Day 98 – 10th August, Monday – Comacchio to Slovenia via Venice.

Last night I had taken the bike back out to the salina to take some sunset shots and on the way back had witnessed an Italian producing a number two by the side of the road!! (they are worse than the Spanish which has surprised us no end)…. so that and the thought of spending another evening trapped in the van avoiding the onslaught of feasting mosquitoes, prompted the decision to get out of Italy and into Slovenia.
We drove miles north and were passing Venice on the way, so we drove across the water bridge to the city itself for a quick stop, but were immediately directed by Italian police to a parking area which was €20 for anything over 30 minutes, so we decided not to stay, but then discovered that it was €3 to get out again!!!! Needless to say we drove straight back over the bridge and out of Italy. The Italians can stick their tourist hotspots – they are not raping us for any more money. (Some campsites are wanting almost €40 a night!)
We crossed into Slovenia mid afternoon and stopped in the first tourist office we could find. A town called Ajdovscina in the Vipava Valley (apologies to the Slovenians, but I cannot reproduce all the squiggly bits on top of the letters with this keyboard). We met a gorgeous young girl in the tourist office who speaks perfect English, (we only knew 3 Slovene words by this point which the man in the border crossing duty free shop had kindly written down for us). She gave us maps, guide books in English and some pointers for driving and camping in Slovenia. We immediately warmed to the place and drove straight to the campsite she recommended. We had settled in and just finished eating moments before an awesome thunder and lightning storm started. It went on for several hours, during which the tents either side of us were battered and soaked and Bee’s roof had to be lowered again.