Oh My God I have done it again

Of course if I was a young thing I would have written “OMG” in stead of the proper expression.

The trouble with young people today is that they use abbreviations and acronyms (not that they would know the difference) without explaining them or using the full name first. They are, of course, also prone to extreme exaggeration as in “OMG my dad literally flew over the moon when he, like, shagged his secretary; it was like a very unique experience.” 

Anyway, to the point. I had planned a walking trip with Liz - why? I don't know. I bought the trip, the flights and the train tickets. We were flying Ryanair. (Why, of why? - because they go there!) Naturally when Liz decided that she wanted to have baggage in the hold after the flight was booked it would not take the late Albert Einstein to guess who organized (and paid for) this. This all came about after Liz had decided that we should go walking on the west coast of Portugal. Fair enough – until I investigated the prices of flights - £350 each to Lisbon with Sleazyjet. Liz was born in Croydon but would put all Scots to shame if you believe the reputation of the Scots as tight bastards – Scots are very generous, it is just that most of the time they don’t have any money. She did pay me back for this lot at the end of the trip.

Yes, despite my expectation of canonization from last years trip to Lycia, I was going walking with Liz again.

Ryanair got us to Trieste. This was without quite as much selling shit on the plane as usual. Previously I had had to go through the endless process of refusing priority booking, insurance, car hire, transfers, purchase of luggage etc. several times because their website collapsed repeatedly when I was booking, again when I was adding Liz's bag and again on check-in. If Sleazyjet fly to the same place as Ryanair fly Sleazy, it may cost an extra tenner but you are worth it – end of discussion.

It isn't very often that you are in four countries in one day. After arriving in Trieste we crossed Slovenia (that took a good – ooh 30 minutes) to get to Istria in Croatia – our destination. Istria is that triangular bit of northern Croatia that sticks out into the Adriatic Sea. Clear as mud? Look at a map. I didn't tip the taxi driver because I, in my infinite modesty, had to tell him part of the route.

We were in Motovun, a hilltop village with really rather commanding views of the surrounding area, it was not too hot and the locals are friendly – four or five languages seems to be normal. True locals? You must be joking – although we did see a couple of old dears sitting on a bench in a side street.

Motovun could pass as a town – as in hill-top fortified – but the local guide book calls it a city,

We ate our fill of truffles, drunk the local  pivo (OK) tried the local hooch (too sweet) and we were set to go in the morning.

The morning was supposed to bring a fourteen km walk to another place that is not even called a city – it is a mere “town” of a couple of hundred people. We will see.

A good walk most of the way except the three km. almost straight along the bank of a singularly unappetising river with a main road on the other side. Not too much climbing, although somebody whinged about that and the heat. Saw very few mammals or birds (apart from one big birdie that flew straight over us at twenty metres that, obviously, I failed to identify), a few lizards but lots of insects. We saw more species of butterfly than the number of beers I drink in a week. However, the highlight was one of the species of grasshopper that has a bright orange body that you can only see when it flies.

I had "done a Norman" i.e. walked in sandals and socks. Norman thinks it is the only way to go unless you are in snow. I agree that it is cooler on your feet that boots or walking shoes but.... Downhill it is very uncomfortable. On the flat OK, uphill OK but downhill? I won't be doing that again.

The village had almost as impressive views as the previous night. The most panoramic views are in the dead centre of town. Why they should choose to put the graveyard at the end of the salient with the commanding defensive positions is unknown to me. Funny though, only the very oldest graves did not have flowers on (mostly artificial though); the oldest one I found with flowers was somebody who died at a decent old age in 1961.

I was wondering what the local sport is? A flood-lit flat concrete area about thirty metres by ten with four lanes. Each lane had red and blue "clocks" at one end numbered from zero to thirteen. The only other thing was eight wall attachments at each end. Along each side there were twenty-four concreted-in seats with random numbers on them. The lowest I found was 5, the highest 784. I haven't a clue what this is for and the village contains 200 people at most.

In the morning Liz found out it was some sort of bowling/boule/petanque game; I was on the way to Vrh. The way to walk with Liz is make sure that she has an easy walk whilst you add on an extension or something. So I did a quick hour and a half to Vrh where Liz got dropped by our esteemed hosts (for a small fee). A good job Liz didn't do the walk, it was a long way down and even further up; 2 1/2 or 3 hours probably at Liz speed.

