Euro Day 22 - Hello Croatia!

Monday, 15 July 2019

Jon and I got up early to go for a run along one of the paths that was close to the campsite (the best thing about it).  We ended up running almost 10k as we found a nice loop trail with great views all the way. The first part was bike path, the route home was along forest trails.

Back at camp we roused the children and were all packed up and ready to go at 9:30. With no prior knowledge of Trieste we had researched some things that we should do the night before, so we had a few places to go to before we continued on to Croatia.

First was a walking trail further south and along the sea which had lovely views of the coast and boats below us

It also had some old military emplacements with their associated tunnels: 

After about an hour we continued onto the Miramare Castle. It was a beautiful Sunday so the parking was pretty tricky by the sea as every person and his dog had come down for a lovely sunbake on the..um.. rocks. The castle was beautiful though. The most livable we've seen so far I think.

By then we were all starving, so our plan was to head to a supermarket then to the sports store Decathlon as Jett needed a new shirt and I needed to buy myself a birthday present. Unfortunately by then the waterfront traffic was crazy, and Jon's google maps lady had gone insane, so funnily enough we got to see the other highly recommended destination that we thought we wouldn't have time for -the Trieste Piazza.  Ms Google directed us right through the centre of it! Poor Jon - he did so well to stay calm. I didn't have the speed to take a photo, so this is from the web. It was very pretty, if a bit stressful!

Then we finally made it to the supermarket. We did our shopping then had a lovely picnic in the car park (yes are standards are very low!)

Then it was onwards to Croatia. First we left Italy for a short stretch of 20km in Slovenia to the Croation boader. Unfortunately the guards turned turned us back as we had come to a small crossing point which wouldn't let us non-Euro passport holders through. We had to re-route back through a larger crossing which added some extra time to our journey.  Aside from that it was fairly straightforward driving and we're now near the Plitvicka National Park which is the reason for our visit (and one of Zali's picks).

We had delicious italian gnocchi and tiramisu for my birthday dinner.  Yum.  Another adventurous day!