Day 25 - Tuesday July 5th

Weather - Some sun and Thunderstorms (just the thing for another car trip hey?) High 20's down to mid-teens.

We left Pula reasonably early, hoping to avoid the traffic. It was quite astounding the amount of traffic coming into Pula as we were leaving - we didn't really understand it as it was a Tuesday, but we think it'd take over an hour to crawl in for those who were trying. It took up about 10 mins to leave.

We set off for the Slovenian border, for a quick (!) 20km dash across their one and only port, before reaching Italy and Trieste. We were staying about another 40 mins on from Trieste, in Aquileia. (We didn't really know much about either of them, but it was a matter of where we could get accom).

Now the ! above was due to the fact that about 1 km out of the Slovenian border, we were greeted with bumper to bumper traffic that meant we took about 45 mins to go about 1km. The queue continued after it, so we assumed that it would be that way until Italy. Thankfully, we discovered that the traffic wasn't because of the border crossing, but from a set of traffic lights! Didn't make it any less annoying however!

Now I can recommend ViaMichelin to anyone who wants to get a good idea of how to drive around Europe. At times, however, it is a little lacking - and boy did it test Naomi's skills (and patience) today! Onthe plus side, we did get to see a small village just outside of Trieste, with lovely cobblestone streets, which were INCREDIBLY steep and narrow - at we noted with surprise that it was a bus route! Anyway... we did eventually find our way past Trieste (which looked horrible and industrial/port style) to Aquileia.

Aquileia was about 5 mins drive inland from the coastal town of Gadro. Gadro looks like it was once a fishing village and is now infected with yuppies, cafes and boat moarings for their, invariably, expensive yachts. Still, it was pretty cool. Actually, it was friggen freezing, as the thunderstorms rolled in just as we stepped out of the car to visit the beach. (No pebbles, here, just nice grey muddy sand - I think I preferred the pebbles!) The 'beaches' in Gadro were all 'owned' by hotels/resorts and you had to pay to get in, but we found one that was closed down so we strolled on thru. All the resorts had their umbrellas and deck chairs all folded up - no doubt they would have all been accommodated yesterday.

So we warmed up with a Hot Chocolate (well Nai did, I had an affogato - fresh espresso on ice-cream) and then sourced a place for dinner. We decided to eat back in Aquileia, at a place that had a combination of a restaurant, a wine-bar and a marquee sort of area. I think the marquee is for summer and the restaurant for Winter, as we were hearded into the marquee. Quite traditional sorta Italian meal, with a great local Pino Grigio.