Aliways and Ulice

 The weather has turned (to crap). The coastal towns fro Dubrovnik and as far up as Makarska experienced torrential rain and floods.  This morning I was booked for a cycle tour - olive trees and oil co-operative. As we prepared our bikes the thunder and lightning started, then the rain. And it rained. My eyes were stinging from the amount of rain coming into them, but couldn't stop because we were cycling. Puddles of muddy red water, everything soaked - but all still fun. Once you are wet... I swapped out my new adidas shoes at the last minute and wore my old runners, so glad. Now they are dripping wet (but clean with the help of a toothbrush) and hopefully there will be fine weather in the next few days to dry them out. Fun facts - there are olive trees here which date from way before Christ. And when olive tree trunks twist as they age, they always twist in the same direction - clockwise - and if one was to check out the twist in an olive tree trunk in the southern hemispher...

I'm in Italy now, and it was a bit of an exciting adventure. I needed to get to Dubrovnik to take the 7 am ferry, so that necessitated and night in a hotel. A pool was on the wish list and proximity to the port. I was pretty excited to see google maps telling me it was '330 m to the destination  - first walk 60 m and then take the steps'. So the 330 was a complete staircase, completely up and completely took all my willpower to get to the top, remembering that this is not just my legs that need to get to the top, but my legs and my suitcase. I met an older man coming down, he asked where I was going and rolled his eyes in sympathy. Never mind. I rinsed the sweat from my brow and my clothes, and found the pool.  The ferry was great - 7 hours from Croatia to Bari, Puglia. Relaxing, played cards, chatted. At the back of my mind of course was the article I saw on instagram which confirmed that trains were on strike. I needed a train to get to Ostuni for my first night's acc...

 I've been relying on sea transport a bit - and foolish me, I referred to the passenger boat from Bol (Brac) to Makarska as a 'ferry'. It seems our English language isn't as exact as it could be, so please don't make the same error as I did. Ferry = able to take passengers and cars. The other boat I have been using is a katamaran (which it is) but is different from a ferry (trajekt) because it does not take cars. So. It is a great service though, I took it again today from Makarska to Dubrovnik. I switched on to roaming on my phone so that I could orient myself when I disembarked from the katamaran and see how far away the hotel was from the port - I have martyr tendencies and like to walk rather than take a taxi where possible. Google maps very nicely said 'walk 60 ms and take the stairs, your destination is in 350 m'. Which is a clear instruction to walk, not to find a taxi and ride 350 m. What I didn't realise was that it was stair after stair after s...

 A few days without writing, it's just that this place is so familiar that I just relaxed into it. And I'm still relaxing -  I went to the dentist - he told me I have kvalati teeth (I think that's a good thing) and maybe two little issues, but they can wait until next year (he said) when you return. And charged me nothing. Just shook my hand. And had a serious sports massage for a pain in my psoais muscle - it comes from a lotalot of walking, which is what you do here.  A lot of the town is pedestrian so to get from one end to the other, to the green market, to one of the many supermarkets, to a cafe with the tables in the shade, you walk. And Walk. I'm seeing a few differences - debit cards are used more often in a country where cash has always been king. There is now a sophisticated system for recycling. Paper here, plastics there, general rubbish over there. Three colour coded bins for each house. Recycle bins for plastic and cans on the beach - and this is great bec...