April 23, 2025 - Croatia



 Today we will drive through Slovenia and into Croatia. But first we want to stop at a small town called PTUJ in Slovenia. Our receptionist told us that it was the oldest town in Slovenia so I don’t think we should miss that.




The view of all of the red roofs from up at the castle was absolutely incredible






We arrived in their little town of PTUJ while they were having their annual market.

The drive we are on today is taking us through the centre of Slovenia with speeds going from 30 to 90 km in the snap of a finger. I must say, though, it is very relaxing and it’s absolutely beautiful.





We finally get through Slovenia and are going through a border crossing, which is kind of unusual. The only other one has been from Poland into Austria. We are not stopped, but I noticed a flash from a camera, obviously of our license plate. But now I don’t know which country we’ve entered as the sign says Republica Hrvatska. After some Internet research, I find that this means Croatia or the Republic of Croatia. 



You can really see the difference between Slovenia and Croatia. There are more signs friendly to tourists.


We arrive at our beautiful apartment called Villa Salona in Opatija, Croatia. It was quite the drive up the narrow, one car wide street to the apartment, but Richard has become very skilful at these narrow roads.
Robert, our host, was there to meet us and quickly grabbed our suitcases from the back of the car and took them into the apartment.

The apartment is absolutely perfect. The fridge is stocked with a bottle of beer a bottle of water and a bottle of homemade Grappa. I have to say that this is absolutely the nicest place we’ve stayed in so far. It’s fully equipped so you could basically do any kind of cooking. there is also a terrace off the back of the apartment that borders park with a very small view of the sea.

We decided instead to walk downtown through the park which borders our apartment in the back yard and share a pizza together.

We are right on the Adriatic Sea and the weather is still cooperating with us.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Observations conclusions and musing from our epic six week European adventure.

 These are totally my opinions and only my opinions.   1) Socialization is way better than ours 2) A highly developed infrastructure 3) Accommodations tend to be a bit smaller 4) Tourism; tons of it 5) In the bigger cities, there are “low emission zones”, and you don’t see old cars on the road at all  6) Google maps blows me away! They have instructions for the tiniest allies 7) EVERY toilet, public or private has a brush and we now know why 8) Mistletoe grows as a parasite plant on many trees. I have never seen real live mistletoe before. 9) eSIMs are the BEST 10) Italy has more historic buildings preserved than France 11) I am now determined to learn new languages and history (Although I always say that when I get back from any foreign country and I don’t learn anything) 12) I am totally amazed, how religion dominated all of Europe, especially by the Roman Catholic Church 13) I must research St. Etienne. I felt like it was calling me for the longest time. 14) Euro to Ca...
Read more

Day 4 April 4, 2025

Image
 This morning we don’t get up until 9 AM which is extremely unusual for Richard. He’s a real early riser but I think I walked the living hell out of him yesterday.  I’ve made reservations to visit the Catacombs of Paris today, but it’s not until 230 so we don’t rush getting ourselves ready this morning. In fact, we hauled two mattresses down from the upper loft to make the bed more comfortable for us tonight. I have to say that that is one of the worst parts of this little apartment. The bed is not meant for us creatures of comfort.  Today I’m going to give Richard a break and we’ll take the Metro down to the Catacombs. The transportation system in and around the Paris area is amazing. There’s the RER train system, the Metro and buses and trams. And there are all kinds of other things like taxis, Ubers and thousands of bicycles and scooters and motorcycles.  The catacombs are a network of about 300 km of tunnels under the city of Paris. Around the end of the 1700s th...
Read more

May 15, 2025 - Home Sweet Home

Image
 We’re up bright and early even though our flight has been delayed till around 2 o’clock this afternoon. We have enough time to go for a nice long walk in a park right beside the hotel. I even got to take a stroll through one last graveyard. I guess I keep hoping to see my last name in one of them, but alas, I have not. One of the wheel struts from a Concorde which began its career in 1985 and officially retired in November 2003 Charles de Gaulle airport is still referred to as Roissy by Parisians.  The hotel provides a shuttle to the airport and I’m glad we have given ourselves lots of time because this airport is huge. In fact, I understand it is the largest airport in Europe. I swear we must’ve got our 10,000 steps just walking in the airport from check-in then security and then to our boarding terminal. (we actually had to take a shuttle bus from one area to another.) Despite the fact that our first flight was eight hours long, we did pretty good as much as I hate those lo...
Read more