Today I have a decent excuse for the lack of updates on the blog. We just can't get a decent net connection. Haven't done for about a week now.

So I gotta remember where I left off last. Pula I believe. Up to Rovinj then. It's a small city just a short way north of Pula. However, through a slight bit of bad planning we still managed to make an entire day of getting to our new apartment.

First we had to get into Pula centre. I thought my spine-ridden feet might just get me around OK, but after a short walk decided it may be best just to get up to a pharmacy and see if they had any advice. You walk for a while with them in your feet and it turns from a sharp pain (easy enough to deal with) into quite a rugged burning sensation. The girl in the pharmacist handed me a weird, smelly brown cream stuff as soon as I explained my issue. They must get it a lot. A week later it hasn't really helped get them out, but the pain's pretty much gone anyway. Ah well. I got a few little keepsakes with me now. No need for souvenir shops! Aaaanyway. Bus eventually into town centre, short wait for bus to Rovinj then we had to figure out how to get to the apartment outside the town. Turns out it was exactly the same bus we got in. We had to wait another hour for one to come back round and drop us 10 minutes back in the direction we came from!

The dude met us out front. Super cool guy. He showed us up to our room (rooms). Possibly the nicest apartment we've had so far. A kitchen/dining room/lounge with a bedroom coming off of it. And a lovely little balcony. The place was exceptionally clean and very well equipped. Katie got a decent coffee machine for once and there was a toastie machine too. I haven't had toasties in yonks! Well, that was dinner sorted. And breakfast and lunch too! Like I said, the host was a great guy. He gave us a lift into town the very next morning and even asked when we wanted him to pick us up. Very unexpected. Certainly not the kind of service we'd ever even thought of getting anywhere else. He was perfectly happy to drive us about whenever and showed us some of the alternative routes if we wanted to walk back from town. The guy's parents own the apartment and he'd often talk about work in the area, although he didn't really seem to do anything himself. We're pretty sure that he must work somewhere, but he was generally moseying around during the day. To be honest, that seems to be fairly standard here. Even though people are clearly all uniformed up and 'at work' they appear to spend all their time sitting on walls, chatting.

We're not actually staying in Rovinj itself, but a small place just outside. Coculetto. There's a couple of large campsites, both on the coast. You have to walk through the bigger one to get to the water. That's not a big deal. Just because the campsite is here doesn't make the beaches private I guess. Though the locals have plenty of access to other parts of the coast if they can't be bothered with the tourists. If you're willing to walk around the edge for just a short while you can find some lovely quiet spots away from anybody else. Coculetto is a quiet place anyway. A lot of farming goes on in this part of the country. It makes for some very pretty views from up on our balcony. We can't see the sea itself from there, but the surrounding land more than makes up for it. Especially when you get to watch one of the amazing spring lightning storms. They're very impressive. We've had great weather, but in the evening once in a while they heavy clouds move in and give you a show.

On our second day we got a lift into Rovinj. It's a bigger place than it looks, but the only part that's worth a tourist looking at is the small old-town area. And it is small. You could very easily have a walk up and down in a very short time. We wanted to soak up the atmosphere though. As well as walk around to the landscaped area of coastline. We asked if he could pick us up around 6 which gave us a good 7 hours to explore.

The old town was lovely. It was built on a small peninsula and the houses go right up to the edge of the sea. It's all very tightly packed in too. The streets are very small and the buildings are tall. It's amazing just how many streets they could fit into such a small area. On top of all of the tourists this is still a very active part of the city in terms of day-to-day life. A lot of the residents have set up small stores in the ground floors of the houses. Lots of small arty shops along with heaps of them just selling tatty jewellery. Some very nice ones too though. A lot of hand-crafted stuff. I did wonder how they could do good business packed away in some of the small side streets, but its as Katie pointed out; we're still not quite in tourist season. These streets must be packed come July. That's what makes me glad we decided to start travelling so early. We are still able to catch the real charm of a lot of the places that we come to. Walking up some of the streets you would catch the scent of somebody's cooking as they've left their doors or windows wide open. The washing lines too are great to see. They add even more colour to the place than there already is with the flowers and the painted or just plain crumbling buildings. Its peaceful here but at the same time there is so much for your senses to take in. We loved it.

