Today we were picked up, not by a mini van as advised but by a car and young male driver. The trip was two and half hours to Dubrovnik, via the ferry from yesterday. It was a little like travelling in NZ with scenery changing throughout the trip, from steep rocky mountainous terrain, to hidden valleys of agriculture, and historic towns. the last part of the drive was like travelling through a series of fiords in NZ. The driver was very smooth and after an initial...

Our arrival at Hotel Marco Polo was introduced by advising us we were one of five guests in the entire hotel, and by the way we have a wedding party coming tonight, and it's not like a NZ wedding - it will go all night. We had visions of limited sleep, especially when we met the wedding party leaving the old town in their cars. Think my big fat Greek wedding scene, where cars are honking consistently through the town on their way to our hotel with bow & ribbo...

A half day on the road in Croatia. Today was an exciting day. I received the keys to a near new Renault Megane sports car, for the princely sum of $55. It was my first time driving on the wrong side of the road after countless visits to countries that choose this very in queen like side to drive on. It was a day to test any marriage even after 25 years, so I was intrigued if Michelle was going to scream in either fear or frustration at any point in the day. To ou...

Today we set out for Stari Grad on the local car ferry; a journey of two hours one way. Our mission to discover Hvar, but along the way we found another gem of Croatia Stari Grad (more on that later). Arriving at the ferry terminal in Stari Grad a public coach takes you across the island to Hvar township. This like many of the destinations we have experienced so far Hvar and Stari Grad are ancient towns, built from stone, fought over many times by many different ...

Ancona Picking up from yesterday's blog written on the train to Ancona. Our first taste of Ancona was making the classic tourist mistake of taking a taxi from the train station to the ferry ticket terminal for €15 only to find there was a free shuttle bus (travel tip - always check ahead online). Oddly I didn't mind this apparent rip-off as the taxi driver was a master of communicating through Siri and a language translator. It was a fascinating study of th...