Day 40 25 June 2023 London National Portrait Gallery

We left the flat at around 10:30am and walked down to Green Park tube station and got a train up to Kings Cross Station.

Kings Cross Station

We walked from there to Amity’s home, Deb’s 2nd cousin, about a slow 20 minute walk away, it was very warm. It was really good to see Amity and she (& her flat mates) gave us a nice welcome. The rest of her family, Steve, Catrina and Eleanor all arrived shortly after. It was good to see them all. We sat in the backyard and talked for a while. Catching up on all the family news.
Around 11:55am we all walked down to Amity’s local pub, the Union Tavern, for an English pub Sunday Lunch. Continue reading

Number of Views :292
Posted in London | Leave a comment

Day 38.75 and 39 24 June 2023 Our flight and settling into London

Day 38.75
We boarded at 7:20pm and were in the air by 7:45pm on our way out of the EU and into the UK.
Deb has a woman behind her coughing, and she,(Deb), isn’t impressed. At least its not a spicy cough.
An uneventful flight, just how we like them, a little turbulence at the start then smooth flying all the way to Heathrow. We circled the airport for a while waiting for our spot to land. We landed at 8:55.pm and our Australian passports got us past an enormous queue of “others” wanting to enter the UK. I guess it saved us over 1 to 1.5hs getting through immigration. Our luggage took forever (our Airtags confirmed it had arrived with us so that was a relief and we knew it would eventually come out), we were finally through everything by 9:45pm and in our car being driven to our Mayfair flat.
We arrived in Mayfair at 10.30pm. We explored our new home for the next two weeks, unpacked a little before calling it a day.
Day 39
We were out and about sort of early. We hit the nearest mini-market to get some essentials, got them “home” and then decided to finish off the shopping. We walked up to Oxford St and our familiar M&S supermarket. Nothing had changed much in the store except the prices. Anyway we got all the things and went back to our flat and had breakfast for lunch, yoghurt with muesli or berries is not a brunch! Continue reading

Number of Views :322
Posted in London, Slovenia | Leave a comment

Day 38   23 June 2023  Ljubljana,  Ljubljana  to London 

Our plan for the day was simple, take it easy, see if we could get a “later checkout (we have already got our room until 1:30pm), explore Tivoli Park and go to The Franciscan Church of the Annunciation, grab a bite for lunch and go back to our room to get ready for our flight later today.

We achieved everything, except the later late checkout, so in all, a good result.

Our first stop was Tivoli Park, at 5 square kilometres it is easily the largest park in Ljubljana. It was first designed in 1813 and had a series of additions and modifications through the years. We walked up past a large pond filled with flowering lilies,  ducks and a white swan. Continue reading

Number of Views :337
Posted in Slovenia | Leave a comment

Day 37 22 June 2023 Ljubljana

We had an easy day today, we head to London late tomorrow so we thought we would just take it easy before the adventure hits another gear.

We had a late breakfast, which meant sharing our breakfast restaurant with all the other hotel guests, gee they are a noisy lot!! Makes you appreciate getting out and about early, you miss all the other tourists, not only at the attractions.
Enough grumbling!!!

We set out for a walk to the city markets down near the Dragon Bridge. I looked up to the castle and there were lots of “Chemtrails” in the sky above, the skies are so busy over Europe. Continue reading

Number of Views :280
Posted in Slovenia | Leave a comment

Day 36 21 June 2023 Vintar Gorge, Lake Bled and Lake Bohinj

We were met by our guide for the day and her husband driver at 9am.
The weather forecast for today suggests we may have had rain in the afternoon so our plan for the day changed a little. Instead of going to the lakes first we went straight to Vintar Gorge.
Vintar Gorge was just under an hours drive from Ljubljana. The Gorge hike traffic is one way through the Gorge itself and then a loop track over a steep mount takes you back to the start and your transport, that’s the way it is meant to work!
We were dropped off at the head of the Gorge where the ticket office and entrance were, and our driver drove to meet us at the bottom end. A couple of rules broken there but it worked for us. The Vintar Gorge is a deep river valley through which a river runs. Continue reading

