Venice by dinghy, Slovenia and back to Croatia

Slovenia has a population of 2.1 million people and is a highly developed country. Slovenia's currency is Euro.

It took 30 seconds to do the Check-in with the Slovenian Custom official (he only wanted to see the boat crew list).

We started our walk the next morning at 6 am. The Piran village square, was near empty, so early on Sunday morning,

Love this picture which we took from the boat. Watched some of these amazing large jellyfish floating past.

Check out the size of them ! This is our SUP Paddle - they are massive! We saw the same ones in Croatia.

Caroline watching the waves from the boat.

Sven relaxing at the end of the day.

We saw these lovely women paddling past our boat whilst we were having breakfast onshore.

We walked to Portoroz to picked up a hire car. We had no idea that it would be so crowded at the beach. We are so lucky to be able to avoid the crowds by hiding in a bay away from it all.

Slovenia is a maritime country with only a 46.6 km long Adriatic Sea coastline. It is one of the shortest coastlines in Europe,

We decided to consult Google for some tips and decided to make Lake Bled our first destination.

We read that a visit to Slovenia is not complete without visiting Lake Bled and that it is the most popular destination (Sven said that this is something we should do when we have a walking frame due to the flat asphalted road around the lake 🙂...). Anyhow, the fear of missing out made him come anyway!

We passed Ljubliana on the way but there was a big traffic jam on the freeway. We decided not to stop and headed directly to Lake Bled,

Lake Bled. Arrived early so was still a bit misty but nice.

You can row to the little island and visit the church. There is a legend that whoever rings this bell will have their wish come true.

Some paddle boats for rent.

There is also a castle on a hill you can walk up to. It is the oldest castle of Slovenia dating back to 1011.

The views from the castle are lovely. Took selfie as Sven is traumatised from having visited too many castles in Germany, so he decided to sit this one out 😂🤣 . He watched tree cutters instead!

Our plan was to drive to Vintgar Gorge after Lake Bled, which is only 10 Minutes away.

Well, others must have had the same idea. A queue to visit a gorge? We decided to give that one a miss too!

Instead we headed for lunch and tried the regional dessert, the bled cream cake.

The carpark was Euro 5.- per hour plus the entry into whatever else you wanted to see.

So we laughed when we saw this lovely goat. I guess it only moves when it hears a click after paying for goat food at the vending machine!!

So, Sven decided that he had enough of this (and I heartily agreed). We decided to do our own little Slovenia adventure and ignore Google suggestions.

Slovenia is mostly mountainous and forested, so that definitely appealed to us. Sven was keen to check out the mountain passes and to visit another gorge.

We got a free upgrade, a near new Skoda SUV (so not a small car). The roads are really narrow here. Sven is a good driver, he has driven trucks and has no issue with this. On the contrary he seemed to think he is on a German autobahn or go-cart track and loves it. It is not easy to be a passenger on windy narrow roads in the mountains. White-knuckled I remained hopeful that nothing unexpected appeared from around the corners,

The roads became smaller the higher up we went. The road less travelled it is .....

This was looking down from the road, check out the 2 teenagers swimming. They had torches with them, probably looking for caves.

Our own adventure paid off, no queues, no tourists and no more freeways on the way back - just little roads back to our floating home!

We bought a few grocery items on the way back. Just enough so we could manage to paddle them back on the Stand up paddle board (we had 2 full backpacks). The only issue was, that someone decided to steal our paddle (not the board) which made paddling back to the boat a little awkward...

At first light we pulled the anchor and discovered some free loaders which we had to send back into the water.

Next stop was Venice with our own boat (we both have been there several times previously). Venice was on Sven's "Boating bucket list" and became one of our favourite things we did. You will see later why.

We had not been into a Marina for over 4 weeks. We prepared the boat with ropes and fenders before entering the marina.

You can see black line and round dots on the GPS. They show our waterway into Venice.

Venice

We read that 5th century Venetians were forced to flee from the mainland because of conquerors and invaders. The idea was that building Venice on top of its lagoons provided protections for the original settlers. Venice was built by driving long pointed poles of wood; oak, larch, or pine, straight down into the seafloor. Two layers of horizontal planking were laid out. Over that, they put layers of stone that made up the foundation of the city. Venice was built on a group of over 100 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by bridges

Motoring past St. Mark's Square and in our boat was a special experience. But even more so, was exploring Venice and its waterways with our own dinghy.

There was a marina right opposite St. Mark's Square which we were tempted to book. We decided against it as a water taxi is needed to get across. Instead we booked a new marina within easy walking distance to the centre. Our marina pier was next to this old church.

