Trist in Trieste.

We had decided not to travel on a day sojourn to Venice while we were staying in Koper. Italy is just 10 km next door and across the water. I have been to Venice a long time ago and Ian was put off when he heard about all the tourists that would be there. To do a Venice trip we would have to drive to Trieste or catch the bus to Trieste and then catch the train. Not an inso-mountable  problem, however there were 2 slight problems. First being the parking if we were to drive, apparently it's hard to find, and the other small problem was having to catch a taxi on our return at around 9 pm. We decided to flag going to Venice and just have a nice Italian  day in Trieste instead. The trouble with Trieste is that the whole city runs on coupon parking, and while we only found 1 car park in our drive around the city, we didn't have the formidable coupon needed. We have Googled parking in Trieste on our return and discovered somewhere in the city are about 5 car park buildings with a total of 1500 spaces in a city the size of Christchurch. Being Kiwi we drove around the city, saw the Roman amphitheatre from the car and kept driving, slightly out of the city hoping to find an illusive single metered car park.

 Not speaking Italian doesn't help in these matters as locals just waggled their fingers at us saying "No park, no park". Driving through a red light didn't improve Ian's love for the city. The further out of the city we drive, the less he was inclined to return. As a compromise we agreed to return to Slovenia, drive up into the hills over looking the surrounding area and have a nice lunch followed of course by an ice cream, and a walk along a promenade somewhere. The trouble with Trieste is tourists tremble over transport and tight tussles to take up parks, testing tempers. :-)

Today we cross the border back to Croatia, and car parks we hope, to stay south of Opatija for a few days before heading to the  Plitvice National Park. Unless I find a wifi cafe, I may be gone sometime.