Day 10. Driving Miss Wendy

We have long resisted traveling in Europe in what the Navy calls a PMV (private motor vehicle). The reasons are pretty obvious. The trains and public transport are great. Cars are expensive, petrol is very expensive and the tolls and parking fees add up very quickly. Plus there is a minor issue that the Europeans drive on the opposite side of the road. In spite of this, we decided to brave the PMV option because we are planning to go to a number of places in Croatia and Italy that are not easily accessible by train. Plus, the car gives us the freedom to roam.

So how is it going you might ask? Well, the honest answer is, better than expected. Richard is actually enjoying the driving. In spite of Richard being haunted by a distant scream from the boatswain parade commander at the New Entry Officers Course in 2012 – ‘The other left, Padre!’ – he is generally handling the left hand drive manual car on the right hand side of the road, okay. The motorways are a blast at 130kms per hour, the 1.6lt turbo diesel is getting better than 5 litres per hundred kilometers, the toll system is often complicated and different in each country, but manageable, and the GPS is a God’s send. We like maps, we even brought maps with us, but frankly without our Navlady we would be… lost.

Having said that, today we detoured from our straight path to explore a wonderful alpine valley in northern Slovenia called the Logar Valley. The scenery was better than The Sound of Music, but the GPS lead us on an unexpected route, via Austria. It was like being in one of those movies where the heroes from the west, end up on a back road and unexpectedly in Russia, where they are promptly arrested by the KGB. We eventually found our way back through the snow to more familiar ground, unharmed (no KGB in Austria) and can boast that we visited one more country than we had planned.

Wendy knows Richard is struggling under pressure when the windscreen wipers activate instead of the blinkers. So far our brown Citroen C4 – which we have nicknamed “the little brown frog” is giving us increased freedom for adventure. What more could we hope for?