Nice. It was OK. :)

Nice Nice. Ah yes, I do amuse myself!

Anyhoo, thankfully, intrepid readers, we did just find Nice nice. It might be a super-happening rich people haven in summer, but we found it quite quiet, relaxing, definitely a rich-people place with all those fancy yachts and big apartments, but generally… not overly exciting. We both agreed that 3 nights would have been too much if it hadn’t rained on one day, effectively making it a bit of a shorter explore.

The Cote d’Azur is beautiful. And lives up to its reputation in that way. I wasn’t too much of a fan of the cliff-hanging drive there (nothing on Croatia, and we’re talking 6 lanes of safe goodness, but I think the Croatian experience combined with Rome’s mental drivers got me all jumpy and whatnot for a while) and it was a long drive from Verona so it was a relief to arrive. And, we hoped, find some food other than pizza and pasta. I know it sounds snooty, but in other countries we’d been to, you could at least find food that’s not national food - the locals even get into a bit of variety. Italy…. Not so much. It was yummy as in Verona, but it was still time for some choice.

But don’t go to Nice for choice either - they have beautiful bouillabaisse and seafood dishes, such as paella, but in the ’cheap meal’ category you’ve got… pizza and pasta. Although we did find a kebab shop (that we attempted to eat two days in a row) and I was asked (after ordering hideously, without a phrase book and without even a basic knowledge of French) by the only fellow customer why I was eating kebabs as it was food for muslims like him. The French-speaking owners had no idea what we were talking about… After I recovered from my initial shock (wondering if I’d inadvertently boobooed) it turned out the guy genuinely thought that non-muslims had no knowledge of kebabs, and so I (and Nick, when he returned from the bottlo) was a complete curiosity to him. Us three had the best chat while we waited for the kebabs, and it was such a novel experience to be talking to someone in English, who is actually an emigrant from a French colony in Africa, dressed up in a suit (because it was a strike day - one of many - in France but that’s just what you wear) in a French kebab shop, explaining about the Australian tradition of the late night kebab shop. Ha!

So, unlike Croatia, where we found an Enlgish-Croatian phrasebook quite easily, the same was not the case in France. I would definitely advise getting one before you travel somewhere, because it sucks being so restricted that you can’t even speak general niceties (something we had tried to do all along our trip) and ask where things are and just generally work out what someone is saying to you! So we lived in a bubble really, just us and anyone who spoke passable English - which thankfully covers most people who work in restaurants. We did indeed eat some yummy food there, and once again (after Italy) we embraced the meal deal phenomena of 2 meals and a bottle of wine, or food and matched wine for one. It was a pretty place, and we explored the market-filled streets of the old town (way more expensive than Croatian markets, so I kicked myself for not going to town while in Split), climbed the hill at the entrance to the marina with the old monastery and castle on top, and just… relaxed.

Oh, and there was one funny moment when driving along the winding coast road, still in Italy, when Klaus’ oil light came on, indicating that he would like a litre of oil when we next filled up. No problems right? Ummm yeah. Try having a diesel car, for which the log book’s completely in german but has a table indicating something about different oils for different freezing/ambient temperatures, and being in Italy - with little Italian - where the Italian for diesel is “gasolio”. Sweet. After about 15 minutes of standing at the rack, gaping with an open german manual, a german translation book and an Italian translation book - an attendant came over and helped, with much better English than my…well, my anything… but still very basic English. Ahhh. I was so happy to hand over the oil choosing, and his little mate even put the oil in for us, thereby relieving us of all responsibility, or so we felt. But Klaus was fine, and that was the main thing. Phew! I have no idea if he understood that I couldn’t read the manual cos it was in Deutsche, or just thought I couldn’t read, but all was well in the end.

