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Masked Crusaders in Europe

August - September 2020
Simon & Jackie’s road trip / camping European Vacation 2020 Read more
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  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsMasked Crusaders in Europe
    Day 1

    Day 1 - A New Continental Adventure

    August 4, 2020 in England ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    Over the last few weeks, we have been monitoring the UK Governments travel advice & we have been changing our plans almost daily. At this moment in time we plan to race through France & Italy (not on toll roads) to Brindisi & catch a ferry to Greece, where we will stay for a month before making a very leisurely drive home.

    At 0915 hours with our little Citroen DS3 loaded to the gunnels, we embarked on our next adventure. It was with some relief that the infected north of England hadn’t spread far enough south to restrict our movements. Talking of infections, Jackie has woken up with a swollen finger, that is turning green close to the nail. Not pretty.

    An hour and a half later, we pulled into the Euro Tunnel Le Shuttle departure terminal at Folkestone & selected an earlier train (1149 hours). After a quick wee, because there are no toilets currently open in the tunnel, we received the call to depart. All very straightforward, despite initially being the low vehicles queue which would have resulted in us smashing our top box on the ceiling. Luckily we were directed to the correct queue! We were also subject of a vehicle inspection & had our steering wheel swabbed for drugs!

    As soon as we actually boarded the shuttle, I couldn’t think about anything else other than having a wee. Typical.

    The 35 minute journey flew by in which time we just about finished our picnic, then we disembarked into Calais. Unfortunately our car SatNav seemed to be struggling with the new language & took us on a guided tour of Calais. We were about to resort to google when finally the SatNav got its act together & spat us out of Calais & on a toll free course towards Reims in the Champagne Ardennes region.

    Our route took us east along the southern side of the English Channel, then just before Dunkerque, we headed south past Lille, Le Quesnoy, Landrecies, Guise, Laon & finally to Reims, arriving at 1745 hours local time. En route we booked our accommodation for the night, the Ibis Reims Centre Gare Hotel.

    We had driven through what was the green fields of France, with still numerous graveyards to remember the fallen, but now the fields were golden with wheat.

    We parked up in the hotel car park, donned our masks & checked in to our hotel, which was perfectly adequate for the budget price. After a quick freshen up, we were soon back out & heading to the famous ‘Cathedrale Notre Dame’. We crossed Square Colbert directly outside our hotel, which was heaving with people enjoying the sun & kids splashing about in a paddling pool. I attempted to take a photo, but Jackie told me to stop in case people thought I was a paedo.

    After a short walk, we arrived at the magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral. It was breathtakingly beautiful. We put our masks on & entered the enormous Gothic building with it’s massive stained glass windows. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site & celebrated it’s 800th anniversary in 2011.

    The most famous event to take place here was the coronation of Charles VII in 1429, with Joan of Arc at his side. This was one of 25 coronations to take place there between 1223 & 1825.

    After strolling past the other points of interest, Palais Du Tau & a statue of Joan of Arc on horseback in full body armour, we located a pharmacy for Jackie’s finger which was really throbbing.

    The pharmacist didn’t like what he saw of Jackie’s finger & suggested she go straight to the hospital to get it checked out, but then after further consideration he diagnosed it as ‘Whitlow Finger’. He sold Jackie an antiseptic solution, that she has to douse her infected finger for 5 minutes twice a day & has advised she goes to a hospital if things don’t improve within 5 days.

    We walked up through Esplanade du Colonel Boucher, had a beer in a Brazilian Restaurant, then walked to a creperie, A L’ere Du Temps, for a savoury galette & half a litre of smooth Bordeaux red. It was all superb.

    Jackie’s finger was throbbing, so we headed back to our hotel, but not before picking up a bottle of Vranken champagne from Reims from the local supermarket. Back at our hotel, it was a quick shower, then popped the fizz. When in Rome................and all that!

    The night ended with up drinking our fizz out of paper cups, whilst I wrote the blog. Mr Vranken would probably be very upset.

    Song of the Day : The Green Fields of France (No Mans Land) by The Men They Couldn’t Hang.

    Bonus Songs : Fields of Gold by Sting.
    Bonus Songs : Champagne Supernova by Oasis
    Bonus Songs : Joan of Arc by OMD.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsMasked Crusaders in Europe
    Day 2

    Day 2 - Accidental Detour to Switzerland

    August 5, 2020 in France ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    Woke up to the BBC news headline ‘France Champagne Industry Gone Flat’. Apparently due to the cancellation of weddings & pretty much all other celebrations in 2020, champagne sales had plummeted & producers in the Champagne region had lost €1.7 million in sales this year. Tens of millions of bottles are likely to go to waste & huge amounts of grapes are ready to be harvested. The 16,000 winemakers in the region are due to have a crisis meeting to decide whether to destroy the excess grapes or send them to distilleries to make hand sanitiser, which seems is not a popular option.

    Jackie woke up with a throbbing finger.

    The French receptionist who couldn’t speak English charged us more than she should have done, but hopefully Booking.com will sort it out. We paid her for our parking & left the hotel & walked the couple of hundred yards to our car. Upon arrival at our car, I noticed that Jackie was not in possession of her orange Gandy rucksack.

    I had to run back to the hotel & found her rucksack containing most of her valuables, makeup & toiletries on a seat. I ran back & we drove to the car park exit only to find the car park was insisting on charging us a second time.

