Croatia -- Day 7

The end of a holiday always comes so quickly, and so it was again for us in Croatia.

We left Murter fairly early in the morning, and drove to Zagreb, stopping at the Nikola Tesla memorial, and the Plitvice Lakes national park.

Tesla was borne in Croatia, and we visited his childhood home. 

It was a fun, geeky stop.  A few months ago, Kim and I visited Niagara Falls, which also has a significant memorial to Tesla.  Tesla designed the first hydroelectric power station at Niagara.

We also saw a demonstration of his original 1-million-volt Tesla coil, which he built in 1899 in Colorado Springs, CO.

There was also a replica of the worlds first remote controlled vehicle -- this little boat built by Tesla too.

We walked through the museum for a bit, and read a bit about his life while following a timeline throughout.  But we needed to leave before we really completed the tour, as we wanted to save plenty of time for the Plitvice Lakes National Park.

Plitvice is truly the jewel of Croatia, covering several hundred square miles of pristine wilderness just inside of Croatia's border with Bosnia.

We parked, had lunch, and then walked around the park for about 3 hours, starting with a big downhill trek to this little pier, where we caught a boat across one of the lakes.

The water is absolutely crystal clear, and the fish population is thriving.

The lakes themselves are a series of cascades, bringing fresh water down from the high mountain elevations.

Having cross the little lake by boat, we spent most of the next two hours traversing several kilometers of boardwalks.

We walked past literally hundreds of waterfalls, of all shapes and sizes.

Each of the waterfalls crashed into another "lake" (maybe more like ponds?).

Perhaps most amazing were the colors of each of the lakes.  There were so many shades and varieties of blue, green, blue-green, green-blue, green-green, blue-blue...

We got to pay for all this running water somehow.  And of course, it started to rain.  Again.  We spent most of the second half of our walk in a bit of a drizzly rain.  I didn't mind getting wet so much as I was disappointed with the lighting for what should have been some amazing pictures.

The vegetation was almost tropical, which is remarkable considering how cold (icy, snowy) it gets here in the winter.

The lakes themselves are formed by the vegetation, which is pretty cool.

We spotted a couple of frogs, and lots of fish.

I really liked how tastefully the boardwalks were constructed.

I thought they fit quite well into the scenery, protecting the environment without ruining the views.  I found it notable that there were no handrails anywhere to be found.

We shot two cameras all day, Kim on the SLR and I was on smaller Kodak digital zoom.

Here you can see the vegetation and microbial life under the water forming a wall for another lake.  Unbelievable!

Few of the waterfalls were more than a couple of meters.

But each and every one was picturesque.

We had quite a nice time, and very much enjoyed the park.  Plitvice should not be missed on any trip to Croatia!

We drove the next few hours on "the old road" (ie, not the free way) back to Zagreb.  We had an early flight on Saturday morning, so we opted to spend Friday night in the city.  Zagreb is the busy capital of Croatia -- an interesting, old city in eastern Europe.

We stayed at the Palace Hotel, which was a stylish, fancy hotel and very centrally located.

Ante joined us for dinner at a nice restaurant with the tables directly in the middle of the street.  It was a busy, bouncing little place on a Friday evening, full of chic, interesting Croatians.

Near our table, there was a public water fountain that garnered the interest of dozens of passersby during our meal.  I watched with interest as kids played with the faucet, nuns took drinks, and bums washed dishes.

Meanwhile, back at the dinner table, I enjoyed the chicken gnocchi special.

And Kim had a spinach pasta with mushrooms.

Once again, we appreciated having Ante around to show us Zagreb.

For dessert, we feasted on chocolate-and-hazelnut crepes.

After dinner, Ante took us on a long, evening stroll around Zagreb.  We covered several miles, and really got a good feel for the city.

He pointed out the highlights and told us stories about growing up in Zagreb.  Like any classic European city, the skyline is dominated by its cathedral's and churches.