Oh - noteworthy re Italy but I forgot to say - toll roads are really expensive, but it’s way better than winding through mountains on crappy roads. And we got into a traffic jam on one of those roads that goes on stilts for about 30 km through the mountains, this being the only major road that goes North-South up the leg of the boot from Roma - and there was barely half a lane altogether extra (I.e. maybe a metre on either side) before the barriers and a 50m drop. And this being also the only trucking route… there was an intense number of trucks (we literally would have seen thousands that day) and yet still those crazy drivers were ducking up the 1 m area where the ambulance and traffic control were miraculously supposed to go, and zigzagging where they could through crawling traffic. Horrid. Annoying. And we did consider that maybe we might die there, starving and irritated with the local driving habits. But we didn’t. The trucks involved would have been backed up over 30 km from the accident (our max was 10km but the driving rules there mean trucks in a particular lane for certain stretches of road) and so those trucks would have been 3 or 4 hours off schedule. At least. Ahhh, Italy.

Here’s the pics from Nice anyways!

Two views of the Castle Hill, fair and foul weather. Still pretty either way.

MY (capitalisation deliberate by the way) awesome artsy pic along the main beach in opposite direction from castle, marina on the other side, and where we were staying.
View up to the castle hill with the excavations of the ruins of a 13th century monastery. Definitely worth the walk up the hill.
10s/100s of millions of boat dollars, and then expensive real estate. Ah, the place was just all money!!!
Fountain. Still pretty cool, but by Nice we'd seen better. Ooooh, I AM such a travel snob now! :)
The only tram/train line I've ever seen that "does" grass. Yes, noteworthy. Riveting? Perhaps not. But I already told you Nice was only “nice” my friend, not intriguing or riveting. So there.
Hmmm. Art in a park surrounded by rich people hotels.
You really notice that the streets are different everywhere. I think it was one of the coolest things I found about travelling, that you'd always know you were somewhere different just by looking at the streets.
More "art". Still - interesting to look at, although I don't particularly find it thought provoking! Outside museum of modern art (or its French translation, no doubt. Not that I'd know!)
Below... view from castle.
Below you've got bouillabaisse and paella, that’s one for me and one for Nick by the way. No wonder we had a few kegs each to lose when we got to Liverpool!

Fair Verona...

Now, it actually went Dubrovnik -->Bari (Italy) --> Rome --> Verona, but Rome is in Nick's ballcourt and that guy actually WORKS these days, so fair's fair - so "Verona and beyond" it is.

Now, some bloggers have been quite slack for… oh, 6 weeks or so (shock horror!) MANY apologies. But at least you can have the consolation of more abridged blog entries, as our memories have faded and as it’s now sooooo long ago, you are unlikely to be hanging on every (any?) word, so it’s in everyone’s interest to keep it brief, yeah?

OK, so Nick’s got Rome (his favourite place) and I’ll agree with him totally on everything there. Especially fearing for our lives when driving on the roads. I must admit, in my case,it was refreshing to be being scared of fellow drivers rather than dangling off terrible heights - although realistically, Nick’s driving on the side of a mountain was way safer than those crazy Romans.

We went to Verona based on the advice of Candyce - our friend from Auschwitz. She was cool as a button, and so when she said it was a lovely place to walk around, and really relaxed (something we were needing after Rome) we thought - it’s close to Venice, so we’ll do that on a day trip (we didn’t end up, actually) and stay in Verona. And it was beautiful.

It smacked of all the pride in its history that Rome lacked. The Roman arena there is the 3rd largest around, and unlike the Coliseum has been maintained, restored and now even has concerts and plays performed in it. So that was pretty darned cool.

Some other sights included the beautiful river that circles through town. It’s shallow, runs very fast, and is this amazing clear crystal green colour. Because it winds through town there’s 4 or 5 bridges, of differing ages (but equal beauty), one of which was joined to the Castelvecchio (Castle Bridge is what it means and it is what it sounds J ) bits of which date back to 1355. And…. Beautifully restored and kept.

