Hotel Marko Portoroz

... celebrations which end with a fireworks display over the sea, bringing 2009 to a close in a shower of kaleidoscopic sparkles. <br><br>Lastly, on 5 January at 5 pm, in the harbour and in Piazza XXVI Maggio, there will take place the representation of &#8220;The Arrival of the Varvuole&#8221;, the legendary sea witches who are said to reach Grado the night preceding Epiphany to take naughty children away from their homes.<br><br>

... exploration today. Figured that since most of Italy is churches, we should go see the synagogue here as its one of the biggest in Europe. Not that either of us are religous, but sometimes we just get the urge to pray (NOT!, this is not some bible belt after school special). Jason is ready now, so we're off for the day, ttyl......<br>

... insurance people. I got a letter off them and have to have my stiches out in 7 days time and got a prescription for some pain killers. So all we have been doing really is hiding out in our little apparment the woman who we are staying with is amazing and refused to charge Ian for the extra days that we have been staying and Ian has been great in looking after me. Making me soup and sausage and mash and ...

... me and what where the acoustics like. He told me to come up and see him so I was on my way up when I thought it would be funny to pretend I was a gladiator on a horse and started trotting into the arena next minute my leg went something pulled in my calf I know now that it was only a pulled muscle but I was in agony and Ian was laughing thinking my horse had gone lame.<br><br>I tried to hobble over to some ...

As we said its getting colder now so we decided not to do much today as we both wanted to relax anyway after the hectic few weeks that we have had in Turkey greece and italy. So we just went for a walk in the harbour and had a look around its another pretty little harbour town with some cafes but its still really different from Italy. We found a supermarket and as we wanted ...

Rovinj is our first stop with our new guests, my high school friends aboard. Unlike most of our guests when they first come aboard, my friends were very hyper and anxious to get out and have some fun.<br><br>I usually wake up around 8 AM and expected my friends to sleep in much later. But, shortly after my coffee service arrived, I heard a knock on my door and it was Jeff and Vance coming to wake me up. After ...

... head phones on it was doing his head in. We had to go through passport control which was a border on the motorway and we got our passports checked first by the Slovenian Police then by the Croatian police as we had to go through Slovenia to get to Croatia. We are coming back to Slovenia but in a few days time. The police did not stamp my passport and I was really dissapointed I am sure because Croatia is not an EU country he ...

... I wandered back along towards the main square on the route along the water, then headed up the hill to the bell tower and churches. This area does afford beautiful views in both directions &#8211; one of the harbor, main square and town and the other of the hilly coastline that extends across the bay. I wandered around for a little while and then decided it was time for me to be on my way &#8211; I did have quite a drive ahead of me, and a couple of more ...

... and I joined Mauro at his favorite restaurant and ordered a typical Croatian lunch. Grilled vegetable, grilled fish, calamari and of course beer. We watched a class of young sailors practicing in the bay right in next to our table. He told us many Italians come to Croatia for the food.<br><br>Mauro told us how he grew up in this small town and now is an English professor at a local college. His only ...

... imaging my dismay as we crossed the border and had to start going downhill to enter the bustling port city. What I was worried about is "what goes down must come up!" Sure enough, not only were there no signs to direct us back into Slovenia, it was also 6PM so traffic hour was in full force with impatient drivers and crazy pedestrians who didn't realize they were putting their lives in danger stepping out into ...