Crossing quickly over the Alps from Fussen, Germany and waving to a few late spring skiers along the way we arrived in one of our favourite locations in northern Italy. Highway 38 and 40 is lined with apple orchards and vineyards and passes through a magnificent alpine valley dotted with medieval castles all the way to Merano. Unfortunately, and a little disappointing for us, this fruitful valley was still a few weeks away from it’s glorious spring bloom. But, this drive is worth the trip at any time of the year and Merano itself is a beautiful mountain town/city with a number of historically significant and interesting sites  surrounding it as well. From Merano we drove south along the east side of Lake Garda, a very popular tourist location, to Sirmione, Italy on the south end of the lake. This interesting sliver of a peninsula with castle and village on it’s outer end draws millions of visitors every (normal) year. Luckily we enjoyed a rather laid back and quiet visit.  From Sirmione we traveled once again to fabulous Verona and Venice.  We were very surprised at how busy both these places were but we did notice that most of the crowd seemed to be more “local-ish” in nature. Having driven through Croatia two times in past trips and missing Pula both times, we decided we had to make it happen this time. The ancient Roman amphitheatre in Pula is truly magnificent. It is one of the largest Roman Arenas in the world and it’s the only one with all four sides still intact. From the centre of the Arena you can almost sense the gladiators around you as they fight-off the lions. This amphitheatre is over 2000 years old and is still used for significant concerts today. In it’s prime it could accommodate 23,000 bloodthirsty spectators and today… about 12,500 music lovers. Rovinj, a small coastal (cone hill shaped) village a short distance north of Pula is well worth a shout-out.  A very unique town with an interesting water frontage and incredible sunsets. 

But… now the time has come to make a very difficult and trip altering decision. Traveling western Turkey was our original plan and we held onto that dream as long as we could. As we drove south and the days passed by, we hoped that things would start settling down in the Ukraine. This has not been the case and this horrific situation just seems to be escalating and getting worse. So, the idea of heading eastward presents a certain amount of anxiety and uneasiness that Margot especially does not feel comfortable with. Therefore, this northern part of Croatia will be the furthest “South-East” in Europe that we will travel and we’ll now concentrate our efforts on many unexplored locations within Italy, France and Spain as we make our way westward towards Portugal.  We do feel a little disappointed about missing out on Turkey, but in no way do we feel bad about this decision… we can only feel bad and upset for the millions of innocent people in the Ukrainian that are suffering beyond imagination at the hands of a madman and, our thoughts and prayers are with them.