Day 18. Budapest to Trieste ( Italy)

Early to bed, rise at 5.30 to do a last minute pack, a cup of tea and a nibble of breakfast.

Early morning down town Budapest from our window

The traffic is flowing in the city already.

Text from Sonya tells us Zoltan is our driver, he arrives right on time, young bloke mid 30s, very chatty, good English and a very nice red Ford mini van. Very comfortable for the 5-6 hour drive via Slovenia to Trieste in Italy.

There is a slight frost on the ploughed up country it’s -.6 deg C but as we head south towards Slovenia it get up to 7 degrees. There is a mixture of farming, industrial, thick forrest and communications towers everywhere which could be military, not sure. We have pit stop about 2 1/2 hours out of Budapest, not long before we cross the border into Slovenia – the home of Count Dracular. Ironically as we near Dracular country a thick fog appears.

Just into Slovenia, fog and signs to Dubrovnic in Croatia

Zoltan is a good driver, we’re making great time. We cross into Slovenia at 9.50am, 2 3/4 hours away from Budapest, about half way to Trieste.

Zoltan’s little red bus somewhere outside Ljubljana in Slovenia.

We arrive in Italy, no border checks, then drop down the mountain into the city centre. It’s a pretty place. Our rooms are beautiful in the Palace Suite (part of the Hotel Continentale about 40 metres away)

We walk the streets and then a late lunch on the canal. The Navigator needs food, but she doesn’t know what she doesn’t want – it’s complicated – when she has finally made a decision where to sit, I’m still not sure she’s happy.

We walk to the old Roman theatre, then start up the steep hill to the castle, The Navigator and I pull out and wait, it’s too steep. We then circle the main pizza, walk back along the water and Mark and Simone do a bit of shopping.

Trieste is a really pretty place, I like it. It’s at the northern end of the Adriatic Sea, a population of about 230,000. Originally Julius Cesar built it as a strategic port, over the milenia it has been governed by the Romas, Hapsbergs, The Austro Hungarians and was fought over fiercely as a strategic area in WWII.