec that is really a resort town of something like Mexico crossed with a little summer holiday BC town. You have the all inclusive hotel with corny kids activities, mixed with cooler weather, hot pools and spruce trees. It wouldn’t be a Croatian beach place without a giant cement retaining wall along the waters edge. Heaven for it a sandy or rocky entrance to the sea! We were fully clothed in jeans and light hoodies, the euro’s going topless with bikini bottoms and banana hammocks. Brr. Dinner for 300 at 7pm was more than interesting, we felt like puppies rushing to get some food from the trough, so we parked on a couch and did some wifi while we waited for the vultures to mow their meh meal.

It really must be off season around here. But first, the lead up.
We pretty much fired Elizabeth this after noon after she came up with six of the same named city and two of the same streets in that many cities in which our hotel was located. Neither were correct. Good thing I had a good look on the map when I booked the hotel or we would have gone on a wild goose chase. In sum, we bought a map. Yes, a paper one. And as I jumped back in the car, Josh had wifi at the gas station and we confirmed GPS knows nothing.
So, here we are in Starigrad, just north of Zadar, in a cute but very quiet little camping area on the side of another salty lake. The hotel is habited, though the pool is stark empty and it has the feel of an old rural hospital, mental or otherwise. Josh has commented a number of times on my ability to “pick’em”, and how roller coaster my choices have been. It’s true, but this time he helped and there wasn’t much choice in the area. Camping looked much nicer we realized as we went for a long seaside wander this evening. Oh well. It is a bit chilly, and we have a hot shower.
It feels like a sleepy fishing village on a lake, much like little bow lake and with housing on one shore, pretty much nothing on the other. We found dinner more cuz the had wifi than for the menu, though the food was pretty tasty; grilled calamari in full form!

Here are the chronicles of a two hour journey…according to the GPS. We left the Dubrovnik hotel at 8:40 am.
Construction and gravel roads start the trip and I wonder after 30 min of this whether doing this side trip is with the effort.
Guess what time it is? It’s nearly 11 and we’ve been attempting to cross the border into Montenegro for an hour! The first crossing was simple once you got to the window, we assume it’s the Canadian passports that make us quick then, just when you think you’re free and clear you see another crossing lined up forever. One is out of Croatia, the other is into the new country. Here we sit in a long line, some jack ass motorcycles cut in and drive to the front (but they get a thorough search so we’re happy). We need to pee but the lady at the WC says ” nooooo, nooo kuna” like the lemon pledge lady on family guy, cuz she won’t take our currency from Croatia. Too bad for you. And so we wait, some more. What is the currency, we don’t even know?!
At hour 3 we are in construction at a dead stop in the first town for about 20 minutes.
4 hours after we left the hotel we’re winding down the little salty lake highway with only 40 km finished our 115 km day trip! Yes. Day trip. Well the tour buses do it in 12 hours, but we booked the night in Budva.
We stop in Kotor to check out the old town and St. tryphon cathedral but at this point in our travels the yachts and catamarans just outside the walls provided more interesting views. A very large yacht, some tall ships and a pirate vessel caught our eye.
We learned that Elizabeth and her technology are not very familiar with this country and if nothing else this last leg since 2pm lunch near the port in Kotor was extremely scenic and it tested the widths of the car and Josh’s curb dodging skills.
Tips on Montenegro: have patience, don’t plan for day trips and stay the night, bring some euros as we found they use them here, and marvel at all the abandoned hotels, apartments and such along the road, as it can be eerily like a ghost town in some sections.
At 4:00 we realize that the hotel address can’t be computed by Lizabeth and so we easily track down an Info booth, get a map, drive near old town, park, walk to old town, wander for a few then find hotel. Check in, return to car for big bags and ahhh at 4:40 I sit on the bed relaxed. Finally.
We have this evening to explore, then we head out early tomorrow to drive all the way up to Zadar. Which is supposed to take 7.5 hours. Considering today’s drive we may be recalculating.
Between construction, border crossings, narrow streets, slow speed limits, and limited GPS assistance it was a long day!! But, pretty views all the way.

What better time to blog than while resting tired toes and quenching thirst after a day of walking the old town in Dubrovnik.
This morning after we barely made a dent in the included buffet we set off walking to town, uphill both ways (really) towards the castle gates. Inside we did our Frommers walking tour read from printed paper that I brought along which touched on the main points of interest. Firstly, we climbed the walls around the castle, a scenic 2km journey like the great wall of China, including tour groups from that country. We did this early and glad we did because it only got busier as the day went on.
After having the daily coffee and snack in a crowded cafe in the main square we poked around in a few museums and churches, but nothing too impressive that we hadn’t seen before except maybe the maritime museum with lots of model ships and paraphernalia.
5 hours was enough for our feet today, and we’d packed clothing for rain and it’s quite warm so the balcony in the sunshine is where you can find us now, sipping lemonade and ice tea, and snacking on neopolitan wafer “crumpets” as Josh says.
We also had a chuckle as we entered our hotel and a sign 5 feet from a public bowl of nuts in a dish on the table in the lobby said “no outside food or drink for health reasons!” Seriously? Hilarious!