Perhaps the most famous of Zagreb's churches is the colorfully tiled roof of St. Mark's.  It bears the coat of arms of both Croatia and the city of Zagreb itself.

We also wandered through several of Croatia's public parks, each of which were crawling with teenagers and giant jugs of booze.

Walking back past our hotel, I thought we were just about done for the night, but Ante had plans for us otherwise.  Each of us had 3 servings of Croatian brandy -- from right to left, one made from honey, another from blueberries, and the third from walnuts.

 Kim liked the one made from blueberries the most, while I favored the walnut brandy.

I'm so glad we did stay out, as it was a lot of fun to chat again with them about our week in their country!

What a week, what a country, what wonderful people!  To Ante, thanks so much for your gracious hosting and all the attention and information and help and fun.  And to Ante's friends, thanks so much for treating us so warmly and inviting us into your lives for a couple of days.

:-Dustin

Croatia -- Day 6

Thursday was a nice, quiet day, waking up in Dubrovnik, and driving back to the island of Murter.

We slept in, and enjoyed a few minutes relaxing on the balcony, feeling the breeze off of the Adriatic.  We made an "appointment" to use the jacuzzi in the hotel spa, but upon investigating, we found that the jacuzzi was little more than a 2-person bath tub (hence the requirement to have an "appointment").  So we politely skipped our reservation, and started driving back to Murter.

Again, we passed through a little strip of Bosnia.  This time, we stopped in Neum for a coffee.

The high-speed freeway is still under construction, on his way to Dubrovnik.

We made it back to Murter by the early afternoon, and finally had some blue skies and sun.  So we donned our bathing suits and walked back down to the beach which held the wedding the previous weekend.  All of that was cleaned up, and Kim made me relax on the beach for a few hours.  (I get so restless...)

She's oh-so-much-better at relaxation than I am.  :-)

We enjoyed the quiet, sandy beach, though, and even went for another chilly swim.

Back at Ante's house, he was in the process of preparing a very special dinner for us ... a Croatian delight -- peka!

It's sort of like a barbecue, I guess.  Most houses in Dalmatia have this outdoor kiln, or brick chimney setup, specifically for peka cooking.  First, you burn some wood (Almond wood, here, though Ante says that's unimportant), until you have embers or coals.

Then you place a metal pan full of meat, potatoes, onions, and just a little bit of oil on the hot bricks.  You cover that pan with a metal lid (that's the peka), which completely covers the pan, and reaches the hot bricks below.  Finally, you scoop the hot coals and cover the lid itself with the hot smouldering embers.

And then you wait.  1-2 hours, actually.  Oh, and you can't lift the lid at any point to "check", as you'd lose all of your heat inside.

In the mean time, Ante and I drank a couple of litres of beer, and Kim drank some of Ante's family wine, and we Skyped with a few friends and family.

Eventually, the moment of truth...  Ante brushed off the coals, and very, very, very carefully lifted the lid, so as to avoid spilling ashes on our food.

And mmmm, did it smell good!  Cooked to perfection.

Kim set a lovely place setting outside on the porch, and dug into our giant pan of meat.  What an evening :-)

Our last night on Murter, and we had an awesome time.  We talked work, travel, and politics.  Ante gave us some really interesting perspectives on Croatia's history and politics within our lifetimes.

As you can tell, we had an awesome host.  If you're even considering a trip to Croatia, check out Ante's travel company, Jamming Adventures, and I'm sure you won't be disappointed ;-)

:-Dustin

Croatia -- Day 5

We work up on Wednesday morning to an unfamiliar sight ... sunshine!

So we had a Kimmie-approved breakfast at the hotel and went directly to the beach below our room.

I can attest that the Adriatic is every bit as cold as the Mediterranean.  

But I took a swim none the less!  Refreshing...

Spending the morning on the beach, we set out for our touring of the old in the early afternoon.  We were ready for our daily intake of ice cream, but this character creeped Kim out enough that we had to find a different gelato shop.  Yikes :-o

Ice cream in hand, we started our tour of the city walls.  A couple of miles in circumference, we spent several leisurely hours covering every meter of the perimeter.  The walls are incredibly tall, thick and imposing.

