GO COACH TRIP:By the end of the week's coach tour EDEL MORGANhad seen so many places and heard so many facts that it felt like she'd been away for three weeks
IN VENICE on the second day of a whirlwind coach tour of three countries in seven days, we had to speed walk through the narrow streets to keep up with our guide, Diana, who was striding ahead holding a brightly coloured fabric flower. Lose sight of the flower and you risked finding yourself alone and guide-less on the mean streets of Venice where she warned us it was easy to “lose yourself” if you don’t have a good map.
You knew that if you didn’t turn up for one of Diana’s head counts you could throw the entire schedule into chaos. When a couple went missing later in the day, Diana was only short of putting out an APB for their return as the group swapped stories about their last sightings of the pair. One woman thought she’d seen them haggling with a gondolier while someone else had spotted them walking towards the tourist office. They turned up soon after, saying they’d lost track of time – a mistake they didn’t make again.
The thing about coach tours is that it can be comforting to have someone guide you around, organise your meals, tell you what time to get up in the morning and how much “free time” you have before you have to be back on the bus. There’s never the uncertainty of wandering aimlessly around unfamiliar territory and you do get a feel for a place, however superficial.
My impression of Venice was that it has a strange pressure-cooker atmosphere. While on the surface it is a bustling city, at least by day, the reality is that it’s slowly dying on its feet and this has caused some frustration among the people living and working in the city. On the narrow Calle de la Canonica on our way to the Murano Glass showrooms an irate workman struggling to pull a crate of goods through the tourist-clogged street unleashed his fury at us.Later a young man trying to go about his business let out a roar when we and other day trippers blocked his way near the Rialto bridge.
Less than 60,000 people now live in the city and the cost of repairing the crumbling buildings along the canals and the high water problem is proving an uphill battle for the authorities. By the time we arrived at Piazza San Marco to visit Caffe Florian in the afternoon so much water had seeped up through the pavement stones in Piazza San Marco that shopkeepers were furiously sweeping pools of water out of their premises and we were wishing we’d brought our wellies.
The next day we left our hotel in Lido di Jesolo, an hour’s ferry ride across the lagoon from Venice. It’s a pleasant seaside resort on the Adriatic where tourists and locals take to the long main street in the evenings to cycle on four-wheel bikes, browse in Venetian glass shops and dine in the restaurants that line the streets. Children are well catered for here but don’t expect too much in the way of culture.
Our first stop in Slovenia was Ljubljana, its much underrated capital and one of the highlights of the trip. When we arrived it was Saturday and the vibe was chilled and cosmopolitan, full of locals strolling the quaint cobbled alleyways in the old part of the city with their families, and spilling out of cafes on either side of the Ljubljanica river. I was beginning to wonder if it had been decreed that everything there has to be pretty and picturesque at all times – even the colourful fruit stalls in the flea market were perfectly arranged. It all felt like being on a film set.
The architecture is heavily influenced by the early 20th century Slovenian architect Jože Plecnik, who added a blend of classical, renaissance and folk art style to the baroque and secessionist buildings. After a morning of hardcore history in Ljubljana there were rumblings of dissension among the group because some wanted to break for lunch to sample local soup and sausages.
It’s hard to please everyone on a coach tour. While some were lapping up every historical date and detail, others would have been happier with broad brush strokes of information. “I blame that fella,” said one of the men in the group pointing to a bust of Plecnik in a local park as we headed for the bus that evening.
THERE’S SOMETHING very Sound of Music about the alpine region of Slovenia, a green land of forested mountains, unpolluted glacial lakes and Austrian-style chalet houses on lush farmlands.
Slovenes are aware that their country isn’t on the radar of many tourists, and many confuse it with Slovakia, but they are working hard to improve its profile abroad. The country didn’t suffer the bitter aftertaste of internecine conflict like other regions of the former Yugoslavia and geographically it is part of central rather than eastern Europe. Small but diverse, it’s the only country in Europe that has the Alps, the Mediterranean, the Pannonian Plain and the Karst. Less than 50km from Ljubljana, we stayed in the Hotel Park overlooking the fairytale Lake Bled on the edge of the Julian Alps where the famous vanilla-custard-and-cream Bled cake was created.
You can take a pletna boat – a Slovenian-style gondola costing €13 – across to Bled Island where couples still get married and the groom is expected to carry the bride up the 99 steps to the church to ensure a long and happy marriage.
The lake is small, and ringed by forested slopes with Bled Castle dominating the north shore from the top of a cliff face. Grand villas built by 19th century Europeans, later popular with Tito and his cronies, dot the rest of the shoreline. Some have now been converted into elegant hotels and cafes.
