Tales From The Road

We got to Slovenia & went to the are of the first intended campsite. There was a Roman Cemetry & a cave nearby that we were interested to see & hoped to do some walking. When we got there the cemetery was closed & we couldn't find the caves & the area looked pretty boring so we decided to move on to our next campsite, which wasn't too far away.

When we got there it appeared to be open as the barrier was open but there was no one around in reception, there was a layby just outside so we decided to park there & see what happened later in the afternoon. When it got dark no one had turned up so we just spent the night in the layby. It was very quite as the road was a winding country road that literally led to the campsite & there were only about 2 cars that went by all evening. We were a bit stuck as these two campsites were the only 2 that we knew of that were open in Slovenia & we wanted to visit the capital, llubljana & we could get a train from the train we were in. So we left the van outside the train station & got the train to the city. We had to get the train at 7am as it was either that or 11am. The city was very nice & we did not see any tourists. We had a walk around & saw several Roman ruins & some nice buildings. There was an international film festival that had just started the day we got there & we got tickets to see a Japanese film, Survive Style 5+ which had subtitles in English & Slovenian for £2 each. We got the train back & spent another night in the same area by the campsite but in a different layby.

We decided that we best move on as most things we wanted to do were closed. Also we wanted to mobe to where it was warmer. It has been lovely & warm the last few nights in Italy & sunny during the day (except today!)

When we got to Italy it was quite late in the day & we didn't want to spend £20 a night to stay at a campsite in Venice without making the most of the time there. We decided we would find somewhere near the coast to sleep & then go to the Venice campsite first thing in the morning & leave the van there all day whilst in the city & stay for 1 night rather than 2. I choose a town called Caorle by the coast & we drove down there. We spent a while walking along the beach which was really nice as we hadn't seen the sea for 2 months! There didn't seem to be anywhere good to sleep & it can be a bit tiring driving around looking for somewhere so we decided to go to the Venice campsite anyway. As we were leaving Caorle Matt spotted a car park full of campers & we decided to check it out. It turned out to be a free car park with no restrictons on campers & as it was a Saturday everyone was there for the weekend. It seemed to be a well know spot as the number of campers steadily grew & we spent the night with 45 other motorhomes! We stayed there for a total of 3 nights as the town was pretty nice, with amazing old buildings & the sea. It wouldn't have been nice in summer though as it was full of hotels & would have been jammed with tourists.

The car park that we stayed in was right next to the bus station & also had public toilets so we were able to get the bus to Venice & have as much water as we needed & empty our chemcial toilet. We even managed to wash our hair in the van sink! We got the bus to Venice for £8 euros each which was a 2 hour journey, again we left at 7am & got back at about 6.30

Venice was a nice city but it was full of English people & very packed. What was good was that there was no cars. We enjoyed walking round & taking some photos. I didn't enjoy paying 1 euro to go to the toilet (66p!) which was the most expensive so far as you have to pay to use the toilets in most places including in some bars & cafes that you are buying food in! We got 2 water buses around the town which enabled us to see some of the sights from the water.

By Chloe