Vacation in Istria

Monday August 8th 2011, Istria
On Saturday night we had a really nice anniversary rehearsal dinner at the Penzion Mayer Restaurant in Bled. It’s a beautiful sort of Bavarian style place with an outdoor patio under a post and beam roof. We got a good picture of us but we can’t send it because the internet here is too slow.
Sunday morning, we got up before 5:00. The day before our host had given us yogurt, muesli and fruit to keep in our room fridge because he knew we were leaving before he could make breakfast. After breakfast in our room, we walked the 5 minutes or so back to the bus stop and caught the 6:26 bus for Ljubljana.
We arrived in Ljubljana shortly before 8:00 and bought our tickets for the 9:30 bus to Istria. Altogether our bus tickets cost 58 euros (about $83 Cdn) which, again, is a cheap way to travel.
Having taken the bus through Istria before, we knew where to get off, as long as the bus took the same route. Luckily it did and the driver stopped where we asked and left us at a crossroads, a few kilometres from our hotel.
Anita held out our sign that we had made; I stood behind her and we set our big packs behind a concrete highway divider so it wouldn’t look like we had too much stuff to fit in the car. In less than 5 minutes, a young guy who worked at a hotel near the one we were going to, stopped and gave us a ride. He even drove a bit out of his way to drop us at the reception building for our hotel. So, our plan worked perfectly. Hitch-hiking is like riding a bicycle, you never forget how.
At check-in, the desk manager got our names and found our reservation. Then he said, “We have a problem. The hotel is fully booked…….I’ll have to give you a suite.” So we have an upper floor suite in a building with 5 other suites in it. We have a nice bedroom, big living room and big bathroom. There are French doors from both the bedroom and living room out to our private balcony which is over 20 feet long (I counted the floor tiles). This won’t be hard to take for a week.
Last night we had a great meal at the buffet with complimentary beer and wine. Since it was our anniversary, one of us (not me) indulged a little too much and has a slight headache today. After dinner, we sat down by the water, listened to a guitar/bass duo play some good music and even danced a bit on the grass. A really nice anniversary.
This morning after our buffet breakfast, we went for a long walk along the shore. We’ll soon go up to the reception building to post this and check our email. Then we’ve got some serious relaxing to do.