Switzerland - Venice - Croatia - Italy

We had a fantastic time in Switzerland with Markus & Sybille who live on the outskirts of Basel in a lovely country village called Hochwald. Basel is a lovely city that boarders France & Germany with the river Rhine running through the centre. The night we arrived the European Football Cup semifinals were being held in Basel, so there were a lot of visitors in the city to watch the game. Our hosts did a wonderful job of showing us their beautiful country, as well as a taste of France. They took us to Eguisheim in France for dinner one night. It was a 2 hour drive through a valley filled with vineyards & lots of medieval villages. The area renowned for Gewurztraminer wines which we got to sample along with a local Champaign & local food, which I must say it was all superb. They also took us on a scenic 2 day tour up into the Swiss Alps. We stayed in a traditional alpine village in Reckingen & visited a number of places including the Rhone Glacier Cave, Grimsel pass (where we saw icebergs floating in the lake), Meiringen (here we caught the cog train up the mountain to view the Reichenbach Waterfalls, then rode down the mountain on Monster Scooters) & finished the weekend at Lake Luzern. We couldn’t see too much in Luzern as there was a big yodeling competition being held in town & it was rather difficult to get around with all the crowds of people n the streets. We did hear some yodeling though & stopped off to see Markus & Sybille’s friends’, Carol & Sylvan, We had a wonderful dinner at their house, they put on a great show for us, we sat outside under the veranda having dinner watching thunder & lightening all around us.
We saw & experienced so much in the few days we spent in Switzerland, with stunning scenery – beautiful green mountains with lovely waterfalls, lakes & glaciers etc. not to mention the traditional food & wines, including horse meat which Markus did a great job of cooking on the BBQ. Thanks again to Markus & Sybille for their wonderful hospitality, we look forward to returning the favour when they visit us back in NZ.

We arrived back in Venice & had a farewell dinner with Trish & Morris, as they were heading back to Croatia the next day. They did a wonderful job of looking after Saliander while we were away , it was great knowing that she was well looked after. We spent a couple more days in Venice, then headed back over to Croatia, then down the coast to the Krka River. We followed the river 10nm up to Skradin where we left Saliander on anchor. We rode our bikes from Skradin up a 4 km canyon to Krka National Park. Here the river descends via a series of mini waterfalls over 500m square. They have built boardwalks to enable you to encircle the falls & see it weave through clumps of trees. It was quite unique & well worth the visit.

A couple of days later we continued our journey south & had a great sail under spinnaker to the island of Vis. Here we met up with Chris (Kiwi) & his wife Lee (Scottish), we had previously met them in Dubrovnik so it was great to catch up with them again. They had Kiwi friends (Mac & Kate) on board visiting for a few days, & another boat with Kiwis Phil & Sharon also arrived. Consequently we all had a great night together sharing a “pot luck” dinner & of course a few beverages.

It was a great way to farewell Croatia, as the next day we provisioned up & checked out of the country. Our destination was Crotone, 300nmls south on the Italian coast. It took 50 hours & for a change we sailed all the way except for the last hour – yahoooo!!! (a $600 saving in fuel). We had a tail wind which was ideal conditions for a spinnaker run, although for safety reasons we changed over to the head sail & main sail at night. Pete also broke the fish drought when he caught a beautiful Mahi Mahi, about 8-9kgs, yummmm!!! We arrived on Friday 11th July & went ashore to clear in, alas the immigration dept had closed & would not reopen until Monday. As we were anxious to continue on our way down to Sicily we were a bit put out by this news, however it turned out to be in our favour as the wind turned on Friday night & blew from the southerly direction where we were heading. It’s forecast to turn back to the north on Monday, so in the meantime we’re catching up on chores etc. Crotone is a fishing town & the harbour area has a good fish market. The fish are generally pretty small with the exception of the sword fish which is sold in most shops. They also have natural gas & the platforms are situated about 5nm off shore, along the Crotone coast line.