One of the things you notice is the number of abandoned houses - half in a typical village. These are often good dwellings but the post-war flood to the cities emptied many villages out - some completely. So, if you fancy a little summer home - just come here, buy a shell and get the locals to do it up for you. Even if you came out here in Winter, fuel would be free - there are loads of huge stacks of logs by the roadside. Somebody probably owns them but whom?

Missed the highlight of the day animal wise when Liz spotted a big green lizard - and another one a hundred metres later.

However, after two days walking we saw a domestic animal - a horse. Hens, chained up, barking, snarling dogs and a few cats (two beautiful) we had seen but something to stuff into the gobs of these carnivores - and they are carnivores, - nothing. No cows, no sheep, no pigs, no goats - nothing. On the hills - none, in the fields - niet, in the sheds - hakuna, shit everywhere to attract the flies - nada. It is a mystery.

How do I know they are carnivores? Because there was close to bugger all that I could eat. I had enquired from mine host last night about  "sparrock-grasse". This was on the "English" menu. My guess was asparagus. Mine host (who was one of the few people we met whose English was poor) produced a photo of asparagus. See I am a smart-arse -  expert in every version of foreign. So what did I end up eating - wild asparagus, which tastes remarkably like grass. Sparrock-grasse was about right.

So the fellow had understood that I didn't eat meat - shame he didn't tell his Mum in the morning when she was making the the sandwiches. The guy “looking after us”, Vlado, phoned regularly (and unnecessarily) but had not mentioned to any of the places we were staying that I am a non-carnivore.

This is called a "hill-top" village walk which is a reasonably accurate description. Most of the villages are tiny - hamlets really so there is no opportunity for a reviver or two in the heat of the day. This was the exception - the guide notes say it is rarely open but it is the middle of August when lots of Italians come to Croatia so I had hopes. These were fulfilled and we decided to sit around until 2.30 (an hour and a half) so we missed a lot of the heat of the day, I would be happy to have such a break every day.

We arrived in Hum; this claims to be the smallest town in Croatia, or is it the world? It is definitely small. There is a fair amount of old wall but a few tourist shops because the coaches come here. Liz had chance to snoop round at least four shops whilst I had a beer and sat in the sun.  We stayed in a house where the lady didn't speak English but made mistletoe brandy. We were assured by grandson that it is the leaves of the mistletoe, not the berries, that are used but Liz was pretty pissed so the "poison" may have been from the berries after all. Grandson enquired about our equivalent so I told him it was illegal to distill spirits in the UK. His response - "It is here but everyone does it anyway." A reasonable view of whom should come between my barman and my taxman I think.

The reason I do not recommend this walk is the following day. On their schedule it is 3 hours 46 minutes of which 3.02 is on roads i.e. it is a half day road walk. You may like short road walks; I do not. The route also went over an area which I would cover the following day. It was so short that the little half an hour "sprint" up and down to extend my day was easy, so Liz did it too. We saw our second large domestic animal - a donkey. It is a complete mystery; we had seen many, many bales of hay in the fields and barns but no cattle, sheep, goats or pigs. We had rather an odd butterfly moment - they seemed to be cleaner butterflies (as in cleaner fish), they appeared to take great delight in taking stuff off us, I could actually feel something like a nip as they appeared to take dead skin. By far the highlight of the whole day's walk was these interesting little hills. (Photo by Liz Hart)

 

 

This brought us to Roc. Now was this the Rocing place in Croatia - possibly not. (Liz's joke but it is so awful I happily claim it.) We had arrived at a lovely home-stay (daughter of last night's) where we could sit out on the terrace and look at the view over the valley drinking beers provided by our host - Dolores. Well we had showers, did washing, read our books etc. and that took us until about 4. We wondered into town where the lady from the tourist information office was very happy to escort us to the church with the 12th century frescos (there had been some in Hum as well). Liz had a wander, I had a beer and now we were up to 5.15. Back to the house for more reading then into "town" for dinner. At about 9 we took pity on the staff who were waiting for us  to leave. To solve our mutual problem one of them opened up a shop where I could buy the local hooch; I bought some and we all went home happy.

We know how to live the wild life.

The fourth days walk was split into two halves: an early morning valley walk of thirteen km followed by twelve km up to the plateau and over a ridge. No problem agreeing that Liz didn't want to do it all so I really put the hammer down and did 13 km (their measure, I suspect a couple less) in 1 hr 55m. I know it is male, tostesterone-driven shit to want to do these these things but I had spent three days waiting around for photos to be taken that I will never look at. Anyway, I enjoyed it. It was the first time when snarling, barking or yappy dogs were giving me a hard time - most of them are chained up but I came across five or six in a short space of time that were not - it was early. There was one exception - a young dog that had a rubber bone in its mouth that looked at me rather quizzically - it wanted to play.

