View Pula to Locarno in a larger map 28 June 2012: Well, what a day yesterday turned out to be. With a good plan of driving a few miles up the coast we set off and arrived at Rovinj for coffee and a walk-about. This proved to be a beautiful town in a scenic setting.

We wandered around in the heat, admiring the now familiar marble cobbled streets and network of small alleyways. Then off to Porec, much of the same but not quite so pretty. We had high expectations but were disappointed with the west coast of Istria since leaving Pula, it seemed much more commercialised and we saw Go Karting, Aquariums, Paintball, Dinosaur Parks and Water Parks advertised on roadside placards here and there. Not enough that it spoiled the area but the first time we came across anything like it in Croatia. The first campsite we tried had a place about 2.5m by 4m along side a huge grey monolith of a motorhome. We passed on this and headed for the next choice. Anywhere in the 2 ‘B’ areas we were told. Well, they turned out to be fairly full of permanent residents (aka trailer trash) and the best shady spot was between the rubbish bins and an okay looking family with a dog on a leash. Our hearts sank at the thought of this being our last memory of Croatia so we moved on in search of something better. 1km down the road we found a family run site and bagged one of a few spots right next to the sea! (€20 per night including wi-fi) The only other price to pay was that we were just in hearing distance of a local bar that played electronic thumping music from 0800 to 0100. We decided that this was a price worth paying for a couple of nights and spent the next 2 days swimming, chilling and planning our escape and the following night in the bar sipping cocktails and watching the Italy/Germany football match. If you can’t beat them, join them! 30 June 2012: Yesterday we had another very hot, long drive from Novigrad, Croatia to revisit Peschiera del Garda, Italy. Oh, for air-conditioning! We chose a huge camping spot complete with its own water supply and drainage, in sight of the lake and only €16 per night (but an additional €3 for a measly 1 hour wi-fi). We walked into the attractive town for dinner and checked out ferry trips on the lake for the following day. The lake in full swing:

Well, the following day came with even higher temperatures and ridiculous humidity so we decided to forget the all day ferry trip and to continue our search for a more civilised climate. This brought us back to Lake Maggiore but just outside Locarno this time, which is at the top of the lake and in the Swiss section. It was still hot but less humid and more bearable, objective achieved! Also, there was a very nice swimming pool and good free wi-fi but as luck would have it, Virgin Media were doing some maintenance and the email was not accessible (even though they said it was so sorry if you were waiting to hear from us).

26 June 2012: The days are passing too swiftly now as we head towards a channel crossing around 14 July. Today we took the bus into town and walked around the city which is best known for its many surviving ancient Roman buildings, the most famous of which is its 1st century amphitheatre, which is among the six largest surviving Roman arenas in the world: The Temple of Rome and Augustus is another notable ancient Roman structure next to the Town Hall in the square or ‘Forum’: Here is Braveheart having a well earned rest while the blog gets updated:

View Krkto Pula, Croatia in a larger map 25 June 2012: We drove to the ferry port and crossed to the neighbouring island of Cres. From there we decided to go directly to the mainland, the peninsular of Istria and we followed the signs to the ferry up and up another never ending mountain road until we started the steep descent which seemed to take forever. It is amazing what a straight line on a map can mean. However the ferries were very efficient and easy to use, run by Jadrolinja and cost us €34 per crossing. We arrived in Pula, a charming town on the southern tip of Istria and found a campsite surrounded by sea on a peninsular just outside the town on a good bus route.

View Jelsa to Krk, Croatia in a larger map 24 June 2012: The heat finally got the best of us and we headed north in search of cooler climes. By pure luck we ended up in a peaceful shady campsite on the beautiful island of Krk, in it’s capital town of Krk. We arrived on the island by a toll bridge but would most likely leave by ferry via Cres, another island. We were in walking distance of the pretty town which had a charming old centre and good amenities. We hired a motor scooter to tour some of the island’s other towns which was great fun: Krk remained by far our favourite town but we found Vrbnik on the east coast very hospitable as when we arrived there were copious amounts of local wine on offer for tasting, drunk directly from the jug and accompanied by as much Panetone as one could consume! Naturally it would have been impolite to decline! There were crowds of locals drinking it too and a group of men going from bar to bar singing together. It was altogether a very happy atmosphere and we enjoyed lunch in their midst. Vrbnik approach:

