We've had a busy couple of days this past weekend. After our Amsterdam interlude, we have moved on to the first major part of our journey - exploring the Adriatic coast of Italy starting at the Slovenia border and moving down to Pescara, in Abruzzo which is across the peninsula from Rome about halfway down. We are actually on a mission. We are looking for a place where we would like to come back to on a regular basis. We have certain criteria we are looking for and about 20 places we've researched to visit.
Saturday morning, we got up early and headed to Schipol Airport to fly from Amsterdam to Bologna, Italy. I took advantage of my airline partner status and got every upgrade I could on KLM - priority check-in, lounge access, seats with more legroom. The flight itself was uneventful. We were able to pick up our rental car with only a modicum of chaos (if you've ever rented a car in an Italian airport you will know what I mean). For some reason it is de rigeur that the actual vehicles be parked way the heck away from the terminal and poorly marked. You find the garages filled with tourist renters wandering around in a daze looking for their vehicle. Getting out of these garages and onto whatever road you are going is also a bit of a challenge.
(A note about driving in Europe - Our friends C & J back in Amsterdam asked us about driving in Europe. I gave them a rather glib answer that it was no big deal. As I've reflected on our first couple of days here, I respectfully retract that statement. It is a big deal. I realize that Wife and I have done so much European driving over our lives that we have developed the experience and skills to handle it. I like to say I need to GPS systems to successfully navigate here - a Global Positioning System to figure out where you are going, and a Gloria Protection System to keep you from running red lights, hitting pedestrians, etc. These systems work very well together. The Positioning System tells you, "In 300 meters turn right...Take a slight left turn...Stay in the right two lanes...etc. The Protecting Systems simultaneously will be saying, "Do you see the biker on the right?...Red Light!...That person is opening their door...etc.)
Our first stop was a beach town outside of Venice named Caorle (pronounced cAorlay). Although we arrived at our hotel at 4pm, we were immediately out and walking into the main town. It was packed. It is very popular with German speaking tourists and this is the last weekend before school starts in Germany and Austria. We took a ton of pictures and had a rather forgettable meal before we staggered back to the hotel at about 8:30pm.
Sunday we drove to Muggia, a Medieval city and small port just to the East of Trieste near the Slovenia border. We had a good afternoon there taking more pictures. Originally we were going to go into Slovenia to see a few cities there. However, we were going to have to shell out another $250 for the privilege of driving in another country, so took a pass.
We are spending the night in what we thought was town but turns out to just be a suburb of Trieste, Barcola. This turns out to have no beach, no place to walk along the water, no old town to speak of, so we will be moving on Monday morning.
Next stop is the Marche region around the city of Ancona. I have a lot of pictures but need some time to get them edited and posted.
