Crawling Croatia

Zagreb, the great surprise. Part 2: the rest of the story

2009-10-03T13:30:00.013-04:00

Aside from our hotel frustration with the Hotel Dubrovnik, we loved Zagreb. We did a lot of walking around, seeing the sights. The architecture is varied - sure, a bit of Soviet squat, but not too bad:

Plus these different styles:

I got an aching back and had to rest

One of the main features of the old part of Zagreb is the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. You can see it from most parts of town (the part we were in, anyway), and it is striking. It used to be known as St Stephen's, apparently, and like most cathedrals, it's permanently under repair. Construction began in the second half of the 13th century, on the site of an earlier Romanesque cathedral that was destroyed by the Tartar invasion in 1242.

You can't get it all in one shot - here's my best effort:
Closer, the door:
Closer still, above the door:
And there's a huge fountain in front, shiny with gold:
Golden angels down below:
There were little straw wreaths hanging on each of the fountainheads - don't know why:
I assumed it was Jesus at the top - isn't it always? But no! When we zoomed in on the photo, the breasts were a dead giveaway: Must be Mary.
There were security gates on either side of the building so you could only see the front and enter at the door, but I shot this picture of the side, through the security gate:
You really can see the spires from all sorts of places, which makes it easy if you get lost!

no idea who that guy is!

To the left of the cathedral was this magnificent building - we don't know what it is, but we loved the look of it:

It had this clock on the wall - I love the textures and colors:

The area around this church does seem to be dominated by religious life. We were eating pizza our first night, and a monk dashed into a nearby door, with his little monk hood flapping behind him and his rope belt swaying around his waist. Blurry nuns dash around -

And I'm probably going to burn in hell for this, because the guy was probably a famous and important priest or something, but I saw this in a window of what seems to be a church store, and I thought it was a drawing of the Joker, from Batman.
We walked through a big park, through what seemed to be a gerontology fair. The first giveaway was all the old people, and the second was some word on a sign that seemed to have gerontol in it. Here we have dancing with the oldies: The Anitas!
Zagreb has a really great market, too - flowers, produce, fish, bakeries, meat, honey and olive oil, handmade crafts, the whole market 9 yards. It's called the Dolac fruit & vegetable market, and it's been going on since the 1930s.

flowers
Produce
We bought some grapes to go with our dried figs
Fish (a whole large building full of fish stalls!)
Meat. In a country that loves meat so much, you'd expect to find butchers.
Bakeries (but hey, the bread was surprisingly bland and uninteresting around Croatia!)
There's a lot of live music around the Josipa Jelacica square (Trg Josipa Jelacica, they call it). There were always guys playing guitars of some kind, usually an accordion player, and always someone on some kind of bagpipe. I wanted to surreptitiously take a photo of this guy, but he turned and posed for me. It was kind of cute.
We also saw the Stone Gate, the eastern gate to medieval Gradec Town. According to legend, there was a big fire in 1730 that destroyed every part of the wooden gate except for the painting of the Virgin and Child. People believe that the painting possesses magical powers and come regularly to pray before it, light candles, and leave flowers. Square stone slabs are engraved with thanks and praise to the Virgin.
We saw St Mark's Church - the roof looked like a lego design to me, but Lonely Planet calls it "one of Zagreb's most emblematic buildings." The roof was constructed in 1880, and the tiles depict the medieval coat of arms of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia.
It was very sunny that day.
We saw another church, the Jesuit Church of St Catherine, I think, that featured this artwork above the door:

creepy! cut-off arms, really?
And the fisherman being saved, as he always is:
In the same area is the sabor, the Parliament of Croatia:
From that balcony, Croatian independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire
was declared in 1918.

