Odd Job Italiano: Croatia to Slovenia

Sunday 4th Oct

Shaking the stones of Croatia from our shoes, we headed north for Slovenia. (Can't say dust as there doesn't appear to be a a great deal of soil, it's mostly a stony, rocky landscape, very harsh terrain indeed.)
It's hard not to feel that all there is to Croatia is the tourist areas on the coast as the inland, particularly in the south, appear to be barren waste lands, lots of derelict houses in the little settlements, occasionally some old granny walking along the road dressed in black with a kerchief on her head but mostly it was the men who were out and about - leads me to believe these country areas may still be very much patriarchal societies. We saw only one part which appeared to have cropping fields of any size, for the most parts fields such as they were appeared to be abandoned, no sheep, cows, not even any goats (and I thought it would be perfect mountaingoat country) It reminded me of the Top Gear episode when they went to eastern Europe to the home of the Gypsy kings.

To be fair, we have mainly driven down the spine of Croatia on the north/south toll road and on return, the coast road for about 300ks and then back on the toll road. This route may not be representational. It made me wonder if perhaps the good toll road from north to south wouldn't be there if not for Dubrovnik and Split being south and there certainly are huge numbers of tourist buses on the road even at this time.

By contrast we have now driven into Slovenia and the scenery is beautiful, green, lush vegetation, picturesque little towns, lots of little farms under production and a real alpine feel.
Long drive to Bovec as it is the north west corner of Slovenia, don't ask me why - that's where we headed! Arrived quite late to find hotel we were heading for closed in 2013...great.. but luckily there is another in the town, so no problems ensued such as sleeping in the car!