We have moved from the coast up into the mountains near Plitvice National Park. I told Ton I was feeling lazy so I allowed Greta to use toll roads for the trip. The toll roads in Croatia are very nice, but quite expensive. We liked the mannequin flaggers they use here in construction zones if you are wondering about the picture today. I knew the last 60km’s or so were going to be on single lane roads, what I didn’t know was that Greta was going to use a short cut that sent us on a one and a half lane mountain road for 40 km’s. So much for our easy drive.
This area was extensively fought over during the break up of Yugoslavia. The mountains where we are at were a mixture of Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians. Over simplifying things terribly, they all speak the same language (Serbo-Croat), but are of different religions. This region was very heavily contested between the three different groups, and unfortunately a fair amount of ethnic cleansing took place. As we were driving on our unexpected back mountain road we saw plenty of evidence of the fighting from the 90’s, including one house pockmarked with small arms, and another house that had its roof caved in by an artillery round, as well as well maintained graves of soldiers who died fighting in the area. Many of the houses were abandoned on this road as a result of the cleansing. Also, on this road we saw for the first time soldiers from the Croatian army driving vehicles. When we arrived at the campground I realized that our route today had taken us within a couple of miles of the Bosnian border.
A nice table at our cute campground near the national park.
We arrived at our campground around 1:30 and decided to take the rest of the day off. We did polish off a very nice bottle of Croatian wine.
We are wrapping up our very short visit to Istria today as once again the calender is getting away from us. We visited two cities today, one really caught our fancy and the other missed catching our fancy but was interesting .
Ton liked this store front in the old town of Rovinj.
Rovinj is advertised as the most picturesque town in Istria, and the advertisements were correct. When we first arrived and parked François we were overlooking a working harbor with the fishing fleet just coming into port to off load their catch into trucks. The process was interesting and we enjoyed watching the crews working to pack the fish into ice and load them on the trucks. Also, occasionally a local would walk up to one of the fishermen and buy a couple of fish or a kilo of sardines literally off the boat.
The fishing fleet just in to offload. The seagulls were out in force looking for spillage.
From the commercial docks we could see the old town, but it was not the picturesque views Ton remembered from her research. As we got closer to the old town it was interesting to see the construction where some of the houses actually acted as a kind of sea wall for the town.
When the ocean is angry it must be very interesting to be living in one of these houses.
The town clearly had character. We were climbing up to the church that sits at the top of the hill that the old town is built on, when we both noticed how worn the paving stones were in the narrow alleys. A lot of people had walked these streets over the centuries.
The paving stones in the roads were rubbed shiny from all of the feet that had crossed the town over hundreds of years.
It was a good climb to the top where the church dominated the town. The church itself was not overly impressive, but we did like the image at the top of the tower of a sailor steering a ship. This is clearly a town dedicated to the sea and the old town was until the late 1700’s an island. In the 1700’s they filled the small canal that separated it from the mainland.
The church tower with a sailor on top dominates both the commercial harbor and the leisure harbor in Rovinj.
On the descent from the church Ton was telling me that what we had seen did not quite match the pictures she had seen when researching Rovinj. Just then we emerged onto a square on the other side of town where a beautiful waterfront and leisure harbor opened up in front of us. Ton laughed and said these are the pictures I remember, and then went off to take her own.
This is the view Ton remembered from her research.
Rovinj is a beautiful and picturesque place. We debated having lunch here but decided to instead head on to Pula as the day was getting away from us.
One last shot from the old town in Rovinj.
Pula is an old city and was the center of the Roman government for this area. It contains a few very well preserved Roman buildings and we were looking forward to seeing them. What we didn’t expect was that Pula was a big bustling industrial port. We had really enjoyed the small scale of the towns in Istria so suddenly finding ourselves in a busy city was a little bit of a shock.
A view to the busy industrial harbor. The ship in the center of the picture appears to be an old cruise liner that is being broken down for scrap.
After a little adventure getting lost, for once I will concede that Gretas directions were correct, I just didn’t follow them. We headed over to the Roman amphitheater following Googles walking direction. Google told us it was about 1km mostly flat. Ton and I laughed about that the whole way as we were either going up or down pretty sizable hills and we debated where the person who characterized the walk as flat had grown up.
A Roman arch in Pula. This section was actually pretty flat.
Google then lead us to a dead end and we had to improvise our way to the amphitheater which involved climbing some pretty good hills and stairs. We finally got near the amphitheater but found a fairly modern fort in our way and decided to give up as it was closed for repairs. From the fort we could see the Roman Colosseum in the distance, checking with Google it told us it was a little over a kilometer away. For some reason we both thought it was closed for maintenance so we decided to pass on the walk.
The Roman Colosseum in the distance. It is the sixth largest one in existence and the only one with all of its walls intact. It is still used for concerts.
We walked down to the old town and found the last Roman ruin which was a Forum. After a few photos we both realized we were hungry and decided to call it a day.
The Roman Forum in Pula.
Pula is the kind of town that we usually enjoy. It is a little rough around the edges, but has a lot of interesting sites. But today we did not connect with it. I think we had adjusted to the smaller towns we had been in and the size put us off a bit. Also, we were a bit hungry having skipped lunch. I think if we had more time we might return because it turns out we were both wrong and the Colosseum is not closed for maintenance and would probably be very interesting to tour.
