Eastern Europe

Right well it’s been a while since I have typed…. So here goes catch up time..

We had manly been following motorways due to sat-nav’s built in favouritism. This was starting to get a bit boring. So with a few adjustments to our route we traversed down a coastal stretch of road on our last section of Italy. Stunning cliff faces ether side of us, making a most refreshing change from the concrete central reservation’s of most euro toll roads. Along this seaside road we could see the Italian Slovakian and Croatian landscapes all at once across the Mediterranean stunning view.

At Trieste our last coastal town of Italy we gathered some scrap wood for some future roadside murals. We then tested the power of our cars up a steep hill climb toward the Slovakian boarder.

Out of Italy and into Slovakia countryside. Rolling hills coated with natural pine forests not a trace of the organisation that is found in the British forests. The homes could best be described as slightly ramshackle Swiss mountain cottages with out the paint or tidiness. It also struck me straightaway that they are based around the pure practicality purposes of living, plenty of dry store firewood. All without fail all have veggie gardens, animals, basically everything needed to live from and with the land. Traits many of us have lost back home to due to the onslaught of supermarket power in the land of convenience.

Then throughout the short drive over the Slovakian landscape we were passed by many nice to average cars something of a surprise considering the state of the homes. But a characteristic that has remained a constant even up until now as I sit typing in a small town in Serbia many many km’s from there.

Slovakia was short lived and we pulled through our first boarder crossing soon learning that there is not as much interest paid by guards when leaving a country as there is when entering the next we stopped unaware that we where in-between boarders and I did my first roadside painting on a scrap picked up in Italy we drove on for a bit and placed the painting on a small cliff on the side of the road for some unsuspecting traveller to find a new gift who knows where it will end up?

Croatia soon became another motorway stretch as we headed to Zagreb the country’s capital. We drove up into the snowline and into full winter weather as the darkness moved in we check into each other on the radios to find a spot to sleep. I forget the name of the village but it was small and quiet town drove through picked up water and headed up a forest track until we found a flat clearing just off the side of the road and set up camp in a tall pine forest with autumn leaf covered floor and the odd mossy bolder sticking out from the ground.

The next morning we awoke to an entirely different vision of snow frost and beauty!

Love it!!!