Kwaka14

Day 4 – Venice Explore

We wake to the sound of Rattely V twin and find that Bills mate has made it in after his Vincent (A much newer model (1961?) which has suspension) had broken down. After dropping the bike on the ground (too soft for the stand) and standing it up again he’s all good to pitch the tent and they’re both keen to come in to Venice so we have a quick bite and we head off to start the day in Venice together. Interesting guys – there after their local club award for the “longest travelled” Vincent for the year and are heading onwards to a rally in Greece- they later admit they will catch the ferry from Venice, regardless pretty awesome to ride UK to Italy for them. Anyway we catch the bus from the Campground and make our way in to Venice – initial impressions are it a fairly busy piece of real estate, and we are there some time before peak season when it apparently doubles or triples in population. We walk with Bill and mate for a while looking at various things and I decide time to get a dodgy tourist T-shirt so we separate and do some serious sightseeing –Venice is an amazing place, I thought Prague was something special (actually Prague is pretty special), but Venice really takes your breath away, loads of marble everywhere and looking pretty stunning all in all. We were keen for the touristy thing of a Gondola ride, but balked at the 150 euro price tag for a 1.5 hour jaunt- no wonder there’s very few occupied Gondola’s. All in all Venice was a great place to visit, but a tad expensive for our tastes and too many tourists for an easy trip, definitely worth the visit. The highlights would be St Marks Square, the Bridge of Sighs, and Ice Cream (awesome stuff – and much cheaper if you walk a couple of streets back from the main ones). Back to the campground and we chow down and hit the hay – A nice relaxing day.
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Day 5 – Venice to Otok Krk Croatia

We start the day as normal – wake up about 8am, stretch the cracks out of the back and start to pack the stuff – jamming enough gear in to two cases (incl. a tent and sleeping bags/mats) is quite a feat and the challenge takes more than the 5 minutes it seems I always anticipate, end up loading things up in undies and a t-shirt as it’s already 28 degrees or thereabouts, finally after some swearing we are ready for breakfast, we briefly catch up with the 2 Vincent guys (who’s numbers have swelled to 5 (bikes in a van for the others though), and chow down on some rolls and ham (camp shops are great) , on with the leathers and we are off but as normal routine dictates we need a quick shot before we leave, and discover one of the kids in the camp also has a Hayabusa and he’s keen for a quick photo shoot so we take this at the camp boundary
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and we’re off. It’s a bit complex getting on the motorway to Rijeka (Croatia) from where we are and somehow manage to get on the wrong one in the heavy traffic, aah well, rectify that and at about 11am we are actually on our way, next stop should be the border with Slovenia. Did I say Italians are crazy drivers? The average speed on the motorway seems to be about 150km/h with many flying past as we sit at about that speed (Citroen Berlingo’s Clio’s and many more pass us to my embarrassment as I’m paranoid about getting stuck with a traffic infringement in a foreign country. We follow the signs to Slovenia, stop just after the border for a bite of lunch at the first opportunity where we are started at by a bunch of Italians on BMW HP2’s, they seem a strange bunch and have the biggest chicken strips I’ve ever seen which is sad given the beautiful country with fantastic roads and amazing scenery we have ahead of us. I think it’s almost a pity we only go through about 30km’s before we hit Croatia. We cross the borders with no issues- just showing the technical papers and insurance papers and we are there, Next stop Otok (Island) Krk (Neck), however as we go through Rijeka (on some pretty average motorway roads) I take a wrong turn and we end up in the city instead of past it – Rijeka isn’t a great introduction to the area, however it’s the first time I’ve seen the sea (apart from a short trip to Cornwall earlier this year) and I love it for that. It’s a bit harrowing finding our way back up to get back on track and heading the right way– several dodgy little back roads and it all sorts itself out and we hit the Motorway. 30 seconds later we are stopping at our first Croatian Toll booth, all good except they will only take Kuna (the local currency) or a single Euro Coin – so we pay twice as much as we should as we have no Kuna yet. Another hour of motorway and again the scenery starts to become more and more spectacular and the road engineering s amazing with the road cantilevered off the cliff over the sea, incredible stuff, Krk is not far away and we head over the bridge (long way down) and cross to the island where the roads become fantastic, another 70km of fun and we end up at our destination, Glad to be here, not only because of the place, the scenery and the sea, but I’m absolutely shagged, the Heat (32 deg) and probably not enough water has gotten to me, anyway we pitch the tent, buy a drink and climb in to the sea until the evening, what a glorious way to relax, at this point I can’t think of many things better and the holiday finally feels real.
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