It was a stunningly beautiful day as we set off continuing on the Parenzana trail.The sea was sparkling, grape vines gleaming all was well with the world. We travelled through the 550metre tunnel on the trail so well kept, then diverted away down to Portoroz. We had hoped to go to Piran but half way up the hill we gave up and cruised back down to Portoroz and had our scheduled coffee stop there instead. The tourist bureau was open so we popped in to get a map, no they certainly wouldnot have any Croatian maps, blimey so much for promoting tourism.Mapless we continued we were about to leave the edge of our map and managed to make a mistake immediately going up over a headland instead of following a cycle track along the salt pans. Guess which would have been easier??

We descended from the headland and picked up the correct path along the salt pans, the northern section still being used for salt whilst the southern is a nature reserve. Our diversion meant we did get to go through the little town of Sezza our daughters nickname so had to give the signpost a hug.

It was just past the salt pans we saw the border crossing yes a proper border crossing. I gave them initially the wrong passport as it had to be the one we entered Europe with ie.our British one.We cycled through to Croatia got our passport checked and then we thought where does the track go and we turned back into the 500 metre no mans land. We then realised the path was just the other side of the Croatian border,so hubby cycled straight back over the border without showing his passport. Wow, he was chased by a border guard yelling at him. Other cyclists stopped to watch. Hubby was hauled back still being yelled at. I got my passport out at that point but at the border I’d got the passports muddled and presented them with hubbys passport instead of mine.That didnt go down too well either.We explained that we weren’t sure if the track this side of a canal was the one we wanted, no that was no mans land and that farmer was the only person allowed there. Phew , 2 cyclists were waiting for us to check that we were ok, I think they were slovenians but it was nice of them to wait to see if we needed help.

Little did we realise at the time this is the long disputed Gulf of Piran and there is an extensive no mans land with abandoned houses .The croatians still lay claim to this area and this has stopped them from being allowed into the free borders scheme of the Schengen agreement of the EU.

That little hiccup over we continued along the Parenzana trail sure enough after crossing the border the track took a turn for the worse very gravelly but the big heavy gravel stones, which are hard to cycle over on a normal bike. Still it was manageable, just.We needed to turn off the Parenzana at some point to stay on the coast. Hubby suggested route 14 off a map at a junction . I did point out these were mountain bike trails but hubby said no won’t be any worse than what we’ve been on.Famous last words..

Route 14 had sections with deep patches of gravel impossible on my bike and almost impossible to push uphill through the gravel.At one point a cyclist coming down on a mountain bike stopped and pushed my bike up a hill for me I could have kissed him.Eventually we reached a road and finally could get peddling, we thought we had missed lunch but a taverna jumped out at us.

As we sat down looking at the menu we suddenly realised Croatia wasnot euros it was kunas, we had no money!We checked with the owner yes he would accept euros , great lunch was still on. A lovely lunch the owner was ready to drink schnaps with us but it was quite warm and humid I might have keeled over, especially as I’d have to drink hubbys share.

It was a pleasant ride onto Umag where we have a room in a taverna. We have a lovely view of the marina and hubby found a sandy beach to swim in. Onto Porec tomorrow which hopefully will be an uneventful day.

(Addit from yesterday we met an interesting guy at a petrol station we had stopped to buy drinks, his sister lives in Ballarat Australia and he had been out once visiting gold prospecting, His grandfather was an Aussie digger from the 1st world war , but he couldnt speak english and we couldnt speak Slovenian so couldn’t find out more but we got the gist from photos.Small world and he was so excited to talk to someone from Australia)