(Virtual) East Bay (SF area) Travel Group Meeting - Sat, February 13, 2021

Count me in! Looking forward to more virtual travels and hearing about peoples car rental experiences.

Yes - Slovenia and Croatia are a great mishmash of cultures and histories and I want to find out more.
If I had more discipline I would already have read everything that's been translated into English by Dasa Drndic.

Count us in! See you then!

Please send link!

Wonderful combination! Would love to attend! Thanks!

Terrific, I've sent the link via pm to *Carol", "mln", "TravelMom" and "diveloonie". Please confirm you have it.

Our March meeting will focus on hill towns and islands. The format will be "five fave" pics (or thereabouts.) Do you have a favorite hill town or island that you'd like to share in a short format? Feel free to take liberties with "hill towns and islands" to include any small town destination in any country that you'd enjoy sharing!

I plan to join. Looking forward it!

Thanks,CW. I got the link. See you all soon!

Yes pls send link. I have been on a guided tour of Slovenia and Croatia, fabulous countries to visit.

Yes, please include me! Thank you so much!
Christine

Please save me a seat!

Fun! Pls send invite. Thx.

My last big trip before lockdown was a tour in Croatia with VBT. I had tried to book with RS, but by February 2019 the September 2019 tours were all booked solid. Not even a tiny spot for a solo female willing to share a room. But I’m a cyclist, so VBT was fine also.

The tour started and ended in Split. The bicycling was done on the islands of Brač and Hvar. I quite fell in love with Hvar Town. It turns out that there’s a “Panoramska” cam mounted high above the town. I use this to spy on the place. There’s just enough resolution to see cars driving around. (People are faint and spidery.) One can watch the sunset and moonset. It’s my idea of fun. Here’s the link: http://g0.ipcamlive.com/player/player.php?alias=59a019fd687c6.

In addition, I toured Zagreb and the Plitvice Lakes on my own. I recommend both. After the tour I took the ferry across the Adriatic to Italy (Ancona). This was quite a lovely experience, and I would highly recommend it. As you may know, a “ferry” in Europe is not at all the same thing as the Sausalito ferry, the Marthas’ Vineyard Ferry, the Fire Island ferry, etc. It is an oceangoing liner. A bit old-school and highly romantic. Very European.

I could forward some photos if you want. Maybe I could make a collage on Powerpoint or something.

Count me in! Ed has a prior engagement so we can talk about him ;-)

Looking forward to hearing about both beautiful counties.
Re: driving in Europe. We have rented several times in France, once in Italy (and obsessed for a full year that an Italian traffic ticket might arrive in the mail) and I drove on the left in the countryside of England/Scotland. Rental car is great for visiting Loire castles, Dordogne area, little towns in Provence and Tuscany/Umbria -- horrible in Lyon and returning to any big-city railroad station. Taking trains is an integral part of our European vacation experience.
See you all next week!

I've sent the meeting link to Barbara N, JS, Anne, Christine, SharYn and Laura B. Please make sure the message arrived.

Carol, are you sharing photos for Zagreb? I didn't see it in what you sent me, but wasn't sure. If not, perhaps Anne can share a few pics.

Anne, I also don't think she's covering Brač and Hvar, though I'm wondering if maybe we save those for the March meeting when we'll be sharing stories about hill towns and islands. I've never talked to anyone whose done a bicycle trip, so I think we all might enjoy hearing about that!

I'd love to have you share something in February as well. Can you please coordinate with Carol and see if she's covering Zagreb. I think she is sharing photos of Plitvice.

Please let me know what you decide to share!

Laura B, I also "obsessed for a year" about an Italian ZTL ticket after driving in Sicily. After picking up my friend at the airport, and dropping her off at her hotel, I got lost in the old town of Ragusa and ended up in their ZTL! I got out of there as fast as I could, but had no idea whether they had cameras. Apparently not where I got lost. (Now watch, a ticket will show up next week!)

Oh Ed, just imagine the fun we'll have talking about you when you're not there. Maybe you can still change your plans :-)

At the moment I think I will be able to pop in for a while.

I'd love to hear folks speaking about driving, and I may be able to add a bit to that discussion....

We did not go to Zagreb so it would be a great addition. Also we didn't get to any islands. And yes, I am sharing pictures of Plitvice. It seems we'll have the entire country covered after March. I'm getting worried that a return trip will get added to my already too long list of trips.

Hi, Catherine. I have a partial schedule conflict with a seminar which goes until 11:30 am PT / 2:30 EST Saturday but I could always watch the recording of the last half hour of the seminar at a later date once that link has been sent out to those registered. I’m not wild about driving so I’d rather not drive in Europe, but I’m always interested in armchair travel! Thanks.

Nigel and Valerie, I've sent you both the link. Please join us for whatever time period you can!

