Manarola, Cinque Terre and winding, falling roads

18 JUNE 2016

Cinque Terre, Italia

After spending the night in a field in Vigolone, Italy, we woke up with the sun and made our way to Cinque Terre. The winding roads after La Spezia were tough on the car, but we made it without accidents despite all the cave-ins of the roads in many places. There is no way I would attempt to drive in this area as the roads were tight corners and turns with room for one car only for about 80% of the way. Just imagine the adrenaline rushes at every turn, honking to notify any oncoming trafic, hoping there wasn't any, but preparing for the worst if there was..

Ok, that's a bit dramatic because we only crossed paths with a handful of cars, but it was still a rush nonetheless.

A change of scenery...

La Spezia, Italy; a place I will come back to and spend weeks in if I can.

 Manarola, the first of the 5 cities.

Here we watched some boys throwing back flips off the rocks.

There is only one road going through the national park and when we found that the road from Manarola to Riomaggiore was blocked due to fallen debris, we had to make a detour of about 2 hours in order to bypass it. We left and went back to La Spezia only to take another route into Riomaggiore which was only 5 minutes away from Manarola !

"We travel; some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls." - Anais Nin -

Istria, Croatia - Rijeka, Porec, Pula

 13-17 JUNE 2016

CROATIA

Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia all meet in the northeastern-most corner of Italy / northwestern-most part of Croatia. This afternoon, we were met with beautiful sun rays over Koper as we entered Croatia. We had to stop and look at the ocean as it just touched Slovenia.

The scenery in this area is some of my favorite, although it doesn't compare to southern France.

Arriving in Rijeka

Porec, Croatia

It was nice to get out and stretch our legs; the parking around town was easy and free.

After camping out in Nesactium, an old Roman village in ruins (almost untouched), we headed to Pula. Seeing this almost perfectly intact Roman amphitheater at sunrise was pretty memorable.

If wanting to soak in the powerfulness of the Romans, I'd come to Pula over Rome any day.

The morning sky was full of birds singing and flying around.

The entire town, built on 7 hills just like Rome, is such a great introduction to Roman architecture and the civilization that was created and left in this area of the world. The city is full of old Roman buildings at every turn.

The entrance to Forum, the main pedestrian street in Pula.

KAMENJAK

Here, we finally reached the coast, and not just any coast; the very tip of the Istriad Penninsula and we were the only car liscened in France for hours and miles around.

There were sailboats here and there, and the water was perfectly clear.

Here we cliff jumped, or attempted to, after it was recommended by an airbnb host back in Slovenia. He told us of the 80s when he and his friends would come out to what is now Kamenjak to jump into the underwater caves while the girls looked on.

Unfortunately, now that the area is preserved, the area is all blocked off because kids can't be as cool as they used to be. One tourist must have made a mistake and now no one can take advantage of the prime diving spot.

But nothing could beat these amazing clear waters.



The Pula Aquarium

Here, there were rescued turtles, weird sea creatures, an octopus, huge fish, eels, seahorses, and many other marine animals.

 Mycke had fun harassing this poor turtle with a water bottle.. This one jumped up at us and snapped his jaws!

 What a majestic beast.

"Travel and change of pace impart new vigor
to the mind." - Seneca -

IfeelsLOVEnia

9 JUNE 2016

LJUBLJANA

This is the area around Hostel Celica, a great place to take urban pictures and spend a few hours playing ISpy

We forgot to do something important at Ljubljana: go into the city center. I can't remember why we didn't go (slaps forehead), I think we let it slip our minds sort of how we forgot to go back to the museum in Hallstatt.

We decided to just do Ljubljanski Grad.

But it's okay because we saw amazing views and took in lots of history for this part of Europe.

No edit!

The oldest wheel in the world is located in Slovenia. It's over 5000 years old if I remember correctly and we got to touch a replica in the museum. We should've gone to the City Museum to see the real one but again, I can't remember the reasons why we left the area without doing it. 

We have many reasons to come back to the area though!

"Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in
pursuit of another." - Lawrence Block -