Our second vacation this summer was spent in southeastern Europe--Italy and Croatia. We were gone only five nights, and yet, we did and saw so much more than a full week in Denmark. This was my kind of vacation!!!
First we spent two nights in Venice, actually in a small town outside of Venice. With two kids and a dog, the logistics of staying in a hotel in Venice would just be too complicated for me, so we stayed in Quarto D'Altino and took the train into Venice.
This was our third trip to
Venice, and I like Venice more and more each time. I'm fascinated with how people live there. For example, we watched how the garbage is picked up by boat. A little thing, but very different from the way garbage is picked up in most cities in Europe and the US.
As on our previous visits, we walked to Piazza San Marco, but this time we kept getting lost. It was okay, because we walked down skinny streets free of souvenir shops. At San Marco, we expected the boys to chase pigeons, like they did when they were younger. But they're growing up (we keep forgetting) and were content watching someone else feed the birds (this is illegal now, but a few folks were still participating in this tradition).
On the drive to Venice, we stopped in a charming town at the foot of the Dolomites,
Bassano del Grappa. Bob learned about it on a TV travel show (
Rick Steves, maybe) while in Chicago and decided to see it. I'm glad we made the stop, because it was "lovely" (this is how my British friends describe anything nice).
From Venice, we drove to Pula, Croatia. To get to Pula, one has to drive through a sliver of Adriatic coast in Slovene. Since we had to eat lunch, we stopped in
Piran, a town like many towns along the Adriatic influenced by Venetian architecture.
In Croatia we
camped in Fazana, just outside of Pula. Our campsite was near the beach, so the boys spent a lot of time looking for crabs. The beaches in Croatia are made of small rocks instead of sand as in Denmark, but the boys had more fun because there is more life in the warm Adriatic than in the cold North Sea.
Camping in Europe is different from what we were accustomed to in the US. We always camped at state parks, so facilities consisted of outhouses and no showers or simple toilets and showers. Here the camping is elaborate in comparison. Restaurants, supermarkets, swimming pools, organized activities, and rentals--bikes, windsurfers, kayaks, and boats--all on site. They even had a scuba shop. We rented a pedal-boat with a slide.
Pula is a very interesting city, especially if you like sightseeing. It contains quite a few Roman structures, such as a miniature version of the Colosseum, but without the long lines as in Rome.
I think next year we'll spend a full week, maybe two, in Croatia.