There’s also a Roman amphitheatre also restored to a degree, after excavations. An amazing feat of architecture again, like though they used the natural slope of the hill and reinforced that to form the basis for the different tiers of seating, they dug a deep trench into the rock (way deeper than the base of the furthest tier from the stage) so that water running down the hill didn’t erode the foundations of the tiers. COOL! And it was really cool to see some of the arches of the third (highest) tier still standing around the place. They also had a pretty half hearted archaeological museum there, in a converted convent above the amphitheatre, or rather - lots of cool old stuff, but with less or un-certain history to the pieces, although lots had been excavated from the centre of Verona itself so again - pretty interesting feeling.

Hmmmm, what else. Oh yeah - it’s the city of Romeo and Juliette. And they embrace that with a passion, as do the millions of walking tourists (I mean this in the sense of doing a ’walking tour’). So the Veronese thing is that Romeo and Juliet really existed (hmmmm),but I think the bard just used the most beautiful and romantic place ever as the site of his tragic love story. There’s Casa di Giulietta and Casa di Romeo and Juliette’s house has a court yard with THE balcony above it, and a statue of Juliette. People rub her boob for luck in love (didn’t work out for R & J, but whatever) and obviously someone somewhere grabbed the wrong end of the stick because they’re rubbing the non-heart side (right). You can’t even get a second in there during the day, and into the early evening, but it was still cool to see. And to have Nick get into my only chance to have a pic of the balcony without some nonce standing on it, and 400 people below, milling and boob-rubbing. Although… I snuck one in after.

Being the city of love that it is (doomed love, but clearly that’s another ‘whatever’) it’s also covered in graffiti of lovers. Everything from Juliette’s courtyard, to the more romantic of the bridges. It seemed a shame to me, but it’s all part of the magic of the place. There’s also spots where different couples have locked a padlock and written their names on it, symbolising their connectedness and undying love. Sigh. I mean “or something”.

We also found a certain palace’s (palace as in rich family’s house, I think) garden and wandered about that on a Sunday morning. It’s been there for 400+ years, in various incarnations and had an amazing view at the top over Verona. It was really special, and having an odd turn for the lame-o (romantic) side I genuinely had a tear in my eye looking over the city in the fresh morning haze after exploring the cool winding paths though the mossy cool garden. Sigh again.

Food-wise we had some delicious food there, and it’s worth going to the restaurants as they aren’t too expensive if you get a deal with a bottle of wine and just lovely soaking up the atmosphere. Didn’t try horsemeat (I’m sure Jenny, Cleo and Sunny at home will be most happy with that) but we did have some delicious squid ink pasta (very black on the teeth and lips, though a quick drink and a wipe takes it away - not first date material though!!!), mushroom ravioli in truffle sauce the proper Italian way (I.e. amazing taste, fresh pasta and just a few of them… sadly!) and a local specialty from the markets of risotto with uncooked sausage meat added (and obviously cooked at that point).

The Veronese were soooo stylish. The most classic-cut clothes, shiny hair, poise and class. They also have the interesting habit of coming into the centre of town in the evening but particularly on Sundays, from wherever they live, and strolling the streets in families. Quite a parade of stylish people, and it gets crazy busy through some of the narrow old town streets (completely refurbed with stylish shops, of course). On the topic of the streets, they were even lovely - mostly in beautiful condition, with colourful buildings, wrought iron balconies, flower pots, and often coming off at all angles - making it a wonderful place to explore. Have I sold it to you yet? DEFINITELY worth a stop in - 3-4 days is a good time, very relaxed… though one day I want to go back.

All in all, we loved it. I definitely loved it more than Nick, but I think he’d agree that it was still a special place.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! For all the promises of brevity, sadly, I lack the ability to follow through. Anyway - hopefully the break will have whetted the appetite for some overseas piccies… HUGS!

