I couldn't have been more excited for some mountain time this year...we've had a really cool, wet spring in Sedona, so the perfect temperatures and wildflowers had me all pumped up for some epic hiking in the Alps. The only problem with that was that Europe was also having a really cool, wet spring, and it wasn't going to break anytime soon. That's one of the reasons we love renting a camper van...it affords us flexibility to fly by the seat of our pants.
Here's a rough outline of the route we took last year:
Here's a rough outline of the route we took last year:
And the route we took this year.
We flew into Venice and ended up with the exact same camper van that we rented last year...complete with the passenger-side scrapes we gave it in Slovenia. It's had a rough year and was in pretty bad shape...something was messed up so we couldn't plug in and have power or warm water. The shower didn't work and we also weren't provided a hose to fill it up with clean water (which didn't end up being a big deal since we couldn't take a shower in it anyway). And even though we went out of our way to find campsites with showers, not a single site that we stayed at actually had a working shower. We found that to be a trend last year as well. Oh, and the heating/air fan didn't work except on level 4...so it was either too hot, too cold, or blasting you with 45 mph wind. I suppose that's part of the adventure though, right? With a couple of days forecasting sunshine, we got all set up and made our way toward Croatia. Along the way, we stumbled upon a really cool old castle that had been converted into a villa a few hundred years ago, complete with a WW1 bunker that went down to the Adriatic.
We found a parking spot down at a little marina complete with a little restaurant for dinner.
The next day, we wanted to follow the coast for a bit (the weather was supposed to be 70 degrees and if that was the case, some beach time needed to be worked into the itinerary) and then head inland towards Plitvice Lakes National Park. We spotted a huge ruin in a canyon along the way and took a detour to check it out. It was definitely worth stopping for.
A short drive up the road took us to the cutest little village of Bale.
Our next stop was Pula and a walk around their ancient Roman Amphitheater. I found it on Google Earth and figured it was worth a visit and it definitely was.
There were only a couple of other people there, including some "Instagrammers"that spent a solid 45 minutes in the center of the arena posing for pictures and thoroughly pissing me off. It was at that point that I decided that I'd give people 5 seconds to get the shot and then I wasn't going to be courteous any longer. I pretty much stuck to that for the rest of our vacation. Trust me, I love a good photo as much as anybody, but it's so rude to spend longer than 5 seconds to get it. Just take the flipping pic and get the hell on with it!
We walked around the arena and watched the sunset on the local marina before making our way to our campsite on the water.
The campground was supposed to open up at 7 am and they had our passports, so after a couple of cups of coffee and a walk around the peninsula to enjoy the sunrise, we made our way to the office only to find that they didn't open until 8.
We killed an hour at a coffee shop and then got back to collect our passports. That's one of the things that I dislike about staying in a campground as opposed to just parking somewhere - we ended up wasting a couple of hours that morning that we could have spent on the road. We got to Plitvice lakes National Park just before 5 pm and couldn't get it that night, so we found a spot to park and then hit it first thing the following morning. That worked out perfectly because we had the park to ourselves for a couple of hours before the throngs of tour buses rolled in and took over. The park is kind of divided up into 2 parts...a series of smaller waterfalls and then a large waterfall on the other side. We started with the smaller waterfalls and took a ferry across the lake to the raised walkway that meandered through the landscape. It was nothing short of magical. It was warm and sunny and so quiet and serene and the water was SO clear...it was so beautiful.
We spend a couple of hours there before catching the ferry to the other side which was MUCH more crowded. One of my favorite things about the park was the raised boardwalk, but this also proved to be the most frustrating part when there were literally thousands of people on them and very little room to get around each other. I can't believe that someone didn't get pushed into the water that day. After seeing the larger waterfall, we got off of the beaten path somewhat and hiked around in the woods for a while. Of course, I saw a snake on the trail which turned out to be a Nose-Horned Viper which is pretty much the most dangerous snake in Europe...great.
From there, we made our way back north to Slovenia...hoping that the weather would hold out long enough to get into the Julian Alps for a day or two.
This was not the case and we soon encountered driving rain and eventually, snow. Brian's app found a parking spot in this tiny little lot in the middle of a field with a baby cow, so we parked and settled in for the night, only to have a Policeman knock on our door in the middle of the night and tell us that we had to move and that he could give us a $200 ticket if he wanted.
We found another spot in Bled, right across from the lake. The next morning, we awoke to pouring rain and decided to head up to Bled Castle for a bit.
I knew that hiking wasn't going to happen, but I still wanted to at least drive through the mountains. After all, these mountains were the entire reason we were where we were. The Russian Road was closed for snow, so we tried to drive around and went through a check station where we were informed that we needed a special $300 pass to even be driving in Slovenia. Since we agreed to just go straight to Italy instead, they lowered the pass to $150...gee, thanks.
Driving through the Dolomites in Italy quickly made me forget my worries. The scale of the peaks there is just out of this world. Plus, the nasty weather and low season meant that it was totally quiet and perfect. I wish we could have stayed there...even with the snow, but it was just too cold and our camper van didn't have any heat, so we would have had a very uncomfortable night.
Slovenia is still one of my favorite places ever, but something about the mist in the mountains of the Dolomites just can't even be described. It actually made me emotional...the mountains just do something to me. On exactly the same day the year before, we'd hiked up to Tre Cime Di Laveredo in the snow and wind and clouds and it was no different this time around.
There was a bike path that followed the road for miles and miles...an old railroad track with bridges and tunnels, so we got out and walked a good chunk of it. I wouldn't mind coming in the summer and just riding that path for a couple hundred miles...it's really nicely set up.
We drove west through this crazy valley through the mountains and found a little town that wasn't nearly as tidy as the others. It was so quiet and kind of dark and mysterious, so we stopped, walked around a bit and found a romantic little restaurant for dinner.
From there, we pretty much spent the rest of our trip trying to outrun the rain. We noticed that the storm was passing through the mountains, but everything south of Verona looked pretty clear, so south we went. Pretty much every hour, we'd see a little mountain with a Medieval village on top and have to stop and check it out.
