Hrvatska

We made our splash in the Adriatic in dramatic fashion. We left the camping Tiber area just outside of Roma around our checkout time of noon and headed west. We had been unable to make ferry reservations and we weren't even sure what city we would be leaving out of. We had a list of port cities that might be candidates and hit the road for the nearest one. Our first stop was Pescara. It had lot's of beautiful and tempting beaches, but we decided to confirm the ferry schedules before indulging. We wandered down the coast to the deep water port only to find it disconcertingly empty...we drove up to the office to find that all of the companies were closed on Sunday's. However we noticed a schedule on the corner of the ticket office window that listed ferry times for the next city on our list of port's, Ancona. It's a good thing we didn't stop at the beach because the only Croatia bound ferries out of Ancona left @ about 9pm leaving only 3 hours to make the trip in a slow RV. We arrived in dramatic amazing race fashion and purchased tickets and loaded up as the ship was trying to leave. We had people telling us the whole way that we needed to hurry up so as we parked on the lower deck we noticed that people were bringing along camping gear, and we knew that we a 10+ hour ferry ride ahead of us but we didn't connect the dots before being rushed to the passenger deck. I count myself among those who have never been on a cruise but this came close. We were greeted by plush seating areas, a couple of bars, a night club, and a mini casino. I decided not to push my luck at a casino on a ship but we did enjoy the bars and bought our own booze to make drinks from the on board Duty Free shop. Philly made a valiant effort to bring back Havana Club rum after enjoying it while she was in cuba, but when I opened it I caught an unappetizing whiff and checked the bottle to confirm that it was Havana Club Anejo. I hate tequila. We found ourselves seats and were having a great time but after a 3 or 4 hours they dimmed the lights and softened the music and everyone started rolling out sleeping pads and bags in the middle of the floor. We did catch a few Z'z in our chairs but were happy to arrive in croatia even though we were definitely low on sleep. Our first test of the water has proven to be a little cooler than the riviera and cinque terre but the beaches are great. So far in our day and half we have made a few distinctions from our other European destinations; all the music here is american, almost everyone speaks english, and although prices for goods are somewhat cheaper than in the states it takes several 100 Kuna (their dollar) to buy most things so you always feel super rich at the ATM. The pace of life has been nice and slow after our ferry ride, and the beer is cold. Back to the beach....