Today we set off for Croatia. First stop Pula, on the Istrian Peninsula. Looks like a fairly long drive, so freeway travel is the order of the day. Northern Italy must be the crossroads for road transport into central and eastern Europe. There are literally hundreds of trucks on the freeway traveling in both directions. Hungarian, Romanian, Czech, Polish, and Croatian number plates are everywhere. After an hour or so, we leave Italy and enter Slovenia, before w...

We left Parma yesterday and headed up to Padua (or Padova). This is to be our last stop in Italy before we head over to Croatia. Once again, Padua proves to be a real gem - the sum of its parts turns out to be greater than its individual attractions. We spent the whole afternoon getting lost in the maze of its inner city streets. We must be getting accustomed to the nature of Italian cities - no matter how much we got turned around we always had a sense of the di...

Left Asti yesterday to head across to Parma. It took us about 25 minutes to de-ice the windscreen and windows before we could start driving. Even though it had stopped snowing, it was still below zero, with a thick blanket of fog covering the city. We again decided to forgo the convenience of using the Autostrada and stick to the regional roads (to see more of the "real" Italy). Well, after about 2 hours of crawling along at less than 100kmh, and negotiating a ne...

Arrived in Asti yesterday afternoon. After the long drive from Grenoble, we didn't feel like doing too much, so we just checked into our hotel (Hotel Lis) and veged out for the rest of the day. Found a great little restaurant close by to dine at that night, the Osteria del Palio. We started with some cured meats and bread, washed down with a local Asti Spumante (nothing like the rubbish we get back in Australia). Julie opted for only a main meal (lamb cutlets and...

Today we leave Grenoble and head over to Italy. Our first stop is Asti in the Piedmont region of Italy. Just to be different, we've programmed the GPS to take us through the Alps, avoiding major highways and tolls. Our route will take us from Genoble to Briancon, before crossing into Italy and on to Asti, taking us past Alp d'Huez, and the Col du Galibier. Looking at the map, it appears we will be following the valley floor most of the way. Wrong. Soon after lea...