Plovanija

I literally wrote to every host of available home exchanges on the Croatian coast and only had one positive reply. The lovely Angelika in Umag. She was leaving for her daughters wedding the day after we arrived so the deal was that I would clean for her to make it possible for us to stay. I hadn't realised that included preparing her other Airbnb apartment for a changeover but no matter it was worth it. Umag on the west coast wasn't the easiest coastal city to reach by public transport but a free bed is a free bed. Prices in Split and Rijeke are ridiculous in August. After a very long bus ride, we arrived at sunset. We declined a taxi from the bus station because it was too pricey at 10€, what a great decision. Our reward was a perfect first sight of the Adriatic. The colours in the sea were magical, pink, or blue, or purple or orange?
Angelika's home is lovely. We had a terrible sofa bed but the room had an electric piano in and access to a garden full of tomatoes and basil. The advantage of offering to clean was that I had to use the washing machine in the basement.... which meant that I spotted guitar cases. Angelika was delighted to hear that we are musicians and willingly loaned Joe a guitar. It was heaven playing piano and guitar together. We also took full advantage of the glut of tomatoes. Gazpacho, tomato sandwiches for breakfast and lunch and cherry tomatoes as candy.
The sea was just a 5 minute stroll through a pine forest onto the promenade. Yes, the sea is clear and a wonderful temperature but there is no beach to speak of just very slippery concrete or rocks. After an hour or so of floating in the sea, there's nothing else to do except to walk to another spot to do the same. We searched for an afternoon snack but of course as it's high season the stands were mostly closed!
The evening stroll to the old town was delightful. Narrow alleyways with charming stone buildings mostly converted into over priced bars and restaurants. I didn't see the word vegan, so I concluded that it's still a mostly Croatian holiday spot. There were a couple of musicians playing, in their words 'jazz, soul, pop', I'm still not sure what that means. They were cool and groovy for sure.
We eventually found an idyllic spot to watch the sun drop and the moon rise.
Three nights was just perfect but then we were left with the conundrum of how to get to Serbia. Our initial thought was to take buses down the Croatian coast and through Montenegro. However, surprisingly, the bus service is minimal. We looked at so many options including ferries and hitch hiking but in the end just wanted to get away from over priced tourism.
The solution was to backtrack to Ljubljana for a night and fly to Belgrade. Revisiting Ljubljana was refreshingly familiar.... including not finding anywhere to stay. A single bed in a damp basement cupboard and only 2 toilets for around 30 people cost 90€.... goodbye, expensive Slovenia, what have you got, Serbia?!Read more