Day 43 - Repositioning to the Border

After packing up & getting ready, the owner made us a large pot of coffee which we drank in the cool mountain air. We then paid up, said our goodbyes around 9.30am & headed north towards the border.

Our journey took us through mountains and valleys littered with shepherds, beehives & low clouds. We stopped at a little roadside stall to inspect the wares & discovered that we were allowed to sample the produce. There were 6 different honeys, a plate of 3 different cheeses & she insisted we tried her blackberry wine. After sampling everything at least once, we purchased 2 pots of honey & a bottle of her blackberry wine.

Once over the mountains we dropped down dramatically to the Adriatic coast at Senj & followed the coast road that we had a month ago travelled in the previous direction. At 11am we stopped at a supermarket for elevenses. I bought a greasy meat pie (my last for this trip) & Jackie had a tuna sandwich.

Refreshed we continued north & set the SatNav to take us back to the beach in Novigrad that we had previously spent a happy day on. I stupidly let the SatNav take the strain without getting an overview of the route. We followed blindly until Jackie questioned why we were seeing Kuna exchange booths at the side of the road. My SatNav was taking us across the border into Slovenia......argh! We only want to mess about with borders once, so we turned around to find an alternative route.

Our revised route took us over another mountain range across Istria via Pazin on very slow narrow windy roads. When we eventually descended to the coast at Novigrad it was gone 2.30pm. We located our beach to assess how many days we would stay before heading home.

The beach had more seaweed on it than we remembered & it made our decision for us - we would have one more final day of sun then hop over the border. After a couple of hours on the blazing hot beach we packed up & headed to Casa Romantica La Parenzana for a return visit.

The manager welcomed us back like old friends & upgraded us to Room 1, the best room. It was very spacious with a colossal bathroom much to Jackie’s delight. We had a beer, then sat down in our favourite restaurant. Jackie ordered seafood pljukanci (a type of pasta) & I tagliatelle with beefsteak, rucola salad & truffle, all washed down with a litre of the house white.

After savouring the ambience for an hour or so, we called it a night.

Song of the Day : Rocky Mountain Way by Joe Walsh.Read more