Don't Worry Be Happy

Croatia might be one of the world's oddest shaped countries - if it is shaped like a backwards question mark, then Dubrovnik is the dot at the bottom, separated from the rest by the narrow corridor of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The economy of Dubrovnik depends a great deal on tourism and the main attraction is the old city. I’ve been on the walls of several cities but this one is pretty remarkable. It was built in the 14th C, suffered some damage during the war in the 90s.  Because it’s been so hot and humid here, we chose a slightly overcast day, early in the morning, to walk the 2+km around. It took about 1.5 hours and as we were leaving the hordes of tourists arriving made us glad we’d started early. Some views from the walls: Massive cliffs down to the sea: Although it’s mostly tourists staying in the old town there are some permanent residents with vegetable or ornamental gardens. A panorama from the topmost corner. And inside the walls at night: With all the walk...

I’m not sure we (in the west) can think of Bosnia Herzegovina without images of war, bombing, and continuously fighting factions. So our day trip from Dubrovnik to Mostar was a nice surprise - similar to the surprise I had the first time I visited the old part of Quebec City. The old city is lined with very uneven cobblestones, making walking precarious. They have been restored with the stones positioned flat but were originally placed on end, which are much easier to navigate. Original cobblestones: New cobblestones: The tourist souvenirs reflect the Turkish influence (the Ottomans were here) - lots of decorated brass, silver and copper. The main highlight of the tour is the old bridge, damaged during the war in 1995 but restored in 2004. It has great historical significance, dividing the city along religious lines. The guy who bombed the bridge was recently found guilty of war crimes but committed suicide by poisoning himself in the prisoners box last year. Local men jump off...

A few more islands, many steep hills and several more of the ‘most beautiful village of Croatia’.  We also had a half day of River rafting - few rapids but mostly just peaceful floating. I took their advice and left my camera behind so no photos of that.  We were delayed one day by a massive thunderstorm but it wasn’t long before all traces of the rain disappeared with the sun. Otherwise great weather though a bit warm at times for the regular bikers.  On our 2nd last night we docked in Split and had a city tour of Diocletian’s palace. Diocletian was a Roman emperor who was the first one to ‘retire’ rather than be assassinated as was the tradition. He built the palace as a retirement home. It looks a bit run down now which is understandable since it is 1700 years old.  In the central piazza we came across a group of musicians playing for some traditional dancers.  The island of Solti is known for its honey and we visited a third generation bee keeper for an inte...

If Monday’s cycle was hard, Tuesday’s was gruelling. Almost 60 km with about 3500 feet of elevation gain on the island of Korčula. For lunch we stopped at a local residence for a typical Croatian Meal - of course lots of grilled meat. Accompanied by the local, homemade wine posit.  Lamb, chicken, pork, yummy sausages.  (For a country with so much coastline fish is almost an exception.) We ended the day with a 15 percent grade - downhill fortunately.  Each little port we moor in is jammed with yachts, catamarans, sailboats, fishing vessels. In fact we often have to double, triple park so that one night, in order to get to shore we had to go through 3 other boats we were alongside. There have been up to 6 boats tethered together.  This boat is loaded with fish traps: Each of these villages is full of ancient history but honestly it’s all starting to blur together. This morning we also had a lesson describing more recent Croatian history. To say the last 100 years has b...

You’ll be happy to know that once we made it to the boat everything has gone well. The first day of cycling took us across the island of Hvar - taking us past a UNESCO site where the ancient Greeks set up an agricultural landscape. The roads and fields are lined with stone walls interspersed with vast vineyards, olive groves and tidy vegetable gardens. There is an archeological site containing Roman baths. It seems these islands have been inhabitated by Many different groups of people.   Here we are getting ready to leave the first day: One of the little villages is nicknamed Venice - you can see the canal here: The boat then headed to the stunningly beautiful island of Vis where we spent the night.  On Vis we cycled across the island and back about 30 km. Doesn’t seem like much but it included straight uphill for 1000 ft of elevation, then down. Then straight up again another 1000 ft of elevation and back down. Fortunately we (like most on this tour) had booked ebikes which w...

All I can say is that we had a 10:30 flight booked so we would get to our boat by 2:30 but it turned out we’d actually booked a 10:30 PM  flight. With no other flights available we ended up taking a 6.5 hour bus ride from Zagreb to Split, waited for 3 hours, then a 2 hour ferry to meet up with the boat.  We discovered the error after we’d checked our bags - have you ever tried to get your suitcase back after it disappears down that conveyor belt? I’ll spare you most of the details but needless to say this was accompanied with frantic phone calls, mad rushing and confusion, and a bit of stress (to say the least). By 11 PM we’d met up with the boat, found our cabins, hopped into bed and started to relax.  Here’s the boat at night.

It may come as a surprise to you that the Croatian name for Croatia is Hrvatska. We figured that out after we saw all the local wines listed with an HR after them. How Hrvatska tuned into Croatia is a mystery to me.  Zagreb has many many museums (architecture, history, ethnographic, mushroom, torture) but Marj and I decided to check out the quirky Museum Of Broken Relationships. Each small, but significant, item has a story to tell, some heartbreaking, some devastating, some hilarious and some tragic. Here are a few samples.  This was a bit humorous - a photo of a lake. The accompanying description says "Florida lake where I skipped school with my boyfriend. The arrow indicates the first spot I saw a penis in the sunshine." This is the ‘toaster of vindication’ - "When I moved out and across the country I took the toaster. That’ll show you. How are you going to toast anything now. " A Lynksis router. "We tried. Not compatible." We then did a short city bus ...