From Venice we headed north passing briefly through Slovenia on our way to Croatia. We planned a 4 day stay on a Croatian island called Cres which is just off the coast from Skopje - the last stay at a beach before we head to Scandinavia and colder temperatures.
We caught a ferry to the island which was quite large but very rocky and hilly covered mostly in scrub and olive trees and stone walls everywhere to keep in the few sheep we saw. I would say sheep and olives used to be the main livelihood but now it is tourism.
Our camp was near a little seaside village called Martiscia, a lovely place with nice beaches and lovely clean water, a nice change after Italy!
We spent a couple of idyllic days here, resting, swimming and Snorkelling in the crystal clear sea.
We spent one day exploring part of the island, and travelled to a beautiful clifftop village called Lubenice , where the handful of inhabitants, spent there days working the fields and making trinkets and Grappa to sell to the tourists.
We climbed for 90 minutes down to the best beach we have found all trip, great snorkelling, as long as you were happy with the clothes optional attitude of most people there.
It was a long walk but well worth it , and after the climb back up, it was great to find a cold beer and ice cream bar back at the village especially since I was sick at the time so climbing hills is not the best thing.
Croatia is going out of its way to encourage tourists, but judging by our camp they are all Germans., it is also very cheap relatively speaking.
All too soon our beaching days were over and we decided to head north, Cres had proved a perfect spot, with hot weather and beautiful beaches.
Our next country was to be Austria, but to get there we had to travel up through Slovenia on the way to Austria we passed a big Nazi concentration camp memorial which was sad.
Slovenia is very green and forested, with just small pockets of small scale farming, but the roads were good and travel was easy.