Travelling

Having been limited to family holidays for the last several years, taking the children to wherever we could afford, usually not very far from home, we have been lucky in going on two extended trips in the last couple of months.

When we came home from our 3 weeks in America, we had 3 days at home and then set out again, this time by car, down through Europe. Our destination was a marina at Split in Croatia, where friends of my husband keep their yacht and we were invited to sail with them for a week.

Leaving Dunquerke (or rather, the wonderfully named Loon Plage) we idled through the stinking and spectacular coastal industry of Northern Belgium, then headed down into Germany.

We had thought about going to see Beethoven's ear-trumpet in his museum in Bonn, but traffic and suburbia drove us away. Henceforward we tried to avoid large cities and stayed in the byways.

We saw many varieties of Christmas Tree, or May Tree, in the neat villages as we passed. These were immensely tall, mostly still alive, but with only a very few green living branches at the top. The bark of each tree was scoured away in spirals or stripes and all the branches removed, so the tree was like a bare totem pole, or maypole, set in the centre of each village. Some had ribbons or tinsel still attached. Others looked completely dead. But each village had one.

We drove alongside the Rhine, fast flowing, with those crazy castles perched along the sides, and the vineyards running on precipitous slopes all the way along. Weirs control the levels of water, huge barges swing round in the dangerous currents, and locals go boating in ridiculously small skiffs and canoes. Eventually we reached the amazing walled city of Rothenburg-am-Tauber. It was bombed to smithereens in the war, and was rebuilt as a much-loved replica, so you can walk round its parapet defences, and marvel at the medieval carving in the churches. It has so many stories, and an inviting scale. It also has an ever-so self-conscious memorial called the Jewish Dance House, proving that for a while at least, Jews lived harmoniously in the midst of them all, in the Middle Ages.

At last we spotted the Alps - the Austrian Alps - and we camped in a small sloping field at the foot of the first mountains. No sooner were we pitched and cooking than a thunderstorm blew up, and we spent the night in a ferocious flood of rainwater and crashes of thunder, echoing round the mountains. Splendid.

Then, on and to the south, up through the passes, nearly into the snow fields, through settlements which clearly only existed during the skiing season: smart modern hotels and cafés all completely closed. At one point the road was temporarily closed while a mountaineering team scaled up a sheer cliff above the road, in order to blast some loose boulders down. The team was from the local council. Among our companions in the patient traffic jam on the road was a vanload of very overhung German football fans, who wanted us to take their photographs and thought it was fantastically amusing that there were English tourists so far from home.

This was a long drive - down to Ljubljana and on through Slovenia, down to the Mediterranean, or rather, the Adriatic.

There are so many subtle changes as you go along, the architecture changing gradually from district to district, the horticulture and the rough plants changing in character according to the climate and the soil. As we got down to the warmer sea, the plantings were looking almost English, with elderflower still in blossom, and no olive groves in sight till considerably further south. Things look very poor here, you can see the effects of all the years of Communism and of war.

The coast road hugs the cliffs as you drive south towards Split. It is impossible to go much faster than 40 mph. There is little to cheer you up. There are tiny campsite clinging to the beaches, and ugly concrete houses offering rooms, but truly little to tempt you, at the beginning.

We reached Senj, a shining wide port with cafés and style and trees and a white marble harbour. There we found a hotel overlooking the sea, and went out to find a meal. We turned back from the places on the front and went into the old town, and there had a resplendent and yet simple meal of fish. Maimed cats slunk about, not daring to look at us. A male blackbird, keeping fierce watch over his baby girl blackbird, screamed incessantly to her to 'Watch out!!!!' every time one of the cats moved. No-one spoke any English. The sun shone, the air was warm, we were very happy. Back at the little hotel, scrupulously clean, we crashed out - and then woke up as another massive thunderstorm created havoc in the air above us. We felt glad to be inside and not still under canvas.

The next day we reached Split - it was raining, but our friends welcomed us aboard and when things brightened up, we motored round to the main harbour. Going ashore in the tiny inflatable dinghy was alarming for one so scared as I, but we managed ok and walked up to the old Jewish cemetery which overlooks the whole bay. There is a Hebrew inscription above the door of what is now a cafe. We could see the outline of Diocletian's Palace, which was our next port of call. If you have not been there, you should pencil it in to your diary. What a story! [To be continued].