Venice - Pula, Croatia

Buffet breakfast at the Novotel with children eating free so we took to that like Homer Simpson at the Frying Dutchman.

Drove from Venezia to Pula, Croatia today.  Pula is where my Dad is from and where his sister and brother still live so off we went to see the rellos. 

Had no major dramas except a small one where we had to buy a vignette to pass through Slovenia.  A vignette is a sticker that allows you to travel on the highways of the country you buy it in.  They vary in price for certain amounts of times spent in whatever country you buy them in.  Our €15 vignette was the cheapest you could buy and valid for 7 days.  We used ours for the grand total of 15 minutes passing from Italy through Slovenia and into Croatia.  

Still it could have been worse as they only recently introduced the 7 day version.  Previously you had to buy the monthly version for more than double the price.

Found my Uncle and Aunty's house with no problems thanks to our Europe wide GPS and drove into their yard to much happiness and joy.  Absolutely terrific to see everyone again as it's been 14 years since we were last here. 

My cousin came home soon after that and it was more catching up, good times and reminiscing with her husband and kids.

A great day all round.

One last thing happened that may be of interest.  And let me preface this by saying that Nicki took our right hand mirror off on a telephone pole in Italy.  (Fortunately it just clipped back on and suffered no damage.)

I may have reversed the car into a tree, or more correctly the bike pedal was reversed into a tree, and put the bike rack through the rear window of the Grand Kangoo shattering it into a million pieces.  To top it off this all happened in the first 2 minutes of our arrival and when I was trying to park the car.  

Yes the car has reverse sensors on it but because the bike rack was on the back it was setting them off irrespective of anything near them.  As this has been happening all trip I ignored them as you do and the inevitable happened.

You can imagine it.  One minute it was all smiles, the next it was disaster all round.  

Whoops.

Nevermind, that's what insurance is for and as the repair bloke at Renault said "s##t happens".

Stray observations:  The sound of breaking glass while you are reversing is rarely a good thing.