Kim's trip to three countries in three days

When we first started planning Kim's trip to Graz, Kim had a request.  As the first-time owner of a passport, she wanted to get some stamps while she was here.  But one of the downsides of the European Union is that such a request is harder to fill (all of the neighboring countries are part of the EU, if not the Euro Zone).

Giving up on that request, we still wanted to plan an excursion while she was here and we convinced Kim that Slovenia would be a good country to visit (beaches, mountains, great infrastructure, lots of English spoken, etc.).  What's more, the Slovenian coast is small and wedged between Italy and Croatia (Izola, Slovenia is a half hour away from both Trieste, Italy in one direction and the Croatian border in the other).  And our friend Renato is from Izola and so Renato and his family would come along and be our tour guides.

As it turned out, Renato's son had a fever and they couldn't join us.  But we still departed on Friday morning for Izola.  We stopped in Maribor, Slovenia for lunch at a great pizza place and made it to Izola by early afternoon.  We basically spent the afternoon exploring our hotel room (that had a huge balcony looking out over the bay).  And although Renato wasn't there to play host, he recommended a restaurant for dinner that served local fish.  It was a quaint place and it was fun to get Kim and Sue to try octopus salad, sardines (or were they anchovies, I can never remember), and some excellent raw trout.  (If you are wondering what our picky-eating children had for dinner at such a place ... bread and they convinced us to get them nutella "candy coins," which are like Ebel skeevers, but with the nutella on top vs. inside.)

Saturday we decided to visit Venice, Italy.  To be honest, I was a bit skeptical of all the hype.  Everyone said that we *had* to go to Venice given that we'd be *so* close.  We chose the train over the ferry, just in case the water would be choppy.  We drove over to Trieste and took the two-hour train ride, arriving in Venezia (that's how the rest of world spells it) at 11a.  I can't describe it, but when you walk out of the train station, right in the middle of the city, the sight of the city takes your breath away, a spontaneous "wow" moment.  We spent the day riding the water "bus" around the city first (cruise ships, tankers, container ships, etc. making for many pictures for Henry) and then through the Grand Canal later.  We did very little walking, but enough to see just how hard it is to get from A to B in a city with canals as streets.  And Grace kept remarking on how their were front doors to houses that "led RIGHT TO THE WATER!"  A tiring day and we all want to go back someday.

Sunday we decided to go for country #3, Croatia.  We drove to the border, got our passports stamped and then headed for a small town on the coast (Umuq) to change money and see what there was to see.  We had a second breakfast of a traditional dish of Palachinke, which are pretty similar to crepes.  We then returned to Izola to hit the beach.

The beach in Izola was a "rock beach" instead of a sand beach.  At times it was a little hard on the back, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  And the advantage, for us OCD types, was the lack of sand :-)  Anyway, the water was cold, but I convinced Grace to head out and put our faces under the water to look for fish and to be carried away by the waves.  All of this with a magnificent view of the Slovenia/Croatian coast in one direction and Italy in the other.

Monday we traveled back to Graz.  We again stopped in Maribor for lunch.  A colleague of mine works at a university there and he was in town and wanted to host us for lunch.  Here is my review from TripAdvisor:

Our second trip to Maribor in a few days and we had a local host that took us to this restaurant. He reserved the table and ordered ahead. He wanted us to have traditional food from Bosnia and Sarajevo. We had one meat platter of each for four adults, which was way, way too much for lunch (and dinner)! But everything, including the special bread was just excellent. I can't remember the name of the meat that has something like salami and cheese inside of it, but it was fantastic. And the chicken was so moist and tasty and I usually avoid chicken when traveling (too much of that at home). The "meat on a stick" also, thankfully, had some peppers so that we could keep the meat sweats at bay for a few minutes longer. And our service was excellent.

After lunch (and a little bit of ice cream, if you can believe it), we headed to the Zotter Chocolate factory in Austria.  It's one of our typical stops when showing folks the area.  Not only is the experience of eating pieces of chocolate bars off a conveyor belt a good time, anytime, but there's also a great castle in the area that we also visit.  Sort of old Austria meeting new Austria.

And if that wasn't enough, we stopped on the way back to have dinner with our friends we were supposed to travel with (son now fever free).  So, a four-day trip with four countries (three new for Kim) and countless good times!