As I sit in the hotel lobby this evening writing this blog, I look around and see a very old room full of tradition, the floor is stone, the ceiling has wooden beams, the chairs are of the armchair kind and although of different colors they somehow combine well. On the background I can hear very romantic Croatian music where sounds of different string instruments abound nicely accompanied by the piano. Just 12 hours ago we were on the beach in Italy and now we are in a totally different country with different cultures, music, language etc. To get here we had to also cross Slovenia, yet another country.
What a beautiful world we live in and I am so very glad we are living in this age where we are able to do this type of trip quite safely.
As we went for breakfast we spoke about our trip with the different members of staff that had seen the bike outside. We were specially impressed by a young Hungarian lady that worked in the hotel and was sympathy incarnated. She loved motorcycling, that she had learned from her father and mother that had also toured Europe many years ago and she too wanted to tour someday. Later on the owner of the hotel also spoke to us about the trip and told a saying that I particularly like. It refers to what Italians say when they go tour by themselves. They say they are not touring alone as they are accompanied by their motorbike. In Italian "Io non sono solo. Lo sono con la mia moto".
We eventually left Jesolo at 11:30am and although sky was overcast we did not put on the rain gear. We decided to do the first 30-40 minutes on national roads (not on highways) and caught the landscape of Venato which is mainly vines and fruit trees.
As this is a much slower way to travel and we wanted to get to Trieste, Italy for lunch we took the A4 highway and made our way north. Rain started to fall and we had to stop to put on rain gear. Italians highways are very easy to stop in, as they have special areas constructed for this.
As we were nearing Trieste I noticed on GPS a road very close to the sea and decided to exit highway. It was a good decision as we had very good scenery and we eventually went down to sea level in Grignano, Italy and found this very nice marina with a great restaurant. The sun was also starting to come out. We shared a oven cooked fish which was excellent.
We then continued on to Trieste which we liked as a city. We went through the city center and eventually saw a sign to Slovenia which is very close by.
We put gas in Slovenia and were very surprised that price was over 30% cheaper than in Italy. As expected the station was full of Italian cars. Amazing that gas stations on the Italian side survive as the border crossing is very simple.
As officially we were in Slovenia we stopped in Korte, Slovenia to buy a sticker to put on bike, a flag and some postcards. We were straight away amazed at how fluent the people were in English. Very different from Italy and my theory is that small countries to be successful in attracting tourists have to be much better in speaking English than bigger countries that usually rely on their internal tourists. Examples of countries that do not usually speak English well are of course France, Italy, Germany, Russia and Brazil whereas Finland, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Slovenia and hopefully Croatia are much more adept at English.
Our passing through the border (in this case there is a real one) between Slovenia and Croatia was a non-event. I had read in Internet we would be asked for passport, driver's license, insurance documents, proof of ownership of bike and we only needed to waive passports in Slovenia side and were waved on by the Croatians without one question or request. I started liking Croatia already.
And "Like Croatia" is indeed the focus of Croatia to its tourists. Signalling is very good and signs are done usually in many languages. You feel straight away welcomed in Croatia and believe other countries should take a strong learning from this small country of less than 5M people that understand that tourists are fundamental for their development and improvement as a nation and of its people. Every time we have a question people try to help us and there is quite a lot of tourist kiosks to help in case you need it.
Only 5 hours in the country but first impressions are excellent. Roads are good. Drivers are not crazy and scenery is very beautiful somehow still untainted.
We decided to change plans and rather than going to Pula we decided to spend the night in Rovinj which is a city situated on the north Adriatic Sea with a population of 15,000. It is located on the western coast of the Istrian peninsula and is a popular tourist resort and an active fishing port. We are staying in an hotel inside the Old Town. Bike is parked just outside and we have a magnificent view of the sea from our floor.
On the way to Rovinj we took a small detour to see Lim (or Limski as Croatians call it) ria. The estuary is sometimes called a fjord, although it is not in fact a fjord but a ria, because it was not carved by a glacier but by the river eroding the ground on its way to the Adriatic Sea, when the sea level was lower. There is a panoramic view and also a down by the water view. We also did an amazing 1.3Km bridge over a very large valley.
We went quite late for dinner and most restaurants were already closed but we did find a local restaurant. We loved the decor. Food was not very sophisticated but homely.
Time to go to bed as tomorrow we have a longer day as we travel to the Plitvice Lakes National Park. As we were leaving Josolo the night porter which is Croatian suggested strongly we visit Opatija which he compared to Monte Carlo so we will probably go and have lunch there tomorrow and compare to the real thing which we did a couple of weeks ago.
Click HERE to see all the pictures for Day 1
Posted by Armando
I like your blog because it was fully detailed and it was easy to understand since it has an images that was attract me to visit Jesolo. But first of all I want to find Hotel Jesolo so that there will be a hotel to accommodate to spend my vacation on that place. I found also a review about Jesolo here that's why I really want to spend my vacation on that place.
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