Al's Trip To Croatia contd By Allen Miles

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The afternoon sun was unbearably hot most days but our hotel had a swimming pool which we used to cool down. This was but one of the hotel's many plus points. There was also a poolside bar which sold gorgeous non-alcoholic cocktails, yet again made with fresh fruit juice. The room was spacious and had a balcony.

Curiously the floor was tiled but I realized that this was probably because carpet would have made the room even hotter. Sadly the food in the hotel was pretty poor. My girlfriend loved it though, as she is a vegetarian and fresh vegetables are so plentiful in the Mediterranean, about 90% of the hotel's nightly buffet was veggie. The rest was mostly fish or squid, which I tried and found to taste like when you start to chew your pencil and then realize it has a rubber on the end.

Most days, after the afternoon swim and lounge-about, we went back over the water to explore Porec at night. This was when this tiny little village truly came into it's own. I know I said the midday sunlight showed the ancient buildings to be beautiful, but at night, when these cramped narrow alleys were lit with the flames of a dozen torch-jugglers, soundtracked by scores of street performers and sea-shanty bands and detailed by teenagers sitting on every street corner carving ornate candles, making tiny figurines out of clay, and jewellery out of rubbed brass, well… it was just breathtaking.

The harbour front had an open market which stayed open till the small hours of the morning, and it seemed every time we walked past a stall the shout went up, "Hey, English…?" The place had an atmosphere the likes of which I will probably never see again, although I'm told Pontefract is quite nice at certain times of the year.

The taste of Istria tour took us to the mountainous area of southern Croatia and we saw some beautiful scenery, but the day in Venice was the highlight of the whole holiday for me. For all those fashion buffs, Venice has the best clothes shops I have ever seen.

Sadly, we didn't have the requisite Premiership footballer's annual wage to spend in them. There were also some beautiful art galleries and craft shops but again, they were dreadfully expensive. We did, however, get the chance to see a couple of original Dali paintings and walk across St Mark's Square.

We did all the things that you're told you have to do such as walk over the Bridge of Sighs, watch a glass blower and have a real Italian ice cream. I had also hoped to take my girlfriend on a gondola ride, however without wanting to sound incredibly cheap, it would have set me back the equivalent of £60 for 20 minutes.

Have sympathy here gents, I wanted to be romantic but I didn't want to be an idiot. The lovely lady by my side amazingly concurred with me on my stand against ripping off poor gormless tourists, and we went back to stroll round the Basillica and I swore at a few hundred pigeons and bought us a sandwich off a girl who seemed to be speaking in a Yorkshire accent (!).

Of course, eventually all the money was spent, all the scenery had been seen and all the swims had been swum. Once again we found ourselves being driven by those friendly Croatian chaps to the airport, and as with all return journeys, it seemed to be a lot quicker going home than it took to get there.

Another flight of red wine and awful food, and as I found myself descending through the grey skies of good old polluted and vandalized England, I wished I could have afforded to stay longer. I've still got some great photos and wonderful memories though. It was certainly the best £649 I've ever spent. And the bad points of my trip to the beautiful town of Porec? Well, Croatian telly isn't up to much...

Photographs copyright  ©2003, and courtesy of Allen.

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