Today we set out to explore Northern Istria. Ton had picked out a couple of towns she wanted to check out, and she told me that we were going to look for a wine tasting room to drop into if we saw one.
It was a perfect day to be out exploring. About 70 degrees and a great sky. This picture is from our first stop of the day Vrsar.
Just south of us is the small town of Vrsar which Ton said had a pretty harbor We were there in about 10 minutes and the parking lot I chose was supposed to be paid, but the barriers had been removed for off season so it was free. This lot allows overnight parking so we lamented the lost opportunity of a couple of free nights, but decided we deserved the luxury we were living in our resort campground.
In addition to being a working harbor there were quite a few 30 to 40 foot sailboats and motor yachts, as well as one 100 ft. luxury yacht.
We followed the promenade around the harbor which was a mixture of fishing, tour, and private boats. Ton was in heaven as the sky and sea were both beautiful and with no wind to speak of the sea was reflecting the clouds.
The promenade in Vrsar had a lot of nice statues. It always impresses us how much art is displayed in small towns in Europe.
We finished with Vrsar and headed for Umag which was close to the Slovenian border. We followed a winding seaside highway for the 40km’s to Umag. About 7% of the population of Istria is Italian so the town names were listed in both Croatian and Italian. Near the town of Novigrad (Cittanova in Italian) Ton spotted a sign for a winery so we turned in. The wide road turned into a one lane track and just as I was about to turn around we found the winery.
Ghira winery produces wines in terra cotta amphora as well as traditionally. The last time we saw wine produced like this was in Portugal.
I wasn’t sure if they were open so I was turning François around when Ton hopped out and told me she was going to take some pictures. Just as I got François pointing in the right direction I heard a shout from her to grab my wallet as the winery was open for tasting.
I’m petting the winery dog who I had decided to call Lady because it reminded me of a dog I had when I was a kid. It turns out when I checked the anatomy, Lady was very much a boy, good thing he didn’t speak English.
We tasted 3 whites and a red and they were all delicious. The conversation was limited as the person poring only spoke Croatian and German, but we settled on a white that is an Istrian grape, but were not sure the name of the grape. All we know is that the wine is delicious.
A street scene from the old town in Umag, which is about 3 alleys near the water. The rest of the town was communist era concrete blocks.
Ton picked Umag because the guide book she was looking at said it was off the tourist route. She wanted to see what a working port town looked like. Umag was not very touristy though they were trying. Most of the boats in the harbor were fishing boats. There was a small waterfront promenade with a couple of restaurants, and an old town of three roads about 100 yards long.
The harbor in Umag, a little more working class than the other harbors in this area.
Near the end of one of the alleys we saw a sign for a sea food restaurant and followed it to a waterfront restaurant tucked away out of site. As we walked up we decided that it was going to be our lunch. As we approached one of the staff gave us a wave and asked if we were hungry. When we said yes, he paused and asked if we were Americans. When we replied affirmatively he surprised us by asking what in the world we were doing in Umag! He said that they hardly ever see Americans here. He was an interesting fellow and asked us a lot of questions about home, and also our impression of Croatia. He told us he was hoping to immigrate and if he had a choice it would be the US. He was not happy about the conversion from the Kuna to the Euro coming up in January as he was convinced costs were going to go up, and his real wages were going to go down. It was an interesting perspective we had not thought of because having everyone on one currency makes our life much easier.
The interior of the restaurant we had lunch in.
Once we got off of politics, our server took Ton inside the restaurant to survey the fish on offer. When she returned we ordered the Umag platter which consisted of two fish, octopus, shrimp, and mussels. It was wonderful and served for two meals as neither of us was hungry for dinner when we returned to the campground.
The Umag platter.
We accomplished all of our targets for the day and even found the wine tasting that Ton had added as a bonus challenge. The last thing we accomplished was getting a load of washing done when we returned for the evening. All in all a very productive day for us.
Today we made it to the Adriatic Sea for the first time. The next couple of weeks at least, we will be slowly driving down the coast towards Greece. Everyone we have met has told us that the Croatian coast is one of the most beautiful places they have been and we are looking forward to finding out for ourselves.
The view from our campsite. Actually about 100 yards away.
Our drive over today was on a brand new and lightly used series of toll ways. Croatia is joining the Schengen Zone, and is also converting to the Euro on January 1st, which makes them full on members of the EU. It looks like they have spent quite a bit of money on infrastructure development in preparation, and you can certainly see it in the toll ways. While they are not cheap they are very well built.
Driving over thru the mountains the leaves were turning, but the predominant color was a kind of rust. Not as beautiful as New England.
Our planned stop for the day was Porec where we plan to spend some time exploring tomorrow. As we were coming into town Ton saw a new Lidl so we swung in there for some shopping. The refrigerator is now fully stocked again.
Part of the campground we are staying at today.
We had picked out a campground last night, and even though we arrived pretty early they were full. I had picked out an alternative which was described as a gigantic campground with over 500 spots. So tonight we are in a campground with over 500 RV sites and a couple of hundred sites of trailers, glamping tents, and cabins. It is incredibly immense.
