bye bye croatia

Sunday 21st Sept.. Happy birthday Brent!
Ston was a different place next morning, when bus loads of tourists arrived and gave it a nice atmospher. After a naughty breakfast in the upstairs apartment we headed up the medieval walls...the longest in Europe. Then off through the centre of the peninsula to Orebic, which lonely planet described as having the widest sandy beaches in S.Dalmatia. It was a glorious day and instead of enjoying the water, we spent all day looking a/ for the sandy beaches and b/ for the town centre...neither of which existed! Finally decided to find a campsite at 5pm. Arrived in coastal site full of Germans with Hunde und autocampers! We were directed down to the tent sites by the beach. This turned out to be a 10 minute hike down the steepest path youve ever seen! As for toilets...well none were to be seen! We eventually found a small toilet block in the hillside, but clearly the needs of over 54s would not be met by them. Luckily when we expressed our dissatisfaction with the one site down there, which was also on solid rock, we were redirected up the hill to a very nice spot near immaculate toilet blocks, which even catered for those wishing to wash their dogs! A quick supermarket stop to pick up wine and beer and a good evening was had when I finally beat brent at backgammon..happy birthday again. Lovely for Brent to get so many messages including a call from Andrew and Ruth, and good to see Jan back in coventy.. happy birthday to David too!

Mon 22nd Sept
Well would you believe it...no sooner had we got into bed than the howling winds started again...and not just from Brents stomach! Good job Brent had staked the tent down. To cover up the sound of the wind and the howling dogs ( not really, but there were a lot about) we plugged in to the mp3 player and had a bit of a sing. Then this morning when it was cloudy and a bit cooler we changed plans and instead of going to the beach we walked up the mountain to visit a very pretty franciscan monastery. We then took the ferry across to the medieval walled town of Korcula, on Korcula island. Had a picnic accompanied by a mangy cat and even mangier mad man...lovely! Actually the town was very beautiful and once upon a time Marco Polo was reputed to have been born there and a nearby restaurant said that he ater there and offered us the same quality food today... we declined! Managed to update the blog but bit worried about the connection, so the photos will have to wait. Tomorrow we plan to move to Dubrovnic and would love to find an apartment with wireless so that we can sort out flickr... we'll see. By the way thanks Simon for your tips and thank you to everyone else for your comments. We'll try to add more links so that you can see where we are.

Tues 23rd Sept
Lin here looking back to the last 2 days. It took a while for us to leave the campsite as our spot was right next to the chemical toilet and every camper van on the site seemed to need to empty their toilets, which meant blocking our way out with their vans!! After a coffee at the local Konzum (that's Croatian for supermarket by the way) we finally got out and on the road to Dubrovnik. This was another absolutely gorgeous drive. Navigating Dubrovnic however was not so pleasant and Brents stress levels were pretty high as he drove through narrow streets absolutely full of parked cars and traffic, with motor bikes coming at us from all directions! Nevertheless, after a short wait we managed to park right next to the walls of the old city and began our tour. Entering the city is quite a site. Steep steps down narrow stairs with tiles roofs all around. At the bottom a shiny street with wonderful buildings, including a palace and cathedral. Quite stunning ...the only down side was the amount of tourists. In fact, as we strolled along we bumped into a couple that we'd chatted to yesterday when we got the ferry to korkula. Had a bit of a chat with them, which was nice. We headed out of time to find somewhere to stay in Lapad, which turned out to be a very pleasant area, with a central pedestrianised walkway. Steep stairways lead to the apartment areas... hard work I can tell you! We found an apartment using the lonely planet guide. Very friendly people again. Felt quite tired, so had an early night..watched a bit of tele and read.

Wed 24th Sept

After unsuccessfully trialling the solar charger that we bought at Maplins before leaving, today we did the tour of the city walls of Dubrovnic. In the course of the war much of the city was bombed and the original roof tiles had to be replaced. Theyve done a fantastic job. I really like those red roofs, but about half way round Brent turned into a petulant schoolboy and I had to put up with that well known question: 'Are we nearly there yet?'
Things we noticed on the way around the walls:

- Cats: there is at least one cat at each corner – as we passed a school a girl was practising her singing and what we thought was a pretty little kitten seemed to be joining in! Upon closer inspection it turned out to be a stray kitten in big trouble – very sad to see. At another point 3 cats were asleep on huge sheets which were being used to cover a load of rubbish.

Rubbish- a/ lack of: all the towns we've visited have been immaculately clean, with very little sign of chewing gum or any other crap.
Rubbish – b/ whilst getting the impression of stunningly clean and pristine streets along the tourist route we also kept spotting boarded up doorways, behind which there was a stack of rubble. They,ve clearly done a great job of reconstruction and in order to get tourists in to help finance the operation are also covering up vast areas, still in need of renovation. Very interesting
Housing – although much of the city is a tourist trap, some areas are clearly lived in, with washing hanging over the streets. Quite a contrast and we've seen similar in Split and Zadar
Tourists – It was like being herded around the city at some points, and must be horrible in full season and English seems to be the dominant language

Decided to go back to the flat for lunch and a siesta, aided by sampling the lovely liqueur which our hosts outside Split had given us as a parting gift....lovely!
Brent here now. After an afternoon kip we headed out along the headland path which wound its way through wooded slopes passing by some very posh hotels with swimming pools near the beach. These must be where some of the many tourists we have seen must reside. Sat in a bar next to the beach watching a swimmer who must have been in training for a biatholon as he swam three times across the bay at full tilt. After a brief visiit to the supermarket to buy some ingredients for our evening meal we headed back to the apartment. Linda had a craving for meat so we picked up some pork. Cooking it was a bit tricky but I think I did a good job on the double electric hob making pork with peppers and mushrooms in a smoked cheese sauce --- yummy. Washed down with some local red wine. Unfortunately our plans to hit the local discos and bars disintegrated at this point. Another early night was had – will we ever come to terms with being over 50?
Observation on satellite TV. Two of the apartments have had cable TV. Is very interesting how all the TV formats are similar – Big Brother here and the ubiquitous talent programmes where people laugh at those who clearly havent any. Culture must be becoming similar due to mass media. On a positive side the local TV channel did show fairly recent movies regularly obviously Rupert Murdoch hasnt bought all the rights here yet.

Thursday 25th Sept
Brent here. Well we managed to get onto the car ferry which will take us back North to the Italian border. Got up early and said goodbye to our host. He even gave us his garage to park the car. Set off to catch the ferry realising we still had no ticket and not enough kuna but we are learning to live by the seat of our pants. So after driving three times around the one way system we managed to find an ATM, book the ticket and get on the ferry in the hour that was left. Ferry is very busy now – even though at first we thought it was empty! Cars came on first, then coaches, then foot passengers so is now crammed and we are on here till 7.00am tomorrow morning.