Pretty streets...
Nick and the pretty streets and sky. Still haven't broken that habit. At least we know he was there!The locks. Eternal love. I guess.
The courtyard,the balcony and the abused statue.
The graffiti, all of about 2m from the courtyard - in the only entrance.
Pretty coloured buildings, all in a row.
The arena. Made in the typical Veronese style - white stone, then a particular pink stone found locally. See? I learned stuff.
Guess who. And the arena. Pick which of the last 2 pics were taken first...
Bits of the castle and bridge were made in 14th century. Been rebuilt and restored, but that's what makes this place. Ruins can be neglected too (even after they've been deemed important enough to keep. Hey Rome? Yeah? I thought so... no rebuttal).
View from bridge of Castle-Bridge.
View back to Castel-Vecchio. See? It really is a castle and a bridge. No misnomer there...
One of the beautiful bridges..

Us… immediately before I cut that ghastly fringe. Into another, crooked, and yet slightly-less-ghastly fringe...

The beautttttttiful garden.
Horsing around. I think.
That's me, AMAZEd in the garden. Wacca wacca. Sigh. I need to get out more...
You can get a picture of how ornate the garden is.Not overly large, only and hour or so wandering, but really worth it.

Awwww. That's the view from a stone gazebo at the top of the garden. With two hopeless types in front.

Above: The restored (not to original condition as you can see from the seats at the front) and now utilised amphitheatre.

View from the top of the amphitheatre, back across that amazing river to the centre of town... Loved that view (hence there's a few piccies of it).

For the less mature... Tee hee!

Dubrovnik...

Nick’s post was no exaggeration regarding the road to Dubrovnik. It was indeed the worst thing ever, terrifying and I WAS physically shaking, crying and tensing the entire Peninsula, and half of the coast road on the mainland. I don’t know how Nick didn’t drive off the cliffs deliberately, just to make his pain stop as, clearly, I’d completely lost it and was not fun to be around.

Anyway, we wove up to Aerie Apartments and Dijana, who runs the place, was so nice and sympathetic, and grabbed us two Karlovascko (we mostly drank Ozujsko in Croatia, but Karlovascko is good too) and let us settle in before even tying up the balance of the money for the apartment. She later proved to be even lovelier, almost insisting on doing our washing for us so we could go out and go for a swim (we declined). The view from the room was magnificent, looking down on the azure water and the glistening, walled, red-roofed Old Town. I took us both a while to unwind (stop shaking) but the view… well, see for yourself:

Nick, recovering. With beer. As yet, immune to the view. And probably regretting his choice in travel partner.Jewel of the Adriatic. Someone famous's words, not mine. Pretty fitting though.

That balcony became one of our favourite places in Dubrovnik. 1) Obvious beauty; 2) Sans other tourists; 3) booze was cheaper than in pubs (although it was still pretty cheap by Aussie standards - just more expensive than other Eastern European places we’d been); and 4) because it meant we didn’t have 450 million stairs to negotiate on the way back up from Old Town, cos nothing worth having ever comes cheap. More like 300-400, really, but after having done it at least once already that day, and coming up from a massive feast and three to four hundred beers… yeah, I whinged. But it was always worth it.

View from marina back up to our place.From the top. Going down was fine...How much ‘noone’ goes outside Old Town… dilapidated building 15 m from the bridge in.

Now, Dubrovnik has received quite a rap as being one of the most, if not THE most beautiful walled cities in the world. So the wall’s around the Old Town (being that it was originally for fortification purposes) and the Old Town is all marble lined lane ways, tiny shops and restaurants (with inappropriate numbers/standards of toilets, by Australian standards anyway, but I’ll show you Croatian standards later). And Churches. It’s in amazing nick, both the walls and the city itself. And it was lovely just wandering around (it’s quite small really, so after 2 days you’re completely oriented) - except when the huge cruise ships of people came in. then it was hideous. The grey-haired mobs were flocking through the streets at an excrutiatingly slow pace, in large groups (so no overtaking),and completely oblivious to the fact that other people might be trying to get anywhere, or do anything else. Sigh. And the cruise ships came in almost every day. But the days they didn’t were greatttttt. We just kept thinking “and this is the OFF season!!!”