We had a large lunch sitting at one of the restaurants by the water. The head waiter was a bit of a comedian. Chatting with customers and having a great time. The other waiter could barely get his work done. When Kate went looking for the toilet he told her she had two options. He pointed her in the direction of the sea, but she decided on the alternative. She had a veggie pizza. I think it may have been her best one yet. Plenty of big chunks of veg on there and not just the usual ones.

It's always good to walk off a meal and we still had plenty of time left to explore. So we wandered round the marina and away up to what they call the Golden Coast. This is a large section of coastline where a very rich Austrian guy decided to plant a huge forest of trees from around the world. It's a very nice walk with some lovely pebbly beaches spread all over and small bars or cafes along with them. We walked a fair bit but decided to turn back after a while to leave a bit of it to explore later. Anyway, we had to get our groceries before our pick-up. They've got a lovely open-air market in Rovinj. Loads of freshly grown fruit and veg and lots of olive oil too. They grow a huge amount of olives here. In fact, there's olive trees almost everywhere you look. We got enough there to keep us in fruit and veg for quite some time. I got lots of fruit to make a fruit salad (a big fruit salad) and the whole lot came to about 5 quid. Great price! The small amount of meat I got for sandwiches cost about the same :p

The next day we got a lift into town again. Slightly later this time. We intended to hire bicycles for a day. This would give us 24 hours with the bikes so it was best to leave it til about 12:00, giving us plenty time to come back in the next day. We weren't sure how long it might take. Along with the bikes we got a map of the three routes. The blue one was short and the yellow one was very long. The red one was just right. So we set off on the bikes and started to follow the signs. The day was hot but there was still a fair breeze keeping us that little bit cooler. Still, it didn't take long before we broke a bit of a sweat. We rode along the coast before heading inland. The tracks were a bit rougher here. Some deep gravel kept us pedalling hard and there were often hilly areas too. Though for every up there is also a down. These were the fun bits. Especially watching Katie coming down as slow as possible. The bikes weren't great. I was down to 3 gears out of 18 and Kate's bike was just crazy. She'd shift up and they'd come to their own conclusion as to which way they would actually go! It was a great ride though. A lot of fun. Was good to do something a bit different. We both had very sore bums after. For the next day or two anyway.

After handing the bikes back the next day we just took our time strolling back towards our apartment. It took a good few hours with a couple of stops and a few diversions. We shared a nice little pizza for lunch and just as we were finishing we heard the thunder from afar. The clouds looked incredibly ominous but it was still warm. We didn't think there was any great need to hurry back. It was nice to sit down by the shore and watch the lightning in the distance for a while. There was a tiny bit of rain, but it didn't take long to clear up again and it even became almost unbearably hot for a while. Finding our way through the two camp sites was a little confusing. A nice German feller in the nudist section kindly pointed us in the right direction though :D

We spent our last day chilling (or baking!) by the beach at the campsite nearby. We'd already checked out of the apartment and left our bags with the owners. Our bus wouldn't arrive until 7pm so we had plenty of time to kill. I played around with a few hermit crabs and waded a little while Katie took in the rays. The pebbly beaches are very tough on your feet though. Wading shoes may be a necessity. We did find a small section around the way that was very quiet. It wasn't exactly a beach but it had lots of massive flat rocks. Great to walk on and wade about. Katie was laying close to the forests edge away from the water. She soon moved out of there though! There were heaps f huge green beetles flying out of the trees and coming in for a look. It was a little better by the edge of the water, but we still had to bat them away every now and then. The b*****s were gigantic! And very curious. Not sure why.

The day came to an end though and we had a bus to catch. On our way to Zadar. That's an 8 hour journey. We wouldn't get in until 3am and the bus trip was a nightmare. More on that later.