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We flee away from the rain


Home -> Europe -> Croatia -> Travelogue Croatia -> 28 & 29 August 2007

Tuesday 28 August, we flee away from the rain

Finally we are ready for our 'real' summer holidays, and we are also ready to leave all the stress and pressure of the last time behind. Because we go on holiday so often, we get more and more busy in the intervals, because the normal work has to be done also! The more vacation we have, the busier we get in the time between holidays so we have to go on holiday more often to de-stress, what a luxury problem! But well, we are a bit addicted to travel and like to give in to it as long as we can.
A small rain shower waves us out of the Netherlands, just in front of Nieuwschans and we hope it is the last of the holiday. Along this road we are in Germany within an hour, so really on vacation! Our navigation does not agree: first he wants to send us to the south via Arnhem and the Ruhr area, then he wants us to take the two-lane road to Veendam as the fastest route. Maybe we should have brought a map of Germany. At the filling station where we still have to fill the lpg tank we buy a card. We think that we will actually have little use of the navigation because we mainly go to countries for which the navigation does not have any maps.
And it's a good thing that we bought a card because there are lots of roadworks around Osnabruck and some exits are closed. When we have found a detour ourselves (usually these are well marked in Germany, but not this time) and we drive south on the A33, our tommie, as we call our navigation system, thinks we can continue for 80 kilometers. Not so, this road is far from finished. At least 20 kilometers long on a busy two-lane road with lots of traffic lights, John Cleese, our navigation voice, reminds us to turn right or left a few times so that we drive back. Our disobedience brings us luckily a lot faster on the right path.
Lunch in GermanyAfter a short break halfway (where they want us to pay 50 cents for a pee until we find out, afterwards, that you get that money back when you order something in the restaurant (but we did that before ..). we are in the south of Germany, it is 23 degrees and the sun shines, then up to the Austrian border. A big cloud pours its rain over us and it gets dark very quickly. In the hotel in Reutte, just across the border , we hear that fifteen minutes ago the sun still shone. We have been here before and are received by the same crooked old woman. It is a bit out of the route but a familiar and beautiful place and so we avoid traffic jams around Munich.
It rains in Reutte View at Reutte, AustriaWe have the same view as in 2004, but then the weather was a lot better. We quickly put on the sweaters and try not to listen too much to the pouring rain. Hours later it still rains and the weather forecast is not super. In that case we will not stay here two nights as we first wanted, but tomorrow we will cross the Alps, looking for warm and sunny weather.
Castle in the clouds (Taufers?)The sky locks are still open when we wake up the next morning and after breakfast we quickly head for the south. Castle Neuswanstein, the fairytale castle that is on so many puzzles, will have to wait until next time. We now want to see sunshine and therefore go first to the south, as soon as possible cross the the Alps and to Slovenia. There it will be warmer and the north seems to be very nice, maybe we will stay there for a few nights.
Cloudy Italy Castle at Villach, AustriaAs fast as possible, however, is not so fast, because the heavy rain ensures that we can only drive 80 on the motorway near Innsbruck. And furthermore we mainly have two-lane roads because we are a bit out of the route. And as quiet as it was on the highways yesterday, so busy it is now on the roads. We are on the road for 6 hours before we finally reach the border with Slovenia! It is not on this day, the weather does not meet our expectations; in short, this is not the holiday as we, the spoiled tourists, had in mind for the first day.
When we come out of the long tunnel and drive into the country it is finally dry and at the first petrol station we look for the terrace for coffee that we could not et before because of the rain. This is our first stop today and we are happy that we can sit outside with a sweater. On the road we have already changed our itinerary. We want sun and heat, but even though it is already 20 degrees and dry, we are not satisfied with it. That is why we now drive to Croatia in one go. We are out of lpg on but we can continue for a while on petrol, but then our luck returns: after 10 kilometers on gasoline we just come across a petrol station with LPG and after that we make in 2 hours more kilometers than the 4 hours before. And so we arrive quickly in Karlovac for a coffee and a beer. In t-shirt at 9 o'clock in the evening! We already have a hotel in the center, our car is at the door, what more do we want? We change our itinerary again: tomorrow we first go to the Plitvicka Lakes, a beautiful area in a national park where we have often been around. And then on to the coast or, if necessary, a small hotel in the neighborhood. It took some time, but we have outrun the bad weather gods!

 


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