We walked through this pathway of chestnut trees; the wind was blowing chestnuts
down like hail, so we didn't stay long. But isn't it beautiful?
And finally, Trg Josipa Jelacica - Zagreb's main orientation point and the geographic heart of the city. Our hotel looked over this great square. This is where people in Zagreb arrange to meet. The square is named for Ban Jelacic, the 19th century governor who led Croatian troops into an unsuccessful battle with Hungary in the hope of winning more autonomy. The statue stood in the square from 1866-1947, when Tito ordered its removal because it was linked too closely with Croatian nationalism. It was returned to the square in 1990.

Definitely click this one to see the whole thing!

We had gorgeous, gorgeous weather our whole vacation. The morning we left, it was cold and rainy, and the square was empty, with the exception of these umbrellaed stands that appeared overnight - no idea what they're for.
More to come, filling in spaces, but this is it for now. The entire set of photos can be found here. I also have another summary post to come.

Zagreb, the great surprise. Part 1: Hotel Dubrovnik

2009-10-03T13:00:00.007-04:00

Maybe because I'd read something in Lonely Planet that described Zagreb as featuring squat Soviet architecture, or maybe it was because I'd read not to expect much of the food in Zagreb, but I had very low expectations of the city. As in, I didn't think I'd like it. I thought it would be a major and unattractive hub, the place we fly in and out but not much more. The end of the trip, where we gather to leave, saturated by the sorrow of vacation's end.

Boy was I wrong. Marc had a more appropriate idea of it, so he wasn't as surprised as I was. It is such a European city - very stylishly dressed women, cafe culture deluxe, Italian shoe stores by the dozens, a variety of architectural styles, and a cosmopolitan feeling. I really liked Zagreb a lot, though they weren't wrong about the food. At all. But more on that in a sec. First: The Hotel Dubrovnik.

Hotel Dubrovnik is always rated among the top hotels in Dubrovnik, wherever you look. There aren't that many hotels in the center of town anyway, so it definitely has location going for it, but sites like TripAdvisor and Booking.com that feature customer reviews all feature rave reviews. It was a splurge, but we thought it would be worth it. When we got to the hotel, it didn't look at all like it did on the hotel website. The website showed a stately older stone-faced building overlooking the square, but the hotel entrance is this hideous, tall, glassy-windowed monstrosity.

Paging the 1980s, and don't neglect to notice the filthy windows. Like you could ignore them.

We got to our room and were extremely disappointed; it was old and drab, and the view was not of the square - couldn't even see it if you leaned out the window. The only way to see out was to open the windows, because they were so filthy. I didn't even take any photos of the room or the view, it was so bitterly disappointing. We were on the 7th floor, and the entire place seemed empty. We never saw another person anywhere, no signs of housekeeping, nothing. It was like we were all alone in this old empty place. Kind of like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, but without the charm.

On our 2nd day, when we returned to the hotel after doing some sightseeing, we had no electricity. I assumed we had made some kind of mistake so I called the front desk. I kid you not, this is what happened:

Me: Hi, I'm in room 720, and we can't make our lights work.
Desk clerk: Yes, I know, we don't have any electricity. *pause pause pause pause* I see you're scheduled to stay with us again tonight.
Me: Yes. (and I'm assuming the lack of electricity is just a momentary affair at this point)
Desk clerk: Would you like a room with electricity?
...
...
...
Me: (sarcastic thoughts racing through my mind) Yes. We would like a room with electricity.
Desk clerk: OK, you'll have to come downstairs to the front desk and we'll, you know, etc etc etc.

That's literally what she said. And she didn't have a helpful attitude, either. So Marc went downstairs and got a key to a new room, which was "in the other building." We were told to wait 10 minutes, while they got the room ready.

So we packed everything, went downstairs, and walked through the corridor to the "other building." There was no reception area, but we found the elevator.

And voila. We were in the building we'd expected to be in - the stone-faced building facing the square. The room was an awkward space, you couldn't really walk past the bed without hitting into a chair, but it was newer and fresher, and our windows opened directly onto the square, with a 5th floor view. If we hadn't had the 'no electricity' issue, we'd never have known we were shunted into the crappy old building. We were so angry.......hell, we still are.