Number of Views :272
Posted in Slovenia | Leave a comment

Day 35 20 June 2023 Opatija to Ljubljana Slovenia

We had a latish breakfast, Deb took the chance to go down and have a last look at The Maiden statue.
We were picked up at 10am for our drive to Ljubljana. Our driver was the best we have had since leaving Split.
We were five minutes away and Deb began wondering if her hat is coming to Ljubljana or having a longer break in Opatija. Turns out it has got itself a sunlounge in the shade and has slapped on some sunscreen in Opatija. (it is a Cancer Council hat after all).
We crossed into Slovenia at around 10:25am, no border checkpoints, its part of the EU, not good for passport stamp collectors. Roadside warning signs to look out for deer became the norm. The country designation car number plates also changed from HR (Croatia – Croatia in Croatian is Hrvatska, hence the HR) to SLO for Slovenia. The countryside is hilly with a mix of farms and forest, very green.
At about 11:30am coming into Ljubljana the traffic going the other way was banked up for many km, our driver said this was normal, especially in mornings and afternoons peak times. Continue reading

Number of Views :250
Posted in Slovenia | Leave a comment

Day 34 19 June 2023 Opatija

No tours, no plans for our day. We travel to Slovenia tomorrow so we had a relaxing day today.
Before breakfast we took a walk over to see the statue of The Maiden and the Seagull, Deb wanted a photo of her in the morning light. The statue was put there to replace a statue of the Virgin Mary during the Tito years. Continue reading

Number of Views :284
Posted in Croatia | Leave a comment

Day33 18 June 2023 Hum and Motovun

We left at 8:30am, and headed into the centre of the Istrian peninsula to Hum, smallest city in the world. We were told that in Croatian terms, based on Grad, the Croat word for city, which is derived from the word fence, a city is everything inside an encompassing fence/wall. But the sign outside the settlement describes it as a town, where legend has it, that was made from the leftover stone after giants had finished building all surrounding towns. Continue reading

Number of Views :244
Posted in Croatia | Leave a comment

Day 32 17 June 2023.  Labin Pula Opatija

Our day got under way when our driver, Daniel – an Opatija local, picked us up at 8 :30am and we headed off to Pula at the southern end of the Istria peninsula.
Along the way Daniel gave us a running commentary of the history of the area; from a hotel across the road from us that has had 4 name changes according to the government in power at the time over the last 150 years, to the date sometime in the 1860’s when Austria brought the railway to Opatija and that Istria for the locals begins on the western side of the local mountains. Also, Opatija had a Golden Era from 1890 to 1910, when many of the grand old buildings of the town were built.
Our trip to Istria began with us passing through a tunnel (about 4.5km long that took 8 years to build) that passes through the near mountains. Once on the other side the landscape flattened and farmland began. Istria, we are told, is divided into four distinct areas based on the colour of the soil. White Istria, Grey Istria, Red Istria (where the soils are more suited to agriculture) and Black Istria.

The hills of Istria are heavily wooded with forests, with farmland down on the valley Plains. The main income producing crops are Olives, for olive oil, and grapes for wine. Truffles are “farmed” in Istria, both Black and White Truffles, and are harvested using cross-bred dogs, unlike France where pigs are used.
There are many myths and legends intertwined with historical fact in the region. There are Neolithic grave mounds, stone circles, and many myths that are hard to believe.
We arrived in Pula at around 9:45am, Pula used to be a major ship building city, but WWII put an end to that. In the early days it was “blessed” with malaria, this meant the Venetians gave it a pass and left the city alone for another further up the coast. The Romans occupied and expanded the city, building many large infrastructure, in the city. We started at the old Roman Amphitheatre, built around the 1st century AD and modified many times since then. Continue reading

Number of Views :204
Posted in Croatia | Leave a comment

Day 31 16 June 2023 Plitvice to Opatija

We were picked up a bit before 9am by our driver, Mario, for our transfer from Plitvice to Opatija. He loves to chat thankfully that stopped after a while, we enjoy our peace.

But I get ahead of myself, yesterday I swapped our SIM cards over to our 2nd set for our trip (I got two 30 day SIMs each for the trip) and found Deb’s didn’t work. I got onto the issuing company and they got onto it. This morning I found out from them that both our new SIMs were faulty! Hopefully all will be resolved by the end of today.

The countryside is very green up this way, still high peaks and deep flat valleys, just very green. We are in bear country. There aren’t that many and they tend to come out late in the day.
Along the way there were many abandoned houses. Apparently when the 1990’s war broke out many people fled overseas and have never returned. So the houses have gone to ruin and they cant be repaired without the owners consent and mostly, the owners can’t be found, so they sit and rot. Continue reading

Number of Views :267
Posted in Croatia | Leave a comment