Venice is....Venice!

We head on to Trieste. As we’ve promised to meet Vallo at Venice by 26.10, we won’t have time to visit Slovenia. We just drive through it much like Bosnia a few days back. No country should be left unvisited and all of them have vet clinics to go to, but unfortunately my last veterinary contact was 10 days ago in Athens. In Macedonia, Montenegro or Croatia no vet clinics crossed our path. To be honest there was one in Croatia, Crikvenica but it was closed. I am worried the veterinary aspect of my travels is disappearing. I will have to revive it in Italy. 
We catch a train to Venice from Trieste. 

When we arrive, it is already dark. 

Silvia buys a waterproof map of the city - a very good idea. Our hotel is relatively far from the train station, but Silvia thinks of herself as an extraordinary guide so we should not be worried. For a while we end up taking a detour of half an hour and arrive at our hotel half an hour later, but we see a lot of Venice on the way.

The hotel is beautiful. Vallo has already arrived. Looking for a place to eat, we find a noisy place and decide to stay there. We can’t really converse as we have to yell, but we try. The food is delicious.

 Silvia later writes in her blog that she had the most amazing ravioli.

We’ll stay in Venice for one more night, but we have to switch hotels. 

The new place has a tiny dog at the reception area. 

Naturally it is revealed that I am a veterinarian. The receptionist places the dog on the counter and reports its’ medical history as I inspect spots that are said to itch. A casual inspection of the dog leads me to believe we are dealing with an atopic. The owner agrees and talks of how a Finnish veterinarian who stayed at the hotel did acupuncture on the dog and how it made the dog feel so much better. He shows me exactly which places were pressed and how. I think to myself, it must have been Anna Hjelm-Börkman, Finland’s finest acupuncture specialist. My curiosity gets the best of me and I call Anna. She hasn’t visited Venice lately but says it could have been her colleague Netta Tammisalo. Well that’s something veterinary in Venice! Finding a clinic is said to be impossible because all of them are out of the city center.

Unquestionably we will have to go to the main square of Venice. 

An enormous line spreads before the church but the queue at Doge’s palace seems to move quickly. The palace is definitely a sight to see and worth the wait. This is all later recollection as I didn’t write when our impressions were fresh. Now I look at the pictures and try to remember what we saw and heard.

I remember:

1.  Us trying to find Estonia on some ancient maps and found it.

2.  A painting of all the Doge’s of Venice has one who looks exactly like V.I. Lenin. 

3.  An exhibition of many different weapons.

4.  Crossing the Bridge of Sighs.

5.  Seeing a wonderful mosaic floor in the Basilica of St. Mark.

An unfortunate picture of the old map, but we did find Estonia on it. 

Second from the left - the Doge who looks like Lenin

Last three: a huge firearms and weapons collection

A picture taken on the bridge of sighs. Silvia was taking pictures of the tourists who were taking pictures of the bridge of sighs. 

Mosaic floor in the Basilica of St. Mark.

We spend hours in the palace. As we are leaving it seems that the church is completely empty and we finally have a chance to go inside. Then we have a light meal at a restaurant just on the next street and I try to find out who the Finnish doctor who cured the receptionist’s dog was.

We clearly go overboard with our little walk as we find ourselves in a hospital somewhere at one point.

At first it looked like we were in some kind of glass gallery but suddenly there were signs in Italian leading to cardiology and gynecology offices. As we tried to escape the labyrinth of hallways it seemed we only got ourselves deeper and deeper into the maze. 

When we finally found a doorway that lead outside the hospital walls, it was already dark. We exit the building and find ourselves on the quay. 

Looking at the map we seem to be at the edge of the waterproof paper. There is nowhere to go. This is where the island ends, along with all of Venice. 

There is only a market next to the dock. We do some grocery shopping and start finding our way back to the hotel. We are very tired and very much wanting to get there already. Too exhausted to even look around. 

But at the moment I raise my gaze I see a sign that reads ‘veterinary clinic’ (in Italian). “Stop! Wait here. Give me the camera. I’m going in.” The others collapse to sit down on the sidewalk.

And so I find myself visiting a vet clinic in Venice that shouldn’t even exist according to the locals. The clinic is small.

 The veterinarian Francesco Pilan does not speak any English. But we find our ways to communicate - body language, Google translate and Facebook. 

Once again I come across our lovely Spotchem biochemic machine. Francesco tells me he works a lot less now, as he’s had a stroke recently. A few colleagues come around from time to time who act as consultants and receive patients.

No time for longer stories. There's a language barrier and tired comrades outside the door. Anyways Francesco becomes a friend of mine on Facebook. I constantly see his posts which I can’t understand but are a nice reminder of a colleague in Venice.

