There's a world to explore
Tales to tell back on shore
- 'Six Months in a Leaky Boat' by Split Enz

Well, we're in Split now (hence the Split Enz lyrics. . . more on boats later), and apart from a very brief text message cum blog post, we haven't written anything since we were in Agna.

To finish off our first stint in Italy we spent a couple of days at the beach in Caorle, staying with Marisa's relatives, who then gave us a lift to Seveso (between Milano, and Como). We spent a day in Milano, saw most of the sights in the centre of town (but being a Monday some thigs we closed, like the Last Supper). We spent a few hours in Como before catching the train North to Switzerland.

We stayed in a town called Saint Gallen, which looks a lot like Wellington but without the harbour. It rained both days we spent there (another thing in common with Wgtn, perhaps). Luckily, we did a day trip to Liechtenstein and it was sunny. We spent most of our time in the capital, Vaduz, but it's not much bigger than Dannevirke (you can fit the whole population of Leichtenstien in Suncorp Stadium and still have seats to spare).

The whole Swiss deviation was an expensive exercise, but worth just to say we've been to the places we have and seen the things we did.

We then caught the train from St Gallen to Innsbruck, Austria, and spent 5 hours there before catching a 1am train to Venice. Didn't get a lot of sleep coz we were sharing our cougette with a dutch couple, who were lovely, but it was a bit cramped. Anyway, we got to Venice about 7am, and spent the day looking at the art exhibitions of the Bienalle, before catching the 5pm ferry to Pula, Croatia.

The ferry was supposed to arrive in Pula at 8pm, but due to rough seas we docked in Rovinj (North of Pula) at about 10pm, then were bussed to Pula, where we had to taxi to our apartment. . . finally got there by midnight.

Our apartment in Pula was great and amazingly cheap (Croatia on the whole is great if you're on a budget), and we stayed there three nights. Spent time at the beach and exploring the town during the days, and sampled the local nightlife at night (which some of us may still be recovering from).

We didn't let our first ferry experience dissuade us from taking the ferry south to Zadar yesterday, then bussing another 3 hours to Split, the biggest city on the coast and 2nd biggest in Croatia.

Going to the beach this afternoon if the sun comes out, then catching a 10pm bus all the way to Trieste in Italy (we arrive at 8am). After spending a proper night in Trieste, we will train to Vienna (2 nights), Prague (2 nights) and Berlin (2 nights), before meeting up with Peter and Sina in Hamburg.

K, that's the barebones version of the last few weeks (there's not a lot of time for being reflective when the beach is calling).

Craig