Culture, In Venice?

Sunday 22nd July

Ok so it was halfway through my Abi’s trip and we’d only done beach and bars. As you can probably guess a cultural trip to Venice was on the cards. Although I say cultural, it didn’t quite turn out that way. Still it did not involve any sand so it was definitely a different day for them

We cycled from the campsite to the ferry port. I thought it best NOT to tell the girls it was a good 10km. After all I’m sure they wanted to get their money’s worth from the bike hire, and I’ve never been a fan of waiting on the bus in traffic, I always end up being stood next to the bloke talking to himself who has forgotten to wear deodorant. Anyway 45 minutes of cycling later we found ourselves waiting for us boat to take us to Venice. 

The first boat to arrive was the boat which took the long route, via Murano and Trepporti but as I had never been this way and I had been told it was pretty, we decided to jump on it. 1hr and 15minutes later I think we all regretted this hasty choice. I have since decided that the quick boat offered me all of pretty views I needed. And usually with a lot more room to move around. The boat was packed and because it was so packed, I guess I should be grateful everyone had remembered to use ‘Sure Antiperspirant’ as the boat smelled quite fresh. However we were forced to listen to the tales a Canadian dad was telling his son ‘Michael.’ Michael asked some very intriguing questions, such as ‘What’s that wooden thing over there?’ and ‘why’s there a building on that island’, and ‘why is it falling down?’ I must admit if I hadn’t of been worried someone would have stolen my seat, I would have been sat on the edge of it for the full hour and a half!

Anyhow getting off on the northern side of Venice we all needed a wee so off we went in search of a place to relieve our bladders. Turns out public toilets are very hard to find in Venice, VERY. Thanks to the wonders of sign postage though we stumbled across a Venetian Hospital. It looked dilapidated in parts; it had an actual bar inside and about 20 more cats than I think hospitals should be allowed to have but not a toilet in sight! After a looooooooooot of searching, and back tracking, we eventually found a toilet and we could start to enjoy us afternoon in Venice. What a shame I didn’t take a picture of it.

Venezia Ospedale (Venice Hospital) It looks a bit like BirchIll :-)

Lots of wandering around, lots of posing for pictures on bridges. We managed to find a random church which looked pretty enough for us to have pictures with. I wish I could tell you the name, but I can’t. Trying to find anyplace which looked even slightly familiar we stumbled across a square with a little band playing and a group of local children playing football.  

Some Church

A bridge? In Venice? Really?

I don't think they knew any Dolly Parton

Turned out the square was quite important for our day in Venice because Vicky got her first picture of a gondola driver, stripy top, hat and all! Never one to waste money on frivolous things we got ourselves a couple of slices of pizza and kept exploring the city. Saw Rialto Bridge, Bridge of Sighs, St Marks Square blah blah blah and I did my best tour guide impersonation, despite knowing far too little about the place to actually be employed as a tour guide. I think if people could actually understand what I say, I’d be good at that job.  At some point whilst I was doing this I had started to develop a craving for a nutella crepe. And it was getting stronger!

I had to have one.

Searching around Venice my need for a crepe had spread into Abi and Vicky and we all wanted our fix. It took us an hour. An hour of walking around every back street asking every food seller if they did crepes until finally out search was over. I learnt something that day, Venetian’s don’t make crepes in the summer, totally bonkers idea to me; apparently visitors to Venice are only able to eat crepes in the winter. It’s no wondering the countries on its knees. It’s bad enough there are hardly any Chinese restaurants over here but to not be allowed to eat crepes in the summer, I think it’s scandalous. Sadly we never got a crepe that day (or since actually). We wandered of back towards our ferry home, buying tacky souvenirs along the way, preparing ourselves for our 10km treck back to the campsite before we would collapse in bed, exhausted. It’s amazing what a bit of culture can do for you. And I’m sure I would have thought it all worth it if I had had a lovely nutella crepe

Back at the Airport Again

Wednesday18th July

OK so I’ve been back home for a few days and as great as it was to come home, I’ll be happy to be back in sunshine and away from the cold and the rain. I’ve got Abi and her friend Vicky coming back with me for a few days so they’re all excited.  I’ve decided that I’m not going to rabbit on about all that I did when I was back at home because it would take too long but just so I don’t forget here’s my little summary.

