After a leisurely breakfast and pack we said goodbye to our hosts at Grado and set off for Umag being a coastal city in the Istrian province of Croatia - so our trip today was from Italy through the border into Croatia.
We knew from our last trip that we would have to go through passport control at the Croatian border. On the way we stopped at a petrol station/cafe in Italy and found that most motorists were buying vignettes for Slovenia, a vignette being the sticker you buy and affix to the windscreen that shows you have paid the tax to drive on the roads in the country you are visiting.
As we weren't going into Slovenia (or so we thought) we passed that opportunity up and motored on.
Not too much later we came to signs saying that we were crossing the border into Slovenia - at that point some stress set in as we were not in possession of the required vignette and the penalties for not paying your dues can be relatively steep.
All we could do was motor on and get into Croatia without being picked up for some minor offence and then we came to the border between Slovenia and Croatia manned by the Slovenian gestapo or so they looked and the lines on the forehead increased somewhat. Passed over the passports with a sheepish smile as he stared at the car, made some small talk with Sherry as if we had nothing to fear and held the breathe.
Passports stamped and returned with a comment in his language which I assumed wished us safe travels - foot to floor and we moved forward the 100 metres or so to the Croatian passport control knowing that they would not give a toss whether or not we had paid the Slovenian government their dues. Passports stamped a second time and we moved off having beaten the bastards again.
For the next 5 or so kilometres there was a line of traffic backed up for the border waiting to cross out of Croatia - in some places the line was two lanes wide. How long it was going to take those near the back of queue to get to the border was anyone's guess.
Mr GPS (we changed from Mrs some time ago) didn't have a good day. On two occasions he took us off the motorway and around in circles in the town before we had to negotiate our own way back onto the motorway in the direction we thought we needed to travel - our mantra was keep the ocean on our right!
Coming close to Umag he took us off the motorway again and through some back country roads before depositing us back on the motorway south of Umag.
Finally arrived in town and parked up as it was time for lunch. Having eaten we then walked around the city centre area getting the feel of the place which is built around a harbour with the inevitable stalls selling beach related souvenirs and clothings to the throngs.
Mid afternoon we made our way to our accommodation which is a very nice hotel about 4 kms south of the centre and right on the water, water which invited us in for a swim later in the afternoon.
We will return to the centre for dinner tonight and again tomorrow to have a good look around.
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