Croatia Trip September 2015 Post 2

Day 3 Friday 11/09/2015 - 92206

Oh dear, yesterday evening Steve stood up possibly awkwardly and put his back out! After an uncomfortable night he took som Ibroprufen which usually works and was able to walk into town. Judy was royally spoilt and bought her three favourite perfumes  at about 60% discount to normal duty free prices enough we hope for another couple of years. 

We had. A good look round San Marino and found many places we had missed on our last visit. At the visitors information we connected with WiFi and managed to send our first couple of days blogs. Hope you found them ok. Unfortunately somebody has got "TheOld ageTraveller" which Google has indexed more than ours so hope you didn't get confused.

We got back to the van about three , packed up and left towards Rimini but remembered to fill up with fuel at the garage next to the Camper Stop, what a shock 1.28 euros a litre but that was actually the cheapest we saw later with some at 1.45 a litre for diesel.

On our way we stopped at a huge shopping centre on the boarder with Italy and had a look around. We actually bought a "Selfie Stick" so feel quite modern ready to take many pictures of us against any old background out of focus.

We had a very slow drive through the beach area of Rimini which is an upper class "Southend" but with probably ten thousand loungers and beach umbrellas. We didn't stop but motored on towards Venice.  It began to get dark so we stopped for a few minutes to consult Autoroute and found  a Motorhome Sosta about 3km away which is a free area set aside by the village for Motorhome Parking without any facilities.

So a quick supper with Sussex Bangers, beans and a glass of wine or two, heaven.

Stopped 19:45 Lat: 44.92338N  Lon: 12.23440E Free sosta, Motorhome Parking San Mesola.      Only 147km today

Day 4 Saturday 12/09/2015 - 92353

After a nice quiet night we set off for Venice, a slow difficult journey as the speed limits in Italy have been set very low. We have come across wide dual carriage ways away from houses with a 50kph limit. This journey went from 50 to 70 to 90 to 50 to 30 then back to 70 and repeated continuously. Any way we arrived onto the Venice causeway which we thought was a toll but wasn't then to the Motorhome parking which luckily had plenty of spaces arriving at 11:45 92436km. The cost was €21 for the first 12 hours then €16 per 12hours or part. Which made it €37 for the. First 24 hrs then €32 a day after that with electric hook-up included. We Paid €30 a day two years ago and had to pay to get to Venice on the water busses as well and it is an expensive city.

It was about a half hour walk to the main part of the city then we walked and walked all day exploring, we are both very happy to be back in Venice again, it is so romantic and has such a lovely feel about it. We had a very good glass of beer at an English type pub we found but €11 for just over a pint! We actually arrived back to the van having done 25,000 steps nearly 16km. A very nice day ending with a very nice romantic meal at one of the fish resteraunt's by candle light by the side of a canal, the one we intended to go to last time.  Then on the way back to the van we managed to buy some nice Morano ear rings to match the necklace Steve bought Judy for our Ruby wedding Anniversary two years ago. While at the pub we managed to connect to WiFi and book a free walking tour, which we did last time and really enjoyed so are looking forward to doing that again because we are sure we missed many things.

Day 5 Sunday 12/09/2015- 92436km same

A slow start then on to meet our guide for the morning at 10:45. Francesca the guide we had last time arrived with a young chap Ricardo who was to be our guide today. The tour started the same in the three Jewish Getto's then the Gondola ride across the Grand Canal then into the depths of the tiny streets one of which was less than half a meter wide. We had a great free tour and he deserved all the tips he received which was from everyone we could see. The tour finished at 2:30 and we arrived back at the van with time to refill the water and set off by about 4:30. We found a Camper Stop just short of Trieste in our database and headed for it via the Autostrada, couldn't bear another 100km up and down the speed limits. About 130 km turned out to be just over €11 so worth it to reduce the strain of driving. We also found a Motorhome Dump on a services to dump our loo and grey water so ok for another five days wild camping if necessary. The parking place was nice just beside the sea but we realised that we would have to negotiate Trieste during the morning rush hour so after a cuppa and a stroll we set off for  another camper stop in our database in Slovenia. Which again was very nice but required fifteen Euros in coins in a machine which we didn't have, must remember to get a stash of coins just in case, so set off again. To another camper stop just inside Croatia. We drove into Slovenia with no trouble but met passport control on the boarder going out. We found our camper spot which was quite luxurious but no payment machine probably pay at the office in the morning. We then realised that Croatia does not use the Euro so possibly more complications in the morning. Any way we are stopped a little later than we would have liked at about 22:00 - 92658km on the. Speedo - Umag - 45.44954N, 13.52080E