I saw a field with eight cows in it! Never saw any more on the whole trip. All I can say is those eight cows must eat a lot of hay.

We had agreed that Liz would be dropped off at a cemetery at 10.15. Liz (and Dolores - our lovely host/driver) passed me at 10.05. I got there on time, had a couple of swigs of water thinking that Liz would be wandering round the graveyard. Upon checking - no Liz. I  phoned - mobile off. I hadn't passed her on the road so she must have been further up the road. She was sat in the shade a couple of hundred metres up the road with no graveyard in sight.  When I gently enquired why she wasn't at the cemetery she replied "This is where Dolores dropped me and you found me anyway." Women!

We climbed up to a plateau at about 5-600 metres above the valley. The scenery changed completely - not a house in site for the next four hours. Rather barren but a bit different. Then a 500 metre climb to 1100. Somebody didn't enjoy it but there were some very good views in different directions. Uphill sections on a walk always come as a surprise to Liz and she doesn't like them - she should really do all her walking in Norfolk - even the smallest incline is regarded as an intrusion. A gentle amble down a couple of hundred metres added up to a decent days walk.

We were staying at a “village” which was just a hotel with what looked like an ex-prison next to it and nothing else. This was at 900 metres. We got off to a bad start when we asked them to change the music - they were playing an English language radio station with - in the immortal words of The Blues Brothers - both country and western.

We did not get offered a menu; we did not know it but it was a set menu. Naturally the first course was beef soup - yes Vlado had not been doing his job again. Things were not going well. In the end they produced something that was quite palatable for me from a tin and a packet - probably better than Liz got. The people in the hotels, guest-house and home stays were universally very nice and even here they warmed to us in the end. A word of warning though, you can get decent seafood on the coast but any food inland is not likely to be up to much.

When I had a look at the route for the following day the main path goes round the mountain we were 2/3rds the way up. There was an option to climb the 450 metres to the top followed by a steep descent to meet the main path. No point in even mentioning that to Liz; I thought it highly unlikely that she would agree to do the first couple of hours on her own whist I went over the top so I was resigned to having a quick dash up to the top and down again and collecting Liz from the hotel about 11. I was perhaps slightly relieved when it was raining in the morning and going up was not really sensible so I didn't get my walk extension on the last day's walk. The weather improved after a couple of hours walking and the whole day was spent walking through trees  with views out over the sea from time to time. The navigation was a bit tricky at times so it is probably a good job Liz didn't do it on her own. We saw no other walkers on the entire trip except a couple who walked in as we left that morning. I concluded that they were Russians because he ordered two coffees and a large vodka at 8.30 in the morning.

We were very glad to have a decent meal when we got to the little seaside resort that was our destination;  it was so good we went back the following night. (Actually that is a bit of an overstatement, the place we were going to was full and as we walked past our restaurant, they whipped a "reserved" sign of a table and sat us down; we could hardly refuse.) There was, however, no English menu (English is the fourth language here behind Serbo-Croat, Italian & German) so Liz kept most of the restaurant entertained by asking our long suffering waiter complicated questions about what was on the Italian menu.

Liz was a little more verbose than usual because we had been commanded to have drinks with Vlado earlier. This was in the hotel we were staying at - nice sea views - but the cheapest bottle of wine was 40 quid which, obviously, I paid for -- quite good though. Vlado is 78 so didn't drink his share. As well as being our host/organizer for the trip he had also created the walk about thirty years ago judging by the picture in our materials supplied by "On Foot". He apologised, unsolicited, about the absence of food instructions at the places we stayed (the girl the previous night had phoned to complain) but when I mentioned the poor route on the first day he said that they had tried a different route but some Aussie girls had got lost. I gave up at that point and didn't mention the inaccuracies in the notes, the poor route on day 3 etc. However, when he started talking about the effect of the last couple of wars in the area he was very interesting and afterwards Liz said he was a sweetie. By the time we had seen him four more times in the following thirty-six hours she had grown rather more weary of him.

A lazy day for my birthday where we walked up (and down) seven hundred and odd steps to the village which existed before the (larger) place we were staying in. It was older and the resort originally developed as a port for this village. Lovely views and Liz bought me lunch! Cost a tenner for the two of us.

Naturally, neither of us went for a swim in the Adriatic.

A taxi back to the joys of Ryanair the following day.