Casanova in Vrsar, Istria

After three months in rural France, I was beginning to think that I’d never get to see water again, let alone the sea. Back in Austria, the Oldies didn’t even bring me to as much as a lake. They just kept disappearing off on me, going up the mountains looking for mushrooms or whatever. Hah! I’ve heard the early bird catches the worm, but the Oldies are certainly no early birds. Judging by what they brought back home from their outings, those late birds only caught the wormy mushrooms. Yuck!

But eventually the Oldies saw the light and hit the road southwards. We were finally going back down to Croatia to spend some time in the caravan.

And thereby hangs a tail…

The Dynamic Duo were patting themselves on the back for having been so well organised, and for the fact that they hadn’t forgotten anything this time. Well, not too many things anyway. The drive itself went smoothly. I have never seen so little traffic southbound through Slovenia and we sailed through the borders. So much for all the delays I’d been hearing about! We got down to the campsite in Istria nice and early and the Oldies picked out a grand spot altogether. Perfect.

Next, we headed over to the depot to pick up the caravan, and there it … wasn’t! There was no sign of life at the depot either. “That’s weird”, said Herself. “I definitely sent a message to say that we were coming today and I asked Vladimir to leave the van outside the depot for us … oh blast it!” Looking  again at the message she’d sent, the little eejit noticed that as our arrival date she’d had typed 14.08. instead of 14.07.

“Right”, said Himself. “You sort that out. I’m going for a pint.”

Luckily for Her Ladyship, good old Vlad soon came to the rescue, and the Oldies managed to get set up by that evening. But now, whenever he spots them in the campsite, Vladimir gives them a big wave and shouts for all to hear: “My best customers! Nobody else gives me a full month’s notice of their arrival!”

It’s going to take quite a while for Her Ladyship to live that one down.

The Wingless Wonders are being particularly lazy this trip.  I’m supposed to be the wooden one, but at times they’re so immobile, you could be forgiven for thinking they’re fossilised! And I sometimes think that they’ve been taking this distancing thing a bit far. They’ve been distancing themselves from their bicycles, their hiking boots… The most energetic activity they’ve managed so far is a gentle stroll along the seaside.

Then again, I can’t complain about that. I can never get enough of this stunning coastline.  It is especially beautiful at the moment with there being so little boat traffic and so few humans around. For once, I reckon we seagulls outnumber humans around here. Yessss!

On one of our strolls around beautiful Vrsar, we came across a hard man. Casanova apparently visited this wonderful gem of a village on a couple of occasions back in the 18^th century. For him, just as it was for me hundreds of years later, it was a case of love at first sight.

Uh oh! I hear the bold Casanova also had an eye for the local birds. I think I’d better start practicing a bit of social distancing myself!