Here's the view we had on our last day and night:

If you happen to find this blog because you're looking for information about the Hotel Dubrovnik, here's our best advice: go elsewhere.

More about Zagreb in the next post - things improve a great deal!

Bol on Brac

2009-10-03T12:05:00.008-04:00

Parking was so difficult in Split we only ventured walking distances from our hotel, which meant we saw all we wanted to see in a day and a half. We took the car ferry from Split to the island of Brac (pronounced Bra-ch), which was about an hour off the coast by car ferry. The main thing Brac is known for is its white marble - used not only in Split everywhere, but also used in the White House. Yep. Have you ever heard that before?!

Bol (pronounced Bowl) is the primary place to visit on the island, which is on the opposite side from the ferry landing at Supetar.

It only took 30 minutes to drive there, and it was a really beautiful drive. We stopped at the first little village, Nerezisca, and walked around a bit. We saw people, but no one seemed the least bit bothered by us. You know how you can go to a small town and people kind of stare, like they're suspicious of you in some way? None of that in Nerezisca. An old woman passed us and greeted us in Croatian, and just kept going. Otherwise, people just kept on about their business.

Very different architecture here - few red tile roofs:
Lots of this very flat stone used for roofs, instead - at least on the older places.
Plus a sweet little goat in someone's yard:
Here's the village center - a restaurant/bar/cafe on the right, a little store, and a post office:

That must be the old church in the middle - they have a newer one now, outside the center of the village.

Someone's yard.

We drove on to Bol, and after a very harrowing drive down tiny little narrow alleys that fit one car only - though we did meet oncoming cars - we found the place we sought, the Villa Giardino. We rang the bell and walked into this little zone of pure paradise.

The Villa Giardino, owned by Christine. Under the arbor, over the garages, is a beautiful terrace where we ate breakfast, which came with homemade fig jam.
And this little patio was just outside our room:
The backyard:
With a gazebo:
This shot doesn't do it justice, but there was art everywhere. Sculptures on windowsills,
in hallways, on shelves and ledges, in the garden. Strangely, most of the art was female. Nude women in every position, some erotic, some explicit, some conceptual. Curious. Even some of the large stones in the garden were female, when I looked at them from a different perspective it was obviously female form.

Bol faces the harbor, and like every other place we visited along the coast, comprises dozens of cafes, restaurants, and shops.

The main thing Bol is known for is Zlatni Rat, a strange but packed-with-people beach which we didn't visit since that's not our kind of scene. Here's the classic shot of it; see all the hordes of people lining the beach? Yech.

Walking toward that beach is a very nice path, lined with market stalls (souvenirs, of course), and art, and strange trees.

This is as close as we got to the beach - if you click to enlarge, you'll see people sailing
and windsurfing. Parasailing too, but lots of windsurfing.

We walked around Bol, ate at a little restaurant off the main road recommended by Christine, drank some cappucinos, ate some gelato, walked for hours, and slept very well in our wonderful room. After breakfast, we headed back to the ferry, which turned out to be a bit of a stressful experience. One thing I noticed in Croatia is that they offer a lot of signs and directions when you're far away from something, but when you get close and really REALLY need to know whether to turn left or right, there are no signs or directions to be found. AAArgh.

Nevertheless, we finally got it all together.
In line, waiting to drive onto the ferry.

Sitting up top, watching the people and the view.

So we drove off the ferry, through Split, onto the highway, and to Zagreb. The days were dwindling, too close to the end for me.

Split

2009-10-01T08:36:00.013-04:00

All along, we've wondered whether this was pronounced Split or Shplit. As I came to understand the Croatian alphabet, I imagined Split; it would need that little v mark over the top of the S to be Shplit. And that's what it is, in case you ever need to know: Split.

