Yes, It's Small

Slovenia is tiny. You probably guessed that. But it's surprising just how small it is. You can drive through it, from north to south or east to west, in an hour or so. We excitedly passed through the border checkpoint.

A nice Slovenian man in a very starched uniform didn't check the car for contraband, smuggled immigrants or looted Yugoslav plutonium, as I'd hoped. However, he did firmly remind us that in Slovenia, headlights must be used 24 hours a day. Even their crime concerns are small-time.

Within about 25 seconds, we'd crossed half of the country and camped in another beautiful forest next to another beautiful river, near Ljubljana, Slovenia's capitol city. As we drove, we listened to my favourite radio station ever [see picture].

We visited Ljubljana in search of tasty food. By now, our money supply was virtually non-existent, and our staple diet was lentils and large hunks of bread, so the prospect of a snack composing mainly of saturated fats and/or sugar was exhilarating.

Ljubljana is hilariously tiny. It's about the size of Crewe, but with exactly all the charm, beauty and culture that is absent in Crewe. The city is built around a lovely river criss-cossed with lovely bridges, and the streets were trampled by unlovely tourists. However, if you ignore the swaggering tourists and the surprising number of Irish pubs, the city is a delight. If Disney made European cities, they'd look like Ljubljana. We ate pizza slices by the river and watched the world go by.

After a couple of days though, we'd seen almost literally everything in Slovenia. Austria awaited.

Squid For Tea x 10

We were later told by a barmaid that Senj 'was for old people,' and that we should have gone to Zrce, on Pag Island - 'the Croatian Ibiza'. Thus 'old' Senj suited us just fine: we were tired, poor and looking forward to a nice rest.

There was a small, cheap campsite with it's own shingle beach, and we quickly camped up and dived in. The Adriatic is crystal clear and as cold as ice - perfect, as the sun was hot enough to cook eggs on the car bonnet, and if we'd had enough money, this tasty protein-packed theory would have been tested to the full.

We were just happy to be able to sunbathe on a beach, something that Croatia's coast is strangely lacking in. Instead, Croats and German tourists jostle for sun-soaking space on large, specially-built concrete beach-jetties. They looked like langoustine on a griddle. In many ways, they were just that, oiled, pink and crispy.

After a long, cheap, satisfying rest on the beach, and many meals of grilled squid or burek - large quarter-circles of puff pastry filled with local sour cheese - we rattled up towards Karlovac, home of Croatia's main brewer of lager, Karlovacko. We stayed on another lovely campsite (a generally oxymoronic description), then spent a day next to a large, swimmable river, drinking the beer. The next day we visited Zagreb.

Croatia's capitol is small but large, local but bustling. The architecture indicated Austro-Hungarian wealth from the past, and the cheap, hearty, tasty food suggested Croatia's recent, poor, rural past. I had a vast lake-like bowl of bean and sausage stew for about £3, and Gem took another opportunity to gorge on grilled squid. We bought bottles of local, ultra-bitter Croatian aperitifs, cedar-wrapped cigars and visited ex-Croatian footballing superstar Zvonomir Boban's bar. It was a great day.

After spending twice as long in Croatia than we had reckoned, the race for our ferry in Calais was on, and Slovenia, Austria and Germany were inbetween us. The Micra was pointed for the hills.

Lard and Wine For Breakfast

Well, we slept when we arrived in Bologna - for precisely three hours - and then put on our dandiest clothes and caught the bus into town. Bologna is beautiful, like Italian cities are, and it has not one, but two, leaning towers. They stopped half way through building one because, due to subsidence, it was (and still is) leaning precariously.

It says much about the Italian predisposition for chaotic organisation that almost immediately, another, taller tower was commissioned to be built ten yards away from the first. It now leans at an even more perilous angle.

We spent the next three days hassled by benevolent Italian mosquitoes (the worst we found anywhere), and eventually gave up in an itchy, bite-fuelled huff and headed north to Schio. We found the cheapest campsite within 50 miles, which was up a mountain near Schio. It was staffed and populated by pensioners, none of whom spoke English, but all were thrilled by the exciting addition of young foreigners.

They demonstrated their pleasure at our presence through gifts of food, wine and by putting up with my garbled attempts at Italian. On the 1st of August, we were woken up at 9.30 and beckoned over to the social room, where everyone was sitting around tables, drinking litres of frizzante white wine and eating lard sandwiches. This, it was explained, is an old yearly tradition. Eating the cured pork fat sandwiches and drinking wine prevents snakes from biting you for the a whole year.

This seemed as good a reason for drinking at that time in the morning as any I'd ever managed to conjure up, so we joined in (see picture), and by 11.30 were full of lard and hopelessly drunk, and so went back to bed. Lesson learned: OAPs have lots off boozy fun. We stayed at the campsite for five nights, due mainly to the persuasive attention of the old folk.

In the end, we escaped for the border, through the delicious town of Trieste, and free-wheeled into Slovenia, hoping the petrol would be cheaper. It was, and, car topped up to overflowing, we gunned the mighty Micra for Senj in Croatia.