Return To Middle California, 2018

We drove back to Rome July 17th and spent the next few days sorting, packing, cleaning, repairing, etc. Such is life when every now and then you change your modus vivendi, modus transportandi, modus whatever, as we do. Le Duc will stay at the Emerald Meadow for some months now, except for a bout of repair with Mr. Edigio, per Alessandro. On July 21st, Norwegian Air shuttled us from Fiumicino back to the States, where daughter Rebecca and grand-daughter Penelope greeted us at OAK. The next day we brought Le Sport back out of hibernation and began setting ourselves up for eight months (!) in the States. Storage is sometimes tough on RVs, and Le Sport's de-hibernation was not without incident, but all ended well. We are back in Middle California, and several posts now will ensue, from Half Moon Bay to The City to Oakland and to old friend Pinecrest, way up in the Sierra Nevada.

Le Duc at his bay at the Emerald Meadow

At Half Moon Bay, me, Jeremy, Penelope, Rebecca, and Vicki

San Marino: #56

For some reason we had begun counting countries visited and estimating how long it might take us to reach 60. And for reasons apparently having to do with this, we decided to stop by the Republic of San Marino on our way from Padua, through Ravenna, and then Rimini, toward Rome. It was on the way. Sort of. (San Marino, not Dan Marino (#13), as some might think). It is another ridiculously small republic, nestled there by Rimini, in northeastern Italy. Only San Marino is on a mountain top, sort of another picturesque hill-top, fortified town. Sort of. I am sure that the history of and reasons for San Marino's independence must be very interesting, most likely tied up with some pope or cardinal or other. Maybe the Guelphs or the Ghibellines. In any case, the place exists, it is a real country, not a shit-hole, as #45 would say (maybe), and definitely counts if you're counting countries. Not as much as Andorra or Vatican City, or even Lichtenstein, I would say, but it definitely counts. And we were there.

Something you don't see every day; nor had we ever seen even after some
years of driving all over Europe: a San Marino license plate

Their current tourist slogan, which I don't get: the place is not so large that
they would be looking for settlers

View from the cable car, looking back toward Rimini and the Adriatic; a hilly
mountainous countryside

Among the founders: a Borghese, wouldn't you know

Helpful map; the chug up-hill to the RV parking was the steepest Le Duc has
so far encountered, including Alps, Pyrenees, Apennines, etc.

Not above tree-line, however

The place is replete with public sculpture and historical markers 

Um, isn't it supposed to be "In and Out"?

Unchanging guard

Today's wedding

Government building; the architect was Rene' Sance

The usual cute alleys

Perhaps Rand Paul could move here?

Wall and tower; never breached; why would anyone attack?

Street scene

So the place has both a Madame Tussaud's and a Museum
of Torture...what more could you ask?

Plus tons of Old World ambiance

And a church that will be just right should the Greco/Roman gods and goddesses
make a come-back

But mostly, San Marino seemed to be about shoppes and shoppes of replica
firearms; one sees these occasionally in tourist towns in Europe; but San
Marino had many

And fragrance shoppes; all totally authentic, of course

And shoppes of figurines, miniatures

And, of course, a Christmas shoppe; although not, I note,
a Kathe Wohlfart

And replica firearms; if San Marino is ever attacked by a
replica army, it will be strongly defended

Downtown

Fortunately, San Marino's RV car-park permits overnight stays, and we stayed
there in the company of the usual international contingent; very well satisfied
with having notched #56 in our walking sticks

World Cup: France 4, Croatia 2

From Udine we drove on past Padua to Terme Abano, at whose sosta we had stayed just before our Balkan adventure. The plan was to stop early, in a known place, a town, where I could watch the World Cup final game, pitting my adopted favorite, Croatia, versus what would have been my favorite team otherwise, France. It was Sunday afternoon and, surprisingly, several of the main bars and sports bars were closed. Closed. Good grief. (Italy did not get into the World Cup this quadrennium--first time in thousands of years you'd think--and many Italians are still in denial). But I found one open, nice enough, with a big screen and a bar-tender who knew how to make a Negroni, all the Italians there rooting for Croatia, and watched nearly the whole game (except for an over-long half-time break for Vicki's spaghetti). Sadly, Croatia lost. I have not watched as many as half a dozen futbol games in my life, but I strongly felt the Croats suffered from a couple of bad calls, early on, and were fighting up-hill all the way. They seemed to me the better team, attacking all the way, never benefiting from the referee's calls. Had Croatia not been in it, I would have been cheering for France, so I didn't feel too bad. And the Croat team did their little nation very proud. Oh, and yes, I am fully aware of the immigrant nature of the French team. More power to them! Vive la France!

[Reserved For Balkans Summary)

Slovenian Out-Takes

[To be added to and commented upon...]

Julian Alps, 2

Flip side of the Vrsic Pass road, on to Bovec, and then back to Italy.

An interesting road we were following, with turn-offs to Austria and to Italy and
back to Slovenia

On this side of the pass, more beautiful limestone gorges

Stopped at one of the gorges for lunch, a bus of trekking ladies from Austria
arrived and debarked

Sculpture-selfie, tribute to the local logging industry;
Slovenia likes being known as being 55% covered by
forest, which is much in evidence; we saw plenty of
logging trucks and other logging implements; but nary a
clear-cut  

At a parish church renown for its anti-Fascist art; may come in handy again soon

Hitler pulling up the Cross; not pictured: Mussolini as Pontius Pilate

Church spare parts

One of the best cared-for cemeteries we've seen; every candle burning

From the campaigns in Soca and environs two names come
to me: Hemingway, an ambulance driver, who was injured
here; and Rommel, an infantryman, who learned here of the
terror that tanks could induce...

Remains of the military cemetery

Hard to imagine war in such beautiful terrain

Limestone pie-slice; from road contruction, presumably

The day's surprise: a crash landing which we missed by a couple minutes

Can't imagine flying a glider in these mountains, this weather

Evidently he couldn't get over the power lines and so fell short of the intended
landing field

Thus

By the time we got there, the pilot was talking to the police and to his faithful
ground crew; I saw no damage to the craft, which was impressive; I'll take
powered flight anytime, thank you

En route to Italy, Boko Falls, a last view of the great Balkan waterfalls

And a last view of the Julians; on to Italy!