Croatia

Hi, it's been a busy couple of weeks since I last updated this...last weekend I had a visit from my big brother, which was really cool - I've been to stay with him loads in different French cities so it was nice to be able to return the favour. As he hadn't been to Rome before we did some sightseeing, taking in the ruins of ancient Rome on saturday followed by my own personal Rome tour which includes San Lorenzo piazza and lots of Peroni. It's got so hot here lately, and the city has really started to feel like it's the summer holidays with tons of outdoor cinemas, concerts, bars and market stalls springing up all over the place.

We also hit the beach on the Sunday - as it's been 38 degrees and I've been struggling across Rome on Metro line B (senza air conditioning) it was sooooo nice to finally get in the sea. Ostia is about 40 minutes from Rome it only costs E1, which is nice...it's fairly busy and not particularly picturesque (Romans are so snobby about it, telling me it's dirty etc) but it does the trick.

Then after just 3 days back at work I headed to Zadar, Croatia, to meet up with Mary Morris and her friends (the same group I went to Glastonbury with last year) to hit the Garden Festival, a dance music festival by the beach that appealed following the ridiculous cold, rain and mud of Glasto last year. I took the train from Rome to Ancona and then a 9 hour overnight ferry to Croatia - it was incredibly cheap and so exciting to watch the italian coast recede and head out into the Adriatic.

(This is how enormous the boat was...viewed from the end of the street).
I'd gone for the cheapo option of simple deck passage, so once I got through passport control I grabbed a sofa in the bar area to sleep on and headed up to the deck to watch the scenery. It was so warm, it was beautiful, and sunrise next morning was stunning.

It was great to be reunited with Mary who I hadn't seen in months, and also to get out of Rome for a few days after so long!! We stayed at a cute little campsite mostly inhabited by German families, and spent time each morning lounging by the pool nursing our hangovers...it was sunny and lovely. This is how festivals should be set up, Michael Eavis, please take note.

I had been mega disorganised and failed to equip myself with a tent. Since I also had no money and we were kilometres of (very hot) walk from civilisation, I opted to sleep in the porch space of Mary and Matts' tent (thanks guys), which was good in the sense of being free and bad in the sense of being not mosquito netted and exposed to insects like our friend here:


Anyway, the festival itself was cute - really small and nothing like the big rock festivals in the UK, but by the sea, with lovely views and the option to do lots of drunken swimming (we were shocked to find that the beach wasn't policed at all, so drunken revellers were constantly jumping in the water...so much fun but I'm sure it's so dangerous! Luckily no casualties, anyway!), just 2 stages and a few food and beer places. The drill generally involved arriving at the festival mid-afternoon, doing some swimming and sunbathing, drinking some beer, and eventually dancing to whatever music was going. Trojan Sound System, fun and danceable reggae, was probably the best act, whereas Mr Scruff, the one I was looking forward to the most, was a bit of an anticlimax (no fun animations or visuals, little rapport with the crowd).


Croatia seemed like a really beautiful country, though admittedly I can only comment on the Dalmatian Coast where we were. My friends had done alot of travelling around the coast, visiting little islands etc, which I'm very jealous of. The language is completely incomprehensible - I expected it to resemble Italian alot more, since they're neighbours, but no. I couldn't rid myself of my habit of trying to speak italian in shops etc, which didn't work for me so well...in terms of sightseeing I didn't really get to do any, except for a few hours wandering around Zadar in the sunshine before catching the ferry yesterday. It's a really lovely city, with ancient ruins and lots of churches - quite similar to here really! I definitely want to go back there for more exploring.

It was lovely, but over way too soon...I stumbled back to Zadar, then back onto the boat, then back to Rome, in a sleep-deprived stupor. I have to work tomorrow and am hoping I haven't lost my voice like I normally do after a festival/too much partying!