Avignon dawned fine and sunny but with a mistral; not the strongest we have taken off in but sufficiently strong to cause low level turbulence unto FL80. Staying at the airport meant that we only had five minutes walk to the airfield but we were delayed slightly by the Douanier being late “to control us” – apparently he had received a priority urgent call to do something else first.
Climbing to our cruising level of FL110 meant that we could see Corsica in the distance before leaving the coast of mainland France. The good departure weather soon became more cloudy as we went east catching up the cold front and once again a serious CB over Elba meant a course alteration to the south for avoidance.
This CB and its shower showed up well on the MFD with further rain shown over the Italian mainland.
By mainland Italy, we were largely in stratiform cloud but this became more convective with rain and the odd lightning flash seen both on the stormscope and in the cockpit with an increasingly bumpy ride and radio interference. At the FIR boundary, we gratefully accepted a descent into calmer conditions from Split Approach followed by vectors to the ILS and a landing in a gusty crosswind and rather hot and humid conditions.
Last time I was here was in 2005 with Humphrey catching up on an earlier PPL/IR Europe tour after being delayed by an alternator fault at Cannes. Then the airport was very quiet and we were parked in front of the terminal. Now it is very busy with holiday charter traffic and we were parked with a couple of other GA aircraft rather bigger than us off to the side. Fuel came quickly and we were efficiently looked after by the handling people who took us to the front of the passport queue for a quick exit to a taxi to our pleasant hotel in Trogir nearby (much nicer than the one that Humps and I stayed in before).
Out for an after flight beer in the old part of Trogir where we took refuge as a thunderstorm and rain broke overhead. So far, not much sign of holiday weather. Later we went out to dine at a recommended restaurant and got soaked getting there in anther thunderstorm!
We heard yesterday that Jim and Judi Thorpe have had some sort of an engine problem and see that they have returned to Gloucester today; we should have met them for dinner this evening but fear that they are now out of the trip. Tomorrow we have a short flight to Tirana where we meet up with the remaining aircraft and crews.
Avignon to Split 567 nm in 3hr 30 min