Some of the Glamping Tents? at our Premium Resort.
This site occupies a whole peninsula sticking into the Adriatic and includes a fun island which is a real island, a waterpark, and a concert venue as well as a village square with a grocery, pizza restaurant and a couple of bars. It is unlike anything we have ever stayed at. They do have 500 spots, but about 350 have been closed down for the offseason.
The bridge from the fun island back to the campground.
After a convoluted check in process that was not very Premium Resort like. We settled into the most expensive campsite we have stayed in in Europe. While it is expensive the bathrooms and showers are indeed premium so we decided we would enjoy the luxury for two nights.
The sunset was beautiful over the Adriatic.
We spent about an hour walking along a pathway along the ocean. It was our first sunset on the Adriatic and it did not disappoint.
The campground we are staying at is in a suburb of Zagreb about 11km’s from the city center. They run a free shuttle bus to the local train station, and from there it is about 15 minutes to the center. We were the only couple on the first shuttle of the day, and when we got to the station we were waiting in line to buy our tickets when a train pulled into the station. The Croatian ticket seller then yelled something in Croatian at a young lady in line and us. The young lady understood and bolted after the train, Ton and I looked confused so she said something else and pointed at the train, so we retreated to the platform, just to make sure we understood she came out of her office and gave us the hand signal to hurry up and pointed at the train. So we ran after the train and got on. At that point I went up to the young Croatian lady who was in line with us and asked if she spoke English, she did, fluently. She explained that the ticket seller was telling us to get on the train and pay there. I asked who we should pay, and she said that someone might come along to collect, and if they don’t the ride is free this morning. The ride turned out to be free.
The Museum of Broken Relationships is one of the most popular museums in Zagreb for the local people. I’m not sure what that says about Croatians.
Ton had mapped out a good agenda for us to take in Zagreb. One of the highlights she had on her list was the Museum of Broken Relationships. It started as kind of a joke, but now is one of the most popular museums in Zagreb. We visited the gift shop but I decided visiting the museum proper would be bad luck so we moved on to one of the churches on her list.
The scaffolding was up and more restoration work was being done on St. Marks church. One coat of arms is for Croatia, and the other is Zagreb.
Usually October is shoulder season in Europe and then things start to shut down in November. In Croatia it looks like shoulder season ends on October 1st and we are officially now in off season for tourism. Both the cathedral and St. Marks Church had recently erected scaffolding and were closed to visitors as of today until next May. It also looks like a lot of the campgrounds are closed today until April, fortunately not all, but we will have a little less choice as we move around.
Many of the trams were quite modern and aerodynamic, but they are still using a number of these blocky communist era ones, though this particular one did have a very modern add for McDonalds on the side. .
Today we spent a lot of the day enjoying the restaurant and cafe scene in Zagreb. In the morning we visited an excellent coffee shop with a great terrace overlooking a couple of the major tourist highlights of the city.
We enjoyed our morning coffee under the lace umbrellas on the left. The gate in the center is the stone gate to the upper town, and has a small catholic chapel inside it.
Our next stop was the bustling Dolac farmers market located in the middle of the city. The fruit and vegetable stands were located on the roof of the market, while the meat and fish stands were in the interior. The fruit and vegetable stands are all covered by red umbrellas which have become a symbol of the market. The story is that in the past all of the stands were covered by boring black umbrellas, but one day a young man confessed his love to his girl and gave her a kiss and all of the umbrellas turned from black to the red ones because of their love.
The red umbrellas of the Dolac market with the cathedral in the background.
Our next stop was the cathedral, but as I said earlier it was closed. The highlight was watching two workmen hanging from a basket a couple of hundred feet in the air at the end of a crane.
Zagreb has several streets full of sidewalk cafes. We probably spent more time in them today than in any other city we have visited in Europe.
Our first choice for lunch today was not open, but our second choice turned out to be a treat. The restaurant specialized in a Croatian dish called Strukli. It is baked cheese with dough and a filler. Ton had red peppers for her filler, and I had nuts and honey. It is a simple dish, but delicious and very interesting. We had never had anything quite like it. The closest dish we could come up with to it was Lasagna.
Tons red pepper Strukli. Food that was probably eaten primarily by peasants is now a national delicacy.
We then spent the next couple of hours wandering around looking at old buildings. Zagreb and Ljubljana both were interesting as the majority of the classic buildings were only from the 1800’s so the cities did not feel as old to us as other cities. It seems like when the Croatians and Slovenes have to rebuild buildings do to a war or natural disaster they are more comfortable rebuilding in the current style, then trying to recreate the older style that was there before the building came down. The French and Germans seem to try to recreate the buildings that were there.
A modern building towering over the old town.
We ended up putting about 9 miles on our old legs today, so when we returned to François for the night we decided to try the pizza restaurant attached to the campground. Even though we are in a small town, and it is Monday night the restaurant was doing pretty well when we turned up. When we received our pizza we knew why, it was excellent.
The anchovy pizza was excellent, a good meal to end a day of good food.