Instead of booking a Venice Gondola....with a nice Italian "Gondoliere Veneziano'

I had my very own Gondoliere! How lucky am I (and he of course to have such a lovely companion 😊)

A bit naughty and as partners in crime we explored this romantic city at 5 am in the morning. The city was still waking up and there was nobody around. Just the two of us in these small waterways. We took our Ipad with Boating app with us. Indeed a very unique and special experience.

Back in the main Canal and still quiet on the water.

2 hours later it would have been very challenging with a dinghy.

Nobody in the square either.

Window shopping...

We walked around until the crowds arrived, then went back to the boat for a nap.

We stayed 2 nights in Venice then headed back to Croatia.

Croatia (2nd time, this time sailing from North to South)

Rovinj

Check-in into Croatia.

Early walk in town while it was still nice and cool, followed by coffee at the harbour

Hmmm Lollies.... he did not buy anything.

Another Jelly fish. Photo taken from Dinghy.

It is almost impossible to watch a sunset and not dream...

Sailed to Susak and Dugi Otok island and anchored in various bays - some busy, some just for us.

Anchor lights at sunset and at night.

A walk the next morning, looking back onto the bay.

Water calm and cooking on the way...

whilst Sven is doing a face time call with Matthias.

On our way to Sali . A warship "bunker" (occupied by 2 sailing boats) - we have also passed many submarine bunkers.

Sali - one of several bays we anchored in, 2nd pic shows our lunch place in the next village. 3rd pic shows olive trees in a cleared parcel of land. It looks like hard work to make a land usable. Rocks everywhere which need to be removed and are used for stone walls or houses.

We needed to buy some grocery and Sali was one of the few places with a reasonable sized supermarket.

We read in Navily (Sailers cruising guide) that the harbour master fines people with at least Euro 240 if you do not enter the correct way, between the red and green Lateral markers (many boats take a shortcut). Seems he hands out at least 10 fines a day. Big money earner. Most sailors just dock here to get some groceries and it ends up being an expensive shop.

We did not get fined (thanks Navily) and enjoyed our lunch

A nice butterfly kept us entertained during lunch.

We decided to check out the Salt lake in the National Park. We hired a pushbike (not an electric one). On the map it looked like it is only a 360 m rise in height but it went up and down all the way. It was a difficult road (full of rocks) and hot (despite us leaving at 6 am in the morning).

The Problem with being first... you might get caught in Spiderwebs if you don't watch out!

There were so many! Check out the spider on pic below.

So many rocks placed on top of each other!

and while I was walking around, rocks even grew on my bike!! Typical Sven 🙂

Sweet cat wanting to come on board. We had to remove our plank. Sorry Kitty.

Goodbye visiting birds.

With fresh vegetables and fruits we headed to a beautiful anchorage opposite the Kornati Islands National Park.

Sven Paddling to the national Park during sunset, taking turns with Caroline.

Moon is out, Bed is ready.

Beautiful nature. Glowing plankton when water is disturbed (with a wooden spoon or peeing into the water) and a Sky full of stars. Just amazing!

Looking at the stars makes falling asleep very quick.

Kissed 💋☀️❤️by the sun in the morning !

Heading closer to civilisation and city lights, passing some more beautiful islands along the way.

Continue towards Split. One day/night in a Bay near Seget.

then another night anchorage at Kasjuni Beach (just around the corner from Split). We could look up to the Church "Crkva Sv.Jere" and some sleeping quarters in the rocks.

Split

We stopped in Split to get some boat warranty items done eg replace the faulty boat battery, get our AIS system fixed and some additional small items repaired. There always is a lot of waiting around for people to arrive, however still plenty of time to explore the surroundings.

The old town of Split has a good feel to it. Below is the view from our boat (we docked on the free port wall for 2 nights). The 2nd line picture shows the board walk along the port.

We had some excitement when the bow line of boat in front of us snapped and started to come towards us. Nobody was on the boat so we jumped on it to secure it. Poor owner came back with an eye patch - he had to seek medical attention and looked miserable. He gratefully accepted a new rope from us.

The old town is really nice. Diocletian's Palace was built in 305 AD for the Roman Emperor Diocletian. The City of Split has grown around it. Many of the Palace's buildings have remained intact. Diocletian's Palace is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Also visited and went up the tower of the Cathedral of Saint Domnius.

One of the important sites within Diocletian's Palace includes the Peristyle (the centre of the Palace). Here seen during the day

and in the evening