Valerie, perhaps we'll chat about driving (or not) at the start of the meeting so that you can make it for more of Slovenia and Croatia.

Anne, if you'd like to put together a few (3-5?) slides on Zagreb, that would be a great addition!

I would love to attend your virtual meeting.

I'd love to attend. My husband and I did a small ship cruise of Croatia and then toured both Croatia and Slovenia by car. It was a fabulous vacation.

Hi , Catherine. If it is possible to start with the driving discussion, that would be great. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll leave my seminar early and watch the recording of the last half hour of my seminar at a later date. Thanks!

Gayleen and Cathy, I've sent each of you the meeting link. Please check your messages.

Valerie, I've got the meeting agenda set up with our discussion topic to be first. I can't promise that it will last until 11:30am PT, but hopefully you won't miss too much!

Catherine, Great. Thanks! The Q&A portion of these virtual seminars usually begins about 15 minutes before the end of the seminar. So it should work well if I leave the seminar at 2:15 pm EST / 11:15 am PT.

Last call! There's still room in the car for our trip to Croatia and Slovenia. We'd love to have you!

And in Rick Steves' style, if anyone wants to make a Slovenian cream cake, we can all get our sugar high during our armchair travels!

Wow - today's presentations were near professional quality with the route maps and photo layouts; thanks to Carol and CWsocial for those trip reports. And the driving discussion is further nudging me towards getting away from the train and bus corridors and out into the countryside.

Great visiting with everyone!

What a great 2 hours! I could have spent money and gained less knowledge and fun.

I really enjoyed myself and learned a lot about Croatia and Slovenia - places I had heard of but never understood and had a complete misconception of.

Really good, and thanks to all three presenters and CWsocial and avirosemail for setting it up, and everybody for contributing.

(can you tell I liked it?)

That was a wonderful meeting! Thanks to all presenters for their presentations and to Avi for the Zoom event. Even though I dislike driving and don’t own a car, I ended up enjoying hearing about people’s stories about their various car rental and driving “adventures” while traveling overseas. Thanks to CWSocial for organizing this meeting.

Thanks to all involved! It was such a pleasant way to spend an afternoon and I loved seeing the presentation photos and the driving discussion. :)

As always, another great meeting today! Croatia and Slovenia have been on my radar for some time now. The excellent presentations and discussion this morning was just enough to help me get really serious about travel to these two countries.

Thank you!

This was an enjoyable meeting and mostly because we heard a lot of personal stories: driving stories, uh oh stories, etc. These experiences are what makes our travels so interesting and it was so great to hear the stories of everyone else!

Thanks to everyone for a great meeting, nice to meet everyone. The trip reports on croatia were a bonus. As I mentioned I was scheduled to go last September/October on the RS Best of the Adriatic. Sorry that my video display was on and off so many times, it was the first time I used Zoom on my phone. I was attempting to multitask while trying to deal with a power outage at my home in Portland, OR. Cheers!

Thanks to everyone for joining today - and especially our newcomers - and thanks for sharing your stories. It's fun to relive my travels by sorting through my own photos and reliving Croatia through yours, Carol.

mln, I hope you get to go back soon and pick up where you left off! And I look forward to the time when I can hear about everyone's future travels to Croatia and Slovenia!

Thank you CWsocial, me too! Thanks so much to you and Carol for your wonderful Croatia and Slovenia presentations, I’m ready to go right now!

And many thanks to all who shared their driving experiences. Has me thinking I may give it a go someday whereas I previously had zero inclination. While I love the trains, there is the advantage of driving to those areas not easily reachable by public transit.

I'm so sad I'm missed this! Just found this thread - I've been to Slovenia & rented cars in Italy and Turkey, but new here and just learning the ropes. Is there a way to watch a recording of the meeting?

Please count me in for next time.

Hi Carolyn, I'm so glad you found the travel group section! You are welcome to join us whenever your schedule allows. (As is anyone else who may be reading this.)

Our meetings - whether in-person or virtual (for now) - are usually the 2nd Saturday of every month. I post an announcement around mid-week of the week prior to each meeting. And you can mark your calendar with the dates of the "future meetings" listed in each announcement.

We don't record the meetings, but please join us in March when we'll be visiting hill towns and islands, with each person who wishes sharing a few slides (3-5?) in little 5-8 minute travel snippets. I'll send you a few more details via private message....please watch for it!

I do caution you .... these meetings tend to add to all of our travel wish lists :-)
Again, welcome, and we're looking forward to meeting you!

I'm so sorry I missed this meeting. My husband and I were engrossed in the impeachment hearing and thought it would be over by 11:00 but, as we all know, it wasn't. I would have loved to heard your memories of Croatia and Slovenia and shared ours.

Hi Gayleen, I'm sorry that we missed you. Hope to see you online again soon!