    I had to reverse back, then run back to the hotel & obtain an exit ticket from French receptionist. I ran back & we finally headed south out of Reims. After fuelling up, we drove south through a forest to Epernay, a major champagne town, whilst Jackie had her infected finger in a pot of antiseptic solution.

    We continued south along roads flanked by vineyards and sunflower fields & stopped for breakfast, coffee & a sandwich, at a nice Artisan Boulanger, Les Fournil Des Maissons. We nearly left door less, after a speeding lorry missed Jackie’s open passenger door by inches.

    Continuing, our route took us through Troyes, Dijon, Dole, Montholier, the very pretty Poligny & Champagnole. Somewhere we stopped at another Artisan Boulanger for coffee, quiche & croissant. The kind girl also filled up our water bottles for us.

    We then started climbing up into the French Jura Mountains, passing through the heaving Les Rousses, to the Col de la Faucille, a mountain pass at an elevation of 1323 metres. The Tour de France has passed over it a total of 41 times and as we passed over it we were treated to a fleeting stunning view of Lake Geneva with it’s snowy mountain backdrop.

    We then drove the winding descent towards Switzerland, impressed by the numerous cyclists battling their way up. We passed through Gex and then all of a sudden whilst following the SatNav, we drove through the unmanned border into Switzerland on the outskirts of Geneva. It came as somewhat of a surprise, because I thought our route was going to skirt round Switzerland. Hey ho.

    The Geneva suburbs were busy and I was glad to leave Switzerland about 30 minutes later. We continued in heavy traffic to Annecy, which sits on Lake Annecy. I was looking forward to seeing it, but time was against us so we continued on passing along the shoreline of Lac du Bourget & to finally to Chambéry, our chosen stop for the night. We located our hotel, Hotel L’Actuel, then parked in what we thought was their car park.

    We grabbed our overnight bags and checked in around 8.00pm, only to be told that we were in the wrong car park. Bugger! We dumped our bags in the room, then ran back to the car to prevent incurring too much further cost. Back at the car, Jackie realised that the car park ticket was back in the room. Brilliant!

    Finally we moved the car to the correct car park, but entry was by intercom & we were told it was full, but due to a language misunderstanding, she let us in anyway. We squeezed our car into the most minuscule of spots that was reserved for the Mercure Hotel. Relieved we returned to our hotel for a chilled beer only for the receptionist to tell us we couldn’t park where we had because it was full & we should park in the original car park & gave us a fob for it. There then began a long frustrating and animated discussion with him, which only got semi-resolved when the night receptionist arrived who could speak a modicum of English. The result - I moved the car to a different space in the same car park.

    It was now 9.00pm, we were tired & hungry, so we walked into the old town & found a lovely restaurant with outside seating called Les Halles. We both had a fantastic rump steak with a whisky sauce & pomme frites, washed down with a couple of carafes of the smoothest red wine.

    It had been a long tiring day.

    Song of the Day : Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood by The Animals.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsMasked Crusaders in Europe
    1
    Day 3

    Day 3 - Urgences, Urgences

    August 6, 2020 in France ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Woke up to discover that Jackie’s throbbing finger had turned even more green. After a bit of umming & ahhing we decided our first stop of the day would be the local hospital, just a 0.8 walk away.

    After packing up, we checked out & discovered the key fob I had got us into the car park. We dumped our bags & marched up to the Centre Hospitalier Métropole Savoie. We walked into the virtually empty emergency department & Jackie showed them her manky finger & most importantly her European Health card. Details were taken by the receptionist & no more than 15 minutes later, Jackie was called by the Doctor. This was too easy!

    And of course it was. A couple of minutes later, Jackie was back out & sat with me waiting to be called........we think. I writing this live time & literally 2 minutes later, Jackie was taken away by another Doctor. Impressive.

    Over an hour later Jackie returned to inform me that the Doctors had cut all the green pus out of her finger. Apparently it was just very badly infected, but if she hadn’t sought treatment, it may have required surgery. It was not the original pharmacy diagnosis of Whitlow Finger, which came as a massive relief which was herpetic and incurable. Jackie said the Doctors were so helpful & pleasant. They filled the now large hole in her finger, then bandaged it & sent her packing with a list of items she needed to get from a pharmacy. Thank god that it was all free because we are still in the EU. Which idiots voted us out?

    Jackie was on a high when we left the hospital, possibly due to the anaesthetic. We had a coronation chicken roll & coffee in a boulangerie, then toured the towns pharmacies, collecting her required medical items. She got everything, except the packing for her wound. One pharmacy quoted her €98 for 4 large sheets of the stuff. No thank you.

    Gone midday & still without the packing, we returned to our car, got out of the car park, dumped off the fob, then hit the road for Italy. We fuelled up out of town, because it is cheaper in France than Italy allegedly. We then followed a scenic route up the Cottian Alps to Modane. It was here we discovered the we had no choice but to go through the Frejus Road Tunnel that links France with Italy. This was ok until we arrived at the pay kiosk & were informed that the fee for one way was JUST €46.

    We had no choice but to pay, then drove the 13km under the Col du Frejus & into Italy. After a volley of text messages from Vodafone & EE, we passed through Bardonecchia in Italy, then Susa & into Bussoleno. By now, Jackie had translated her prescription into Italian & she jumped out at the 1st pharmacy to get her missing wound packing. Apparently it didn’t go well, the pharmacist insisted on trying to sell her Gaviscon.

    We continued to the next pharmacy down the road & Jackie eventually came away with some antiseptic gel to insert into the wound. Finally, Jackie was happy, so we went to the supermarket next door & bought 4 bottles of wine, 4 large beers & some food for the princely sum of €33. Bargain!