19 June 2012: We watched Croatia lose in the last minutes to Spain in the European Football League last night in the camp site bar, sipping tequila sunrise, surrounded by lapping water. What a life. Sometimes we think we have died and gone to heaven, we are enjoying this journey so much. The Croatian coast has been a joy to drive along and we are continually surprised by its natural beauty. Today we drove north, stopping along the way to capture this picture of Primosten: Then on to the town of Sibenik which had another interesting old quarter to explore, including a castle high up above the town from where we took this photo: The heat wave continued and we heard of locals being overcome by the heat and ending up in hospital! We headed for the sea and some more snorkelling from our position next to the water on the island of Otok Murter for a couple of days with plenty of shade and a cooling sea breeze. Braveheart had lots of other T4 and T5 friends to hang out with, the different conversions are very interesting, especially how mozzie screens are fitted, something we hanker after now. One T5 carried a super colour co-ordinated Peugeot scooter on a neat rack. Unfortunately wi-fi is getting harder to obtain from the van and free of charge as we travel north so we walked into the nearby town to have a couple of coffees at €2 and use the bar’s free network. Here’s Paul hard at work just outside the van:

16 June 2012: We moved on further north towards Split, along the way we visited the harbour town of Makarska for lunch then finally an overnight stop at Camp Sirena south of Omis. Makarska: Sunrise at Camp Sirena: 17June 2012: We made our way into Split old town to visit the Diocletian Palace which is a UNESCO world heritage site and one of the worlds’ most impressive Roman monuments: Diocletian Palace: Split Harbour and City Walls: Our final destination for the day was a beach campsite called Rozac on the island of Okrug Gornji. It is just walking distance from yet another UNESCO world heritage town called Trogir: We have been experiencing a heat wave and for the last few days the temperatures have risen into the mid 30’s, so swimming and snorkelling have been the order of the day for the afternoons. Ice Cream sunset:

18 June 2012: Despite the lumpy roads, Braveheart is holding up well, she even got washed the other day. She deserves some TLC when we get back to the UK. We spent 3 enjoyable days on the island of Hvar during which we visited the nearby towns of Hvar (namesake of the island) and Stari Grad (yes another ‘old town’). Linda in the famous poet’s house in Stari Grad: Paul watching fish in the pond in the poet’s house: Us having lunch in Stari Grad: Stari Grad architecture:

Today we drove north along the unbelievably blue Adriatic with a back drop of mountains until we found a sign post to a ferry going to Hvar, an island we had heard good things about. We decided to go check out the situation and needless to say, we ended up on the ferry to Hvar, then headed to Jelsa, some 50km along a bumpy road. Goodbye to mainland Croatia: Hello to the island of Hvar: The road was fairly tortuous but the campsite we ended up in and the village of Jelsa were worth every jolt in the road. Yes, this really is where we camped: I wish I could fix this messy layout! Thanks Google for jumbling everything up.
View Kotor, Dubrovnik, Hvar, Jelsa in a larger map

11 June 2012: This was a difficult day, although the 45km journey to Dubrovnik was expected to take an hour, extended delays at the border crossing from Montenegro to Croatia, followed by a dusty and very shaky ride for half the journey on an unsealed road in the process of being built and then finally as we entered Dubrovnik, road works on a new roundabout had totally grid locked the town. So after checking out 3 campsites and sitting in a traffic jam we drove back out of town to finally arrive at Campsite Kate at Milini, 4hrs later, a very tranquil and well appointed place. Dubrovnik from the road out of town: 12 June 2012: We took the bus into Dubrovnik after a failed attempt at taking a boat which had been cancelled due to the windy weather. We walked around the high-lights of Dubrovnik including around the entire city walls which involved hundreds of steps, we were glad of the wind as the temperatures were soaring. Had a delightful inexpensive vegetarian lunch in a back street restaurant recommended by the Rough Guide but later had the most expensive 2 beers (.5cl and .33cl) we have come across on this trip at £6.50 in a bar just off the Placa. Only yesterday in Montenegro the same thing would have cost £1.60, something to do with the cruise ship element it seems! None-the-less this is an amazing and beautiful city and just thumbing through a book with photos of the desecration inflicted in the early 1990’s war was an eye-opener to the massive restoration work that has taken place since. Some photo’s from our walk along the city walls, spot the soaring swallows: 13 June 2012: Happy Birthday Steve Ralph!

