As we set off from Fréjus
(near enough to St Tropez to feel the wealth) for Croatia, via northern Italy,
the sun came out to bid us farewell and remind us that sun-seeking is a fickle,
and largely pointless exercise on a road trip like this! Still, it was pleasant
enough to see blue skies and feel the warmth as we headed east along the
Autoroute towards the border.
We were looking forward to a
number of things in Italy – first amongst which we were soon reminded of, as we
hove into the fourth pay station on a not very long stretch of French motorway.
Designed, we’re sure, to soften the blow of each transaction and assuming
drivers are not keeping a running total in their heads. As we zoomed across the borderless
frontier with Italy, we knew we wouldn’t be pestered with a toll both until we
actually got off the Autostrada – a much better model we feel.
As well as the absence of
pesky toll-booths to slow us down, we were immediately struck by the high
quality of the motorways in northern Italy, compared to our experience in the
south and Sicily a couple of years ago. And so with not much to worry about
(apart from a rash of very impatient Swiss drivers who make Italians look
positively sedate, hanging on our rear bumper and flashing their headlights) we
ate up the miles, enjoying the speed with which Croatia was drawing closer.
Lunch saw us pulled up in a
very swish parking area, with a grassed and seated terrace overlooking the Med
– again in stark contrast to our litter-strewn lay-by stops in the Italian
south.
Knowing that we wanted to
get the trip from France to Croatia under our belts in no more than a couple of
stopovers, we drove on a bit later than usual, safe in the knowledge that with
a good dozen ACSI sites clustered around the south end of Lake Garda we’d
easily find a piazolla waiting for us…
Maybe it was because we had
opted for the smallest site, or just that it’s a very busy destination (the
streets of Peschiera del Garda had been thronged with tourists as we headed to
‘Camping Butterfly’) but as we pulled up at the entrance, we were greeted by a
friendly security guard, telling us that there was no room at the inn… After a
quick burst of Mr B’s idiosyncratic Italian, pleading for even a small space,
he relented and stated that there ‘may’ be a very small space left, but that
we’d better talk to reception.
Girding our loins for being
moved on (our van, after all, is not exactly small) we had a very pleasant
exchange in Italian and English with the reception staff who explained that we
had better go and look first as the pitch was ‘a space between two houses’. And
sure enough, it was! It looked as if we’d just about get the van in, leaving
just enough space to open the doors and get out! So, preferring a tight squeeze
over an evening campsite-finder challenge, we went back to reception for
checking in.
As it’s a while since we’d
stopped in Italy, we’d forgotten what a love of paperwork can feel like when
you’re tired and waiting to settle down for the night. After handing over both
passports, our ACSI card and payment with confirmation that we were only staying
for the one night, we received in turn: a page of rules; a map of the site; a
sticker for the van; a gate pass (each); a bracelet (each); a receipt for the
pitch, and a separate receipt for the tourist tax. We were then released to
park up the van and enjoy what was left of the evening.
Our assessment of our
ability to squeeze the van in was bang on the money – had we a crane to simply
lift us into place. Instead, after a scary five minutes of inching forwards and
backwards to get the angle right (during which we were watched in what we took
to be a mix of admiration and outright fear by the diners in the restaurant
whose terrace we were using as a turning bay), we eventually straightened up in
close proximity to our neighbours in their ‘houses’!
Grateful that as we were
only stopping overnight, small was indeed beautiful in the case of our new
pitch, we wandered off to have a look at the lake. By now the clouds we thought
we had left behind had caught us up, so we prayed for better weather the next
day so we could take some pictures of what looked to be some very pretty
scenery across lake Garda.
After a very peaceful
night’s sleep we woke to a blue-ish sky and promise of a good day’s driving.
Popping back to the lake to take some pics, we decided that as touristy as Peschiera
del Garda clearly was, even this early in the season, lake Garda and its
surroundings would be well worth a re-visit.
