Friday 14th September, leaving Rovinj at noon, we embarked on our voyage north to Novigrad, some 15 miles distant.
Sailing gently for the first 5 miles, our complacency was soon shattered as we found the wind and endured a roller coaster ride beating into a turbulent sea with 30 knots of true wind on the nose. Needless to say our arrival at Novigrad was welcome and we were soon ashore exploring the small and quiet town. We found a delightful wine emporium which dispensed the local wine in large plastic bottles. We returned to the boat heavy laden with white and red wines filled into plastic bottles from a barrel which turned out to be excellent! Great sunset too.
Saturday 15th we checked out of Croatia and motored north to Piran in Slovenia in windless conditions, arriving in time for lunch on board. Apart from being interested in the Slovenian coast, Nigel and Mo needed to declare another departure from Croatia, to conform with customs requirements, and Slovenia was just close enough to make this an obvious and easy option.
After clearing the immigrations formalities as we had now entered the EU we set off to explore the town. The main claim to fame appears to be Tartini, 17th century composer, violinist and general good bloke. The centre of the town is Tartini square which is large, surrounded by magnificent Venetian style buildings and a floor of polished stone.
Moving ever upwards we climbed to the top of the town t see the old fortifications and enjoy magnificent views back over the town and Croatia to the South and Italy (Trieste) to the North.
We descended via the church which sports a campanile that is a copy of the one in St Marks square in Venice. There was a wedding in progress and we peeped in just in time to hear a class rendition of Ave Maria by what sounded like a professional singer.
In the evening we dined in an excellent restaurant and then moved on to a bar which had live music. The performer was a capable one-man group, assisted by Yamaha. His range of music was brilliant and we were riveted for a couple of hours, returning to the boat at past midnight. Unfortunately our neighbours returned later and continued to talk and drink until dawn, disturbing our beauty sleep.
Deja Vu 