The main reason I wanted to go to Split was to see Diocletian's Palace, which isn't just some dusty old ruin. Instead, it's a structure that encloses ruins and stores and homes and cafes and a Temple to Jupiter and a headless sphinx from Egypt and all sorts of things. Plus lots of Split residents. We spent a lot of time walking through the palace, a good bit of time sitting at cafes, and a bit of time eating. First, the palace.

The first time we went to the palace, we entered through the cellar. The ceiling and just the space itself was awesome, but it's used by vendors who sell mostly souvenir-ish junk. So I just kept my eyes up.

Here is a bird's eye view of the way the Palace looked originally:
It used to be right on the water, though it isn't, now. Now there's a big promenade along the water. On another visit, we entered through the opposite side - look at this dramatic statue of Gregorius of Nin. If you rub his big toe, you'll come back to Split. It was very shiny, lots of rubbing.
I meant this photo to show the back of the palace, but when I saw it, I thought "Old Gregory likes the ladies." I am so silly.
I was eager to see the Temple of Jupiter, so I took a lot of photos. First, look up
at the ceiling - a barrel vault with a lot of carvings:
Here's a close-up of one of those squares - pretty creepy:
And here's the guy himself - Jupiter. What a strange hand he had!

In the center of the relatively small temple was a cross-shaped baptismal
font, with these carvings on the side:
And here it is, the now-headless Egyptian sphinx that was
brought over from Egypt to guard the Temple.
Here are some shots of the ruins in the interior of the palace. Amazing.

But you know, people live there too, and work in all the boutique shops, run the hotels, etc. A couple of places people live:

There was one experience I had that was haunting and so beautiful it made me cry, and I had to stop a few minutes after it was over to get a little more crying out. There is a style of traditional Croatian singing called klapa, which uses religious harmonies to sing sentimental songs about romance, patriotism, etc. Only men perform klapa, and there are 6 or 7 men in a group. In the one we saw, the men wore white shirts, black pants, and red cummerbunds. They sing a capella and sure, I'm a sucker for religious harmonies, a capella, and sentimental melodies, but that music was being sung in a huge round space in the palace, with a dome on top and an opening in the dome. The acoustics were wonderful, and even writing about it is choking me up.

the space

the group

I stood next to an old man who was clearly moved by the singing; he moved his hands as if directing the group, he sang along softly, and his eyes were closed. I think I'll always remember that moment.

Split isn't just Diocletian's Palace, although we didn't see much more than that. The huge esplanade that fronts the water is paved with white marble and a long row of cafes with a hideous, controversial, out of place modern white structure holding umbrellas over the tables. Here's a flattering photo of it at sunrise:

See? Modern and hideous and no connection to its context.

We walked around to see houses in the hood:

And we also saw this, a monument erected for the one thousandth anniversary of the first mention in writing of fishing in Split:

We decided to leave a day early because we'd seen all we wanted to see. We took the car ferry to an island off Split called Brac, about an hour away. There is a town called Bol on the opposite side of the island, and we headed there to try our luck with finding a place to spend the night.

Dubrovnik, or: Cruise Ships!!

2009-09-30T10:44:00.007-04:00

It's true that when I remember my day in Dubrovnik, I'll think of this:

But it's just as true that I'll think of this:

Ay yi yi. The walled city is relatively small and close, and I'll bet there were dozens of gangs of cruise ship people and more dozens who were in bus tours. I still laugh remembering this one: a woman in a tour group asked her tour guide why there were so many people and when the tour guide explained about the cruise ship onslaught, the woman complained about it. While she was in one of those groups. Crazy.

The day we went was a hazy, overcast day - the lone day of this vacation that had less than perfect weather. And it wasn't bad; in fact, I think it was a perfect day for our trip to Dubrovnik. We took a ferry from Cavtat, which took a surprisingly long 45 minutes for an 18km distance (on land - we were going more as the crow flies, so it was undoubtedly shorter). Still. Who cares, going to see Dubrovnik.