As we’d broken the back of
the distance across Italy in one day, we decided to stop in Trieste just before
the Slovenian border, to double check on all the rules for entering and driving
in a Euro and Schengen country (Slovenia) and a non-Euro, non Schengen country
(Croatia).
After a relatively short
drive (compared to the day before) we arrived on the outskirts of Trieste at
our selected campsite, Baia Camping near Sistiana, with plenty of time to get
registered, choose a pitch on a wooded site that overlooked the bay (there were
many!), and take a walk along the very pleasant walking trail adjacent to the
site. The walk was well marked, and although we knew we would have to turn
round and come back to the site on the same route, we were sure that we would
be back to the small gate to the path, before it was locked at seven.
Returning to the gate with
half an hour to spare, we were mildly irked to find the gate locked, until we
remembered we were in Italy where, like in Spain, times should be taken as
broadly indicative, and no more… Still, we had plenty of time to retrace our
steps and go the long way round to the front entrance and we arrived at the van
with the evening still ahead of us.
Using the extra time wisely,
we boned up on the requirements to get across the Italian/Slovenian and
Slovenian/Croatian borders, deciding that we didn’t need a vignette in
Slovenia, as our HGV classification required us to pay tolls as we went (from
which we deduced that we paid nothing unless we used the motorways and that we
must join HGV toll queues and pay HGV fees) and that in Croatia, we were
looking at a straightforward classification based pay-as-you-go model for
motorways only.
As we settled in for the
night after doing our homework, we marvelled again at the abundant bird life in
mainland Europe, as we were serenaded by birdsong both familiar and new.
Drifting into sleep, we were abruptly woken at midnight by another familiar
sound of summer, the steady 120bpm bass rhythm of a nearby Italian disco. This we
also remembered from our last trip to Italy and reaching for the earplugs, Mrs
B snoozed and Mr B played ‘guess the trance track’ until 4.00am, when even the
birds seemed to utter a collective sigh of relief!
Waking with gritty eyes at
our 8.00am alarm (we’d decided to get an early start) we decamped and set off
for a stock-up at a nearby supermarket, as Mrs B’s lasting memories of the
former Yugoslavia recalled a need to stock up on fresh veg, as well as her more
recent love affair with Italian greenery and a desire to buy any available that
you’d be hard pushed to find in the UK, including the delicious agretti (monk’s
beard or soapwort) and ciccoria, a relative of dandelion, both in season, and
both soon in our shopping bags.
And so, after negotiating
our way along the coast route around the beautiful Trieste and towards the
border, we looked forward to putting our border-prep homework to the test. Well,
it all seemed so simple in the planning, and sure enough, we drove across the
Slovenian border unchallenged. And what a beautiful, densely wooded and
well-kept country Slovenia is. More than a little embarrassed that we were just
using it as a transit route on this occasion, we determined to learn more and
maybe stop off on the way back.
After only 45 minutes or so
(taking the free, non-Motorway route) we arrived at border control. As we
pulled up to the queue of cars and campervans waiting to enter Croatia, Mr B
decided to deploy his knowledge of driving in Slovenia to drive down the
(empty) lane under a picture of a bus, drawing some startled glares from
queuing motorists, and stern if bemused looks from the border guards as we waited
patiently to be treated as the HGV we were. Some very clear signals from the
guards soon had us reversing back up the queue to join it at the back, this
time drawing amused looks from our fellow motorists!
Fortunately, by the time we
eventually got to the passport control booth, the guards had changed and we
were waved through without the need to explain why we had undertaken such an
odd manoeuvre!
Driving across the border
and heading for the Istrian coast, the very well maintained roads of Slovenia
were replaced with more rustic versions, although the beautiful countryside
continued all the way to the coast. Stopping only to withdraw some Croatian Kune
from a cash machine, and taking a quick walk around a nearby supermarket to
marvel and the amazingly low prices, we arrived at our first destination in
Croatia, Camping Polidor, bathed in bright sunlight and nestling in woods on
the Dalmation coast under a brilliant blue sky – we’d not only made it but the
weather had clearly been waiting for us!
S&J.
No comments:
Post a Comment