Back to the West......

Rovinj was a fabulous stay.  We ended up in four star hotel as a result of my driving and navigation errors.  As mentioned earlier, the place was loaded with Italian families, grandparents kissing grandkids, parents kissing grandparents, kids kissing parents, etc.  Kids run wild when there is family around.  Wanted to take all of them out to the pool for a swim........Instead, went up to the room to watch the Seahawks game on Slingbox.  Turns out you have to have a higher speed connection than available anywhere in Italy except for possibly a government office.  So I listened to it on the radio, and wish I hadn't spent the money on the hotel for the connection, and more so, the money on the buffet that they served that night.  Lots of mediocre food in large quantities........

Next morning we met Kate Dooley at Apartman 31 Driover in Rovinj.  Kate and her husband Jack are both from Seattle, which is bizarre enough, but as it turns out, Kate was the General manager for the Alexis Hotel in downtown, and Jack ran the Inn at the Market, just up first avenue.  What a strange experience.  Their apartment looks directly at the Adriatic Sea from the bedroom window.  It's very much like a botique hotel, with a kitchen and dining room.  Maybe a hundred yards from the center of town, we relaxed and enjoyed this place tremendously.  Almost stayed a third night.....the day we got there was Halloween and probably near 70 degrees.  We went for an hour boat ride through some of the islands.  the Dalmation coast is really a series of hundreds of offshore islands, and when the sun's shining it's spectacular. Though not on the Euro, we found it pretty affordable.  Went to a retaurant called Scuba in town, for my birthday.  We shared a seafood platter with shrimp (yeah the heads were on) mussels, the best grilled calimari ever, two different sauteed fish, and the coolest side dish ever.  Potatoes and kale cooked together, with a hint of REALLY GOOD olive oil and a dash of salt and pepper.  (After all of the different cabbage preperations in Poland, Hungary and the Chezch Republic, we were ready for something like this!)

Spent the next day lazing around the town and planned on heading to Italy the next morning.........STORY INTERRUPTION:  The place we're staying tonite has a four month old longhair daschund puppy, which has turned my wife into some kind of puppy starved nut-----"she can stay here with us"..........

We decided that after Budapest, without GPS, that we'd not go to anymore big cities, as they're a pain in the butt to navigate.  (Donnas idea)  After we leave Croatia, there's about a six mile drive through Slovenia, where you have to purchase a medallion, for 15 Euros, that allows you to go through their little section of the world without getting stop sticked.  Having been stop sticked in Austria, we're going to play by the rules, so I stop about two miles from the italian border and go into a gas station and ask the attendant for one.  He says, "Where are you going?"  I say "Italy".  He says "it's fifteen Euros---thats the cheapest".  I look despaired.  He says "go the back way out of the station, go through the next two roundabouts, heading for Trieste, and you'll get back on the motorway on the other side of the border".  I say thanks and head off.  Six minutes later we're in Italy.  Great advice.

So we've decided not to go to anymore big cities, that is until we reach Trieste.  If you can imagine Palermo and Naples combined, you get the picture.  GPS or no GPS, it doesn't make any difference.  A bunch of hilly, winding one way roads, combined with the usual construction and it's hell.  Takes an hour to get out.  That's it.  My head is exploding.  Back to the motorway and we decide to stay in Vincenza, as it looks centrally located for day trip to Venice, Bologna, Parma, and a bunch of other cities in the region.  The TI isn't the best in the world and we end up looking for an apartment where we're supposed to meet the man in front of Pizzeria Mamma Mia.  Spent the next forty five minutes looking for the place only to find we've driven past it three times.  Smallest sign in the world.  The guy meets us, we go in,  and we use the excuse that it doesn't have a wireless connection to get out.  It's on the fourth floor and furnished with what we can assume are pieces of furniture that previous renters didn't want to take.  (Mamma Mia---this guys mother, will not win any awards for congenialty...

Drive to Verona, half an hour away, and are headed into town when we decide to check two hotels on the outskirts of town.  The first one says their full, and "the whole town is full for the festival this week".  What festival----the horse festival.  The hotel next to it does have a room and we grab it.  It's fine and the manager reccomends a pizzeria "above the pool, 300 meters away".   So we hit Tripadviser and see what they say.  Turns out some other people who stayed in this hotel have given the place great reviews.  You walk up a flight of stairs, and the wall of glass overlooking the pools surprises at first.  The pools are full---all three of them.  Olympic hopefuls in one.  Water aerobics in the next, and it must have been heart patients in the last.  The pizza was great!

Now we're in an apartment in Nogarolo di Tarzo, in the foothills of the Dolomites.  It's about a forty minute train ride to Venice which we'll visit tomorrow.  Got here around one and spent the afternoon in the DOC of Prosecco.  Bought a couple of bottles, went to the most amazing cheese shop, local producers only, bought some amazing cheeses and what can be described only as the best breadsticks in the world.  Then to a wood fired oven bakery for the kind of bread you've heard of and never found and won't.  Soup, bread and cheese for dinner and good books for desert.  no TV in this place, high in the hills, lots of fresh air, and of course, a puppy.