You get to know the difference between the look of a toll booth and a border crossing pretty quick, or at least when you expect to see one you do. Today, we learned that to drive to Dubrovnik along the coast you get to grace Bosnia with your presence. Although we are sad to say no stamp of the passport was provided.
So, in Bosnia one must stop for lunch, and do we did. A gourmet pizza shared between us and an ice tea for just over $3.00. Ok it wasn’t gourmet, but still cheap.
I did get a couple of photos of Bosnia because it may only occur once more that I set foot here in this country added to my list of places to go after I had seen it and been there, and it will be on our way back up the coast in a couple of days.
About an hour back into Croatia we check into our hotel in Dubrovnik, without the help of Elizabeth who dangerously suggests we turn the wrong way on a one directional street. It’s a bit out of town and both reasonable price and with a shower, it is quite large, and with free parking, wifi and breakfast, what more could a girl ask for? Well, a pool! It has two. Josh tells me we didn’t come this far to swim but if the weather sucks, I say, we sure did.

At the moment, and thanks to my smart phone app, we’re currently driving along the winding highway roads of Croatia listening to a wonderful combo of hits by Willy Nelson and Tina Turner (amongst their local hillbilly hits) just another confirmation of the the time warp.
Yesterday we found a random walking tour in old town Split, and our guide was wearing a brand new looking T-shirt dated ’84. He was a neat guy, very knowledgable and had a great sense of humour, but most importantly he loves his country and wants to preserve the old history.
In the afternoon we wandered the streets of town and climbed the 400 plus stairs for a great view of the pale colored, old age cinder block buildings with bright red terra cotta roofs. As the wind picked up and the rain threatened our comfort we made our way back to the villa for some R&R.
These hungry bellies found a nice eatery tucked away from the rain with seafood risotto for me and tortellini for the Mr.

Pest to Split

This morning we endeavored to get our car from the tray, with the token and a bunch of bills too large to fit the machine. I ended up having to run back to the hotel for change and then guess where the car would come out by pacing up and down each nearby street to find the underground driveway, while Josh waited for the door with the tray that the car would come out from and find me. This complicated process set us back a few minutes on our long journey out of the country.

The highway down to Split was wide open double lane 130 speed limit with many tunnels through the mountains, up to 5.5 km long at once. It was scenic like driving to Fernie, then changed to be rocky like Spain or Peru. Though nothing went wrong with the car during the 7 hour trip, I somehow managed to lose the ticket for the toll road, so when we got close to the end and had to pay our fare, the booth dude was polite initially and friendly until he learned we didn’t have it, but as I searched for the ticket and the line behind us backed up he got a little more ferocious, until I gave up and he charged us DOUBLE the toll fare. So, moral of the story, don’t lose it or you will pay 60 euro’s for your road trip. Then shortly after we pulled out on our way I dug deep under the seat and found it, along with my visa card. Nice. Grr.

We arrived in Split around 3 and at 27 degrees it was a great time to check out the beach. If you can call it that. I heard great things about Croatia’s beaches, but this wasn’t one of them, I hope. It was a very shallow bay surrounded by cement retaining walls, and a bit of sandy beach in the middle. But, have you ever seen the photos of China’s beaches where it’s so crowded you can’t see the beach? It was kind of like that, and there were about 300 people knee deep in the water splashing, and playing a strange game with a ball, but no one was really swimming. It was like a cross between Vietnam (crowded and dirty with garbage lying around and no one actually swimming) and a timewarp from the early 80’s (where the swim suits were overly neon, or board shorts were tight and floral, and banana hammocks rocked a good chunk of the population, and girl board shorts are unheard of). It wasn’t comfy, or inviting but people were stretched out on their towels on the concrete reading their books, and the bushes nearby smelled of urine.

Some local kids were cliff jumping just outside the bay, off a 25 ft ledge into 6 ft of water or less by swan diving into a belly flop and pitching their bodies like tents and curling at the last second so as to enter the water shallow. Me, thinking this was the dumbest idea since the clothes they chose to wear, wanted to get away before someone else on my travels became a quad.

We wandered around town this evening, had some pizza for dinner at once place, then relocated to another place on the water front for bevies. People watching here is fascinating, and really truly time warp is the best way to describe it. I said to josh when we first arrived, “if the people dress like this, you know the food will be cheap” and its true. So far, we’ve seen fag tags (shaved head with a long piece left at the rear), mullets, awful florescent legging shorts attached to a skirt (had one at about age 9), stone washed jeans (same age), hair with a bun on one side, and curly on the other, colored jeans (‘91), doc martens (’93), very high waisted jeans, and the list just keeps going. After we were in Paris and Spain we saw fashions about a year later, but if these trends are on their way to us, look out! Just the clothes in the stores (in Eastern Europe in general ) seem so different, and maybe the best way to describe them is poor quality (thin material with weak colors). I have not seen a single item that I would wear, let alone, buy. I may bash the clothing, but the people (except the toll guy) have been very friendly and speak English like the rest of the countries we’ve so far encountered.