Vallo is sitting on the ground outside with the girls. Mother is gone again on her vet clinic adventures and poor dad has to console the children. 

We finally drag ourselves to the hotel. Vallo and I are happy, we open a wine and cut some cheese, as we have no plans of going anywhere anymore. The girls have decided to go on a late tour of Venice titled something like “The Ghost Stories of Venice” or “The Horrors of Venice”. They’ve already payed for the tickets so out in the cold they go. They return very late and tell us stories of what they heard the next morning.

The view from our hotel window. It's very likely that one can organize "Horror night" tours here. 

The staircase that the girls saw during the tour left such an impression, we had to go see it again in the morning.

The Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo spiral staircase.

As we couldn't find a clinic or animals at first we were constantly taking pictures of pet shops and...

...class animal statues.

Venice is truly magical...

...in the night....

....and in the day as well.

Through Croatia in four days

Morning in Croatia – warm and sunny. Like we’ve just woken up from a dream. Sketchy trains and buses, adventures in dark Struga, the uncertain and moneyless sitatuation in Albania, beautiful but chilly and rainy Kotor – it’s all behind us. It’s like we’re back in sunny and carefree Greece. We head towards the old town.

Last two: the old town of Dubrovnik

We’ve planned only a day for Dubrovnik, as we’ve decided to rent a car and drive unhurriedly towards the north to meet my husband Vallo in Venice in three days time. 

I had been to Dubrovnik before, but the girls had not. They find that the old town is a little bit like Tallinn, but as it’s right by the sea and the climate is more mediterranean, everything is somehow bigger and more yellow. And there’s a massive amount of tourists even though it’s not high-season.

The old Franciscan monastery and pharmacy are truly wonderful sights to see.

At the moment it holds an exhibition about how Croatia became independent, shows us the places and buildings that were bombed and pictures of fighters who perished. It’s unbelievable that something like this could have happened in present day Europe. To us in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia was something special, almost like a western nation. If a person was able to travel to Yugoslavia as a tourist they were truly lucky. And then these horrible events occurred in this land that we admired. I’m not sure I can properly impart those feelings and thoughts to the girls. I guess the history of the 90s is as abstract to them as for me the 40s and the Second World War.

But let’s leave those sad topics behind, we make our way out the narrow streets surrounded by the city walls and find ourselves in front of the best outdoor cafe that one could imagine. 

Chairs fitted onto cliffs, tables, a few tourists but no crowds, the sun and the sea.

Indeed, I think it’s time for a little glass of wine. Our usual carefreeness comes rushing back. If we could now go for a swim, that would be perfect.

We walk between the old houses for quite some time. In a a side street an elderly gentleman is playing the piano. And just when I start to feel like we could start thinking about leaving Dubrovnik, Silvia sees something. 

Silvia: We walk about the old town and we find ourselves at the city gates once more. I see that a man is selling Game of Thrones tours. Of course I was aware that they filmed Game of Thrones in Dubrovnik, but I did not know that they also had tours and as we were already short for time, it didn’t even occur to me that we might go. Nevertheless I went to see what they were offering. The man immediately started explaining something. We said that we’re leaving the city today and that we unfortunately have no time to see anything, but maybe the man could recommend some must-see places north of Dubrovnik? The man did show us some places (where we eventually didn’t go to, but nevermind). We felt that we had wasted so much of his time and pined for all that information, maybe we should go on the tour? Before, we had entertained the idea of taking the cable car up to the mountain, but the man said that for the same price we can go on a tour that takes us up to the mountain with a car, then to Dubrovnik port and finally to see the world’s shortest river and an olive oil factory. We felt guilty and so decided to go. The man was elated and showed us to a car in a parking lot, where we met a man named Igor and his dog. Igor was our guide, the dog was there just for fun. Igor was a very interesting person – his English was descent and he told us a lot about Dubrovnik and Croatian history in general. At the same time we talked (or mum talked, as Maari and I didn’t know that much about the subject) about the fall of Yugoslavia and the European Union and Igor certainly didn’t like the latter. It seemed to me that he missed the old Yugoslavia, as he was constantly talking about how Croatia used better off.  And they had all these cars and those washing machines etc. In between Igor’s constant talking we were also able to admire the views of Dubrovnik old town, the port and so on. We couldn’t quite figure out the lenght of the world's shortest river, because we only saw the bit where the river was already flowing, not where it started from and ended at. The river supposedly bursts out the ground, travels 30 metres and then ends up in the sea.

Last four: the views from trekking up the mountain with Igor.

The world's shortest river Ombla - 30 metres.