In all of our travels during our previous five trips to Europe we had never had to deal with a border crossing while driving. Most of the countries in the EU are part of the Schengen Zone and travel between these countries is unrestricted meaning there are no border controls or customs checks. In effect crossing from Austria to Slovenia is like crossing from Oregon to Washington. The license plates change, the flags change, the only difference in Europe is that the languages usually change.
We took a quick walk thru the small town our campground is in and Ton saw these grapes in someones yard.
Today for the first time we crossed from a country in the Schengen Zone to a country not in the zone so we had a real border with immigration and customs officials to deal with. While we have documentation for François showing how we legally own him in France, I admit to being worried about the first time I was going to have to explain it at a real border. As we were leaving Slovenia I didn’t expect any trouble as we were already there. I thought the guard would have to stamp us out of Schengen since we were visitors, but did not expect much else. When I pulled up to the booth I reached out to hand our passports to him, without taking them from me, he looked at the cover saw they were from the US and waved us on to Croatia.
This father and son were fishing together on the reservoir next to where we are staying.
I told Ton that was simple, but the real test was going to be Croatia as they are not part of Schengen and we would be in effect entering Croatia for the first time. The line was short at the entry point to Croatia and as we pulled up to the Croatian border guard I reached out to hand him our passports, without taking them from me, he looked at the cover saw they were from the US and waved us into Croatia. Ton and I looked at each other in surprise, but then we noted another gate a couple of hundred yards ahead and I thought that must be customs. When we pulled up to that booth it turned out to be the toll booth for the Croatian highway and all they wanted from us was 9 Croatian Kuna ($1.20) to use the road. I was a little disappointed as I had rehearsed my explanations of why Americans were driving a French licensed camper, and had an envelope full of documents to prove we legally owned François, to leave one country and enter another country without anyone touching our passports turned out to be a big anticlimax.
This picture was taken just as the sun was setting.
We are parked up in a cute little campground on the outskirts of Zagreb next to a reservoir. The reservoir was really busy with families out for Sunday strolls and the banks were lined with fishermen. It was a nice evening stroll and as you can see Ton got some great pictures. We will be trying the pizza restaurant on site tomorrow as it was packed with locals all day, which is always a good sign.
10 minutes later the sun was below the horizon and the sky had turned a beautiful red.
The weather channel got it right. After one more absolute downpour last night from about 9pm to midnight, the storm we have been in for the last 8 days broke and today while it was not bright and sunny was dry.
After two days of being cooped up in François we were ready to get out. The bus ride into town was simple and cheap, and the instructions on how to get off from the campground were easy to follow. Ride the bus until there are no more cars on the road and get off. The old town in Ljubljana is pedestrian only.
We think it was a political rally as there were speakers and a little bit of light chanting. But it seemed pretty good spirited.
We arrived to find a pretty sizable political rally going on in the main square of the town. There were 30 or so Slovene cops standing around watching and looking a bit bored. We decided to check out another part of town and come back to the square when the rally broke up.
The Ljubljanica River near the center of the city. It is a great place for an afternoon stroll.
We strolled down the Ljubljanica River for about half a mile on both sides. It is lined with cafes and nice buildings that were part of a riverfront renovation in the 1800’s. The work was done mostly by one guy and he did a great job. There are frequent bridges to cross back and forth from one bank to the other. So if you see something interesting on the other side you never have to go more than a couple of hundred yards to find a bridge to cross over. In a continent of great cafe scenes, Ljubjana more than holds its own.
One of the many bridges across the river. You can see that all of the rain over the last week has the river running fast and turbulent.
After our initial stroll we decided it was time to try a coffee in one of the cafes. Ton had picked out a small cafe called Čokl. We found it next to the funicular up to the castle. We each asked for an Americano and received a thick aromatic espresso with a tiny thimble of hot water that we could add ourselves. It was delicious. As we were leaving there was a Slovenian couple waiting to grab our table and they confirmed that this was the best coffee in town and a real bargain at €1.60.
The funicular up to the castle. Our coffee shop was on the street to the funicular. We really recommend it.
Across the street from the coffee shop was the Saturday Market. We enjoyed poking around in the different sections of the market for awhile, though in the end we did not buy anything.
European open air markets are always a treat. This was a large one.
By now the political rally had broken up so we headed back to the main square via the Dragon Bridge which was completed in 1901 despite there being a prominent engraving on the bridge saying 1888. I overheard a guide saying it was the first steel reinforced concrete bridge in the old Austro-Hungarian empire and was built here as an experiment as no one would care if it collapsed in Ljublajana, but it would be a scandal if it collapsed in Vienna.
One of the dragons on the Dragons bridge.
When we returned to the main square the rally had indeed broken up and the police and crowd had moved on. But we decided the square was kind of a bore without the rally so we moved on also.
We found this street containing the old synagogue for the town. It was one of Tons favorite photos for the day.
By now we had been up and down the river a couple of times so we headed to the restaurant Ton had picked out last night. It is called Druga Violina which translates to Second Violin. They had a simple set price menu where you picked from one of three very reasonably priced multi-course meals. When you sit down there is a sign on your table telling you to please be patient as they employ developmentally disabled people as servers. We really enjoyed our meal and decided it may have been the best value meal we have had in Europe.
Everything you see on the table plus a desert cost less than €20.