They offer unmatched views into the heart of the city, and around the surrounding land-, sea-, and city-scapes.

We walked counter clockwise, starting near the drawbridge and the main city gate.

It seems strange sometimes to see daily life still taking place in this historical city.  Like Split, homes and apartments have simply evolved into the ancient walls.  This laundry is strung between two stone walls nearly 1,000 years old.

It's really quite exposed on the top of the wall, with very little in the way of shade.  Or rain cover.  Of course, we didn't bring raincoats or umbrellas this time, but lo and behold, it rained.  A lot.

We dipped into a little cafe where I had a couple of beers and Kim had a tea.  We waited out the storm from inside there.

Although the hard wind and rain had past, there was still a pretty steady drizzle.  Near the halfway point of the walk around the city walls, there is an entrance/exit with access to the city.  We stepped down off of the wall for a bit and had lunch.  Once again, wine, cheese, olives, oil, vinegar, and bread.  It was delightful.

After lunch, the sun came out and we climbed back up the wall to finish our walk.  The sheltered harbor on the back side is beautiful, and serene.

We're much happier when the weather cooperates.  Now we can hit our stride :-)

There were a few places where roofs of some buildings rested on top of the city walls.  I enjoyed getting a close look at the simple mechanics of the clay tiles.  I'm still a bit baffled by how expensive such tile roofing is back home.  It looks so simple...

We really enjoyed the various perspectives of the city, mountains, coast, and sea presented by the walk around the wall.  Having spent a few hours and completed the walk, we made our way back down into the old town itself.

Kimmie being the crafty crocheter,  she enjoyed flipping through some of the handmade table linens for sale.  She picked up a souvenir that should look nice on our dining room table.

When booking accommodations for Dubrovnik, I tried to book the Hilton, as it's quite centrally located.  It was unfortunately totally booked.  We were nearby though, so we dipped in for a quick look.  This hotel was quite famously bombed and burned during the last war, as the city of Dubrovnik was under siege by the Serbian and Montenegrin aggressors.

We both remarked at how much the hotel looked like it belonged in New Orleans :-)

From the top of the city walls, we spotted two different cafes, outside and below the wall, precipitously perched on some rocks overlooking the sea.  We spent quite some time wandering on the interior of the walls themselves, trying to find the magic portal out to either one of these two cafes.  We accidentally walked through several private courtyards and gardens, reaching dead-ends and tiny cul-de-sacs.  I even went back through the pictures on my camera, to make absolutely sure that we had in fact saw the two cafes, and had not just imagined them.

Alas, we found them eventually, and had a wonderful evening, watching the sun go down.

As we sat there for a couple of hours, we watched with great interest as a film crew setup on the city wall and filmed 3 or 4 scenes.  We could see a guy with a gun walk up to the wall, and pretend to jump.  After several takes of that, a second guy runs to the edge of the wall to look down.  Finally, to finish the evening, a stunt man slung at least 4 sacks of sand over the wall, presumably to film the splash.  It was really quite amazing!

We figured we were watching a made-for-TV Croatian, Hungarian, or Turkish film.  But upon returning home and doing a bit of research, we're pretty sure this was the film crew for Ashley Judd's new TV series, Missing, which sounds like a gender-inverted take on Liam Neeson's Taken.

We watched until the film crew tore down their equipment, which was just as the daylight left us too.  What a gorgeous evening :-)

We left the seaside cafe and headed back to our hotel on the bay, outside of the old town, where there's actually a quiet walk with a number of nice restaurants.  We had a relaxed evening in that part of town, and another delicious dinner.

Dubrovnik!  What a romantic place.  We had a great time, and would go back in a heartbeat.  And we're really looking forward to see the Missing TV series, and trying to spot the scene we saw filmed here!


:-Dustin