• Had pudding chips and peas

• Played with DJ

• Trimmed my beard (and my hair)
• Ate curry

• Saw Family
• Drank Red Wine (without my red wine drinking vest)

• Sat outside, in the cold

• Ate Bacon

• Ate Gammon
• Smelt the Chippy

• Played tourist In Manchester

• Bought some clothes that fit
• Left a mannequin naked

• Ate Thai belly pork mmmmmmmm
• Had more curry

• Caught up with friends

• Had a shave (a real one)

• Had Birthday cake and coffee

• Pedalled in the rain

• NO CHINESE!
• Graduated (WooHoo!)
• Slept, only a little

Ok I think that’s about it. I’ve had a great time at home, but didn’t get to see everyone or even enough of the people I did see.

It’s a Long Way Back from Ljubljana (But Not THAT Long)

Monday 9^th July

So the sun Rose on the Monday morning and signalled the start of out last morning in Slovenia. I will not pretend I wasn’t disappointed, by the afternoon I would be back on my site cleaning up caravans after dirty holidays makers had gone home. OK so the majority o f my customers are clean but you know I still had to go back to work. And I had become quite fond of Slovenia.

Camp Site Check out was painless and we even managed to acquire two free bananas from the hotel breakfast bar. I only wish that the breakfast had paper cups next to the coffee as I was dying to have a nice cup of Slovenian coffee again, but alas this was not meant to be. I would have to be contented with my banana and can of coke.

Apparently Slovenia is one of the smallest countries in Eastern Europe and has one of the highest numbers of castles (or Grads) per square kilometre or something like that. Heading back to Italy early we wanted to visit some of the famous castles which are supposedly dotted around Slovenia. We decided on going to the Predjama Castle, simply because it was the first one we passed and that was enough reasons for us really. The Grad was first mentioned in 1274. The Grad was built in a natural Arch of the rock in order to make it even more difficult to attack. After the 16 KM of winding country lanes, that go up and down the mountain side, to get to it from the avtocesta (Slovenian motorway to you and me) I think any would be attacker would be far too knackered to be in any fit state to attack the place. I’d of thought the owners would have liked to have their Grad close to the motorway junction, I know I would.

Legend has it that the owner of the Grad, Knight Erazem Lueger, fled to there after he’d upset a few people. It is said that he killed some important guy in another army, because this bloke had slagged off one of his friends. Finding safety in Predjama, Lueger just had to wait, and see what his enemies would do next. Turns out they came after him and held the Grad under siege for a year and a day (quite poetic). During this time the attacking army had no idea that there was a secret tunnel out of the Grad which led to a local village so that fresh supplies could be sought. Lueger would taunt his attackers by throwing fresh cherries at them, a little bit of a waste I feel. Anyway this couldn’t go on forever. The attacking forces bribed one of Lueger's servants into telling them when he would be using the little boy’s room. From what I understand the toilet facilities in those days were a little different and that this was the only part of the Grad which wasn’t impenetrable. One quick shot with a canal and Lueger was literally caught with his trousers down. I’m sure that there is more to the story then that but those are the funny bits I understand.

Ok the Castle was impressive on the rocks but we had no time to explore it properly. We had also run out of time to go and see some of the caves which apparently are the biggest in Europe. From what I hear there are tones of caves around here so I don’t feel like I’ve missed out on them, after all a cave is just a big hole underground isn’t it. The highlight of our drive home I felt was going through all the little villages dotted along the hillside. My favourite being Zagon, because I think it sound funny. As you can tell the town name signs are displayed much more prettily there than they are in the UK, so it obviously deserved a picture.

Zagon SO should be the Capital!

The rest of the Slovenian side of our journey was uneventful, the mountains that had ‘embraced us’ for the last 48 hours disappeared and before we knew it we had crossed the border and found ourselves back in the flats of north eastern Italy. I was almost dozing off when we noticed a sign for Prosecco.

For those of you not familiar, Prosecco is a dry sparkling white wine which is the Italian version of Champagne. I must admit, I’ve become fond of a glass of Prosecco every now and again but drinking it from a plastic glass which the clubs here only use doesn’t quite fit with the image I’d like to portray. Anyway we drove through Prosecco hoping to find a little sign we could have our pictures taken with. Alas it wasn’t to be and we settles for seeing a homemade sign directing us to a vineyard and a check in on Face book (ooh how it has changed our lives).

OK I’ve blabbered on about rubbish for as long as I can now. The rest of our journey consisted of watching the KM decrease on the autostrada (Italian motorway) and passing the signs of towns with funny names. My personal favourite is ‘Barry’ and I will be spending a day there, or at least an hour there at some point before I leave Italy.

