Vacation Thread

[Gurgie]

Trieste

[Gurgie]

And lastly Venice. I literally have 100's of pics & tried to do my best to select the best ones. I'm using my phone, so so show up sideways, but when opened they're normal 🤣

[Johnnymac]

Wow, looks like a pretty amazing trip and all that great food and drink sounds excellent.  Anywhere you wish you could have spent more time and was there anywhere you are okay with only visiting once?

[Oliver]

These are pictures around my parents village & what's left of my Mom's childhood home & barn.

Whereabouts is that?

[Gurgie]

Wow, looks like a pretty amazing trip and all that great food and drink sounds excellent.  Anywhere you wish you could have spent more time and was there anywhere you are okay with only visiting once?

Venice is a one and done I think, no need to go back, same as Pula & Rovinj, nice to see, but not sure I'd need to see them again. Zagreb, Karlovac & Rijeka were all dead, but in August everyone is out of town & not very many tourists, so it would be nice to see those cities with more action. I'd go back to Zadar, Split & Sibenik. We spent 9 nights in Pirovac & just loved it, so if anything, I'd try to end my vacation doing that, relaxing on the beach. We will go back to Croatia to see Dubrovnik and some of the different islands as well. My cousin told us about a couple of wineries to go to for tastings as well, but we never made it to that. The Plitvice national park is another one and done, same as the falls at Rastoke. A few of the smaller towns we visited there would be no need to go back to as well. We also spoke about staying further down the coast in the Makarska Riviera area, so that's another option. My good buddy is retiring in January 2027 & moving there permanently, so we'll always have a place to stay, and my Aunt's house in Pirovac is always available to us, so two great options there   

[Gurgie]

These are pictures around my parents village & what's left of my Mom's childhood home & barn.

Whereabouts is that?

The actual village is Maletici, which where my Mom's old house is, and my Dad's village is right next to it (Novigrad Na Dobri). The biggest city nearby would be Karlovac, just 20mins to the East.

[Johnnymac]

Gurgie I had a vacation idea pop up on my feed that you'd probably enjoy.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1603356241300693

It's basically a Euro river cruise with every stop you play a round of golf at a Championship Level course in a different country. 

[Gurgie]

Gurgie I had a vacation idea pop up on my feed that you'd probably enjoy.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1603356241300693

It's basically a Euro river cruise with every stop you play a round of golf at a Championship Level course in a different country. 

Hello! That's quite the trip!!

[Blizzard]

Arrived in France today and for the Provence portion of the trip (1 week), the "VW Polo or similar" ended up being a Renault Clio. First impressions were that this being the "Alpine Esprit" trim, it looks very sharp inside and out. Controls were easy to use without much thought my phone paired through CarPlay easily. On the 170 km drive from Nice to Aix-en-Provence, it was stable and comfortable on the highway, and the ride is quite smooth despite a short wheelbase and large wheels. Unfortunately it's pretty buzzy and loud around town. Fuel economy so far (85% highway @ 110, 15% city) is at 5.2 L/100 km. Part of me regrets not booking a Yaris Hybrid which would have gotten even better fuel economy and would be smoother with better pickup around town.

[Blizzard]

Arrived in France today and for the Provence portion of the trip (1 week), the "VW Polo or similar" ended up being a Renault Clio. First impressions were that this being the "Alpine Esprit" trim, it looks very sharp inside and out. Controls were easy to use without much thought my phone paired through CarPlay easily. On the 170 km drive from Nice to Aix-en-Provence, it was stable and comfortable on the highway, and the ride is quite smooth despite a short wheelbase and large wheels. Unfortunately it's pretty buzzy and loud around town. Fuel economy so far (85% highway @ 110, 15% city) is at 5.2 L/100 km. Part of me regrets not booking a Yaris Hybrid which would have gotten even better fuel economy and would be smoother with better pickup around town.

Back home now! My average for the week over 900 km was 5.4 L/100 km, which I find great considering the roads in Provence. Grateful too since regular gas is 2€ per litre in France right now, well over $3 CAD, yikes. I've never experienced such insane driving roads and I highly recommend a visit to the region if you love driving. There's very few highways or secondary roads like we know here, it's all very twisty back roads with crazy elevation changes. We visited several vineyards and small villages, and a typical 40-50 km drive takes an hour due to such a low average speed. Often ended with one of us having a headache or motion sickness too, haha. For our second week in Côte d'Azur we didn't have a car, which I was more than happy with because the traffic and parking situation are terrible. After dropping off our bags at the Airbnb mid-afternoon, went to return the car at the airport. Took me an hour to drive 15 km.

My impressions with the car didn't change much over the week, it remained a very competent little car. Upon further research we had the nouveau Renault Clio, which is the brand-new generation still being sold alongside the old model. The "Esprit Alpine" model is also the top trim, which is unusual for a rental car. The business around town and again in the hills seems to be caused in part by the transmission, which takes a long time to change gears in both directions and sometimes searches for gears during speed changes. Before going part of me regretted not booking a manual transmission, but being there confirmed that an automatic was the right choice, since my occasional manual driving has been limited to flat streets in the suburbs, and I might have struggled with some of the hills and abrupt driving there.

[Blueprint]

Nice vacation! I'm always amazed at the fuel economy we get out of european rental cars. Then again, as tourists we're often on (fantastic) open roads and not commuting in traffic. From your description I wonder if your Clio had a single clutch DSG-type of transmission. I had that in a Citroën a decade ago and it was scary at times at low speeds, but fun on mountain passes. In England I went all in with a stick for my very first "reversed driving" experience. No issues but my brain was exhausted at the end of the trip!

I always rent sticks but rarely get them. My Citroën C3 in Tuscany was a diesel + stick, and a higher trim too with alloys and built-in nav (but no backup camera, go figure). A Focus diesel in Italy had an automated manual, the XC40 in Portugal was of course automatic, ditto the Jogger in the Netherlands and that Citroën C4 Grand Picasso with the signle clutch automated manual.

[Blizzard]

Nice vacation! I'm always amazed at the fuel economy we get out of european rental cars. Then again, as tourists we're often on (fantastic) open roads and not commuting in traffic. From your description I wonder if your Clio had a single clutch DSG-type of transmission. I had that in a Citroën a decade ago and it was scary at times at low speeds, but fun on mountain passes. In England I went all in with a stick for my very first "reversed driving" experience. No issues but my brain was exhausted at the end of the trip!

I always rent sticks but rarely get them. My Citroën C3 in Tuscany was a diesel + stick, and a higher trim too with alloys and built-in nav (but no backup camera, go figure). A Focus diesel in Italy had an automated manual, the XC40 in Portugal was of course automatic, ditto the Jogger in the Netherlands and that Citroën C4 Grand Picasso with the signle clutch automated manual.

Funny you mention the Citroën transmission. On my last Europe trip to Portugal in 2023 (first Europe trip of life), we took the smallest car possible since Europe, and ended up with a Citroën C1. That thing was a death trap and felt like driving a tin can. It probably had the same transmission as yours, and between the transmission just NOT shifting into any gear when you're trying to move or go up a hill, and the complete lack of power, it was terrifying. We drove from Lisbon to the Algarve and basically had the car floored for 3 hours straight to keep up with the 130 km/h traffic. Somehow we still managed something like 4.5 l/100 km  I've never been inside or driven a Mitsubishi Mirage but I imagine this C1 was like that, or worse.

This time we took one size up from that, and the Clio felt like a luxury car compared to the C1. It actually felt like a normal car and reminded me a bit of my old Rio.