Tag: Sistiana

A change of plan

Sadly, Ken and Jacky have made the difficult decision to head for home. Ken’s back is worse, there’s a 45 degree roll to his walk and he does look rather comical. We’ve been very good and not laughed.

Before leaving Sistiana, we spoke to a Scottish couple, Brian and Shirley, who are on the road for 4 months and heading to Croatia. There was a long chat about vignettes in Slovenia (we hadn’t paid!) and the merits of different size motorhomes. The small Rollerteam Rainbow has been by far our best choice but even Kim doesn’t want to own one anymore!

The seaside town of Grado had been recommended to John and was only a 30 minute detour on our way to Lake Garda.

En route, we were distracted by the plant seller at the roadside and Kim couldn’t resist purchasing an Oleander.

She’s researching if it will have to be abandoned before leaving Italy, because it carries a risk of Xyllela pathogen and we’ll have to disinfect the van. It’s currently living in the van’s garage.

The drive into Grado was worth the effort but the walk along the seafront was completely underwhelming.

To recover from our disappointment, we stopped for elevenses in a small bar.

The route out of Grado had us reconsidering our view of the place, the lagoon side was rather nice.

We had a decision to make, should we head for Garda as planned or try and meet up with Ken and Jacky who were going straight to Innsbruck. We checked weather and campsite check in times and crossed Garda off our itinerary! 5 hours across the Dolomites and through the Italian Tyrol it was.

John wanted a more interesting drive so we left the motorway north of Udine and followed the SS52 along the valley of the Tagliomento River. It was raining hard but the villages were pretty. The little Fiat van breathed in as we squeezed round some very narrow roads. Alarm set in when we started to see cars with snow on them.

It got considerably worse, and there was no other way through. Temperatures dropped and rain turned to snow…

We followed a snow plough for miles- John was having the time of his life, wondering if we were allowed to overtake it.

The roads cleared for a while so we thought the van deserved a photo. There wasn’t as much snow on it as we had hoped.

Then we got to the point that a snowplough was behind us, we wished it was in front and even John was becoming alarmed by the conditions and wishing we had snow chains. Kim had been in a state of alarm for at least an hour!

We survived and re joined the motorway just south of the new Brenner Pass and, through heavy rain and snow, made it to Natterer See campsite just after 6.

Beer and chips in the campsite restaurant beckoned as a reward.

The biggest success of the day, apart from not crashing, is the van’s heating system is working. We are tucked up and toasty!

Three countries in one day

A beautifully clear morning greeted us, and we could see the fantastic view from our pitch which had previously been hidden in the haze.

We headed out with a 4 hour/150 mile journey to do and almost immediately left lovely smooth, EU tarmac roads for bumpy narrow Croatian ones!

The van bumped and twisted for the best part of an hour. Roads narrowed and hairpin bends appeared. Luckily, in all that time 3 cars, a coach and one lorry passed on the other side. We were too busy watching the road to take photos but it was lovely. John wants to return in something sensible, like a Porsche or Ferrari.

As we drove around Rijeka, the Adriatic reappeared on our left, it feels a lot longer than two days since our drive along the coast.

Heavy rain and dramatic lightning faced us as our route took us up over the mountains and back inland towards Slovenia.

30 minutes from the border, we joined long queues to enter Slovenia where recent hailstones had been rather ferocious – luckily before we arrived.

Slovenia, not surprisingly, was much like Croatia, with rolling forested hillsides but instead of cheese and honey it was pig roasts which were frequently available at the roadside.

Then we were back in Italy with great views across the Gulf of Trieste.

Our plan was to stop at Castello Di Miramar. As we drove out of Trieste, it appeared in the distance on the headland.

The satnav delivered us to within 100m of the castle, down a very narrow road with parked cars and pedestrians. A parking attendant waved us down and told us to turn around. Scenes reminiscent of last year’s accident came flooding back. We had to turn around in a confined space full of parked cars. Luckily a lovely Italian came to our aid and, with lots of exaggerated gestures described the best way to turn around! There was a queue of cars waiting to follow us out. We’d failed in our attempt to do ‘culture’ and so headed to our overnight stop at Sistiana. The campsite runs alongside the Rilke walking trail and has great views back towards Trieste.

Ken’s back is still bad so John stayed at the campsite, keeping him company with a beer while Kim and Jacky walked the trail out to Duino to see the castle. There are many fortifications along the route created during WW1 and used by the Third Reich in WW2, that have been converted to viewing points across the bay.

Tomorrow were heading to Lazise on Lake Garda.