JOHN AND JANE'S TRAVELS: CROATIA

The contrast between Croatia and Italy could hardly have been greater. Everywhere we have travelled so far the roads have been excellent, the towns and countryside have been clean and well cared-for and the icing on the cake is that it has turned hot and sunny with day-time temperatures rising into the thirties!

We just drove straight across the neck of land belonging to Slovenia and into a large peninsular in the north of Croatia called Istria, stopping briefly at the small hill town of Bizet which was very peaceful but in need of a little TLC. We spent our first night at Motovun, another hill town.

The small site was half way up the hill and run by the hotel in the old castle at the top. It was quite a hike up the old cobbled road…

…to reception – but worth it. We were able to walk round the old walls and swim in the indoor pool at the hotel. The views were splendid.

We turned west to get to the coast. On the way we passed through the small town of Pazin where there is a very deep gorge which ends suddenly as the stream disappears into a hole in the ground. We enjoyed the walk down into the gorge, round an interesting trail with boards pointing out the different flora and fauna and back up to the other side. Reaching the top we found a zip wire right across the gorge to near the castle – we were not sure if we were glad or sorry it was not operating that day!

We reached the coast at Poreč with its unusual and interesting church – the Basilica of St Euphrasius where we had views over the town from the bell tower.

The Basilica had some lovely mosaics and in the museum we were able to see archaeological finds from much of the Basilica’s past back to roman times.

Travelling south we came to Rovinj (the j is pronounced like the y in yes) where we camped right by the sea...

…and visited the old town next day. Rovinj, like most of this part of Croatia, was once ruled by Venice and the winged lion – symbol of St Mark, Patron Saint of Venice, can still be seen on the gate into the old town.

Continuing south towards Pula we came across a re-constructed shepherd’s hut remarkably like the houses called trulli that we saw at Alberobello in Italy. Perhaps the original settlers in Alberobello came from this area.

Pula’s only claim to fame – its huge Roman amphitheatre – sits somewhat incongruously between hotels and shops and overlooking the busy commercial port.

Nothing could have prepared us for the coast of the Kvarner Gulf south of the city of Rijeka! The journey took much longer than our sat-nav said it would because we stopped in nearly every layby to look at the ever changing scene of seemingly barren off-shore islands and limestone cliffs.

In the bays and inlets were lovely, clean little towns with small harbours and delightful piazzas and the sea was as calm as as an English village pond. Wherever we stopped we saw new wild flowers for Jane to photograph such as this Bladder Campion…