I’ve REALLY enjoyed Slovenia (best place yet so far) so here are a few things I’ve learnt or noticed whilst being there:

• Bridges can be close together
• Wifi here is cheaper and better than Italy
• They have some really cool grafiti 
• Sometimes, 1 mattress just isn't enough
• Bicycle hire here is cheaper than Italy
• Some toilets here us a ‘tap’ flush method instead of the button. It means if you have a really big ‘deposit’ for the toilet you can choose to leave the tap on longer and so preventing floaters. I think this idea should be spread worldwide immediately!
• Slovenian Wine tastes good
• Zagon Is my favourite
• You dont always need a map to find places, but it does help
• Slovenian Beer tastes good
• Balkan mixed grill is an acquired taste (I know I originally said I liked it but the morning after I’ve had second thoughts
• Slovenian for thank you is hvala
• Slovenian urine smells much the same as Italian urine, which smells much the same as French urine, which smells incrediblely like English urine
• Next time I come I will bring a razor!
• Slovenian for your welcome is prosim
• Slovenia is underrated
• I want to come back!

How Did Trieste Become Ljubljana?

Saturday 7^th July

OK so this entry is testament to what happens when I have an idea and instead of having someone to reign me in, I have someone equally as excitable. Let me set the scene. Last Wednesday I had a conversation with my friend, Alison, about what plans we had for our day off, Sunday. After a few suggestions we decided on a day trip to Trieste and a little visit to some caves located nearby. Since Alison had volunteered to drive we had no reason to check train times and I thought what a lovely day we will have. Apparently Trieste is a lovely sea side boarder town, and I’ve always been fond of an afternoon beer by the sea :- ).

It was this comment ‘boarder town’ which got me thinking. Maybe if we had more time we could cross the border and visit our neighbouring country, Slovenia, because ......... well ............ eerrrrmmmmmm ...... well ....... errrrrmmmmmm ........ because I just hadn’t been there yet. Maybe if we stayed overnight then Alison could have a drink, and we could stay in a new city. What a great night we’ll have I thought as I congratulated myself on being so damn clever. When I mentioned this to Alison she shared my enthusiasm and that was that, Slovenia would be happening this weekend! Looking at where we could actually stay we had two drivable choices. A big port town called Koper and a smaller seaside town callen Piran. Decisive as ever we chose Piran, as it looked nicer and the hostel was closer to the city centre. Unfortunately as I was trying to book the hostel my internet connection was having an ‘off’ day and I resided to the fact that I would have to book the hostel using the free wifi at the bar across from my camp site, later that night. Turned out this lack of connection was an act of god.

You see I then received a phone call from Alison asking me how my Saturday was looking, quiet as ever in case you wondered,  and suggesting that if we were going for 1 night, then we could go for 2 nights instead and try to get up to the Capital ‘Ljubljana.’  So that’s how a simple day trip to some caves near to Trieste turned into a full blown weekend city break to Slovenia. Don’t you love it when a plan comes together!

One unplanned night out, a massive lack of sleep, two hung over people and a pit stop for hangover food later I found myself embarking on a 3 hour chauffer driven ride to the Capital of Slovenia. Kept company by our friendly Sat Nav lady, I think I’ll refer to her as Sheila. I’d like to say she was very useful but she wasn’t. She kept taking us in the wrong direction and she wouldn’t even accept that Slovenia was a country, never mind that we wanted to visit there, with her direction. Still I guess I can’t complain. We had only decided less than 24 hours earlier that we wanted to go to Ljubljana. I guess she just couldn’t keep up.

Is It Just Me or Does This Remind Anyone Else of Channel 4?

The drive was otherwise pretty uneventful. Apart from when we drove past Ljubljana, think we blinked and missed it. Nothing to do with my directing skills. We had planned to camp as we had been recommended a camp site close to the city centre, but in our hurry we had not contacted them to book, or even looked at a route planner to see how we would find it. We decided that we would just stop at the first place we found. After driving through a lot of communist style tower blocks I began to realise why I had never met anyone who had visited this city before. The outskirts of the city weren’t nice, but practical, one can only assume. A little concerned about the lack of camping related signs we began to worry that we would not find ANYWHERE to pitch our tents. As if by magic we saw a sign for a camp site. It wasn’t the one we had intended staying on but it had a picture of a tent so we thought ‘it’s meant to be.’ Turns out after following the signs for about 5 minutes, the signs decided to play hide and seek, and we were back returning to our state of slight worry, without a campsite to lay our weary heads. Second act of god of the week is about to occur. The original site we had been recommended to stay on began to appear in the windscreen. I don’t think we could have planned it any better.

