4 weeks and 4,691 kms to Dubrovnik and back. It's a long way to the Balkans! After two nights en route, we first visited Piran in Slovenia, which nestles on a short strip of coast between Italy and Croatia. Slovenia and Croatia sit on the Adriatic Sea and the northern peninsular is known as Istria. Both countries have a long history of being ruled by the Republic of Venice, so there is an Italian influence in the towns, particularly the coastal ones. Each town has a Slavic and an Italian name.
We had to park a fair way out of the town and despite Google saying the walk was mostly flat, it was actually very hilly! I learned not to trust Google after that.
As we got closer we walked down alleyways and under archways; the arch above had this sign saying it dated from the second half of the 15th century. It's a part of the old city walls.
Coming into the medieval alleyways.
How cool to match your paintwork to your cactus flowers!
The main square in Piran, Tartini Square, with St George's Cathedral overlooking it. The square is named after the violinist and composer Giuseppe Tartini who was born here in 1692 and the statue is dedicated to him.
The Town Hall, built in 1879 replacing a former C13th building.
The centre of Piran is small so it wasn't difficult to walk around. This little harbour was lovely, overlooked by the cathedral clock tower.
Walking in the other direction towards the end of the town, which juts out into the sea.
With no town beach, people sunbathed on this concrete area and there were steps down to the sea in many places along this stretch for swimming. It was a bit choppy on this day though!
Lots of restaurants here facing the sea.
Our Lady of Health church and yours truly.
Venetian Gothic arched window, influenced by Islamic architecture.
We walked up the hill to the cathedral and had lovely views over the town, including a glimpse of Tartini Square and the harbour.
St George's Cathedral. We couldn't enter the building as it was roped off, but at least we could look inside. What a gorgeous ceiling - a surprise really as the outside of the building was rather plain.
Another view down to Tartini Square.
When we got back to the moho, we discovered that we had received a parking ticket. This was our fault really, as en route to a car park which I had found where we could park, we passed another one that had a number of mohos parked in it. This was a bit closer to the town, so we thought we'd park there. However, there was a sign saying 'No Motorhomes'. Well there are other mohos here, we thought, so sod it. A big mistake!
And then we drove on to Croatia, and our destination for the next few days, Novigrad.
It was hazy yesterday and apparently it was caused by the wildfires up near Bordeaux. According to a local newspaper, a number of people have called the fire dept due to smelling smoke, only to be reassured that there are no wildfires in our department at the moment, and the smoke is due to the fires several hundred kms away to the north west. I went outside as soon as I read that, to see if I could smell smoke here, but I couldn't. The fires in France and Spain are really bad and hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes.
It puts our tiny wildfire in Fanjeaux into perspective. A few weeks ago some stubble fields just under the village caught fire, yet the amount of firefighters who came to the scene was huge - there were 12 fire trucks mobilised and even a helicopter dumping water on it. I suspect the proximity to the village was a factor. Here's a photo put out by our Mairie (town hall) afterwards. The photo was probably taken from the village looking down, so you can see how close it was.
We can see when passing the area that the grass verge is burnt beside the road meaning some idiot probably chucked a cigarette out of their window. You would think people might have some common sense in summer, especially when the countryside is parched, but no. Most of these wildfires start due to human idiocy, either on purpose or because some people just don't stop to think about the consequences of their actions.
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Poor Harry was at the vet on Friday having his teeth descaled and a couple of extractions. The cats had their annual jabs recently and the vet said they would both need a descale. She also recommended having a full X-ray set so that they could see the state of their teeth in full - as they are both 13 now it is worth paying the extra for it. Harry has a full report with a diagram of his teeth and a numbering of 1-3 on the state of each tooth and its mobility, gum disease etc. I was surprised to see that he had three missing teeth before the extractions! The ones that had to come out were his canines on the same side - when we were at the vet I could see how inflamed his gum was around his upper canine and that it was causing him pain when the vet tapped it. As he is fat and happy and loves his food, I can't see several fewer teeth causing him much of a problem. Anyway, he was SO pleased to be home and especially as he is getting some soft food as well as some biscuits which makes a nice change for him. His after surgery tablets can be crushed and mixed with the soft food, so that saves a battle to get a pill down his throat several times a day!
Bertie's turn next, though his are not quite so bad. He's been on dental health biscuits for a few years as his teeth were starting to look bad some years back, yet these special biscuits did the trick for two years and cleaned the plaque off the tops of his teeth which was quite amazing, but there's obviously a limit to their usefulness and the plaque was back.