We followed the hordes into the walled old city and saw these things from the ground:

Oh hi! Marc, in front of the Pile Gate which was the entrance to the old city.
As always, that's the patron saint above the gate, and he holds in his left hand
the entire walled city.
This guy playing his music. I don't know the exact type of stringed instrument he
was playing, but that thing on the ground was noisy. He stomped it with his foot
as percussion accompaniment.
The Onofrio fountain, which brought water from a very long way away.
Most of the decorative bits around the perimeter were destroyed in that infamous
earthquake of 1667. What a strange frame of reference for an American, with our
short memories and history. Here's one of the remaining carvings. They're
kind of creepy up close.
This pieta above one of the major churches isn't quite as
rigor mortis-ey as the one in Rab, but still. Where's the grace,
where's the soft agony?
Of course people live and work in the old city, and since the main streets were
super clogged with tour people, we headed up the little streets to see how people live.
Lookie, looking down toward the city:
Or up, if you prefer:
And yes, people have very lovely homes, at times. This one had a beautiful
terrace, graced with vines overhead and an obscene fountain. See the statue on the lower right?
The fountain is a woman sitting as if to give birth, and the water comes out, well,
where water comes out. I wasn't at all offended, of course, I've just never
seen anything quite like it. And it was anatomically exact.

So after a bit of walking and climbing, we decided to walk the top of the wall. Up we went, and from that perspective here's what we saw, in addition to the photo at the top:

Standard red tiled roofs. However, if you know how to read them, you
see the bombing that happened in the 1991 war. The darkest roofs are brand new
because they were completely destroyed. The faded ones were not hit. There
aren't that many of those. And some, obviously, are mixed. So much devastation,
I can't imagine how it looked after the war ended.
Donofrio fountain from above:
And the placa, the main thoroughfare through town. I'm standing at the
beginning of it, and that clock tower you see in the distant middle is the end.
It's not very large, but it's very packed.
And this fort, which is freestanding away from the walled city, but close.
It covered attacks from sea and land. They weren't prepared for
attacks from the sky.
Another part of the wall:
And a sentry post:
And this luscious, gorgeous thing:
We couldn't figure out the meaning of this bit of graffiti, but it was kind of
near the high school (we watched the students through the windows):
And.....tourists.

I'm very glad we saw Dubrovnik; I really loved the wall, and the idea of the place. And we didn't need more time than we spent. We hopped on the next ferry and headed back to Cavtat and ate something wonderful, I'm sure. I just don't remember now.

On radio silence

2009-09-30T10:41:00.001-04:00

Whew - we had a change of plans involving leaving Split a day early, taking the car ferry to a nearby island without hotel reservations made ahead of time, and landed in paradise. Today we're back in Zagreb. Will write more later.

Cavtat

2009-09-26T13:05:00.003-04:00

Cavtat is a very small town on a beautiful little harbor - palm trees line the wide road, along with a dozen small cafes and restaurants.

Small boats, taxi boats, and excursion boats hang around the promenade.
Oh, and yachts. Lotsa yachts.

The water is so clear and so turquoise blue, and the beaches are mostly giant rocks.

We have 4 days in Cavtat, which is a long time for such a small place. We'd decided to stay here instead of Dubrovnik, planning to take a day trip or two (one, knowing us) into the larger city since it's only 18km away. Marc had carefully plotted the route into the city, to a public parking lot, since Dubrovnik is extremely congested.

Instead, we've mainly stayed around Cavtat. Our hotel is charming (again with the peach walls, though...), and our room is on the 3rd floor, overlooking the harbor and restaurants and small shops. There's a gelato shop right across the street, which is important for our nightly gelato needs. The room comes with breakfast, which is the best we've had on this trip. For me, though, the best part of breakfast is the sweet woman who serves us. There is a buffet with meats and cheese, croissants, stuff like that, and you can also order omelettes from the kitchen. This woman has waited on us every day, and she remembers what we want. Marc gets a double espresso and an omelette, and I get toast and a cappucino. When you ask her a question she says yes in a very particular way, like "of course" (but not in a snotty way), and she has a little smile on her face. So we started each day with a slow breakfast, sitting on a terrace under an awning. Very sweet.

