The Crazy Moustachioed Landlord
Trip Start
Aug 22, 2005
1
21
41
Trip End
Oct 31, 2005
Pula,
Croatia
Sunday, September 18, 2005
We'd messed up our bus journey - Sarah blames one of the stupidly unhelpful people in the tourist bureau for not telling us where the bus left from, but basically it didn't leave from the bus station we waited for 3 and a half hours at. It left from one 4 miles away. Oh well, these things happen if the bus station is devoid of people and its raining and windy and there's no timetable and nobody to ask. But, eventually we got a bus that went near where we wanted to go 2 hours later than we wanted to leave, and so we left Slovenia and returned to Croatia.
We had another border crossing where a man walked down the bus, surveyed the 4 passengers and waved us through. Not even a stamp saying we'd entered a non-EU country, but hopefully this won't affect us when we try and leave. Then everyone else got off the bus at Porec and so did the driver. "10 minutes" he said...... 45 minutes later he came back with the words "Arak, Grappa - very, very good!!!". Fearing for our lives, he asked where we were going. When we said Pula, he told us that the last bus left at 7, but it was now 6:15 and the Lonely Planet said it would be a 1-hour journey. Not with Mr. Grappa, who looked like Slobodan Milosevic, as he decided that taking a large 55-seater bus down country roads would be the best way. He even had time to pick up a drunken man who was staggering back in the pouring rain, and he was right - we made it just in time for the 7pm bus to Pula, where we met Mrs Nutcase.
There she was at the bus stop (singing doo-wah diddy diddy dum diddy do). She was actually shuffling her feet though. She approached us with an Australian, Paul, in tow, who had just arrived from Dubrovnik. Together we charged through the slippy streets that recently had seen lots of rain and arrived at a grand place right next to a large amphitheatre that. Inside we were taken down to a kind of dungeon that was damp, musty and not clean. She said it would cost 20 Euros per person per night..... it was late, we were tired and not in the mood to wander around, so we entered a fierce bargaining round that involved a lot of arm flailing and face-pulling and ended with a 25% discount and a promise to 'move upstairs' tomorrow. This we did, having survived the damp, and stayed in a room with 1980s hairdressing photos on the wall and what looked like a dog skin on the floor. We had not found the best place to stay, but she was delighted. The first night there were 10 people staying there - Paul was in the kitchen, and we reckoned she sould be raking in about 300USD that night. All without paying any tax..... not a bad days work for a lunatic. We're not sure what the money went on though.... not her house, nor her (sorry if that sounds a little harsh!!), but I'm sure she gets through a lot of cheap Croatian wine!!!
On a sadder note, Croatia experienced its first ever terrorist attack whilst we were here. The British Embassy in Zagreb recieved a letter bomb, but nobody seems to know why. Or at least they aren't telling 2 Brits like us??