    Sixty miles later & around 6.30pm, we arrived at Agriturismo da Mamma in Magliano in the Province of Cuneo. It is a very rural location about 4 miles from the nearest town of Alba. Upon arrival we were greeted by Mamma Maria & her son who checked us in. We have a modern spacious room with a terrace all for less than £50 which includes breakfast.

    Mamma Maria informed me that they have made their money from farming hazelnuts that they sell to Ferrero Rocher that originally began production in Alba. They are clearly doing well from their hazelnuts.

    We spent the evening on our terrace eating & drinking & planning our onward journey.

    Song of the Day : Infected by The The

    Bonus Songs : Emergency by 999
    Tunnel of Love by Bruce Springsteen.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsMasked Crusaders in Europe
    Day 4

    Day 4 - Quaint Village Utopia

    August 7, 2020 in Italy ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Woke up to the news that Belgium was now on the UK’s quarantine list. We made the right choice in deciding against visiting Ypres & Waterloo. Not so clever was the news that France has suffered a major surge in Covid cases, I just hope this doesn’t affect our entry into Greece!

    Worse news still for Jackie was that for 10 minutes she couldn’t find her hair straighteners & thought she had left them in the last hotel. She was virtually hyperventilating until she eventually found them at the bottom of her rucksack. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’m sure Jackie would have preferred to have lost her finger that her straighteners!

    With the crisis over, we went to breakfast. Mamma was waiting for us with a table laden with so much delicious plates of food. We weren’t allowed to help ourselves, but instead we pointed to things & Mamma piled our plates up. We started with a savoury plate of frittata, omelette, tomato & mozzarella, ham & cheeses. The 2nd plate of food consisted of sweet dishes including 3 baked peaches topped with amaretto & chocolate, blackcurrant tart, orange tart, cheesecake & assorted pastries. It was absolutely delicious & amongst the best breakfasts we’ve ever had. The son insisted on giving us special attention & on at least 3 occasions he told me I was too slim. Just reporting the facts!

    Feeling a bit sick, we waddled out & back at the room, Jackie changed her finger dressing, whilst I felt a little bit queasy. I managed to photo her wound without actually looking at it.

    We packed up the car, said goodbye to our wonderful hosts who gave us a free bag of hazelnuts. We then set off to visit some villages that they had recommended for us. The first stop was La Morra which was perched atop a hill surrounded by vines with the Alps as a backdrop. The bell tower dating back to the early 1700s soars above the town. We chose to just cruise through the village & photo it from scenic vantage points.

    Next stop was Barolo, which again was surrounded by vineyards & arguably produces the best wines in Italy. I have certainly heard of them. We parked up & took a stroll through the ancient streets to the castle & back. It was relatively quiet, presumably a consequence of Covid, because apparently it is normally heaving with wine tourists.

    We then drove on to Serralunga d’Alba perched upon another hill with it’s own bell tower. We abandoned our car & walked to a lookout point over the surrounding valleys. It was at this point Jackie informed me she was feeling nauseous & could be sick any moment.

    We sorted out a sick bag then headed off to our final stop, Grinzane Cavour, which stood atop another hill, but seemed slightly run down. We drove through then set off for our next overnight stay.

    I should add that this region around Alba is very pleasing on the eye, no, just stunning. It is rolling hills & dipping valleys of vineyards & fields of hazelnut trees. A two or three day trip would do it more justice, particularly when you need to incorporate wine tasting. I also noted that there was a Bar to Bar mountain biking route which would have been right up our street. We could have stayed longer, but the plan is for us to try & get to Greece before they go into lockdown or the borders are closed to us.

    With the SatNav programmed to avoid tolls we headed for Bologna, with windows closed & the aircon on to help Jackie’s nausea, but burning up our fuel! We drove through Asti, famous for it’s Spumante, sparkling sweet, but low alcohol wine. We didn’t stop to buy any.

    Our route then took us through Alessandria, Casteggio, Piacenza, Parma, Modena, skirted around Bologna, then through Madonna to our beautiful B&B for the night. Somewhere along the route we stopped at a McDonald’s for an iced coffee. They didn’t do anything of the sort, so we settled for a milk shake & most importantly Jackie got to use the loo.

    We are staying at B&B H6LE which is situated overlooking a lake on the Casalunga Golf Resort. We were met by Sylvia, the owner who showed us to our ‘exceptional’ room. It has an ultra modern bathroom & the snazziest shower I have ever seen.

    I was keen to go out for a Bolognese (Ragu) based meal as I’ve always said “when in Rome........ Unfortunately, Jackie didn’t fancy anything, so apparently nor did I. Instead we sat on our patio overlooking the lake & made do with peanuts, cheesy watsits, Italian style & our 2 remaining bottles of red.

    During the evening, the lovely Sylvia put her head over the balcony and asked us if we wanted a gin & tonic, but we stupidly declined her offer, because we had already opened our wine. Schoolboy error!

    Medical Update: Jackie changed her bandage & her finger is getting better.

    Song of the Day : C’est La Vie by The Stereophonics.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsMasked Crusaders in Europe
    Day 5

    Day 5 - Sublime to the Ridiculous

    August 8, 2020 in Italy ⋅ 🌙 26 °C

    Today I woke up & went through my morning routine of reading the news then the gov.uk website to check on the travel restrictions for the countries we were planning to visit.