The next day we visited Bohinj, another magical lake in the Alps where adrenalin junkies parachute from the mountain peaks. This was followed by a whistle-stop tour of a series of postcard-pretty towns like Log pod Mangartom and Kranjska Gora where you can hike, climb, ski and toboggan.
The following day some of the group stayed in the hotel, daunted by the prospect of another marathon bus journey involving hairpin bends on the Julian Alps but they did miss out on seeing the spectacular Triglav National Park and riding in a chair lift over the Alps.
Day five and we headed for Croatia to visit three coastal towns on the Istrian peninsula, Rovinj, Porec and Pula. The landscape and climate on the peninsula is Mediterranean with rich red soil and olive groves. In the searing September heat in Pula, the largest city in the Istrian peninsula, we plodded around some of the many surviving ancient Roman buildings, including an amphitheatre built in the first century AD, one of the six largest surviving Roman arenas in the world.
Porec’s town plan is based on an ancient Roman structure,and is set around a harbour and protected from the sea by the small island of Sveti Nikola (St Nikola). In 1267 Porec became the first Istrian city to chose to become part of the Republic of Venice, whose rule lasted for more than five centuries. The Euphrasian Basilica, rebuilt in the sixth century under the Byzantines, is the most important historical site in the town and a few houses from the Roman period have been preserved as well as some beautiful Venetian Gothic palaces.
On the last day, most of the group rebelled and decided to explore Rovinj at their own pace, enjoying long lunches in cafes by the sea. Only a few die-hards turned up for the guided tour up the hill to the Church of St Euphemia with its famous bell tower. Rovinj, my favourite of the three Croatian towns we visited, has Venetian-looking houses clustered on steep winding streets and a pretty waterfront lined with ice cream parlours and cafes.
By the end of the holiday we’d been to such a dizzying array of places, digested so many historical facts and figures and soaked up so much scenery that it seemed as if we’d been away for about three weeks and some of the towns we’d visited began to blur into each other. I’d do it again but the next time I might rebel a bit more, dodge a tour or two to relax in the hotel or throw caution to the wind and turn up late for the bus just once, even if it does play havoc with the head count.
Edel Morgan was a guest of the Travel Department. The tour costs €839 per person excluding taxes which are €110 per person
Where to stay and eat
Places to eat Venice
Birreria Ai Leoncini, Calle de la Canonica, Venice. Tel: 00-39-041-5236049. Prices are reasonable for Venice and it doesn’t have one menu for locals and another for tourists. Go for the best spinach, ricotta and rocket pizza ever made.
Places to eat Slovenia
Ostarija Peglez’n, 19a Cesta Svobode, Bled. Tel: 00-386-04-5744218. Overlooks lake. So-so sea food restaurant but there’s a lovely cosy feel to it.
Café Belvedere, Vila Bled estate, Bled. Tel: 00-386-04-5753710. Where Tito used to throw summer tea parties. There is a selection of mouth-watering pastries – including the speciality custard slice, kremna rezina.
Hotel Jezero, Bohinj. Tel: 00-386-04-5729100. The outdoor restaurant here offers massive chicken and beef burgers at great value.
Restaurant Sokol, Ciril Metod Square, Ljubljana. Tel: 00-386-1-4396855. The onion soup in a bread bowl has to be tried but make up your own mind about the stallion steak.
Places to eat Croatia
Scuba, 6 Pino Budicin, Rovinj. Tel: 00-385-098-219446. Off the harbour, it has a large and reasonably priced menu ranging from salads to mussels in wine. Home-made bread was included and we were given free Julischka liqueur at the end of the meal.
Places to stay Venice
Eden Hotel, Lido di Jesolo. Tel: 00-39-0421-372433 or edenhoteljesolo.it. Minimalist, modern, three-star with rooms from €37 a night.
Places to stay Slovenia
Hotel Park, Bled. See sava-hotels-resorts.com or tel 00-386-04-5791800. A bit of a throwback to the 1970s but well located with restaurants, bars and a wellness centre. Rooms from €125 per night.
Vila Bled, Bled. Tel: 00-386-04-5753710 or vila-bled.com. Surrounded by a lush estate, Vila Bled is larger, although it is further from town. This was Tito’s former residence and the hotel has maintained the 1950s décor in its suites, which include the 100sq m (1,076sq ft) presidential suite. Doubles from €210.
Places to stay Croatia
Hotel Eden, Rovinj. Tel: 00-385-052-800250 or maistra.com. Four-star, very swish hotel beside a 100-year-old nature park. The bay and beach are accessible through abundant greenery, a luscious lawn and beautiful outdoor swimming pools. Rooms cost from €38 per person including breakfast.