One of the interesting things that we found out about the city was that its immaculate condition was actually down to rebuilding efforts over the last 15 years. Basically, if you’re at war with some country like Croatia, what’s going to hurt more than bombing the bejesus out of their pride and joy??? Or at least the Serbians thought so. So it was pretty devastated. But then the city got UNESCO status, got some funds injected through that, and fixed it right up. And it was LOVELY.

Lanes from the walls.Drawbridge in.The throngs. Check out how many raised cameras there are there???The thin lanes. The Irish Jig Bar (regular haunt of our's) was on this one.

Here’s pics from our city walls walk. A must if you’re in Dubovnik… which is a blessing and a curse, because it’s also channelling the slow-walking crowds along an even thinner and often steeply-staired (big ow-ies afterall our missions up to our digs!) walls. But the water IS as blue and clear as the pictures show. It’s phenomenal to stand maybe 40m above the water on the walls and see the bottom clearly. Sometimes even from Dijana’s place we could see the bottom, looking down from up on the hill, which is like nothing I’d ever imagined.

This isn't actually FROM the walls, but is just inside Old Town looking up at them.Bit of an engineering feat really. No doubt plenty of plebs died when they did it in the olden days.Sweet sky, walls, cliff and water pic.One of Nick's patented tripod photos of us on the wall. That pigeon actually just trundled through (walking really slowly) after Nick pressed the timer thing, so we were laughing and watching that little guy.More... walls. Very castley looking hey?

In case you ever go to Dubrovnik (avid, cough cough, readers J ) something you may not think is worth it, but was one of the coolest things we did, was heading up to the fort you can see from the walls. It was a few kuna each to get in, but given that we’d spent about 40 min trying to get there (confusing laneways and crappy map, and workmen in our way) we thought we’d splash out. So glad we did. We weren’t up there crazy early or anything, but we were the only ones there. On the most beautiful clear day, looking over that clear water and wandering around this fort from the 1800s (which isn’t a spot on how old the original walls at Dubrovnik were, although they kept adding bits and tweaking it, so there probably wasn’t too much original wall there, even before the JNA had a go at it.

Looking down from the fort towards town. Check that water out!

At bottom of fort, looking over to the city walls around Old Town.
The place to ourselves...
Nick’s “I’m taking a photo, so serious a task” look.
No comment on THAT pic.

On the way back, Nick stepped on THE biggest soft grub thing I have ever seen. It was as fat as a big toe, and longer. And it EXPLODED all over his leg and mine. It was absolutely revolting and I laughed and gagged for the next 15min. I wiped my bug juice off with a leaf, but Nick really had the heebies about it and was obsessed with washing it off properly.

The thing I’ll remember about Dubrovnik (apart from the lovely walls, fort and water, and it being crazy busy in Old Town) is the FOOD. Talk about fresh seafood! And although still slightly more expensive than Split, it was still cheap as chippies and delicious. Also, we both had the best steaks we’ve EVER had on the second night. So much so we went back a few nights later. Well, partly for the delicious, tender steak (I had mine with truffle sauce, Nick’s with a creamy prawn-filled sauce) served simply with heaps of creamy potatoes. I have 2 words for you - Konoba Pupo. We also loved the waiter there, one Ivan. He was an enigma wrapped in a Limerick riddle. Croatian through and through, he’d once gone to Ireland with the intention of staying for a few weeks… in his own words, “it took me 6 months to get drunk in every county in Ireland”. So he’d switch between his Croatian accented (perfect) English, into an Irish accent everynow and then for a wry comment or a story. He’s also madly saving to come to Australia, so we’re trying to get back into contact with him to offer him a bed when he comes over - we lost the business card he gave us with his full name, for face book purposes. Anyhow - 2of our 6 nights (we ended up having to overstay a bit, because the ferry to Bari only goes once a week in the of season) we went to Konoba Pupo.