Brushing their teeth is of course out of the question! I can barely even catch Bertie now as he's become so anxious and nervy and he keeps scratching his collar off after about two weeks. We can only put one on again when we are at the vets, so it's fairly pointless really. K keeps saying, "Why can't we have normal cats?" but actually, our previous cat Smokey was fat and always hungry and hanging around the kitchen annoyingly too. All cats have their foibles.
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As for this hot dry weather, I think we've had three official heatwaves but it seems to just go on and on. We had a few days with temps in the high 20s which was very nice, even one day which at 24 and breezy felt quite chilly! I thank goodness for the airconditioning, otherwise it would be just like the nightmare summer of 2003 which was horrendous.
Whilst a lot of the ornamental plants are unhappy, the courgette and tomatoes are happy as larry! They are both producing abundantly. The lettuce bolted before we even got back from holiday and whilst we've been eating some of the endive mixed in with bought lettuce, that's gone really tough and past it now. Chicories are best when they are blanched though (not cooked blanched, but devoid of light to make the leaves lighter in colour and less bitter).
I sowed more lettuce but only five bothered to germinate and they slowly succumbed to something, I suspect the millions of snails we have here. I've put pellets down now (they are of course wildlife friendly ones, except to snail and slug wildlife). I'm still waiting for my next sowing of lettuce to appear but I don't think they want to! I have a few coriander coming up but very slowly and I've sown more dill which is just emerging. My first sowing of coriander has gone to seed which is what I wanted as I want to collect the seed, and I've saved some dill seeds too. I also sowed more spring onions but not one bothered to come up. I think it's just too hot.
Most of my gardening this summer just involves watering in the evening!
The three tomatoes are wild!
The two self seeded tomatoes are not doing well, this one has very yellowy leaves and most of the fruit did not set. The other one has three tomatoes forming so far, but they are both very small compared to the bought tomato plants. The chillies are not doing much either. We had two Padron Peppers and that is all!
Brown coriander, bolted endives and lettuce and dill coming to the end of its life. It's a shame I don't have chickens any more as they would have loved the greens!
This plant is absolutely loaded!
My Smoke Bush is not happy, although it started getting brown leaves before we went on holiday, when there was a lot of sun which I think scorched the leaves, even though it was under 30C at the time. Now I know there are some plants with leaves this colour which can't take too much sunlight as it scorches them, but I didn't think Smoke Bushes would be affected. After all, I had one this colour in Brittany. But every time it gets new leaves they just end up brown and crispy like you can see. Obviously it is being watered properly. Oh well, at least it is growing, unlike the new Wisteria which has had a few new leaves but that is all.
The last post of our Italian trip! We stopped for a brief visit to San Gimignano in Tuscany (below), a medieval hilltop town which we vaguely remember visiting in the 90s. The town is very attractive but our photos didn't come out very well, somehow there was just too much contrast between the sun and the shadows in the narrow streets, so I've just posted this distant shot which Keith took instead.
Somewhere along the line we stopped somewhere where there were actually a few butterflies! This was not a holiday where we spent much time in nature - it was all about towns, villages, the coast and Roman sites.
Below, the two blues are Common Blues and the one in the middle is a Meadow Brown.
Our last stop before driving home was to Lucca, also in Tuscany. By this time I was feeling a bit grotty with the cold (which I am sure was actually Covid) that K passed on to me. I didn't bother taking any photos, so these are all K's images.
We parked just outside the old city walls and walked around inside the town. There seem to be ornate churches galore!
The church of San Michele in Foro.
A kind of tuktuk!
Church of San Giusto.
Church of Santi Giovanni e Reparata, Lucca's first cathedral.
Duomo di San Martino, the current cathedral.
Inside the Duomo di San Martino.
From ornate ceiling to ornate floor.
Somewhere round the back of the cathedral. I liked the signs of modern building works against the backdrop of historical buildings!
Finally did you know that Chat GPT can turn your photos into watercolours, oil paintings, impressionist art, whatever? I only just discovered this, and it's just as easy as using an app, if not easier. However, unless you pay a subscription, you are limited to five photo transformations per day.
They also suggested turning your photo into a vintage travel poster, which I could not resist. First I turned my picture into a watercolour, then into the poster, which I instructed to add the words 'Amalfi Coast'. I'm really pleased with the result! 😀
I think that sums up our Italian trip! But to sum up further:
The pros: very scenic, gorgeous ornate churches, amazing Roman ruins, good food.
The cons: Too many tourists, too much traffic, private beach clubs taking up nearly all the beach area, fairly basic campsites (we didn't even stay at one with a pool!).
Would we go again? Yes, but probably only as part of a trip including another country, so just in the north I think.
This September we are going back to Spain - just to Catalonia so not too much driving, good birding places and lovely sandy beaches open to all!
