Mirjana, a town planner I met in Bath a couple of years back, proved herself a great holiday planner too. We saw Cigoc (cheegotch) in the middle of this horseshoe-shaped country, where the houses are all old wooden farms with storks nesting on the roofs - 300 storks in a village of 150 people. See the photo for proof. There are no restaurants, you just go into someone's house and ask for a beer and some lunch. We also saw the declaration of Velika Polana in neighbouring Slovenia as a European stork village, and had tons of free wine, free food and free music all provided by the village.

Croatia is an excellent place to eat ice cream too, and we spent many warm evenings sampling the flavours available. Most were delicious, a couple were, well, interesting. One was McShock, which used to be called Viagra, and was blue, and tasted of bananas. Another was called Porridge (actually 'Porec') and was blue and tasted of bananas. All for 20p per scoop.

When it comes to admission to the EU, I say let Slovenia and Croatia in right now.

Many thanks to Mirjana and her parents Ivan and Anna, who fed us with wonderful food (most from their garden) and lovely wine (from their own vineyard).