And two of our nights in Dubrovnik we were fed homemade (always unexplained, as well “drink this, or you‘ll insult”) grappa (we think). That was one night at Pupo and one night at Konoba Lanterna, which I found to be equally delicious, but we dined on seafood there. I had Mussels Bouzzara. That’s over a kg of mussels in white wine and garlic broth. YUMMO. Doesn’t sound like much (well, weight wise, yes) but we also had a massive starter plate of the ubiquitous cold meats and cheeeses (love Prsut, Croatian prosciutto and it’s so cheap there!!! Not like Aust) and we’re really into the fresh crusty bread, cut up and dipped into a mix of olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper as well now. How cosmopolitan. J Neither of the Grappa nights ended to well… for me (and therefore, for Nick) but what those waiters never considered (although they probably suspected and did it anyway) was that Nick and I had begun the night with a few pints of beer at the Irish Jig bar around the corner. So, after pints there, and pints with dinner, we most certainly did not need grappa. And in Nick’s case, in addition to the 2 x 60ml shots of grappa we were given each (and drank, bad idea, but surprisingly good tasting! Or rather, not heinous) a random extra shot. Ahhhh. Fond memories, and then a blank. And then a whinging trip up the hill to the accommodation. Poor Nick.

Now, a bit about Dubrovnik itself. It’s an interesting set-up really, because the Old Town is the tourist attraction with the cafes/restaurants/bars/shops, and then there’s really nothing else outside. A few corner store type things, but nothing to write home about. So, when you’re getting the poops at the throngs of oldies in the Old Town… there’s really nothing to do and nowhere to go. One day, we walked to a ’market’ marked on the map. Now, I think Nick may have mentioned that maps in Eastern Europe are completely without scale, consistency or accuracy. We walked about 5 or 6 km (which would have been 2km, had the map been consistent across board) to find that the ’market’ was a fish and flower market. Right up Nick’s alley, ha ha, though after all of the beautiful simple fresh dishes we’ve tried now, we think buying fish from the fish market and preparing it actually is something we’ll try and do in the future. So then we walked another 2 or 3km to the other ’market’ marked on the map. Which, in winter, is actually 4 crappy carnival style stalls selling plastic crap. But we found where the locals go in the off season, a row of restaurants filled with people sipping short blacks/espressos with an accompanying glass of water. A great place to escape the Old Town crowds.

The next day we had a swim at the rocky beach, choccas with leathery locals sunbaking and dipping. It was so fresh and lovely in the water, looking out at the island, the city walls and even the big boat calmly sitting near the island. It was bliss.

Here's the beach we swam at. Nick whinged about the rocks. It was different - and makes you appreciate the sand at home! But the water was lovely.

Here’s our view at tea that night - another fresh seafood place, right down on the water overlooking the Old Town.
I actually took about 40 photos of the sunset from here. The sky at Dubrovnik is just... magical. Sounds lame, but there's always beautiful cloud formations and colours.
Fish FEAST. Yup - that's 2 "fish platters"in a week. Yummo.

The ONE ferry to Bari each week in the off season, goes at 11:30pm. This meant we had to check out of our accommodation in the morning and fill in the 12 hours time til then. Simple yeah? Well, not so much if it’s pouring with rain. Thankfully Dijana (lovely lady that she is) lent us an umbrella for the morning (leaving a mere 9-10 hours to fill in. The ferry left from over near the (underwhelming) fish market,so we ended up driving over there when it lightened off, picking up our tickets (It said to pick them up at least 2 hours before the boatleft), and walking over to the deserted restaurant row with the locals. And sitting, killing time. It was pretty excruciating, really. We couldn’t even have too much to drink, being that Nick had to drive the car onto the ferry. When we returned to the car, we saw that the ticket office was shut and there were about 10 people waiting forlornly outside. Thank god we picked up early! Now, this ferry stop was the most confusing and disorganised experience of the trip. There was no information on the ticket, no information in the terminal, and noone to ask what to do with the car/passports etc. Nothing. We nipped the car in behind a few buses (facing, confusingly, away from the ferry, which we could see sitting there) and buckled down outside the terminal, given that the terminal was filled with the contents of the buses… about 200 old Italians. It was SO loud in there. And every now and then you’d see a disoriented German/UK/Aussie couple wandering around, looking for information/someone to ask, just SOME SIGNAL that they were doing the right thing. We just come from an organised country, as do they. Croatia? Not so much. Italy? (Ferry was staffed by Italians) Even less so, as nick will detail in the Rome blog.

