Greece Wrap

We have left Greece after spending six and a half weeks there and thoroughly enjoyed it, the people where friendly, the food was delicious, plenty of places of places to stay and the weather was warm to hot. The traffic was relatively light but some of the roads although in reasonable condition were very narrow and windy, especially in the mountain regions and through the villages. We have become experts at eating and making Greek salads. It is a place that we would not hesitate to return to and recommend it to all motorhomers to visit.

Our journey to Trieste on the ferry was relaxing and we had a quiet day after getting up late. At about 5.30 in the afternoon we docked at Ancona to allow most of the people on board to disembark, this included the Simpson family who we said goodbye to and we watched as they drove off the boat and into the town. We had a lovely meal in the restaurant and took in a few hours’ sleep before we arrived at Trieste at the crazy hour of 2.30am. Luckily we were prepared and had a place in mind to sleep which was only 10 kms from the port, it was a Camper Contact place and proved to be very easy to find and very quiet.

Ljubljana

From the parking place where we slept the border to Slovenia was only a few kilometeres away and after buying our vignette [15€ for a week] we had a smooth drive on the motorway to Ljubljana. The caravan park is only 5 kms out of the city and it is a place we know quite well as in 2010 when we had mechanically problems with our motorhome and we spent nearly 2 weeks there. It also hold fond memories as it is where we met Helen and John, friends from Adelaide. I can still here Helen yelling out Aussie, Aussie, Aussie as we drove through the caravan park. The rest of the day we spent doing the clothes and bedding washing and catching up with the internet and recovering from the ferry trip.

Birthday Thurday 24^th July

This was Jenny’s birthday and it is a bit of Déjà vu as four years ago she also had her birthday here although today we had much better weather. Last time we were rained in and had to have a birthday dinner in the campsite restaurant which was still good. The day started on the internet with the children and the grandchildren on skype with birthday wishes.

Then it was on the bikes to the City Park, a large shopping complex not far from the centre of town. Our first port of call was the Desigual shop as Jenny has had her eye on a bag in their range, spying one in a shop in Germany and since has admired them whenever she saw them. It was easy to spot as we entered the mall and after some umming and ahhing Jenny picked out the bag for her birthday present.

As you can see in the photo it is very colourful with plenty of pockets. It was getting on to 2.30 and we were seeking out a place to have a light lunch, we ended up at the Baltic Express and after a friendly discussion with the waiter our light lunch turned into a large meat platter with bean sauce, bread, cheese and salad. The food was delicious and we didn’t quite finish it all, so this turned into a birthday lunch instead of tea.

We stopped off at the hardware store to look some vinyl for our bathroom and then headed to the centre of town. We had spent many days exploring Ljubljana on our first trip and the sight were very familiar to us but the centre of town still has a unique charm and a relaxed atmosphere. We spent our time drinking beer in a café next to the river, riding through the small backstreets and finished buying some cake for later and eating an ice-cream. We arrived back at the campsite at about 6.00 just before the rain came down, we were tired and spent a quiet night watching some TV and of course eating the cake.

Friday, Doctors visit again!!

Leaving the campsite around noon we drove to a nearby medical centre as Ewout was still having trouble with his ears. To keep it simple, after a long wait we saw a doctor who referred us to a specialist at the University Hospital and so we headed into town to sit and wait for again for the specialist. She was an attractive young woman who gave Ewout a thorough examination and after consulting her superior prescribed more tablets and an appointment to return on Monday for a hearing check. We had planned to leave Ljubljana that afternoon and head east but now had to change our plans, so after riding our bikes back to the camper we researched a place to stay for a night or two and programmed the GPS for a place north in a Valley, that seemed easy to achieve that late in the day. The drive through the countryside was every bit as lovely as we remembered and it wasn’t long before we were driving through a gorge with a crystal clear river running alongside the road. Arriving at the parking site called International Picnic ground Ewout walked up to the Café/reception area and was greeted with “ we don’t allow English people here but we do allow Dutch” in a jocular manner. So Ewout said “but do you allow Australians that speak Dutch” and soon the man was very friendly. He was only joking of course, and he was a friendly fellow who had obviously enjoyed having a chat with people. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay longer than one night as he was expecting a large group the next day for an international hill running competition and so the site was fully booked out. Oh well, it was a nice quiet place for a night and not expensive and tomorrow we would work out somewhere else to visit.