The Basic Route

Assuming that Air Canada can get us from London, Ontario to Toronto without losing our bags, our first stop in Europe will be Venice, Italy.

 Finding a hotel or B&B in this town proved to be a hair pulling experience. As soon as I found something that was affordable ( by Venice standards that seems to be under $1000 a night) I then discovered that it either had a shared bathroom and/or some really shitty reviews on TripAdvisor. It seems there are several hundred B&B's offering anywhere from 1 to 5 bedrooms and a couple of dozen real hotels. They are all "just a short walk" to the main tourist areas and all have "scenic views" from every single "deluxe suite" that they offer. In other words Venice seems to have the market cornered when it comes to stretching the truth with respect to accommodations.

 Hotels.com already has our money so I guess we will see how close to the truth they come when we get the room key.

 Three full days in Venice should hopefully give us enough time to see all the sights. I've armed myself with a Rick Steve's guide book and I've downloaded a mapping ap. for my phone so hopefully we can find our way around without falling into a canal.

 From Venice we will head northeast by train to the border town of Gorizia where we will hop over the border to the Slovenian town of Nova Gorica where I hope to find a train station and an outbound train heading for Lake Bled.

 Apparently lake Bled is one of the most picturesque spots in Slovenia with a castle overlooking the lake and a small island, home to a small church.

  Two days there enjoying the mountain air and trying not to step in the cow plop, and then we will rent a car for an epic trip through the Slovenian Alps( the actual term is the Julian Alps)- some 26 km of steep, narrow mountain roads with about 70 hairpin bends- yes, I rented a standard!!! Hopefully I can find a way of dash mounting my camera because Susanna will have her eyes closed for most of it!!! LOL

Two more days will get us through central Slovenia- two caves and another castle before we drop the car in Ljubljana (the capital city) where we will hang out and explore for 3 days.

 A bus ride over the border into Croatia will take us to the coastal towns of Rovinj and Pula where we will explore Roman ruins, drink Croatian wine and stuff our faces with seafood for a couple of days. 

 A further car rental will get us to Zagreb by way of the Plitvice Lakes National Parks. Two days in Zagreb will give us time to relax and explore before we fly to Barcelona for a 4 night stay. 

We've been to Barcelona once already and this trip will involve some out of town experiences. I haven't given Susanna any of the details, so this will be a surprise for her too.

 Twenty days on the road with an adventure round just about every corner. 

 Hopefully it wont be quite as hair raising as riding chicken buses through Nicaragua and Guatemala. And I am counting on not running into any guys wearing masks and waiving machetes.

 The actual blog posts will start on or about September 5th and I am sure Susanna will be trying to beat me to it by sharing posts on Facebook.

 Now comes the difficult part of the trip- deciding what to pack. Having long ago ditched the luggage that would allow one to smuggle two Mexicans and a months worth of clothing, we are now down to carry on luggage, although we do check it in because of liquids etc. My size 12 shoes and my medication take up almost one side of the suitcase leaving little room for essentials like clothing. So everything has to be wash and wear- two of everything!! just like Noah!!! Since we are never in any one place longer than 3 days no-one can say "you wore that yesterday" And every guy knows that a pair of underwear can last four days if you flip them inside out and wear them backwards!!!!!!
 Too much information???  Get over it. Life is not meant to be taken seriously.

The Road Beckons Again

While my adventures will never reach the Epic status of those of Bilbo Baggins, The Road does seem to hold a mysterious attraction for many of us.
 I have long since given up counting the number of countries and islands I have visited over the years and I almost feel sorry for those who measure out their travels in terms of numbers.
 While Susanna eagerly participates in the actual journeys she does not share my enthusiasm for the actual planning of the fine details so obviously the pressure is all on me to ensure that things flow smoothly.
  Of course things NEVER flow smoothly and sometimes shit happens.
 In Amsterdam a few years back, a fractured rail track turned a simple trip to the airport into a mad dash between a mish-mosh of stations where no-one spoke English, all re-routing messages came over the PA in Dutch only and our route took us ( I swear) back and forth across Amsterdam by bus and train before we arrived at the airport an hour later than planned ( but fortunately still in time to catch our plane)
 Similarly, in Rome last year, the Metro mysteriously shut down as we were heading for the airport, resulting in a 2km dash across cobblestones dragging suitcases, since every taxi in Rome was already taken!!!
  Just what lies in store for us in September remains to be seen, but I already know that it is MY FAULT!!! LOL
 Deciding where to go this year was a little tricky.
  The list was rather long;
 1) return to Italy to cover the places we didn't see last year.
2) Turkey (Again?)
3) South East Asia ( Vietnam and Cambodia)
4) Greece ( Again!) This would be trip # 4
5) Western Europe ( Germany, France, Belgium to visit WWI sites)
6) El Camino de Santiago ( Spain)
As the terrorism attacks in Europe began to ramp up we eliminated #2 and #5.
#3 and #6 required at least 4-5 weeks and Susanna could only get 3 weeks off.
 That left #1 and #4 as possibles, but one day I was reading some travel articles and saw a couple of "Holy Shit- I have to see this" spots. And those became the basis of the trip.
so #7 Eastern Europe or specifically Croatia and Slovenia.
  We have already been to Croatia but our journey ended at Split so we never got to see the northern parts of the country.
 Our last 2 trips through the Balkans involved group tours using Trafalgar and G Adventures. All well and good if one likes to be cooped up in a bus for the better part of the day with a bunch of annoying tourists!( Especially when they are from the USA and sulk when they cant get their own way)
 Actually the G Adventures group was quite small and we did meet some really great people during our travels.
 In contrast this trip will be a "just us" adventure with perhaps the odd "local tour" to some sites. I did try to find tour agencies covering my proposed agenda but they all wanted to charge me an arm and a leg while skipping many of the places on my itinerary while covering the whole journey in 10 days rather than the 3 weeks that we are taking.
 If I haven't put you to sleep already, my plan is to provide a play by play of the places we are about to visit, hopefully with photos if the internet will let me upload them at a decent speed.
As a teaser, I will let you know that our first stop will be in Italy.
         Cheers
               DD