Then it started to rain. Sorry - POUR. A hard core electrical storm thundered in. We still had no idea what we were doing (3 hours at the terminal, and still not knowing what to do makes one a bit worried) so when, on no discernable signal that we could see, a bunch of motorcyclists jumped on their bikes, and buses started and roar around the corner of the terminal (still opposite direction to ferry) we dashed and grabbed the car and joined the line. After passport control (a glance at passport to see that it IS a passport, and a stamp - no checking that it was us or anything) we sat and waited to be loaded. In the electrical storm. Quickly becoming more and more nervous about the boat ride. Couldn’t be that bad, could it? It was. Nick and I had splashed out and got a double bunk shoebox with a basin, right in the bowels of the ship.

Basically, there’s a range of cabins, then there’s a class of comfy-ish (not for 8 hours, I wouldn’t think) chairs in banks, and then just deck space, which is find a spot in the lounges/bars or just in hallways and set up camp. The deck space was occupied by the busloads of Italians (thank youuuuuu cabin) and more Aussie backpackers than you could poke a stick at. When we were having a quiet one in the lounge (WE were quiet, I mean) one of the Italian bar staff came out, plunked a stack of bags on the bench and said something to everyone (in Italian) ending with col mal di mare. Trusty Italian phrasebook said… “seasick”. And how. Those Old Italians snatched them up quick (not a good sign, seeing as they’d obviously come over on the ferry too). We retired to our cabin (ahhh, blissful silence). It was funny (we didn’t laugh for at least 8 hours though), because at one point (probably when they were raising the ramp or something) we heard a quiet engine and Nick said “I think we are moving”, and I paused and said “I agree”. Not so though. When your cabin abuts an engine (practically) ferries are really loud. And when you’re going on the sea, you know it. We were already rocking and rolling (through the wake of the storm) even before we passed the islands that shelter Dubrovnik. When we did… it was incredible. In a bad way. Nick and I were both lying stationery on our bunks, tummies lurching at every sideways movement. Because there were cross waves, not just forwards and backwards and up and down, it was impossible to ’get used to’. The sound of the bow crashing into the waves was NOT comforting either. At one stage we were both sitting up, waiting for the lifesaving Travacalm to kick in, just wondering how on earth we could survive the night, and thanking fate that we were not upstairs with hundreds of (LOUDLY, of course) puking Italians, as that’d probably set us off - and it‘s supposed to be WORSE the higher up you get in the ship. Then an old duck came down to her cabin, and it was really at the most rough point, proceeding to moan (LOUDLY) for 10 minutes or so “male, male… MALE”. Yes. We were sick too, but that’s not helping anyone. Thanks to travacalm though, we managed to get a few hours sleep each in the end. And then it was onto Italian roads, and Rome…

Parrot guy - saw him in parrot garb (working for tips) a couple of days in a row in the city with 6 cheeky parrots, then, had a “wooden child’s chair in Split”moment and saw him out on a double date at the Troubador jazz bar. Random!

Croatian Public toilet - of the male and female variety. Was happy to return to the land of toilet bowls...
Croanglish... "Meat dumpings, mmmm". Love the funny translations you see about the place, not just in Croatia. We saw a sign in the lift of our hotel in France saying that the hotel would "kick away any responsibility" for lost/stolen goods.