    When I woke up we were intending to get to Brindisi on the heel of Italy to catch a ferry across to Greece, however the Greeks were putting in place more & more restrictions to enter the country. Greece had effectively closed all land borders apart from one in Bulgaria & if we travelled by ferry, we would have had to have worn a mask for the entire 9 hour journey & completed an online declaration form 24 hours in advance. They could have also either refused us entry or insisted we went into 14 day quarantine if they didn’t like where we had come from. This was a particular concern considering France has had a major spike in cases.

    I broke the news to Jackie & we made the difficult decision that it just was not worth the effort. If we got in, we may get stuck there, because the Covid cases in Greece were increasing. A joint decision was made that we would now travel drive around the top of the Adriatic Sea to Croatia. Not the end of the world!

    At 9am we attended the breakfast room, where Sylvia had put out quite a spread. We ate our way through as much as we could. Again another superb breakfast & Jackie has declared that she preferred this B&B to that of the previous night. Quite an accolade!

    After bandage changing, we said goodbye to Sylvia & hit the road. Our first stop was to the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari at Imola to visit the Ayrton Senna Memorial. We drove through a tunnel under the track, past the grandstand & parked up at the entrance to a park. We walked past a tennis club, an athletics stadium & a park before arriving at the exact spot where poor Ayrton hit the wall whilst leading the San Marino Grand Prix on the 1st May 1994. He died instantly, but was formerly pronounced dead at Bologna Hospital. There was a life sized statue of Ayrton dat on a plinth & the fence to the race track was adorned with flags and other tributes. It was quite a moving experience being so close to the scene of his death.

    One sad fact is that another F1 driver, Ronald Ratzenburger, was killed the previous day in practice & there appears to be no mention of him at the track.

    We continued onwards to San Marino which was over 30 miles away & clearly does not host the San Marino Grand Prix. En-route, we had to make an emergency pit stop at a McDonald’s for a milkshake because I was now suffering a ‘dickie’ stomach.

    We were running low on fuel, but after googling fuel prices, we decided we could just make it to San Marino where the cost was cheaper. What I didn’t take in to account was that we would have to climb steeply for several miles to reach the San Marino border. As we chugged up to San Marino our fuel gauge plummeted dramatically until we were driving on fumes. The 1st petrol station in San Marino was closed & I lost my bottle & coasted back down into Italy to fill up.

    With a full tank, we continued up to one of the many car parks below the medieval walled old town atop Monte Titano. We paid our €3 for two hours parking, then climbed up through the narrow cobblestone streets to Guaita Fortress, the oldest of three towers on Monte Titano. We didn’t pay to go in, but instead visited the Basilica of San Marino - Pieve, where Jackie lit a candle for her mum. We also looked at Palazzo Pubblico, the government building where there is an hourly changing of the guard & numerous other churches, statues & squares. We finished off our visit with a well earned beer. All in all it was a very pleasant visit to a country we hadn’t visited before.

    For the record : San Marino (Officially the Republic of San Marino) is Europe’s 3rd smallest state, but the world’s oldest republic. It is 61.2 sq km and lies 657 metres above sea level. It has a cable car & some odd museums including a Vampire Museum, a Torture Museum, Curiosities Museum & an Ancient Weapons Museum.

    Around 4.00pm, we set off & drove the 10 miles or so to Rimini. The roads were quiet because everyone was on the beach. We drove along the beach front road and saw that the beach consisted of thousands and thousands of sun beds & umbrellas divided by into sections or clubs. Our idea of hell. It was here that Jackie reminded me that The Alarm had sung a song about Rimini!

    We couldn’t leave Rimini quick enough & headed north up the coast road to our intended destination somewhere in or around Ravenna about an hour away. We soon discovered that this stretch of coast was where it seemed millions of Italians had flocked to on this Saturday afternoon. Cars were abandoned everywhere where along the side of the road & I had to remain alert to avoid people of ALL ages returning to their cars in skimpy bikinis & Speedos. It was a nightmare & at one point, a car we was following was rammed by a car coming out of a side road. We drove around the debris without stopping!

    Throughout this chaos, Jackie was trawling through Booking.com & other similar sights for some accommodation for the night. It wasn’t going well & she announced that she was prepared to sleep in the tent & have a takeaway pizza. This turned out not to even be an option, because all campsites were massive and full.

    By now we were getting slightly desperate so we decided to continue on to a town called Mesola another hour up the coast & revaluate our options. Around 7.30pm we pulled into Mesola, a town dominated by it’s Este Castle, a huge hunting lodge built in 1583. The castle is surrounded by a large fortified wall with towers & a cobbled courtyard now containing a couple of attractive looking restaurants. We chose Ristorante Pizzeria Al Castello, which had just one male diner in, but waitresses laying up multiple tables.

    We sat down & ordered a pizza each & a beer from the Italian language menu, then scrolled through available accommodation near to us. We chose a B&B just 10 miles away in Berra, that was cheap & had good reviews. Perfect!

    The large pizzas arrived. Jackie had a cheese & mushroom based one, whilst I had ham & potato. They were nice, but not exceptional. By 8.00pm, the restaurant was full with Italians all dressed up in their finest. It was clearly the place to be in these parts!

    During our meal, the owner of the B&B sent us a message enquiring when we were arriving. We replied, but this just prompted further messages & instructions that didn’t really make sense.

    After our dinner, we paid up & headed towards our B&B in Berra. We were requested to meet the owner in the street. Unconventional! Luckily for us we stood out a mile with our top box & cycles & we were flagged down by the owner. The B&B was not what we expected, our room & 4 others were above a restaurant and we didn’t have an en-suite bathroom.