Checked in, tents erected and pastures new explored our thoughts turned to our stomachs. And the BBQ we wanted to have that night to fill them. It was time to go look for a supermarket. We were just like kids in a sweet shop when we got to the supermarket, Skittles, Angel Delight, Toberlarone and Lion Bars; we had to have them all! The supermarkets in Slovenia are so much better than in Italy, they sell things I want to buy. Things they sold were just a little more similar to what we can buy in the UK, you know like stuff to make Chinese food, and stuff to make Indian food and stuff to make Thai food. I think I could work in Slovenia, just a shame Euro Camp aren’t here anymore.

 Meat and salad bought we went home to cook it. Being the good law abiding Brits that we are, we abided by the camp sites rules to only BBQ in designated area, next to the shower block. We were the only ones who did this, everyone else sparked up outside their tent. They’re such rebels here! However it gave us chance to be a little more sociable and we met a nice Scottish / Canadian family who shared some of their local brew, and some of their stories on life. Lots of meat, some nice wine and mountains looking down over us, it’s fair to say, I liked Slovenia from that first night!

So the next day we wanted to head off and explore the city itself.  We had no idea what we expected to find and instead just hoped we would know when to actually get off the bus at the right place. Our experiences of driving through the city the day before had lowered are expectations drastically. My attempt at bus map reading had gone better than my attempts at Google map reading and we managed to leave the bus in the centre of town. Walking through the side streets we headed for the old town which we had overheard in reception earlier was the place to be.  We found that walking through the city the buildings seemed much less like breezeblock buildings and instead seemed to be rather charming. Each seemed to have its own unique sense of style and purpose. I think we may have judges Ljubljana a little too quickly last night.

Very Gaudi esque Don't You Think?

Turns out, that Ljubljana is set on the Ljubljanica River and is spanned by LOTS of bridges. Some fancy, some old and some just very breeze blockesque, but thankfully very few of those. The most famous being an unusual set up of 3 bridges very close together. These bridges called Tromostovje (literally means triple) Bridge was designed by some architect called ‘Joze Plecnik.’ I’ve never heard of him either but even by my unprofessional opinion, the man can design good bridges.

Where are Those Bridges?

There They Are!

Whilst walking around town we discovered that the Ljubljanica River had tourist boats which sailed through the city. Presented with such an opportunity we had no choice but to jump onboard and see how the city looked from the river which presumably used to the be an integral (and no doubt still is) lifeline for the city.

God Himself Could Not Sink This Ship!

So we’re sailing on us boat and comment on how nice it would be to have a nice cold beer whilst we sailed. This is when the 3^rd act of god occurred on our trip. The skipper opened a secret cupboard (ok not so secret but I did not know it was there) and began selling beer, wine and soft drinks; he really was a bloody nice fella.  Maybe the beer had gone straight to my head but these river folk people are very friendly. It seemed that each time we passed another boat at least 3 or 4 of the ships inhabitants would wave at us. You don’t get this on the metro in Manchester! 

Na zdravje (Good Health in Slovenian)

Our ship mates had also joined us in sampling a local beer and then the strangest thing happened. They all broke out into song, some Arabian sounding tune, and they all knew the words! We assumed they were Ukrainian and they were merely singing the Ukrainian version of Gloria Gaynor’s 1978 classic single, ‘I Will Survive.’ How else would a boat load of strangers suddenly burst into song, and a sing a sing that everyone knew at least some of the words to, some even knew the dance. Turns out we were wrong. They were part of a Turkish folk singing group on a tour of Europe and were playing Ljubljana that night. They even had a date planned for Venice. We soon discovered those nice friendly river folk happened to be merely members of this folk group. Still, all of the Slovenian people we met seemed very friendly and helpful, even if they don’t wave at random tourists passing on boats.

Iceberg Straight Ahead!

Back on dry land, it was time to fill our stomachs again as mine had long since been rumbling. Trying to decide on which place to stop at we found a cute little cafe/bar along the banks of the river and decided this was as good a spot as any. Turns out it was a fabulous spot, as we had just stumbled upon a Mexican place. Mmmmmm burritos, I do like you, I really wish I’d have eaten them more when I could have done; I must make up for that.

