We were lucky with the weather. The forecast was calling for rain all night, but it didn’t do much more than drizzle on us. And it was quite mild with temperatures in the upper 50s and no wind. That’s why Kelly didn’t need her coat at first. I made sure to drink just enough wine and champagne to warm me up so that I could be the gentleman and give her my coat on the walk home .

Driving in Croatia:
This was the first time I had driven in mainland Croatia. (In May, I drove around the island of Brac, when Kelly’s parents came for a visit, click to read more.) I was happy to get to drive a stick, it’s always fun to me. Driving on the Croatian highway was fun and interesting. The main highway is relatively new, it opened up earlier this decade. The speed limt throughout most of it is 130kph, which is just over 80mph. Also, supposedly the speeds are not enforced too closely. There isn’t much traffic on the highway, and cars routinely sped past me, clocking well over 160kph/100mph.

But as Kelly intimated, both the drive from Split to Ljubljana and then the drive from Zagreb back to Split were very tiring. On the way to Ljubljana, we had our front and rear windshield wipers running most of the time, but they didn’t work so well, so visibility wasn’t the best. And on the way home, it was dark the whole time, and the highway has no lights, so I had my brights on the majority of the time. And the highway takes you up and down and through* the Croatian mountainside. During a sunny day, it’s probably a fun drive – but in poor conditions, not quite as much!

*Between Split and Zagreb, we drove through twenty eight tunnels. The longest tunnel was nearly 6km/4mi long! On the way home, I was always happy to encounter the tunnels because it was much easier to see in them than outside in the dark. One appeal of the dark on a clear night – I don’t think I have ever seen so many stars in the sky, definitely not while in a car.

Weekend / Winter Weather:
As we already said, it was nice and mild for New Year’s Eve. The rest of the weekend was considerably colder. Our first night in Ljubljana was in the low 40s with rain, and the next day temperatures started around 40 and dropped all day with a rain/sleet mix. We were hoping to walk around town that night with snow falling around us, but it wasn’t to be . And on the last morning, temperatures were around freezing, but it was a perfectly clear day with a bright blue sky, which made it pleasant enough.