    The husband & wife owners spoke no English & we communicated through google translate. The wife told us that the bathroom was being used by someone at the moment & she would then clean it for us. This was not what we had signed up for.

    After a shower & a bottle of wine, things didn’t seem quite so bad, but we had made the decision to head straight to Croatia tomorrow, despite it being Jackie’s birthday. The evening ended with me writing my blog & Jackie researching Croatia.

    Song of the Day : Bells of Rhymney by The Alarm.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsMasked Crusaders in Europe
    2
    Day 6

    Day 6 - Three Countries in One Day

    August 9, 2020 in Croatia ⋅ 🌙 25 °C

    Woke up in a very positive mood after a good night sleep. A check of the news & travel websites indicated that we shouldn’t have any problems getting to Croatia.

    At 8.00pm Jackie woke up to open her birthday cards then we got showered & packed to leave. Jackie changed her finger dressing & the wound was definitely on the mend. It is now getting boring & I won’t mention it again.

    We dumped our bags in the car, then walked down the road to Bar Central for our complimentary coffee & croissant. It was a proper locals cafe, which was a pleasant friendly experience. We then returned to the car for our 4+ hour journey to Croatia & left the scruffy town of Berra.

    We headed north cross country, until we picked up the non-toll road near Venice (or Venezia as it is known in these parts). We drove past Marco Polo Airport, but sadly didn’t see Venice at any point in the distance.

    En-route Jackie made her calls & messages to thank people for their cards & gifts & she booked our accommodation just over the border in Croatia for the next 3 nights. Afterwards we plan to find a campsite!

    The traffic was remarkably quiet, presumably all at the beach & before we knew it we passing Trieste & heading south towards the border with Slovenia. The border just consisted of two officers watching the traffic as it sped past into Slovenia. This was a doddle!

    Our first sights of Slovenia consisted of their port & lots & lots of rubbish & containers. It didn’t make for a first good impression. We sped through the 1st 14 miles of Slovenia towards Croatia, then came to a grinding halt just 2 miles from the border.

    It took virtually 2 hours to drive the last two miles in 40+ degree heat. In the traffic jam, we were sweating like Fred West’s gardener & our minds kept playing tricks on us. We convinced ourselves that we wouldn’t be allowed entry into Croatia, thus losing our money on our booked accommodation.

    Eventually we arrived at the border control & the immigration officer upon seeing our UK passports waved us through without a thought. We were relieved that we had been granted entry, but irritated that we had had to queue up so long for nothing. Hey ho, our holiday proper could start now.

    We drove down to our nearest beach resort, Umag & parked up near the marina for a stroll. People were sunbathing willy-nilly everywhere. Jackie likened it to the area around Crawley Council Offices, but with water. Not our scene.

    Instead we got some money out of the ATM, Croatian Kuna . We then headed inland 10 miles to Casa Romantica La Parenzana & checked into our very nice B&B & home for the next 3 days. It is a former farmhouse in rural village with thick stone walls & wooden beams & shares the building with a posh restaurant, La Parenzana.

    We lugged pretty much all our luggage in to our 2nd floor room & the owner gave Jackie a bottle of local red wine to celebrate her birthday, which was a nice touch.
    We showered & dressed up a bit for the evening, then down went next door to the La Parenzana Restaurant.

    We were sat in the best table outside the front of the restaurant & ordered two large very cold beers. We delayed ordering too soon, despite being hungry having not eaten since our croissant at breakfast. We ordered and drank a second round of beers & then & only then ordered our food.

    We started off with a sharing platter of Istrian prosciutto & cheese washed down with a glass of the waiters recommended red wine. For main, we both ordered pasta. Jackie had tagliatelle with beef & black truffle, whilst I had Ravioli with truffle which is a speciality of the region. Just because it was Jackie’s birthday, we ordered another couple glasses of wine throughout our meal.

    During the meal the owner came out & chatted to us. He told us that his wife was the head chef and all the food was homemade. There were a large extended family of Croatians dining & he told us the it was a reduced wedding party, whose wedding had been cancelled due to Covid. The owner also gave us his recommendation for a beach for us to visit the following day, which was helpful.

    When the bill came, I gulped. It was expensive, but the food & wine had been delicious - a real gastronomic delight. We will go back, but pair back on the extravagance!

    We returned to our room, cracked open the gifted red wine before calling it a night.

    Song of the Day : Traffic by The Stereophonics.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsMasked Crusaders in Europe
    Day 7

    Day 7 - Wallowing in the Adriatic

    August 10, 2020 in Slovenia ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Today was going to be a beach day hell or high water.

    Before 9.00am we were down in the breakfast room feasting on a damn good buffet selection of quality products. I always try to get my money’s worth, so I started off with the prosciutto, ham and cheese, building up my platter worthy of last night’s starter. Then it was rounds of croissants, fruit, yoghurt and finally bread. Jackie had the same but in far smaller proportions.

    After breakfast we packed a beach bag & Jackie put her purse in the safe & went to reset the code, but managed to lock the door before doing so. Luckily the manager had a key to open it up.

    We then drove to the recommended Kanegra Beach about 6 miles away. We are staying just 2 miles over the border with Slovenia and our journey took us on a route that looked down on the long line of traffic queuing to get into Croatia.

    15 minutes later, we arrived at Kanegra Beach, which is part of a camping resort. The bad news was that it was going to cost us nearly £9 to park for the day. We tried to haggle with the ticket attendant, but he was having none of it. We paid our money, parked up & walked along the coast to the main beach.