After lunch we walked down the main shopping street and out to a park. By then we had a few miles under our belt so we headed back to the campground for the night.
A local brewery chasing the non-Slovenian beer crowd finally helped us to crack the pronunciation of Ljubljana.
We really enjoyed our day here and I think Ljubljana would be a good place to relax and take a break for a few days as it is easy to get around and has a nice laid back vibe that we both enjoyed.
One of Ton’s favorite photos of the day. Ljubljana has a nice laid back vibe that we really enjoyed.We’re not sure where this tradition started but we now see these locks on a bridge in every city we visit in Europe.
As you can see from the photo at the top of post there has been a lot rain in the last few days. Last night we were talking about what to do today as the forecast called for more rain, particularly in the afternoon. Ton pointed out that we were here for 60 days so we did not need to go out and get soaked. So this morning we slept in. We will head into Ljubljana proper tomorrow.
Another view of the Sava River near our campground. It is high and running really fast.
We finally got up and moving about around 11am, and of course the sun was out, and it hadn’t rained in a few hours. We decided to head over to the nearest grocery so we could see what Slovenia had to offer for food. We were walking down a busy suburban street when Ton saw a couple of apple trees below us on a steep hill. We were talking about them when we heard a voice talking to us in Slovenian from the middle of the tree. It turned out to be an old gentleman who had climbed up the hill and was gathering some apples. He spoke to us in Slovenian, and Ton spoke to him in English, finally sign language prevailed and she got him to pose for a nice picture.
This old gentleman was a good sport and posed for Ton as he was picking apples. The bank the trees are on is quite steep.
While we shopping in the grocery store Ton asked if they had any lactose free milk. Of course I have no idea what Lactose or free is in Slovenian, but one of the grocery store workers heard the question and volunteered that they did and took us to the milk where she explained all of the different options. We ended up buying a couple of liters. She then said if we had any more questions please come find her.
We have a challenge we have done since we arrived on our first trip to Europe. When shopping for wine in grocery stores we have a €2.99 limit on what we buy. Most of the time we get a very serviceable local wine, and occasionally a really good wine. Today we found a very nice Slovenian wine for €2.20 with the bonus that it was 1 liter instead of the normal .75 liters. It went really well with our French sausages from Costco and our Tabouleh from Auchan in France.
Our €2.20 liter of Slovenian wine. We bought it because we liked the label. It is delicious.
Actually the rain did not kick in in earnest until about 4 o’clock, so I felt bad. But once it did it really rained so I felt a little better.
The rainy weather continues to be an issue. Most of our trips during shoulder season we have pretty good weather, but alas not on this trip. Last night we were trying to make plans. We thought about spending a few days in Slovenia, but from what we read, outside of Ljubljana, most of the best activity is nature oriented. Unfortunately it is supposed to carry on raining for another four or five days, so hiking in parks and along beautiful lakes did not have much appeal. So Slovenia is going to have to wait for a future trip to get more of our attention.
We decided to continue heading south with a planned two day stop in Ljubljana as it is supposed to be a pretty city. As we were packing up in Salzburg the sun came out, and for the first half of our trip down the Austrian Autobahn we had good weather and spectacular views. A little bit of optimism about the weather crept into our discussion, until about an hour before crossing into Slovenia the skies opened up again.
The neighbors moved to another site when they returned from town due to the standing water on their spot.
By the time we pulled into the campground for the day, it was pouring heavily with occasional claps of thunder. The heaviest rain we have seen during this week of rain. Any thoughts of getting out and exploring today were dashed. Instead we hunkered down and did some planning for Croatia, and trying to figure out how to pronounce Ljubljana. As we were chatting we realized that Slovenia is our 4th country in 5 days.
We had decided we were going into Salzburg today no matter the weather. The weather was bad as it rained nearly all day and it was pretty cool. Looking on the good side it never rained hard, just kind of drizzled all day.
It was so cool and wet that even the horses had their Gore-tex on!
Salzburg besides being a pretty city is known for two things, Mozart and the “Sound of Music.” Everywhere you go as a tourist you are offered opportunities to experience both of them. We of course joined in, focusing mostly on Mozart.
The statue of Mozart in Mozart square, though we did learn it was not very historically accurate as he was actually left handed and quite short.Mozart’s birth home. It is now a museum dedicated to him.
During the peak of Salzburg’s wealth from the salt mines that gave its name it belonged to the Vatican as an independent city. As a result it has a great many churches for a city of its size. We walked around and took in the exterior of most of them, but didn’t bother to go inside any of them. We often debate paying the admission fees when they are in place for the churches. It is obvious that the maintenance costs for these great buildings must be extraordinary, but we have been in so many now that we usually don’t bother going in when it costs money.
The cathedral in Salzburg reflecting the Italian influence of the Vatican which controlled the city for much of its history. Another of the churches at the end of the very posh shopping street that goes thru town.