9 June 2012: Today we got close to the Tara Gorge the deepest European canyon, (1300m deep), which we were supposed to drive along yesterday. At the first viewing place I felt positively queezy as the river was over 1 kilometer below us and there was a sheer drop from jagged rocks. The turquoise river is just visible in this picture, down the bottom of the gorge. Whilst on the mountains we noticed some wild flowers: We then drove to the Tara Bridge which took us down much lower and photographed the river again from there:
View Trip to the mountains, Montenegro in a larger map

8 June 2012: We left at the same time as a young French couple in a Renault 4 van who had driven it to China and back and were off to Albania! We drove north towards Durmitor National Park. We knew this would be a demanding day and hard on Braveheart but we hadn’t reckoned on Stella confusing us and we were dumb enough to believe her directions. We were fine up to about half way and then we turned off and followed a road which became narrower and often covered in fallen rocks and bolders and we found ourselves too far along it to consider turning back. Stella gave up before we did and just shut up and displayed ‘off road’ on her screen. We continued to follow a road cut into the side of the mountain up over a pass through beautiful wild scenery and over nearly 2 hours we covered only 40km and met only 2 cars and one motorbike. We arrived at our destination, somewhat shell shocked but amazed at how beautiful and untouched by commercialisation it was. We were in the highest town in the Balkans called Zabljak (over 1500m high) and after visiting the tourist information office, we entered the Durmitor National Park and walked around Black Lake at the foot of Medjed Mountain. This took over an hour and was just what we needed after a hard day’s driving. The surrounding woods in these mountains are apparently still home to bears and wolves. We found a lovely campsite just outside Zabljak with great views of the surrounding area and were given a warm welcome by the owners and some Austrian bikers who were already camped. View from the campsite:

7 June 2012: We were lent a German camp site guide book by the kind owner of our camp site in Bijena, on the Bay of Kotor and discovered that there is an online version which is very useful: http://campingfuehrer.adac.de/campingfuehrer/suche.php?reset=formespecially as Google kindly translate the German into English for us! This enabled us to plan a route around the other side of the Bay of Kotor and back down the coast to Petrovac to another campsite. These pictures were captured from the camp site before we left: On route we passed once again through Kotor only stopping for photographs of the cruise liners in order to bring some sense of scale to the surrounding area. We also passed above Budva Stari Grad and took this photo:

5 June 2012: Happy Birthday to both Jane and Mike Ralph! Yesterday we passed uneventfully through the border between Albania and Montenegro, obtained the all important passport stamp (in order to exit the country without fuss) and left behind the evocative donkey drawn carts, cows ambling or sleeping in the road and the countless ½ finished buildings. In Montenegro the driving is not much improved but the vehicles are notably newer. We camped at a very nice family run site called Oliva, yet another ex olive grove, just opposite the beach. 6 June 2012: Today we headed north along the coast, stopping first at Sveti Stefan, a picturesque island that used to be a fishing village reached by an isthmus but is now an exclusive resort with a very ‘Colditz’ like feel to it. There were signs saying that on the beach it was mandatory to use the hotel beach furniture at the cost of €50! Needless to say there was no-one on the beach. We moved on to explore Budva Stari Grad. Stari meaning ‘old’ and Grad meaning ‘town’. The old town was a charming coastal town within walls surrounded by popular sandy beaches. We drove on to Kotor, another walled old town but this time on the edge of a bay, almost like a fjord in that it was several kilometers long and deep enough for cruise ships to sail right to the town. We appreciate that the town survives on tourism but the endless crocodile lines of tours from the cruise ship moored at the town quay quite spoiled the atmosphere. We took the ferry across the bay to our campsite, also on the edge of the bay. We are now at the northern extreme of the Montenegrin coast and have been disappointed with the lack of open camp sites as there is so much to see and so few camp sites open. More research required.
View Montenegro in a larger map