    The beach was pebbly but we had our little booties and the water was crystal clear. Across the water was Slovenia’s Adriatic Coast. When we arrived the beach was pretty empty, but soon it started to fill up with families with kids trying to ruin our day. They didn’t quite.

    As intended we did nothing but sunbathed on our mat & wallowed in the cool water. Lunch consisted of a couple of beers at a little water front cafe. We didn’t need to wear our masks at any time & it was interesting to note that social distancing didn’t seem to be a thing in these parts.

    Gone 5.00pm, we packed up & drove to a EuroSpar to get some wine. This was the first time that we were required to wear our masks at anytime since arriving in Croatia. We picked up a couple of bottles of cheap plonk & drove back to the B&B.

    After showers, we took our iPads & a bottle of wine down to a table at the back of the B&B to plan our onward journey. We had just started drinking our wine out of cardboard cups, when a waiter felt sorry for us & brought us out two wine glasses.

    After much research, we took an almighty leap of faith & booked 5 nights at a cheap campsite for our tent on Pitchup.com. I am quite excited, but also slightly apprehensive. The campsite has it’s own lovely looking beach, but on the downside it is child & pet friendly! We have reasoned that other beaches are within easy walking/cycling distance to the campsite & if we really hate it we can just pack up & leave.

    We then returned to La Parenzana for our dinner. Embarrassingly they had already set up & reserved our table in the same place as last night, but we had decided to take a corner table resulting in the waiter having to re-lay it.

    Our paired down dinner consisted of just a main each. Jackie had beef steak with mushrooms, potatoes & a side salad, whilst I had gnocchi with oxen tail, which came with 2 large tail bones in it. The meat was sensational. To complete the meal we had a basket of bread with olive oil & balsamic vinegar which we couldn’t finish & a litre of house red which we did!

    By 9.00pm we were done & asleep shortly after.

    Song of the Day : Broken Stones by Paul Weller.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsMasked Crusaders in Europe
    Day 8

    Day 8 - Novi.........What?

    August 11, 2020 in Croatia ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Woke up at the ridiculous hour of about 2.30am & read right through to 8.00am when Jackie finally stirred. We had breakfast around 9.00am & ate as much meat & cheese as we reasonably could.

    Prior to going down to breakfast Jackie wondered that her vest top might be a bit too skimpy, but she needn’t have worried because one woman was in what could only best be described as a swimsuit & another in a short nightie.

    Today we were trying out a different beach a bit further down the coast that got a good review on beach-inspector.com. The beach was just north of the Russian poison sounding named town of Novigrad.

    The beach turned out to be a little gem. The parking was free and there were virtually no kids. Bonus. Our booties paid dividends in the rocky sea.

    The only strange thing that occurred during the morning was Mr & Mrs Plastic Surgery unloaded all their gear, including a large rubber dinghy, novelty rubber ring, cooler box, tent & 2 rubber mats on the beach pretty much next to us. Then got back in their car & disappeared for nearly 2 hours. We were close to having a rummage in their cooler box. When they returned they flounced about on the beach flaunting the expensive fake assets.

    Other than that, there was nothing much else to report. We had a liquid only lunch at a very nice little bar & we didn’t leave the beach until 5.30pm.

    We returned to the very quiet B&B to discover that the green ‘please make my room up’ card on our door was turned the other way to red. Jackie swears blind that she had left it the other way. I believe her. The result was that Jackie had to make the bed before getting ready for the evening!

    It was the same routine as the previous night, we took a bottle of wine to the back of the B&B & planned our route to the campsite. We then went to dinner to discover that the restaurant was packed. As ‘regulars’, they managed to find us a nice table off to one side.

    Unfortunately the service was shocking. There was only 1 waitress & and an inexperienced waiter serving way too many diners. The owner/manager was nowhere to be seen. They couldn’t cope. It did us a favour, because we only drank a beer & a small carafe of wine. I had the gnocchi again & Jackie had black tagliatelle with prawns & aubergine. The quality of the food wasn’t compromised by the busyness.

    When we ordered the bill, we informed the nice waitress, who had taken our photo on Jackie’s birthday, that the service had been poor. She was profusely apologetic & said that lots of people had descended on the restaurant without prior booking. They had been expecting a quiet night, particularly as there were only a couple of guests including us in the B&B. As compensation, she gave us an espresso coffee & a glass of grappa each, thus redeeming the restaurant service in our eyes.

    And so it was off to our comfortable bed for the last time for the foreseeable future .

    Song of the Day : Plastic Doll by Lady Gaga.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsMasked Crusaders in Europe
    Day 9

    Day 9 - Carry On Camping

    August 12, 2020 in Croatia ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    Had a lie until 4.30am & read until Jackie surfaced around 8.00am. We did breakfast at 9.00am & were fully packed & back on the road before 10.00am.

    Our destination was Prizna to catch a ferry to the Island of Pag. It was a difficult start because the SatNav wanted to take us back through the busy border into Slovenia. Eventually we convinced it to take us on a purely Croatian route without tolls & it then directed us up into the mountains of northern Istria. We actually passed a very remote border checkpoint where there were no cars, in fact the only vehicle we saw for miles was a weird pedal cycle contraption. It was ridden by a man with a woman sat in front of the handlebars on a reclined seat reading a book but also pedalling.

