San Marino, San Marino

The road from Venice was 3 hours of flat, fast, expensive and dull motorway before reaching the winding inclines up towards San Marino - the little hilltop principality surrounded by Italy on all sides. After booking into Vacanze Camping, we eventually took the bus up yet more winding roads to the Unesco protected hilltop fortress of heavy grey stonework and narrow streets which clearly weren't designed with cars in mind.

What San Marino's streets do have in mind though is duty-free shopping and just about every shop sells cheap alcohol, cigarettes, perfume, designer gear ...or live firearms! Infact, such weaponry is clearly displayed outside the shops for all to see. Tempting as it was, I am not sure I could smuggle myself a sub-machine gun back though UK customs.

Some of the alcohol though is a bargain beyond belief and we met a real "character" (nutcase) in one such store who insisted on giving me a shot of almost anything he had behind the bar. Amongst the 80% proof Cannabis Absinthe and Hitler-themed "Der Fuhrer" wine, I picked up two big bottles of Amaretto for €2.80 each (about 15% of the UK supermarket prices) while my Dad got 3 good bottles of wine for €5.

The old city itself is a lovely place but it was unfortunately a bit foggy and drizzly while we were there. Three castles line the top of the steep hill like Russian dolls (where you can normally get a great view of the plains below) while the Santa Chiara Monastery and People's Palace are just some of the grand stone buildings which are shoe-horned into this tax haven along with the streams of millionaires and 4x4's.

Although it was only a short trip to this strange and posh little land, I recommend it for a visit and I think I can deservedly add San Marino to my growing wall of stickers.

Venice, Italy

Tom and I crossed into Italy with high spirits but a thick motorway fog engulfed us all the way to Venice. After a quick bite to eat, we wild-camped for the night before walking for what felt like forever across the long bridge into town. Venice was neither overflowing with too much water nor with too many tourists so in many respects it was the perfect time to visit. The lazy canals, complete lack of cars and the little gondolas, alleyways and footbridges all provide a quirky novelty to start with but it wasn't long before we both grew tired of the grafitti lined pathways, endless tourist tat, sky-high prices and loud visitors. That said, we both enjoyed the Da Vinci exhibition, where Leonardo's sketchbooks have been brought to life in model form.

Later that afternoon, I dropped Tom back at Marco Polo airport, only to pick up my Dad from the same place the very next day and we booked into the excellent Venezia Camping Village between some friendly New Zealanders and a French couple who did little but peer through their curtain for two days. This also meant that I could finally get my hands on my new credit card and update some of my sticker wall on the back of the van.
 

After getting the bus into Venice, we headed (like everyone seems to do) straight to San Marco Piazza. It is a visually stunning central square with a mind-blowing number of marble pillars and archways forming the Procuratie Vecchie and Procuratie Nuove which flank either side down to the massive Campanile Belltower. Right in the centre, the aggressive pidgeons actively storm any passer-by with food until they give in to this blatent mugging. The adjoining Piazzetta only adds to the grandeur of the place as it rolls up to the water's edge with the diamond-patterned Palazzo forming two sides. It is a place where you can't help but strain your jaw with the constant gauping.
 

Right at the end of San Marco is it's crowning glory, the Basillica Di San Marco. It is this building where the grand multi-coloured marble and the sheer intricasy of stonework meet head on and the result is staggeringly beautiful. Inside it is not to shabby either with big marble archs and shimmering gold mosaic domes. The square also comes alive at night when it is all lit up with an amber glow and the majority of the photo-hunters have returned to their tourbus or hotel.

Another part of grand Venice which is bordering on the obsurd is the number of white stone (read marble) churches covered in detailed figures, tall columns, and big green doors. While many of the buildings have been eroded pretty drastically and are now a bit dirty too, it doesn't stop you craning your neck up to get a better view from the narrow pathways.

If Venice is known for one thing though, it's the canals and the king of these is the wide Grande Canal which snakes it's way right through the middle of the city before spreading out into the sea. There are numerous little islands which make up the rest of Venice which can be seen to either the north or south and offer a bit of a breather away from the rest of the city visitors.

Venice was pretty much as I expected, a great city which has been pushed right to the edge of sanity by the stampedes of people and sheer volume of canal traffic - the geographical equivalent of Michael Jackson.

Ljubljana/Lake Bohinj, Slovenia

After Bled, it was time to drive back to Croatia to pick up my friend Tom from Zagreb airport and head back to the Ravnice Hostel. After showing him around a few of the sights we decided to head into the Modern Art Museum which had a few big contemporary installations which were pretty good, including a giant man covered in shaving mirrors, a floor made of eggs which you could walk on, and a number of oil drums filled with paint which had been tipped over.
  

Later that evening, we decided to get tickets to see Lenny Kravitz performing at the city's big arena which was a surprisingly good gig of fan favourites and bluesy melodies. Afterwards, we caught the tail end of the Wine Festival to cap a good night out before heading back to the hostel to escape the Antarctic temperatures.
 

 The next morning was part excitement and part hangover as we got on the road to Slovenia and booked into the Ljubljana Resort Campsite (which we had almost to ourselves) and took the bus into town. Our first stop was a trek up to the hilltop castle in the city centre which is a mish-mash of different eras and styles. Normally there is a great view from the tall clocktower (once you have climbed the millions of steps on the spiral staircase) but the fog meant that we could barely see the courtyard below us.

As for the city, it has the feel of a small Czech town with a peaceful and laidback approach and some colourful and quaint architecture. The Ljubljanica River meanders through the city centre and is breached by a number of iconic little bridges including the White Bridge, Dragon Bridge and Triple Bridge. The main square is set right next to the Triple Bridge and the big red Franciscan Church overlooks the lot.

Later that night we were able to meet up with two more of my travelling friends (once again met in Sarajevo), Danish couple Ebbe and Signe as well as two of thier German pals. It turned into a very relaxed but entertaining Friday night in the capital.
 

The next day we repeated what we did in Zagreb and went to the Modern Art Gallery - this time with somewhat different results. The exhibition (which was thankfully free) involved a room of broken ceramic tigers, one room with videos of people running around and shouting at each other, one room with a fat man with his pants down and a final room with thousands of little red foam men stuck to the floor which was made all the stranger by the real people who inhabited it: "man-walking-in-circles", "girl-leaning-face-first-into-blank-wall" and "sitting-lady-covering-herself-in-foam-men" were all probably on the wrong side of mental. We left feeling like we had been robbed of half an hour of our lives.
 

A creepy ginger man ...and an art installation

In comparison, the neighbouring joint Archeology and National Museums were great and featured an Egyptian mummy as well as lots of native animal species and skeletons of a mammoth, cave bear and blue whale which were all pretty facinating. After getting a meal in town, we snuck into the back of a comedy venue to watch a couple of stand-up's before calling it a night.

After a couple of days in the city, I wanted to show Tom the more rural side to Slovenia and we drove north to Lake Bohinj along the highways lined with forests and numerous big hawks standing on the roadside fences. We arrived at the lake in perfect time to see the sun dispersing the last of the morning fog and revealing the most fantastic landscape of mountains around the clear blue and perfectly still water.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Bled, which was still covered with a layer of thick mist until late into the afternoon and made our hike up to the Osojnica viewing point much less scenic and much more frosty than when I was there a few days before. Likewise, the Vintgar Gorge was very frosty and made for lots of icicles and slippery footbridges.

Still, it was a great place for a quiet stroll before we drove onwards through the Julian Alps via the winding Vrsic Pass as it started to get dark. Before long, we were into Italy and motoring along through the thick fog towards Venice.

The view was a bit less spectacular this time around