Didnˋt see that one coming (so fast)

Our brief visit to Italy ended the next day, when we headed back into Slovenia for an even briefer period.

We took a look at the small seaside town of Piran, which reminded my human of Venice quite a lot. With its narrow paths and slanting houses, it resembled the City of Canals up to exactly that point, no canals here.

Fabulous!

Pretty random but rather interesting nevertheless

The small villages we visited on the Italian side as well as Piran here on the Slovenian side seem eerily deserted at this time of the year. Itˋs not as obvious in the bigger places like Triest and Venice, of course, but here you canˋt help but notice that the season is well and truly over, even the after-season. 

If you keep walking from Piran to Bernardin, just a couple of kilometers down the coast, you get your first glimpse of Croatia. Looks kind of the same from here.

After a quiet night spent high up on a hill with a great view down to the distant Adriatic Sea, with only a rooster and a cow and calf for company, we then crossed over a barely manned border into Croatia.

Our first stop in this new country was Umag, a small city on the coast. Itˋs nice enough, but I donˋt really have to much to say about the town, besides the fact that it had the same ghost town feeling to it as its counterparts in the other countries. 

You can walk along the coast in either direction for kilometers on end. Which, of course, is exactly what my human did. And because there are no buses, at least this time of the year, if you walk 10km one way, youˋll have to walk them back again as well.

At least half the time you walk through enormous vacatin complex, with hundreds and hundreds of bungalows, empty pools and deserted sports fields. Not that my human had a wish to see all this in full swing, but it all seemed a bit bleak this way.

True, very true

Not sure which one I like better

Once she was back, we moved down the coast a few kilometers where she then went for, as it would soon turn out, her last swim in the sea for this year. 

With a temperature of a refreshing 13 degrees, it wasnˋt a very long swim. Long enough to feel some kinship to Wim Hoff, though. And if you donˋt know who that is, check him out, he is crazy in so many (mostly good) ways!

I am not sure if I mentioned before the plan my human had made for her and my winter.

Her winter will be three months in Germany, working as much as possible to stock up the funds for next yearˋs travels.

I will spend my winter in the backyard of a friend of a friend right here in Croatia. 

That evening they had a brief chat on the phone and, as it turned out, she could deliver me to my winter quarters the very next day or a week or so later.

Since that would be too late for some appointments she had already made back home, there was only one option. 

So, after giving me a thorough scrub inside and out, we drove to see this friend and were very curious of the place I would spend the next three month or so. 

And here I am now, just outside Porec, Istria, parked between some olive trees, surrounded by hedges on all sides and therefore protected from any unwanted attention. 

The goodbye came very quick indeed now, and my human and I were quite sad to part company on such short notice without being able to mentally prepare ourselves.

We had hoped to have four, five more days together.

Now, less than 24 hours after the phone call, she is on her way to Munich, and I am here, feeling a bit lost and lonely. But I have made tentative contact with three cats already, and I am sure we will become good friends over the coming months.

To you, dear reader, I say farewell until some time in March next year.

Stay happy and healthy, overindulge in Christmas cookies and donˋt forget to make some senseless New Year resolutions!

See you soon!