Italian supermarkets are generally very, very good. Produce is usually always very fresh, and locally grown – great for the carbon footprint – and often loose, so you can avoid the plastic overload. Fish, meats and cheese are often sold in the same way – loose, unpackaged and by the weight. Same with breads and […]
Maribor is Slovenia’s second largest city, but that doesn’t mean it’s big, by any stretch of the imagination. Up until now, we’ve overlooked it, in favour of the capital, Ljubljana, whose appeal is immediate. It’s beautiful, full of well restored and well maintained historical buildings, with a winding river, fringed with weeping willows and a […]
We’ve made a few trips back to England since we moved out to Istria, and we’ve just completed our second road trip. Driving is definitely not the quickest way to get back, but it’s surprisingly less stressful than flying. And especially landing in a UK airport. Specifically Manchester… Last time we drove, we headed across […]
Spring has arrived and that means – hurrah! – our first visitors have arrived. We welcomed two very old (as in long-standing!) friends last week. We’ve had many experiences with them – they were our neighbours in West Didsbury, we went to their wedding in Greece and have shared many parties and late, late nights […]
We are so lucky that we now live so close to some amazing places, and that it is now very easy to hop across the border if we fancy doing something in Italy or Slovenia. So, when we saw that Kraftwerk were playing in Ljubljana, having missed the chance to see them when they played […]
Our house in Istria is in the most perfect location. When we bought it, we hadn’t quite realised just how perfect, but now that we are getting to know the area, we’re realising just what a gem we bought. Being located in northern Istria, our travel options have really widened out and we can now […]
We’ve done IKEA kitchens and while they’ve largely been great and just what we wanted/needed in the past, schlepping to Zagreb or beyond Trieste (the two nearest stores to us), just seemed a bit far, this time. It’s OK to do these trips to buy beddings and candles but we needed somewhere a bit closer. […]
Ever since seeing a snowy photograph of Lake Bled, I’ve wanted to visit it. Slovenia has always seemed like one of those faraway places that you read about but aren’t quite sure exactly where it is. Well, we now know, living less than 15 minutes from one of the border crossings from Croatia into Slovenia. […]
We are very, very lucky to have found a house so close to everything that Istria has to offer, but also very close to both the Italian and Slovenian borders. Border checks are now quite a lot more stringent than when we first arrived, but there is a small crossing point, no more than 10 […]