The highlight of the day was lunch. Ton had told me that she missed German dumplings so I had picked out a restaurant that was famous (on Trip Advisor!) for its huge bread dumplings. When we arrived they seated us at a table for 8 and said they would be seating another group with us. Luckily for us they were two lovely couples, and a very well behaved dog. I was confused at first because some of their conversation was in German, and then they would switch to proper British accented English. It turns out the older of the two couples were an English-Austrian couple, and the other couple was their daughter who had grown up in England but married a German and lived in Munich. So we had the best of all worlds as they could coach us thru the food and the beer. We had a great time talking to them and helping celebrate the fathers birthday. The food was good, the beer was good, and the company was great. The perfect formula for a memorable meal.
The interior of the restaurant we had our lunch in.
During the conversation they learned Ton was from Thailand, and they laughed and said their dog was originally from Thailand. They had gone on vacation there and the dog was a street dog that hung around the apartment they were using as their base. Over the couple of weeks they were visiting they fell in love with the dog and figured out how to bring her home with them. Her name is now Lucky (actually the German equivalent of lucky that I’ve already forgot.) Ton was tickled to meet another Thai at our lunch, even if she couldn’t talk.
Ton was really taken with this sculpture on the outside of the Cathedral. It was entitled the Cloak of Conscience.
As we were walking around we saw several works of art that we really enjoyed. They varied from the very serious and moving to whimsical and cute.
These two sculptures were part of a series. They were entitled the Man on a Ball, and the Women in a Wall.
We had spent our entire day on the rich side of the river so after lunch we crossed over to the working class side of the river. Historically the ruling class lived on one side of the river, and the workers lived on the other side of the Salzach River. So the side with all of the monuments feels quiet and touristy, and the working class side now feels modern and bustling.
The river today divides the historical preserved side of the city from the modern commercial side.
Our last stop was the gardens that surround the town hall. It was a little late in the year, but there were still some flowers looking a little worst for wear.
Part of the Mirabell Gardens.
Our last stop was the Gnome Gardens. Their were originally 21 Gnomes carved out of stone and placed in the gardens in the 1600’s. In the early 1800’s they were sold off to individuals. The city has been trying to reacquire them and at this point has managed to regain 18.
Today was another long driving day in bad weather. All together we covered nearly 400km’s (around 250 miles). The trip was all on the autobahn. The only issue today was it rained pretty much all day, sometimes heavily. Despite that we arrived at the Stellplatz (RV park) in Salzburg about 2:00.
We are about 15 to 20 minutes by bus from the center of Salzburg. The debate we had when we arrived was whether to head downtown today or wait for tomorrow. That debate was ended by a sudden downpour that told us to wait for tomorrow. About an hour later the rain let up and we decided to head out to a mall we saw driving in.
What we thought was a mall was a bunch of wholesale stores for different fashion labels. We quickly realized it was not for retail customers, but for buyers. On the way back we noticed two other large building that also contained wholesale shops for clothes. So I guess our non-descript Stellplatz is in the center of the fashion design center for Austria.
We walked back to the Stellplatz, and enjoyed watching the arrivals of a bunch of our fellow RV’ers. It is always fun to watch people arriving and parking their RV’s for the night. Even though it is late September and the weather is pretty poor by 5 o’clock the Stellplatz was full, and people were improvising overflow parking.
Tomorrow we are heading into Salzburg for the day rain or shine. Ton is really looking forward to comparing Austrian potato dumplings with their German cousins!
Another day more or less in transit. This is an unusual trip for us as we are spending the first few days focusing on covering ground to get to where we want to start really looking for adventures. Ton saw we were passing by Stuttgart and told me there was a major US Army Garrison there and she wanted to use big American washing machines. So our first priority today was laundry, with some shopping for American stuff in the military stores on the base. These long trips have a different rhythm than one or two week vacations.
When we arrived at the Army base I was startled to see a bunch of Marines running around. When I was a Marine we had very little presence in Europe, but that was a long time ago. Today there is a headquarters for US Marine Forces Europe and Africa right next door to where we were washing our clothes. Somehow seeing the young men and women from the service I served in gave me a good feeling and brought back very pleasant memories.
Herenberg was a pretty sleepy little town, but it did have a nice square. The church in the background had the onion dome roof that seems to be common in this area.
It took a few hours to take care of everything, and we headed for a parking area in a small town near the base. We got the next to last spot in the Stellplatz so we have electricity for François tonight. Our neighbor is a friendly Brit who told us he loved traveling around the western US, particularly Montana and Wyoming.
Ton liked this list of services from the barber shop on the town square.
After we got settled in we decided to head into town to look for some German staples that we liked from our previous trip. The town is cute and has some nice half timbered houses, but overall was pretty sleepy. We found the Lidl Grocery and now our refrigerator is truly stuffed with a mix of French, German, and American favorites to tide us over for a couple of weeks.
We had visited Strasbourg on a previous trip and had really enjoyed it despite the weather being really poor. We decided to give it another look today despite the weather forecast calling for rain.
A statue to Guttenberg the inventor of the printing press. The inscription on the book he is carrying says “And there was light”.
We woke up a little late to some rain tapping on the roof of François, and by the time we got organized to leave it was 10:00. The drive to Strasbourg was 400km’s (about 250 miles) but the road was largely good without too many small villages to slow us down so we made good time and arrived at the campground in the city about 2:30. We were a little surprised to end up in the overflow parking for the night as the main campground was full. As we were having a late lunch Ton and I were entertained by watching a Dutch couple shift their motorhome from spot to spot around the overflow trying to get their satellite dish to work. By the time we left for town they still had not found a spot where they could connect.