The room is nice, and the hotel is charming, but way overpriced for what it is. We don't really understand why the rate is so high, but it's right in the middle of everything and it is a sweet place. The first night, we just had twin beds pushed together, which meant that we both slept in one twin bed. Or didn't sleep, really. So the next day the housekeeper put this thing between the mattresses so we have something like one bed, with a very hard and raised ridge in the middle. Not great, but better.

We have a tiny little balcony, which gets full afternoon sun, and it's a nice place to sit and watch all the tourists. And there are a lot of tourists, in huge clumps. During the week, one tour bus after another came to town and little parades of people with green circle stickers marched around behind tour guides who held up big signs. Not our cup of tea, that's for sure. For the first time on this trip, we've heard other Americans around. There are a lot of Germans, some French, and lots of people with Slavic-sounding languages.

Panorama from our balcony

Mostly we have been taking walks around the harbor, cafe-hopping, hanging around, and relaxing. Yesterday we took a boat to Dubrovnik, and I'll do a separate post about it. The weather was overcast and it was cool, and it turned out to be the best day to make that trip. Today, though, was warm and sunny, and we hiked around the harbor to a spot with big wide rocks to lie on and easy access to the water. We lay on the rocks, swam in the Adriatic, and had a wonderful time. I loved that.

Me, very happy and relaxed

We've mostly been eating seafood, but today we had pizza and a greek salad. Since the seafood comes with its face on, I have had a harder time than Marc, who sucks the heads with relish and happiness.

Marc, waiting for his shrimp dinner. I snuck this beautiful photo of him
under the pretense of taking a picture of the restaurant.
And......the shrimps!

Marc has also kept his eyes peeled for roadside food - wild herbs, strange fruits, and figs. This morning, before we went swimming, we went on a fig walk and found one really great dried fig. We haven't found many to eat, but the trees do have loads of them, not yet ripe or just out of reach. The figs on the tops of the trees tend to be the ripe ones, for whatever reason - either because they get more sun, or the ripe ones lower down have already been picked. But Marc can smell them as we walk around. I haven't been able to pick out the fig smell from the pine smell. On our post-dinner walk tonight, Marc found thyme and rosemary, but we haven't found oregano yet. He'll keep looking, I have no doubt.

Here's one of our walks:

Oh - another thing that really cracks me up. There is a belltower nearby, and it rings. But not in any discernible order. Tonight it rang 6 times at 6pm, and once at 6:30, and once at 7pm. OK, that sounds like it makes sense! But last night at 7:30 it rang 83 times. I counted. Isn't that weird?

And, sunsets. Beautiful beautiful sunsets.

Trogir, music courtesy of the 1970s

2009-09-25T14:04:00.005-04:00

The drive to Trogir was beautiful, through mountains and along the coast. That meant serpentine roadways and hairpin turns, but oh so very beautiful.

Our hotel in Trogir was an apartment, complete with kitchen, living room, and two-toned peach walls. It was a very strange place, not really a hotel, and it didn't really have a reception desk. There was one extremely corpulent woman sitting in a tiny little room, and she spoke like this: "uhhhhhh the room uhhhhhhhh ees a uhhhhhhhh very nice uhhhhhhhhh room." Etc and etc until your mind starts to bleed. It took her long minutes to say a single sentence. At first I thought well, hell! She's speaking English, I sure can't speak Croatian as well as that. But then we noticed that it's just her style. Uhhhhhhh.

And our room was on the 3rd floor, but the elevator didn't work -- "the uhhhhhhhhhh technician uhhhhhhhhh has been uhhhhhhhhhhh called." We suspect he was either called a couple of years ago, or it's on the to-do list in a couple of years. No technician was imminent, that's for sure.