    We then passed through the hamlets of Slum (hope this wasn’t an omen for what was to come!), Brest & Dane. We eventually picked up the A7 dual carriageway & headed south. At Bakar, we left the A7 to avoid the tolls & followed the coastal road still southwards. We filled up with fuel, cheapest so far, then stopped at a Spar for provisions to put in our now cold fridge sitting on the backseat of the car.

    We stopped at a Lidl, then another supermarket to buy a fitted sheet for our blow up mattress, which Jackie had forgot. We now have one in a fetching shade of mauve.

    On the drive Jackie looked up & then fretted about the fact that we were staying at a naturist campsite & predicted thunderstorms on Saturday. Neither was true, in fact our campsite is child & pet friendly - more worryingly. The website description of the camp is more akin to being part of the ‘groovey gang’, when 14 year old Rodney won a painting competition holiday in Only Fools And Horses!

    Around 2.30pm we arrived at the tiny port of Prizna & purchased our £12 ferry ticket for the 15 minute journey to Pag Island. At 3.10pm we set sail & worryingly noticed that a large proportion of the ferry passengers were yobby Eastern European males. Apparently Novalja, 3 miles south of our campsite, is a party town.

    Upon arrival on Pag we followed the convoy towards Novalja, then headed north to Camp Navis. We checked in at reception & the receptionist insisted on walking Jackie to our plot whilst I crawled behind in the car. We have a lovely spacious plot with a couple of trees including an olive tree. The beach is just 50 yards away & we can see the sea either side of our neighbours transit van. The only down side is the ground is rock hard & stony.

    With neighbours on seven different sides all watching us we commenced the tent erection in 30+ degree sunshine. It took us 30 minutes to argue the toss about which way the tent should face & where would we park the car.

    Eventually we came to an decision & erected the tent relatively painlessly, apart from bending tent peg after tent peg in the rock hard ground. The tent & all the accompaniments including air beds, cooker, fridge, power cables, top box etc etc are courtesy of my brother who seemed to have his very own Millets in his loft. The phrase “All the gear...............” springs to mind!

    Apart from crushing MY bad finger in the fold out table & tripping over the guy ropes twice, we did a pretty good job. The positioning of the car was a different matter - with all eyes on us, we did some serious pruning of the shapely olive tree. Under Jackie’s directions, I had driven the car through the olive tree & the branches had got stuck in the top box & roof bars. To free ourselves, I had to yank & snap the the branches out, then push up what was left of the tree, whilst Jackie drove the car out. It was inevitable that we would eventually make a spectacle of ourselves!

    We treated ourselves to a cold beer & relaxed. I had a really good feeling about this camping malarkey. We have an ideal spot, the nearly all German neighbours seem nice, no sign of yobs, very few kids, only well behaved dogs & really quick WiFi. After a beer we tidied up our pitch, got everything out then went to the beach for a swim.

    After we showered in the block, which wasn’t the subject of any complaints from Jackie. Everyone & I mean everyone is sat around in just Speedos, shorts or bikinis, so I followed suit. When in Rome........... We won’t be wearing to many clothes over the next few days it seems.

    The evening was spent in our camping chairs around the table, drinking beer and wine & nibbling on just snacks to ensure we slept well. The only problem with this approach was that we both had to get up in the middle of the night & stumble the 100 metres or so through the site to the shower & toilet block.

    Writing this blog the morning after a very comfortable night, we will undoubtedly stay here for at least the 5 days we have already booked & do as little as possible. Hence, I will suspend the blog until we move on.

    Song of the Day : Trip Through Your Wires by U2.    Read more

  • Simon and Jackie AnnalsMasked Crusaders in Europe
    Day 10

    Day 10 to Day 13 - Novice Camping in Pag

    August 13, 2020 in Croatia ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    Day 10 - Naked Lady

    It was a really comfy sleep, despite both having to get up during the night and hike to the toilet. I got up at 6.30am & witnessed Germans doing what they do best - laying out towels on the beach.

    At 7.30am Jackie & I walked up to the on-site bakery & bought a loaf of bread. Breakfast consisted of bread & jam & coffee, then discovered our first downside to this campsite - wasps. They had taken a liking to our jam & were very persistent.

    We then walked down to the beach, which looks pretty but is actually man made from sharp shingle & rocks. The centre was pretty busy with kids & pets so we decided to go to one end where there was hardly anyone.

    We chose our spot then realised that the only other person on our section of the beach was a woman who was stark b*****k naked. She was in her late 50s/early 60s, but had a reasonably fit body for her age, not that I was looking! Actually, neither of us could help it, because as it seems with most nudists, she liked to stand up & walk to the sea and back for maximum exposure without any hint of embarrassment.

    After a couple of hours, she got dressed & left. It was very strange, because there was no indication the nudism was acceptable at the campsite beach & there were young kids around. I needed to know more about her, so that evening, using my detective skills, I tracked her down. I found her doing online stretching exercises in full Lycra, with her husband outside their Slovenian registered caravan.

    During one of our many dips in the sea, my legs got painfully attacked by fish pecking at my scabs. Now that should be good reason to stop picking them!

    The beach side bar was our lunchtime venue. It was very pleasant, but only served drinks, no food. We had to make do with a couple of large, very cheap beers.

    At 5.00pm, we packed up at the beach & cycled the 3.5km gravel path along the waters edge to the nearby town of Novalja. Jackie likened it to Ibiza, lots of youngsters & not a nice beach in sight. We cycled up & down the busy promenade & bought a box of cheap white wine in a supermarket.

    Later that evening we ate bread, crackers, crisps & biscuits with white wine. Despite having only spent one night under canvas, Jackie is already apparently dying of malnutrition & is craving meat!