Three of the canals in Strasbourg merging. The towers were part of the original fortification system for the town.
The walk to town was about a mile and a half along a nice canal. The old part of Strasbourg is built on an island in the middle of I’ILL River with several canals splitting the island on one end. It is very picturesque. It also has a beautiful collection of half timbered homes.
Some of the half timbered homes along the bank of the I’ILL River.
The cathedral is very elaborate, and one of the larger ones we have seen. While we were walking around it the bells were sounding for quite an extended period of time. In fact they were going for so long that Ton thought it might have been a recording and not the actual bells.
The main entrance to the Cathedral in Strasbourg.
We spent quite a while walking around downtown enjoying the sites and watching the people, which is always fun. Strasbourg is the major city in Alsace and this region has always been a border region between Germany and France, and has changed hands multiple times in the last 300 years ago. It is an interesting mixture of German and French culture and food.
Ton really liked the cute animals representing the types of meat you could get in the butchers shop below.
After a couple of hours of walking around we decided it was time to head back to François for dinner. We got back just as the rain arrived so today turned out really well.
Every French city seems to have a carousel in the downtown. This one dated to 1904.
We also watched the Dutch couple move their motorhome one last time in an attempt to connect to the satellite. As we went to the shower we noticed their dish was locked up, and their TV was glowing inside so the 5th time was the charm for them.
First a disclaimer, the picture at the top is from our archives, we both forgot to take any photos today. As you can tell we have moved on from Migennes. Amazon came thru as promised and delivered the power cord for Greta Garmin, so we are now able to once again navigate in Europe.
Today was planned as a logistics day. We wanted to go to one of the two Costco’s in France to stock up with food for the trip. After that we planned to go to a cellular phone store to get a cell phone with a French number so that we can call locally if we need to.
I was a little worried about Costco as it is on the outskirts of Paris, and well traffic in Paris is famous for not being friendly for tourists. I don’t know if we were lucky or the Costco is far enough out in the suburbs, but the traffic was pretty reasonable and we arrived about 2 hours after we left Migennes. The next two hours were spent in shopping bliss as we bought enough stuff to fill all of the cabinets in François and the refrigerator also. We should have enough food to last weeks, but we will probably have to swing thru a German grocery store to pick up some favorites in the next couple of days. The Costco is an interesting combination of staples from the US, and really interesting local products but on a Costco scale. We bought a few old favorites, and a bunch of interesting European food.
I picked a campground that was about an hour from Costco in the general direction of Germany. When we arrived it was in a very small town in the middle of the country. The app I use for picking where to stay at night said that it had a 160 spots. When we rolled in they were mostly occupied by permanent looking trailers, but there were a few spots for transit RV’s like us.
The owner/manager showed us down a road to 5 or 6 unoccupied spots, I asked Electric? in my best French accent (Electrique?), she hit me with a blast of French and pointed towards the back of the spot, jumped on her bike and rode off. We parked François and I headed to the back of the spot where I found the strangest and most dilapidated looking electric box I have seen in Europe (or North America for that matter). Thinking it must be abandoned I went poking around for a newer one, but ended back at the strange box. Crossing my fingers I cleared the cobwebs away and plugged in, and went to check. The bad news was that of course it didn’t work, the good news is it didn’t short out François’ electrical system. There were a few unmarked buttons on the box so I pushed them randomly, but this did not deliver any electricity. I then went and looked at the other spots to see if there was anything more promising, but they all had the same box. I even threw the power cord over some bushes to try one of the other boxes, but no joy. So back up front to talk to the owner/manger, I again got a very animated and lengthy explanation in French, all of the time with a nice smile, but I was no more wise about the electrical situation, than when I walked up there. Thinking that my inability to speak French in France was my problem not hers I decided to trudge back to our site to see if I could figure out some options, one of which was giving up on electricity for the night.
This was the power cord on our original pitch. Not a very inviting place to plug in, and it did not work.
While I was up having my unproductive walk, Ton had joined in the hunt for a suitable electrical box. When I returned she pointed at a box across from where we were parked, and told me to try that one. I had looked at it earlier and to my eye it didn’t look any more promising than the three I had already tried and told her so. Ton than decided that we would go up one more time to talk to the manager/owner. This time Ton asked the question and received the same enthusiastic answer in French. I looked at her and asked if she understood, and of course she didn’t.(Despite having a degree in French from the finest University in Thailand, but that is another story.) But Ton then asked if she could show us, and the lady said sure, so off the three of us set. As we walked back down to François I kept apologizing but she told me it was no problem (I think, but whatever she said she said it nicely). When we got to François she pointed at the same spot Ton had earlier told me to try, which made Ton very happy. We now have electricity.
Ton had identified this box as having potential, but I did not agree. After consulting with the manager of the campground, this is the one she pointed to and it did work shockingly.
We never did get the cell phone plan, but that is another story of failure on my part that can go untold.
We are still in Migenness waiting for our power cord to arrive and recovering from jet lag. Each trip it seems to take just a little bit longer to get over the jet lag. As much as we don’t want to admit it we are getting older.