Last two: Igor's dog.

Igor started tempting us with offers such as taking us to his family friends in the country, where we could eat local food and as his acquaintances own a B&B, we could stay there for the night and next morning could see real country-life as well. I don’t care much for touristy places and wanted to get out of Dubrovnik and so I was thrilled with the idea, but the girls had already decided to go on the Game of Thrones tour. Therefore we agreed that we might go to the country the day after, but today we’ll stay in Dubrovnik and asked Igor to find us a place to stay for the night. After some haggling we got a lovely and very roomy apartment right by the sea. The owner of the apartment was a man named Paavo. I don’t understand how a Croatian guy could have a Finnish name. He himself didn’t know either. 

The view from our next apartment.

In the morning we find a ship looking straight through our window.

Last three: the apartment itself was lovely

In the early hours of the morning the girls leave to go on the Game of Thrones tour and I went to rent a car. After that I had a few glorious hours to lay on the beach. I tried to ask friends for tips on what would be the best places to stop at on our way north, but there were too many suggestions, so I was convinced that Croatia is just one gorgeous place after another so it doesn’t matter much where we stay. My colleague Jaan Luht wrote very lovingly and caringly: „Be careful not to turn away from the big roads, because you’ll end up at places that lead nowhere and the GPS goes crazy.“ I promised Jaan that I’ll stay on track. I was also a little worried how I would manage in the mountains. 

Silvia, who is a huge Game of Thrones fan describes her day like this: Our tour guide introduced himself as Ivan - "Ivan the Terrible" - he said his clients call him that because he makes them climb up stairs and mountains in scorching midday sun.
Ivan was very cool. He had a book, which had large prints of the scenes in "Game of Thrones" and he showed them to us at the location where he took us. He was also very funny and informative. He said that there was supposed to be a scene where Daenerys was to walk around the city naked, but the church disallowed it. Ivan was very sad as he had rented an apartment at that location for the duration of the filming. They still shot some scenes on that same street - they filmed for two days and it cost $300 000 because they closed all the restaurants and shops. We saw a lot of interesting places and they were probably even interesting to people who had never seen Game of Thrones before. 

Last five: Game of Thrones sets

 After the tour we went to find mother who had fallen asleep on the beach

We found her behind a cocktail at Banje beach (a beautiful place once meant for Austrian soldiers. The women were allowed at the beach from 11 until 12 o'clock and men from 12 o'clock until  8 o'clock in the evening - what a weird arrangement), then got in the car and set out to the North.

We spent the rest of the day in the car, driving up the Crotian coast. Passing Bosnia on our way because they have a small piece of coastline through Croatia. Being in Bosnia for only 6 minutes, we didn't count it as one of the countries we visited.

By nightfall, we arrived at a place called Trogir, which similarly to Dubrovnik has a separated old town surrounded by the newer areas. We got a room at some hotel, left our car there and went to find something to eat. As we hadn't had anything but ice-cream and a pack of chips from a gas station, we ordered huge plates of five different kinds of meat and other sides.

Unfortunately we don't have many impressions of Trogir (last 5 pictures). It was sunny, but quite chilly and windy, when we walk in the old town. It is presumably very nice during summertime. 

We spend quite a lot of time at the post office to send the cards we failed to send from Montenegro to Miloš at Palazzo Drusko, who has kindly offered to post them for us. We can't post them in Croatia, as we have already stamped them with Montenegro stamps.
We head on the road again, we have to be in Rijeka by the evening because we have to return our rental car and go to Venice. At that moment I didn't know that the road we saw on the map follows right along the edge of a cliff for miles and miles. At about eight o'clock in the evening I started to wonder if maybe we had driven the wrong way, Rijeka can't be that far! We try not to worry and remain optimistic. 

We drive along the coast and see an odd mountain island of some sort. We decide that we must go there, we have the time. We find a city named Primošten.

On top of the hill we find a church and a beautiful cemetery.

Everything seems still and empty. Old houses with red roofs, shaded gardens and practically an old Renault in every yard. We buy some fruit from this Renault city and continue our journey.

Silvia: The more time goes by, the more beautiful the light around us becomes. 

The most wonderful things in Croatia have to be the sunsets over the sea. I have never seen them so beautiful. You can't describe it, take pictures of it or write about it - you have to see for yourself and we were in awe the day before, watching with mouths wide open how the sun disappeared behind the sea and painted the sky rose gold. Mum thought that we might go through an island that's close to the coast and then take a ferry back to mainland. I didn't care much for that, but mum really wanted to go because it would be pretty and would bypass the mountains. I asked about the ferries from a gas station and a hotel, but after receiving the whole information, we decided that there wouldn't be much point afterall, as the ferries don't run that often and if we don't make it on time, we won't be in Venice. 

