The Week in Review

We are sitting on the grass in Bled, a little town north of Lubjljana, Slovenia, relaxing after a day spent hiking through the surrounding pine tree lined hills and swimming out to a church in the middle of the clearest lake I have seen in my life. Slovenia is a mixture of Austria and the South-Island of NZ. You expect a yodelling Bilbo Baggins dressed in lederhosen to stroll out of the woods at any moment. This is the perfect place to decompress after a whirlwind tour of New York, Rome, Pompei, the Amalfi Coast, and south-west coast of Croatia. Rome was the ideal antidote to NYC. New Yorkers are uptight about everything and Romans are so relaxed they don’t even have the energy to indicate or move out of the way whilst driving at 200Km an hour down a one-way street the wrong way. My two favourite memories of Rome: 1) a picnic of mozzarella, basil, tomatoes, and bread with red wine at sunset on the Spanish steps; 2) A loud, young American bloke walking up steps near the colosseum asking his mates “Are these the steps Jesus walked on…?”.

We picked up our little silver Renault Clio which we have since dubbed “Chloe” in the outskirts of Rome and hit the open road…at 10Kms an hour down quiet side streets until I figured out how to drive on the right side of the road whilst changing gears with the WRONG hand. Interestingly I have since developed a strange habit of saying “up” when I mean “down”, “less” when I mean “more” and “hello” when I mean “goodbye” (fortunately “ciao” means both!). On the second day despite warnings and horror stories from family, friends and local Italians we hopped back in Chloe and took on the narrow winding roads that snake along the cliffs of the Amalfi coast. Lize has coined a term for such reckless abandon, ”Cambition”. This was cambition to the max and although we were unable to afford to stay in the area, the fleeting glimpes I caught out the window of pastel coloured fishing villages anchored to limestone cliffs were well worth the stress of keeping our pretty, little car dent-free. It is hard not to take Italian drivers’ apparent desire to run you of the road personally especially when they profess to love the “simple, slow, beautiful life”. A head-on collision is neither simple, slow nor beautiful! Perhaps it is the French license plate?

After failing to find anywhere to stay in Amafli, Chloe doggedly drove on, winding us through what we later called the “ghetto of Amalfi” and spat us out on a massive motorway. We suddenly realised at 8:30pm that we were in the middle of nowhere, heading nowhere, with no place to stay and no light or time to find anything. So we reigned Chloe in, dragged her kicking and screaming into a gas station, pulled out the map and eventually fled north to the safety of sleepy Pompei, the city that rests at the base of Mt Vesuvius. One thousand and nine hundred years ago this city was buried in ash and immaculately preserved by the eruption of the now dormant volcano that towers over it. The next morning as we walked through the unearthed ruins of the ancient roman settlement Lize and I were overwhelmed by the realisation that the fossilised remains of Pompei’s inhabitants on display were once walking on the same cobblestones, drinking from the same fountains, and staring up at the same hot Mediterranean sun as us.

We then set off across the middle of the country to Bari to catch an overnight ferry to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Again, miraculously, at the end of the trip Chloe emerged unscathed from the guts of the painfully narrow holding decks and we drove into Dubrovnik bleary eyed from a restless night of sleep in the open aired deck surrounded by snoring, balding Croatian women, filthy backpackers, and Panini munching Italians.

I love Croatia. I don’t want to divulge much more because I don’t want to bias those of you who have not been in any way. Come to this country and experience it for yourself. It is paradise…and it is cheap which an old scrooge like me loves even more! Some quick highlights: 1) Climbing up cliffs that border an ancient fortress and then jumping into the cool aquamarine Adriatic; 2) Dirt cheap seafood bonanza overlooking a walled city surrounded by the ocean with mountains stacked up like toblerone pieces in the background. 3) Watching drunk Croatians dance in a discotec…think Eurovision meets Borat in very tight and short lycra. Next stop: Tuscany!!!