Something to do With Drug Availibility

Stomachs refilled and feeling more human it was time to get on a little train and ride up to the top of this big hill (Castle Hill) which stands over Ljubljana. The Hill is the place where Ljubljana Castle (or Grad in Slovenian) stands and the trip up there gave us some great views of the city and the surrounding mountains. The Castle had undergone a huge renovation and looks surprisingly modern. I was a little disappointed but I guess that if people still lived in Castles today then this is kind of what they would look like. 

Choo Choo Thomas

View From Thomas

Being a little sight seeinged to death we decided that the cocktail menu was just far too tempting. I opted for my first (and hopefully not my last) Slovenian take on the classic ‘Cosmo.’ I know it isn’t typical local brew but they did use Grey Goose Vodka, and you know what, they made it well. Sat in the middle of the castle courtyard, drinking my Slovenian Cosmopolitan it was hard to imagine just what had been in this castle before our cafe had arrived. Everything was so polished and cleaned it was hard to believe this land has been some kind of settlement since 1200 BC and that the Grad has stood there since 1112. They certainly know how to tart up their old building in Slovenia.

I like my Castles With a few More Cracks!

'Why did we ever stop drinking these?'

Feeling as though we had truly spent as long on our feet as possible it was inevitable what would come next. A Power nap! So back of to our tent we took ourselves and caught up on 40 winks. 2 hours or so later feeling a little more human we began to think of food again. Since the night before we’d BBQ’ed and today had feasted on Mexican we decided we should at least try some of the local cuisine. Sat in the campsite restaurant we order their finest house white Slovenian wine and began to ponder the menu. Filled with lots of pasta, pizza and stews we weren’t sure what to order. Then we found something we couldn’t pronounce and decided that could be a good thing to sample. Turns out after we checked with the waiter that this was a Balkan States version of a mixed grill meant to be shared by two. Sounds good we both thought. Once it arrived it definitely had a distinct Eastern European influence. The platter was filled with burgers, pork chops, what looked like sheek kebab, a huge sausage each (honestly it was like 40 cm long!) and lots of grilled aubergine, courgettes and peppers. I really enjoyed it although towards the end I did struggle to finish it.

Unfortunately that is where our Ljubljana adventure ended. We had to be up and on the road the following day before 8 am to get back to Italy in time for a full afternoon of work. These holiday things always end too quickly!

Our Grand Day Out

Thursday 5^th July

Having no arrivals and no departures I found myself with an unofficial day off. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Not quite sure what to do with myself, I decided I deserved a tent version of a duvet day. Biscuits, sheet (too hot for an actual duvet), fizzy pop and a good film, I had everything that I needed. So when my phone rang with an offer of a bus trip to anywhere I hoped that the adventure would be better than what did have planned for my day.

Liat had called and said she and Wafa were getting a bus to Jesolo and then getting a bus from there to anywhere. I decided that was too good an opportunity to miss and quickly paused my film, and finished the rest of my biscuits.

At the Bus station we decided we would jump on the bus to San Dona Di Piave, find ourselves a nice park, and drink the two cans of Beer we had just bought from Lidl, which presumable would be nice and warm by the time we got there. 

The bus drove and drove and drove and we saw little village after little village after little village. We finally realised we had arrived when we saw the train station (Praise the Lord for signs eh) but the bus seemed to continue onwards so we thought, let’s just see where we end up. That was our mistake. We rode the bus around the same round about what felt like 5 times and I was beginning to feel a little car sick, when our destination presented itself. We had finally arrived, at an out of town shopping centre, think Trafford Centre, but on a much smaller scale!

Proud of our selves for arriving at the retail park without any prior planning we posed for the obligatory pictures. We tried to get one of all three of us by asking, in our best pidgin Italian, a passing local if he would take our picture. Clearly our breathing was an imposition to this man and he huffed as he gave me the dirtiest look I’ve received since being in Italy.  Luckily a young couple who had seen his refusal offered their help. We posed and smiled and laughed when trying to explain that our camera was broke (screen didn’t work) but would still take pictures, so they pointed the lens in our general direction and hoped we would be in the shot.

Yes I was off to the beach

Much of the afternoon was spent in the shopping centre, looking at much of the same things we can buy in our own supermarkets close to our campsites and then utilising the best thing that MacDonald’s has to offer, free WiFi! Battery’s drained it was time for bus’s back and a quick powernap. Hardly as exciting a day as I had first envisaged, but we had a laugh.