It’s 6:15 in the morning and the church bells ring without rhythm but quite loud. Ok, we chose to stand in between the church and the nuns. And while we wake up quite abruptly, the nuns seem to be prepared as they immediately run back and forth between the convent and church. An amusing sight if it wasn’t for the hour on which it occurred, which for us is way too early. And honestly; who is going to church at 6:15 on a Sunday? No one! Probably that’s why at 6:40, which seems to be a strange time anyway, the church bells ring again. This time louder, longer and it’s seems even less a melody. But, if their goal is to wake people up to go to church, it worked! We are awake. Well kind of.
Still a bit sleepy we walk to the supermarket across the street to buy ourselves some sandwiches and we do enter the church. But only to check if they have a toilet which we can use. Not even that..
So we say goodbye to the sisters and we drive to another spot where we can have a coffee and a toilet. This spot happens to have a beautiful view over the water and the best thing; it’s warm! We can actually sit in our sweaters.
In Switzerland we were walking on our flip flops and looking through our sunglasses. In Slovenia we slept in thermo underwear& pyjamas and our nose still froze off and now… now we are drinking a coffee with sea view in our sweaters while the sun is trying to find its way breaking up the clouds. Lovely!
The rest of the day goes quite smooth, like all Sundays should be. God might take a rest on Sundays, his followers do not and neither did we. We decided that Alexine deserves a beauty treatment so we washed and cleaned her. Something I wanted to do in Switzerland already but forgive me…
After cleaning Yuri wanted to watch the Formula 1 so we found a nice spot, ordered a beer and asked for the WiFi code. Yuri watched Verstappen win the race and I did some work on the blog. It’s improving but I have so many ideas that I always keep changing things. What I want to do is inform you more on the history of the Silk Road, stories about the van and maybe some information on travelling during the COVID-19 pandemic. But, this is a diary of our trip, a way to take you with us on this memorable journey. It’s not the typical blog where you read about the best campsites to stay at or where to drink the best coffee of Venice. That’s not really our style and I already get bored thinking about writing that kind of stuff. But something about the van, the Silk Road and/or COVID-19 might be nice and is part of our journey anyway. Let us know in the comments below if you are interested in any of that.
Ok, so it took about two hours and in these two hours the sun started to shine and our faces got burned. Or maybe it were the beers? We aren’t used to terraces anymore 🤣 Lots of people around us, smoking, loud conversations. Are we already becoming those dwellers that feel more comfortable in nature than surrounded by people?
Not yet!
We went to town to have diner and afterwards enjoy the beautiful sunset on the boulevard with many other people. Listening to the voice of the sea through the famous organ (Morske orgulje in Croatian), which isn’t that good but it’s more melodious than the church bells.
It’s already getting dark when we prepare the van for another night with potential noise. This time from people and cars instead of a church. Not sure what is better. Anyway, while we sit there people take photos of the van and it feels a bit strange sitting there while people take photos. It happens often btw. also on the road. People filming and taking photos. I might post a sticker with mygrations.nl on it.
Sorry, another diversion, anyway, suddenly a German speaking couple comes towards us and starts talking about the van. They have an old van as well. Bought in Kosovo I believe. They flew to Kosovo and are driving back. So they have visited some countries we are about to visit; Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and now Croatia. While he blows the smoke of his stinky cigarette in the van, she keeps talking and talking and talking. She gives some tips about travelling in these countries and we give answers to questions about the van. How old? How much? Where from? What about this? What about that?
Schones abend!
We watch ‘I am Greta’, an inspiring docu about Greta Thunberg and go to sleep afterwards. Tired and ready for another advanture. The next day we will continue our journey east to Split.
Love, Milene & Yuri
