Welcome to Italy.

We left Brač by car ferry from Sumartin to the mainland at Markaska. After 2 wonderful weeks in paradise it was time to move on to our next destination for one night near Dubrovnik. Our GPS said it would take about an hour, but it turned out to be four. It didn’t bother me much, but Maisy felt car sick the whole time driving along the windy coast road. I don’t blame her though, going round sharp bends whilst being able to see a steep cliff less than a metre next to you. It was pretty frightening. We followed the road through Bosnia Herzegovina’s small stretch of coastline and stopped for lunch then drove back into Croatia.

Dobar dan / Zdravo         Hvala         Do videnja / cao

 The address for the house we were meant to be staying at was ‘The Red House, Ivanica’ and we really didn’t know where we’d end up. Finally the GPS said that we weren’t staying in Croatia, we were staying in Bosnia Herzegovina. To get there we had to go through Border security, and to get past them you needed car insurance, a green card saying your car is allowed into Bosnia Herzegovina and more paper work.  We only had car insurance and the very large border security man was really grumpy, stubborn and mean ( and also very large). We were NOT going to pass unless we had the ‘green card’, we either had to go all the way back to Dubrovnik and buy a green card for 30 euros or turn around and not enter. After a long tiring day of driving dad accidently called the guard Croatian and that was it. He started yelling. He took all our passports and stormed into his office. Dad was also getting a bit irritated and he marched in after him.     By the time dad got to the office, the guard was half way through writing notes from our passports so dad took them and did a U-turn around the gates and drove off. I think we just got KICKED OUT OF BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA. So it was all the way back down windy roads to get to Dubrovnik. Dad found a cheap room and that was where we slept for the night. Maisy and I found some kids to play with and it wasn’t that bad. We walked down to watch the sunset and the city walls turned pink.

The next morning mum was ready and keen on walking the entire circuit of the Dubrovnik’s old town city walls. So whilst mum walked around Maisy, dad and I did the shopping for lunch and dinner. We picked mum up and drove to the ferry port where we boarded our Jadrolinija ferry to Bari in Italy.

The boat trip lasted 7 hours, but we were on one hour earlier. On the boat we played cards, did 3 hours of school work, ate lunch, had a Rummikub championship (Which I won!), watched the sunset with a blood red moon rising and ate dinner. By that time it was 8pm, time to get off. We were all queuing up ready to get in our cars or walk off the boat, when the doors finally opened it was chaos.  Lots of the Italians were barging and pushing their way in front of us when we were at the front and pushing everyone out of the way all because THEY wanted to get out. One lady whacked me on my cheek on purpose, patted me on the head and almost pushed me over. Luckily dad caught me though. From the start we had a slight feeling that they were going to be a bit impatient.

 Sunset on the Adriatic

Leaving Dubrovnik

The ferry stopped at Bari where we were to stay the night.
Our GPS told us that there was no such place as the address we had been given so we tried asking some of the local shop keepers but they couldn’t speak a word of English, so we showed them the address and they pointed down a narrow alley. We went up a dark street with lots of street kids who were smoking and in rag like clothes. That explained why the accommodation was so cheap! The ghetto that we were supposed to stay in had 8 units in it, all with no names and we didn’t want to wake anyone up at 10pm at night to find our accommodation. Dad was almost certain that if we parked our car outside, we would never get it back again so we decided we would move on.

Bari at night

Buon Giorno / Ciao          Grazie              Arriverderci

During a stop at the petrol station, my last K9 tooth wobbled out of my mouth and lots of blood came out. At 11pm we stopped in the middle of nowhere at a very, very posh hotel for us. This was our only option. So dad payed for our family to stay there. We all went to bed straight away.

 Another day started and we were only supposed to drive 3 hours to our next destination, the Amalfi Coast. When it had been 2 hours and 35 minutes there was a sudden stop in the traffic along the coast from Salerno. Mum then realised that only motorbikes were coming in the other direction, all the men were riding very slowly and the women on the back were crying. Mum suspected there had been a crash so she walked up to see what had happened like everyone else and to her surprise only 15 cars ahead of us around the bend was a dented Fiat and a smashed Ducati motor bike. There were lots of people around the rider trying to do CPR and crying. Mum didn’t want to get close because she could see there was no hope for the poor man.
   30 minutes later dad went up again to see if an ambulance had come yet. Even though it had come it was too late. There was a white sheet with blood stains over the man.

Another half an hour and a police man on a motorbike came whizzing up. Dad cleverly thought ahead and was one of the first cars to turn around on that very narrow road and head back down the long windy roads. About 100 cars behind us we saw a wedding car with the saddest looking bride in it.  Then 50 cars after that there was another car carrying a big wreath of flowers and the van behind that had a coffin. It was a hearse on the way to the funeral. We felt very sorry for all these people caught in a dreadful traffic jam.

We drove the back way around the mountains and just as we came out of a tunnel we kept seeing lots of Pizzerias and that made us feel very hungry so we decided we would stop for a quick lunch of bruschetta and spaghetti bolognaise. It was one of my favourite pasta meals ever along with mum’s chicken and pesto pasta. Halfway through our meal we saw the same funeral van and lots and lots of traffic which had been turned back from either side to get to the other side. We were very lucky dad thought ahead and saved us time!

 Our waitress, Jilda, was very entertaining and did a spot the difference game on herself to a group of English walking tourists and even gave the person who guessed correctly an espresso coffee cup. She also asked where we were staying and rang up the lady who owned the accommodation. The lady came 5 minutes later and lead the way for us. We would have had no chance in a million years on finding it otherwise. It was behind 5 farms each growing their own supply of corn, grapes and tomatoes. But once we got there it was completely breathtaking.

We learnt a new word today, vertiginous, meaning dizzy, giddy and woozy, so high it causes a whirling feeling even though you aren’t afraid of heights and you feel like you could easily fall. Well that is exactly how it feels like here. We are staying on a very, very high cliff 700 metres above the sea. In front of us we can see a small field of grape vines full of black grapes for wine then the land just drops away to a steep cliff and 180 degrees of water around us which we can easily see and looks like we could if we wanted to just jump off 10 metres in front of us and touch the sea. It is so amazing and a bit frightening at the same time.

Charlotte