Croatia, Day 4 - You know you have a great life when you don't want to go back to Venice!

The beautiful harbor in Split
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We all slept in on Sunday morning while the world's best skipper, Josko, sailed the boat back to Split.

We had to get back by noon or so, since we still had quite a drive ahead of us.

We got back to split, and said (a tearful) goodbye to Josko.

We headed in to downtown Split, where our marina was, to see the sights and have some espresso and gelato before hitting the road.

The old ruins of Diocletian's Palace in downtown Split - so beautiful!
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Kevin, Lauren and Chris decided to sit at a cafe and relax, while Abbey and Jen opted to be touristy and see the sights.

We were glad we did, the city was beautiful!!

The center of town is built around the remians of an old, Roman palace buily by Diocletian.

We walked through the underground sub-structure, the modern-day entrance, and came out in the middle of an incredible square, surrounded by massive roman ruins.

The beautiuful old bell tower and the old Roman church, in the middle of Split.
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There was an enormous church with a high bell tower; we were able to catch a glimpse inside, but because it was a Sunday morning they were holding mass so we moved on.

We wandered around a little more, and found an acapella group - why is it that everywhere we go we find groups of singing men?!?

We listened to them for a minute or two, but had to move on - we were set to meet back up with Kevin, Lauren and Chris and hit the road.

We headed back to the car, stopping of course for a quick coffee and some gelato-to-go -- we had to spend the rest of our krunks!!

The beautiful Croation countryside - not a bad view for a six hour drive!
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We all met back up, and decided to head back to Venice -- Kevin put it exactly right when he said, "you know you have a great life when you don't want to go back to Venice!"

We hit the road, ready for the long drive ahead...

The border control on the way back to Italy was even more lax than on the way in to Eastern Europe -- again, thank GOD we got that permission slip from Avis.

We stopped a few times along the way for bathroom and snack breaks, but for the most part drove straight to Italy.

The beautiful sunset as we arrived back in Italy - a perfect ending to a perfect weekend!
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Over the border, we hit some bad traffic -- Kevin (who is, I'm sure, great at driving a regular car) was a trooper while we sat in traffic.

After about an hour, Chris asked "What is that smell?"  We had all been thinking it but didn't want to offend anyone if it was them (we all hadn't showered in a few days now...)

We rolled down the windows, and were overpowered by the smell of burning -- we thought (hoped) that maybe there was a factory nearby...

But, alas, the hood of the car started smoking a little and the smell of burning rubber got worse - we realized that Kevin (who we love) had been riding first for the last hour in all that traffic.

Note: Abbey doens't know what "riding first" actually means, but Jen insists it is not good - and, after the smell of the car on fire, Abbey believes her.

Kevin assured us all by saying, "guys, the car isn't on fire, PER SE..."

We had been in the car for so long that we found this entire scenario hilarious.

As we rolled through the toll booth, the hood smoing and the car smelling like a giant burning tire, we all laughed hysterically as the toll collector looked at us like we were crazy - and making a face at the horrible smell.

After driving for a while, the smell started to go away a little (and, at least the hood stopped smoking).

We finally got back to the rental car place in Venice (hooray!) and were able to leave the car in the lot -- good thing, since an employee probably would have asked what the hell that smell was, and what we did to the car.

Note: we never got a call from Avis, which Kevin takes as an indicator that he didn't completely destroy the car, its belt or its transmission -- thank goodness.

We finally got back to Venice, and after a quick vaporetto ride were home!