Today will be short and sweet as we did not do much. I am still falling asleep early and waking up early and Ton is still falling asleep late and waking up late, though she did fess up to not wanting to get out of the warm bed delayed her getting up this morning. The temperatures have been in the high 40’s overnight gradually warming up to about 70 during the day, which is nice except François is a little cold in the mornings. While we are talking about the weather, it is going to put a crimp in our travels. Everywhere we want to visit between here in France and Zagreb in Croatia is supposed to have rain for the next ten days! We finally decided that we are Oregonians and a little rain is not going to hold us back.
We had a couple of short walks today, and that is about the extent of our activity so there is not much else to talk about. Hopefully the power cord will arrive tomorrow as promised by Amazon and we can get on our way.
There is not a lot to talk about today. Ton and I are both jet lagged but in different ways. I am falling asleep very early in the evening around 8 am and waking very early. Ton is having a hard time falling asleep and ended up waking about 10:30.
Since I was up early and didn’t want to bother Ton I went for a walk into town. It turned out it was market day. Ton usually loves these town markets so I thought I would go back to François and see if she wanted to go. She was still asleep so I went for another walk.
Later in the afternoon we both headed into town, but by then the market was closed, and you would not know it had been bustling with vendors in the morning, just a small cleaning crew putting the finishing touches on washing the floor.
We know we are back in France when we see our first Petanque game.
After a visit to the local Aldi to buy some more groceries we followed the canal the town is famous for and came across a group of seniors playing Petanque. Ton tried to take a stealth photo of the group but one gentleman saw her and began teasing her in a friendly way, until he realized she did not understand his French and it was all wasted on her, so he gave a big Gallic shrug and turned back to the game.
We ended our lazy day with a nice pasta meal, and an early bed time for me.
We have returned to the campground that we spent our last night in France in June. It is located pretty close to where we store François, and we really like the people. Our loyalty was more than paid back as you will read later.
This trip had a little more adventure to it than normal, but nothing too dramatic. We decided to try a slightly different route to Paris than in the past. We had been flying a shuttle to Seattle and taking a direct flight to Paris from Seattle. Portland has a direct flight to Amsterdam, and then you connect to Paris. Since it is still two legs we decided to try leaving from our hometown. Everything was on track until the Friday before we left we received an email from KLM saying they had canceled the flight from Amsterdam to Paris and we should contact Delta to get a new flight. I called Delta and the lady who answered said that KLM had not notified them that they had canceled the flight, I told her I had an email from KLM telling me, she asked if I could wait on hold while she called KLM to see what was going on. After about 30 minutes on hold she came back on the line and confirmed that the flight was canceled, and asked if we would mind being rebooked on Air France a couple of hours later, which was better than I expected. The slight delay however, meant though that we could not make it to Sens in time to pick up François, so we ended up in a hotel near the airport for the first night.
Then after we unpacked I realized I had left the power cord for Greta the Garmin at home in Oregon which is a huge problem because as much as I complain about her she is our second most important tool for getting around over here. We visited 5 stores in an attempt to find a replacement with no luck. Ton confirmed it was available on Amazon so as it was getting late we decided to try to figure out how to get an Amazon account set up in Europe and order one for delivery here. When we checked into the campground I explained our problem to Leo the campground manager, and he immediately volunteered to order one using his Amazon account. So our new power cable should be here on Saturday, and once again the wonderful people at Confluence Campground in Migennes have made us very happy.
The trip home was completely uneventful, with every flight leaving and arriving on time. Just like you like it to be.
Our first trip in two years was a success. During the 59 days we were there we covered almost exactly 6000 kilometers (about 4,000 miles), visited three countries and added one new country to our list in Portugal.
We had target three places for this trip. We really enjoyed Brittany, and Galicia. Portugal was also good but as we talked about earlier, it was closer to OK than wow. Maybe our expectations were too high. There were places we enjoyed particularly Porto. But there were not too many really memorable experiences. We might have to give Portugal another look in the future to try to get another feel for the country.
We are taking a break from Europe until September and have no specific plans for the US, but who knows what might come up. Until then see you.
The cover photo is a greatest hit picture not from Sens. Today was a simple drive up to Sens where we took care of a short list of shopping we wanted to do for some friends, washed François, and returned him to Eurocampingcars.
After that we hung around the hotel and had some Chinese for dinner. The last day is always kind of boring and a let down after having been on the move for a couple of months. But we are already looking forward to the next trip which we are thinking will be Croatia and Greece.
Today was packing and final preparation for turning François in tomorrow. I went for a quick walk in the morning down to the canal to see what boats had put in for the night. There was an American flagged boat, and a New Zealand flagged boat side by side. So there are a lot of different ways for foreigners to see Europe.
After packing Ton asked if we could do a shopping trip so that she could try to find a couple of gifts for friends. So we prepared François for travel and headed into a mall in Auxerre. The shopping trip was a bit of a bust as she didn’t find what she was looking for, so we will try again tomorrow in Sens.
The rest of the day was about preparing for the trip home and eating huge meals as we tried to empty the fridge. We did find time to relax in the evening with a good bottle of wine from Southwest France.