We drive towards the mountains and the clouds on top of those mountains look like large rolling dust bunnies. I have never seen anything like it before, it's an incredible sight. Like evil is coming towards us over the mountains. It was awe-inspiring.

I wasn't feeling so awesome driving. As I mentioned before I keep on driving and driving - on one side of me there's mountains, on the other there's an abyss. No roads, gas stations or other signs of civilization, the beautiful views have disappeared, because there's darkness all around me. Do we really have to drive all night to end up somewhere? And where exactly? In the end, lights appear. A little longer and we enter Crikvenica. At least that's what the sign says. Now all we must do is find a place to stay for the night, but that's easy. Or so we naively think. Crikvenica is obviously a summer town. It's a summer town, where at the time being summer has fully ended. All buildings that even remotely resemble hotels are dark and empty. I park our car on a street, which during the summer season is definitely bustling with nightlife and send the children to go ask around. 

Silvia: We go into a pub and they show us the way in two directions. One option is to stay at some weird 90s panel house type building with a casino in it (no chance). The other is an imposing medieval castle or fortress. We arrive at the latter and Maari starts spinning paranoid thoughts once again. True, there are not many lights on at the castle, but I concluded that it's off-season, of course there's no one there. We go inside and ask if they have any rooms available. They do. We ask if they have WiFi. Oh no, just at the reception. Can we park our car here? Yeah, down by the sea somewhere. The price is also a little up there, but what other options do we have? We tell the lady, that we will take the room and go look for a parking space. After we've given mum all the information, we realise that the price is a little much for such a place and decide to continue our search. We drive around the town and see many hotels and signs pointing to hotels, but everything seems to be closed. In the end we find a house that's behind large iron gates on top of a little hill, you know as they normally are in horror films. However, there's a light on so we decide to give it a go. We go through the iron gates and up the stairs. The door have glass panels in them, I look inside and see a porcelain doll looking straight at me with its huge eyes. Getting creepy already. We ring the doorbell and a middle-aged man appears. Behind her an elderly woman is standing on the stairs. The room itself is dark, the only light source is a light that comes from the second floor down the staircase and it lights up the back of the lady leaving her face in the shadows. It reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" a little but instead of one man with a split personality, there's two murderers. We ask them if they have rooms available, but fortunately the man says that they aren't open for business. We leave in a hurry. 

We are almost ready to go back to that pricey castle without WiFi - it seemed quite alright after that horror house, but then we spy a tiny restaurant - the lights are on, it seems warm and cosy. I send the girls to inquire about rooms. I wait outside, but they just won't come out. I am so tired, that I have no strength left to worry. Then they appear and it seems that they have booked us a room. We park the car, carry our things inside and go eat. We will agree to anything, but we get a real feast. One of the most memorable meals during our travels in a small corner restaurant in Crikvenica. Different soups, tuna carpaccio, interesting desserts. Really good. Including the service. We have a nice waiter, who switches from English with me to German with Silvia.

The dinner in Crikvenica was so good, we had to take pictures of everything

The next morning I walk around a little, buy pastries for the girls and then we head off to be at Rijeka airport at 11 o'clock.

Silvia:  We drive up the coast towards Rijeka, when we see the airport sign that points left towards an island. I look it up on the phone and it turns out that Rijeka airport is not in Rijeka but on an island named Krk (this is not a spelling error). We have to turn back. That turns out to be rather complicated, because on one side there's the sea and on the other there are mountains. Somehow we find our way back over the mountains and we arrive at the airport. The airport is teeny-tiny and completely empty. We find the Hertz counter, where a lovely lady greets us. She comes to inspect the car and asks mum for the documents. What, you think mum has them? Of course not. They are in Crikvenica in our hotel room.

Fortunately we don't have to drive back. For a little extra, the Hertz employees agree to go get the documents themselves. We order a taxi and arrive at Rijeka bus station. We buy tickets to Trieste, Italy. With our very last local money we buy tea in a cafe. Two for the three of us. We didn't have money for more. 
Four days and not an ounce of anything to do with the veterinary world. We take pictures of important cats, who are roaming all of Croatia and at Crikvenica we see a veterinary clinic and shop, but unfortunately it's already so late that both of them are closed.

Last two: important cats of Croatia

Last two: at the door of Crikvenica veterinary practice

We will probably have to come back to this place. It's quite unthinkable that I visited Macedonia, Montenegro and Croatia, whilst also hopping into Albania, Bosnia-Herzogovina and Slovenia, but never met a colleague.