We hiked today from our camp site in Medveja to Lovranska Draga (village) and then on to Hotel Draga Di Lovrana, which is about 400 meters up on Mount Učka. The hike up to Lovranska Draga was great! It was fascinating to learn about the terraced agriculture that went all the way up to the village from the ocean at one time. There is still some terraced agriculture up at the remaining village, but the slope up doesn't have agriculture on it anymore - just the remains of old terraces. After hiking up to Lovranska Draga, which is a crazy little village clinging to the side of a mountain in what looks like the middle of nowwhere, we continued on the road to Hotel Draga Di Lovrana.
Before we set out, our campground host had told us we could walk all the way up to the hotel, which we could see up on the hill from the campground. He said it was a restaurant, so we made it our destination for the day, thinking that we'd have a pivo when we got there. As soon as we walked in, the staff clearly decided we were completely unsavory and unwelcome Riff-Raff, not fit to sit near their well-coiffed, Beamer-driving, Rolex-wearing clientelle, and we then became victims of their rampant Raff-ism. They put us in the least appealing seating area, even though there were several tables near the spectacular view, and then ignored us for about 20 minutes before finally serving us our pivo. I was quite peeved, but I decided to be the bigger Riff-Raff and just be pleasant about the whole thing. Very disappointing... according to Trip Advisor, everyone else who goes there has a wonderful time. I guess they didn't show up looking like hiking Riff-Raff.
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After our hike today, we walked around Medveja a little bit, and we saw this crazy "Rotel" (rolling hotel) bus trying to pull into our campground. It has seating in the front, and then, it looks like sleeping cabins in the back. It's ENORMOUS! www.rotel.de.
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This morning, at our kava stop, I asked our server about tipping. I have not been able to get consistent information about what people do, or expect, here. He confirmed that that is because tipping here is completely inconsistent. Zero percent is normal. Round-up is normal. Ten percent is normal. Twenty percent is normal. GAH! The only thing worse than conventions that I don't like is a complete LACK of conventions!
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I've decided that France and Croatia are my two favorite places from this trip. I've been doing a LOT of smiling lately, and it's largely because the people here make me want to smile at them. France was the same. Although, I have to admit that the Croatian coast is LESS friendly and welcoming than inland. I think they get inundated with so many tourists here (and probably a lot of them are rude and/or demanding) so it's not as exciting for them when people show up. I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the people inland who don't have tourist burn-out.
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