Venice - Trieste - Slovenia - Istria (Croatia)

From Venice, I continued along the North Adriatic coast, through some big but completely empty tourist resorts (Lido di Jesolo, Duna Verde, Caorle) that are probably very crowded in Summer. Lots of Hotels, Restaurants, Bars, Ice Cream cafes etc. but of course everything closed because there are no tourists.

Foggy weather on the way from Venezia to Trieste

Other thank that, the part Venice to Trieste was flat and not too interesting, apart from the last stretch from Duino (with a nice castle on a high cliff above the sea) to Trieste, where I didn't take the main road along the coast but a smaller road that went a bit higher up through some small towns - one of them called Prosecco, so maybe that's where Prosecco comes from? During the two days from Venice to Trieste, it was cloudy, and in Trieste it started raining for two days - so I used them to sort out some problems (my camera memory card and USB memory stick got infected with some nasty viruses in the internet cafes) and get everything ready to continue to Croatia!

Lost bus? This is Trieste, not Trafalgar Square...

After finding my way out of the busy roads of Trieste, I found a small and quiet but hilly road that goes to Slovenia. The border crossing was quick, in fact there wasn't even anybody at the border - probably since Slovenia is in the European Union, they just closed the smaller stations. The part of Slovenia that goes to the coast is very short, so after only about 20km I was already at the next border to Croatia (here at least with a passport check...).

Typical small town on a hill in Istria

From there I coninued through the middle of Istria. My original plan is to cut directly towards Cres (pronounced "Tsres" island, so I headed towards Pazin, a town in the middle of Istria. But then I decided to also have a look at the coast of Istria, so I diverted to Rovinj at the coast and then down to Pula at the southern end of Istria, before making my way back up along the coast. towards Brestova, from where a ferry goes to Cres island. The three days in Istria were very nice - sunny weather, beautiful landscape with small towns and villages mostly built on top of some hills (usually an old stone church on top of a hill, and some houses built around it - Istria is also called the Toscana of Croatia), and then some nice towns along the coast, until Pula with a very impressive Roman Coliseum/Amphitheatre, which is still in very good condition and used for open air cinema and concerts during summer.

Me in Rovinj, at the coast of Istria

But it was also very hilly - the main part of Istria seems to be at about 200m-300m above Sea level, but every now and then there's a steep valley down to almost Sea level only to go back up on the other side. So on a day of 80km cycling, with 4 or 5 of these climbs, it can easily add up to 1000m or more altitude difference. But I made good progress, continuing back up along the coast from Pula, and took a short ferry ride over to Cres Island on Sunday. The stretch up from Pula was on a road marked as "major national road", but it actually turned out to be a small road with almost no traffic - probably partly because it was Sunday (less trucks etc.), but mainly because there's a motorway further back in the country that probably takes most of the traffic...

Pula amphitheatre

For more pictures, click the map or go to "more pictures" on the right to see the gallery.