Al's Trip To Croatia By Allen Miles

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£649 is a lot of money in most people's eyes. And to spend that much money on seven days away when you're only earning £130 a week might be in a very real way considered lunacy. However, I decided to go for three reasons; 1: My girlfriend assured me that it would be good for our relationship and she's better at arguing than me, 2: The pictures in the brochures looked pretty good,

and 3: There seemed very little chance of sky showing interest in filming "Croatia Uncovered", as I was told there would be no possibility of encountering ape-like drunken Britons bearing their pale, spotty flesh in the hope of one day being on T.V. So, six months after borrowing money to pay the deposit, I found myself hauling my cases into Manchester Airport.

I hate flying. The queuing, the awful food, the wondering how 42,000 tonnes of steel is floating miraculously through the air when my cat, who weighs about 6lbs, is very reasonably drawn to the ground. It was only a 2 hour flight though, and three glasses of red wine and a few chapter's of Julian Cope's autobiography saw me through the journey. We touched down at Ljubljana Airport in Slovenia (Croatia only has one airport, in Zagreb, which was over 400 miles from our hotel) and after an incredibly tedious 18 million years waiting for our cases we were picked up in a minibus by two friendly Croatian chaps and were driven the 90 minute journey to our hotel.

It struck me that there seemed to be water everywhere. Lakes, streams, rivers, every kind of natural body of water you could think of. And it was clear. It wasn't brown, and it didn't have shopping trolleys or old Wellingtons floating in it.

The Hotel Fortuna was the only building on a tiny island off the coast of Porec, Croatia. The island itself stretched about 200 yards in every direction from the hotels perimeter wall. There was a ferry running from the mainland to the hotel and back every half hour. As soon as we got out of the minibus the heat made its awesome presence felt. We climbed the stairs to this spectacular building and ate our specially laid-on late meal. Then we went to sleep. It had been a long day.

The next day, we met our representative, a very approachable Englishman called Graham. He gave us a brief history of Porec and informed us that one of the yachts in the harbour area belonged to none other than David Bowie. Sadly, we never had the opportunity to bump into him as he wasn't there, he'd just left his boat there. How careless.

Graham proceeded to tell us of the week's itinery and the tours and excursions we'd have the opportunity to partake in. We decided to go on the Taste Of Istria Tour and on a day trip to Venice. He recommended a few local eateries and places of interest and then he left us to explore the village. By day the village was very quiet and the daylight showed the architecture to be incredibly beautiful and untouched for hundreds of years.

The pavements were all made of cobblestones which had been worn smooth by thousands of Mediterranean storms. There were dozens of open air restaurants and bars, all with their owners stood outside trying to entice people to sample their wares. I think I had pizza every day I was there. And this was actual pizza, made with fresh dough, fresh tomatoes and fresh salami.

I almost wept when I came home and had to make do with whatever it is they serve down Spring Bank. There was an abundance of local craft shops and independent clothes shops in which I spent far too much money. There were groceries selling things that you simply can't get over here. The range of fruit juices in particular was nothing short of overwhelming. I was actually able to buy a litre of fresh cherry juice for the equivalent of 75p.

Continued ...next page,

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