    She is also suffering from RV envy, particularly as most are cooking hot meals or having having barbecues.

    Well that was more than I intended.

    Song of the Day : The Nude by Catherine Wheel.

    ————————————————————————————————————————————————

    Day 11 - German Inquisition

    We had a good but hot sleep, but neither of us needed to march to the toilet during the night.

    I got up early, fired up the stove & boiled some water for a coffee. I poured the milk into my cup & it hit the bottom with a plop. It had gone off & I even managed to get rid of it myself!

    At 8.00am when Jackie finally got up, we went to the bakery, but horror of horrors they had already sold out of bread! We were forced to order a selection of pastries - one meat, one apple & one cheese. The meat pastry won hands down, a cross between a meat pasty & a sausage roll.

    After a morning on the beach, we adjourned to the beach bar for our usual liquid lunch. The 3rd beer apparently took a long time to arrive at us, so the barman insisted we have it for free. We hadn’t even noticed, but generally we are not one to turn down a freebie. We had a 4th so we could still spend our money.

    During our lunch, a German woman started to interrogates “Are you English?” “Yes”. “You don’t look it”. Apparently we look too dark to be English, but she saw our Citroen with it’s GB sticker. The woman & her entourage wanted to know how we got here, what we were doing & how could we afford so much time off etc etc. It was a proper interrogation.

    Later that evening, we were minding our own selves with a wine, when the German Interrogator, I think she was drunk, bellowed across the campsite “Mr & Mrs from England. We are over here”. Most of the campsite looked round at the 2 foreigners in their little tent. Slightly embarrassed we waved back.

    Jackie’s ‘malnutrition’ got the better of her, so against my better wishes we wandered up to the on-site restaurant for what turned out to be ‘Hamburgergate’.

    We both ordered the not that cheap hamburger & chips with a carafe of red wine. When the meal arrived, the hamburger was a massive hamburger, but no bun in sight. The burgers were very dense in texture & tasted processed. Jackie took one mouthful of her hamburger & refused to eat anymore of it. The result of this catastrophe was I tried to eat both burgers & Jackie ate all her chips & most of mine. I would have been happy with crackers again.

    At 1.00am we were awaken by thunder and lightning. Water was dripping into our tent. We made a couple of precautionary adjustments, then lay in our now soggy bed & listened until the worst of the storm had passed over around 4.00am.

    Song of the Day : Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke? by The Alarm.

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    Day 12 - Ant Trouble

    Despite being awake most of the night, I still got up not long after 6.00am. Everything was moist & still dark clouds loomed overhead. I brewed up a coffee & watched the comings & goings. Most of the campsite guests seem to pack up & leave on a Friday or Saturday, presumably to get back to work on a Monday.

    After getting all the wet clothes out of the tent & draping them over anything available, we had a meat pasty each & hit the beach. It took a while for the clouds to burn away, but they did. The beach was virtually child free which was a bonus.

    Before lunch, I changed into my trainers & went for an approximate 3 mile run to Novalja Beach & back. It felt good.

    Lunch consisted of local bottles of beer, because the draft beer had run out, then it was back to the beach.

    We returned to our tent for the evening and discovered that we had been invaded by ants. We now know that it is not a good idea to leave food that’s been opened on the floor of the tent! The ants certainly had a penchant for citrus wafers, that I had opened & eaten half of following ‘Hamburgergate’. The other half meant for Jackie were riddled with ants. The crackers & other foods were also infected & the groundsheet was alive. We salvaged what we could, blowing ants off the crackers, because eating them for our tea.

    By 9.00pm, we were knackered & called it a night. Unfortunately it was still warm & we made our 2nd camping howler.

    Song of the Day : Ants Invasion by Adam & The Ants.

    ————————————————————————————————————————————————

    Day 13 - A Road To Nowhere

    Woke up in agony 2 hours after going to bed. I had been bitten by mossies on pretty much every part of my body & the bites were as itchy as hell.

    Why? It was still very warm when we went to bed, so we left all the tent doors open including to the bedroom compartment. I then probably confounded the problem by reading my iPad, thus attracting them to the light.

    In the morning, we made a list of the fruit we were going to buy for a healthy breakfast & dinner, but then discovered that the fruit lady didn’t come on Sunday. We made do with meat pasties, croissants & baguette again.

    The day consisted of beach, run, lunch of beer & wine, then beach until 6.00pm. We then decided to go for a power walk along my run route, but Jackie decided we should take an inland route uphill.

    That was fine & we were having a good work out until the road came to an end. There was however a rocky footpath that we decided to take to hopefully get us back to the campsite. Unfortunately the path clearly hadn’t been used in years & was overgrown with vicious gorse bushes & huge buzzing black insects that were very upset by our presence. Luckily, we were wearing our protective gear, Jackie in a flimsy vest, shorts & trainers, whilst I was wearing just shorts & trainers. We got ripped to shreds, then after at least 400 metres of this savage footpath we came to a dead end. I was so glad I hadn’t chosen the route!

    We retraced our steps until we found an alternative route that took us a long way back round to the campsite. This should have been a short power walk, but ended up being a 90 minute trek.

    We were battered, but nothing that a beer & a nice hot shower couldn’t sort out.

    It was baguette, croissants & crackers for tea. We are looking forward to a hot meal!

    Song of the Day : Wonderful Life by Black. (It was played in the bar at lunch & seemed appropriate - prior to our hike).    Read more

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