What would be the best place to spend short vacation in August if you are traveling a lot in business? Home, naturally. On the other hand having blissful lazy time somewhere apart from home would be also attractive, especially if the sunny weather and blue warm sea is guaranteed. Croatia is still one of not-that-far-away places meeting the criteria. I have already been there two times, in the middle and the southern part of coutry, and I like it much. This time the destination was northern part, the Istria. The advantage of Istria is the distance, only around 1000km away from Krakow. Sometimes there is stormy and rainy weather there but promising weather forecasts simplified decision. Another advantage is that the trip by car takes on average 11-12 hours using highways in Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia. It means in turn that you can make it in one hop safe way.
The only issue was missing crew. My lady has just begun regular work and could not go, while Robert, one of the best friends I used to travel with, has just married. Fortunately Berni, the last on of three amigos, was planning to have vacation at the same time so we made two-pack for expedition.
There was no reason to stay in apartments having promising weather forecast; the tent and the car packed up to the roof was enough. For the first day of travel we decided to find a place just to sleep over and the day after go along the coast line looking for best place to stay. We arrived to Istria late afternoon so that we did not complain much about the Lanterna camp site. Massive camping for thousands of people has nearly no free places, we got a parcel with scorched earth, completely exposed to the sun, nearly for 30 euro/night (for a car, a tent and 2 persons). Next morning we quickly packed up and browsed for a better place.
Using fantasy we tried to enter naturist camp Urlika, but they did not allow us to enter. Nothing personal, it is just a simple rule that we did not know: single males without international naturist membership card is not welcome. This way other two camps with naturist profile were no go. Finally we got to the Zelena Laguna camp, few kilometer south from Poreč where we found a parcel free for next couple days. It turned to be the best place we had seen so far: shaded all day long, only 150 meters to the beach, aside from main pathwalks and toilets. Discovering Zelena Laguna day by day made this place even more pleasant place. It is completely located on peninsula, which means very long beach comparing to camp size. The peninsula forms a hill making it not only visually attractive but also quite windy on west side we were located. Second half of a week we spent on neighbor camp, Biela Uvala, which is bigger, more loud (mostly due to larger fraction of teenagers) and with better infrastructure: big leisure swimming pool, playgrounds and shops inside. Since both camps share beach infrastructure we stick to old place for all the time.
Camps location was even more surprising. Driving to the Poreč for a food, we noticed huge night club Byblos. Quick googling revealed that this is one of biggest clubbing place in Europe. Next night we get there to notice it has interesting events every couple days. We have just missed promotion party of David Guetta’s new album Nothing but the Beat, the party that had happened 3 days earlier. However, David appeared also this night at the party and it was unusual to see live world-famous DJ.
Most campers come from Germany and Italy, plus some Dutchmen and Czechs. Strikingly you could not find Poles which we actually were not missing. Western Europe camping style differs however. We were virtually the only campers with a tinny tent; most of them use camper cars and full house infrastructure around. Even students were bringing their parents’ campers. Fridges, large tables, barbecues where everywhere; every second camper car had satellite TV dish. We felt a little freaky, sitting all the day on the beach, with short break for lunch, while vast majority of people relished atmosphere of parcel environment. Some parcels had unbelievably finishing: wooden fences, cut grass, garden with flower or small palm trees in plant pots, even pebbles’ padded pathways. Frequent campers explained us that these mansions are docked permanently on parcels rented for a whole year; looks like some people, next to “weather guaranteed“, do like “place guaranteed” too.
While the atmosphere was perfect for lazy time on the beach, for skater it was just a disaster 🙂 One evening, around 10pm I tried to find a place to make a line of cones and dance a little around them. Nearly 30 degrees Celsius and high humidity dehydrated me completely within 45 minutes and I had to give up. It was a dubious pleasure since dusty tarmac pathway immediately clogged up bearings and after all I needed to spent another hour to clean them up.
Idyllic time has been disturbed on a way back. First I was catched by the police right after leaving Porec because of speeding; I was simply passing the other car having 90km/h while the limit was 60. Despite the safe maneuver the policeman was relentless. I had to pay 500 kuna fine (~70 euro). Couple hours later, in Czech Republic, during short break I left my smartphone on the back site of roof of my car, just a moment before my friend opened trunk door and it got trapped and smashed. The display cracked and we had to continue remaining part of the route without GPS. Display replacement turned to be one of most expensive repairs (another 60 euros gone). Well, misery loves company. These disastrous accidents did not hide the reminiscence of good summer vacation however – return to Croatia is more than sure.