So we stayed out - the good thing about the hotel was that it's just a parking lot away from the little foot bridge into old Trogir, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's cool, in that "look at the cobblestone streets and narrow alleys and churches and cafes" kind of way. It's very small, you can walk the whole thing in no time, which we did - several times. Much of it was really beautiful, like this bougainvillea TREE:

Old Trogir is on a little island; at one end is this gate, with the standard guardian Saint over the door, and at the other end is a castle.

The guy who used to live in this castle played a lot of cards. So they say.

In between is this enormous square, ringed by churches and museums, with cafes in the center.

And along the other side of the island, away from our hotel, is a line of restaurants. When it got dark, we ate at a little restaurant on the wide promenade, next to this really pretty steeple. I got mussels that were amazing, and Marc got fish soup, a whole fish, chunks of boiled potatoes with chard (which is the standard side dish everywhere), and a little crepe to finish.

After dinner we were walking around and heard this very loud music coming from the square. I thought it was prerecorded music, but when we got there, it turned out to be a 3-piece band. The lead singer sounded like an American, and the music was 1970s all the way. We've noticed that everywhere, the music is 1970s American music, so funny.

The next morning we pulled out for the drive to Cavtat. Post and pictures to come. Having a great time, wish I never had to go home.

Rab, day 2

2009-09-21T11:04:00.009-04:00

This is our one full day in Rab; tomorrow we'll drive down the coast to Trogir, to cut our drive to Dubrovnik in half. Our plan today was a leisurely breakfast on the patio, then a long walk through the older part of Rab. Breakfast here wasn't as bad as the one in Plitvicka, to be sure, but it wasn't Hoi An in Vietnam, or Old Goa in India, either. Still, the croissants were crisp and delicious, and the coffee was strong and wonderful. After breakfast, Marc went to pick this little fruit off a tree - we have no idea what it is:

The weather is still perfect, so we set out to explore. First, up the stairs, away from the harbor:

There are all sorts of churches back here, in all states of repair and disrepair. This one has been around since the 13th century: the Church of St John.

This one is called St Mary the Great.

and the pieta looks kind of grim - rigor mortis setting in, or something:

Also, there are all kinds of little homes back here - I'd live in most of them in a heartbeat.

See?

Or here:

This one had a little lemon tree [very pretty....] right outside the front door:

Scenic little streets heading down to the harbor

And all of this overlooking the Adriatic:

still extremely happy....

Then we walked to the newer part of town, to an area called the commercial center. There's a bus station, a bank, a post office, a number of little bakeries and ice cream joints, some cafes, and some other small shops. It's not all that charming:

But we did find pomegranate trees, bulging with red fruit, and fig trees here and there. Marc picked one and we sat on the curb and bit into it - YUM.

Later this afternoon, we're going back to the old area when the sun is lower in the sky, and then we'll find another restaurant for tonight's dinner. Fish of some kind, no doubt, although I can't bear to have the faces on my plate so I may have to get something else. More to come from Rab.

Have I mentioned what a wonderful time we're having? This is us in the elevator:

Rab, day 1

2009-09-20T16:09:00.012-04:00

Driving away from Plitvicka was a happy moment - Rab lay ahead, the greenest island off the coast of Croatia. And better food ahead too, not that that would be too hard. The countryside was kind of unremarkable - could've been anywhere, really, the Catskills, maybe, or upstate New York. Still, it was pretty, and it became more beautiful as we got closer to the coast.

In the countryside: The famous Croatian donkeys.
closer to the coast now - serpentine mountain roads:

Finally, we see the water.....the Adriatic:

It only took a couple of hours to get to the coast. We were headed for this little town where we'd catch the ferry to Rab. It was charming, and we thought we were an hour early but we learned the ferry was leaving before the scheduled time - 10 minutes after we arrived. Just the beginning of today's great luck!

Jablanca, the ferry town:

And here's the ferry we drove onto:

It only took about 15 minutes to get to Rab, and it was a gorgeous sunny day.

Handsome Marc:

and happy me:

As we got closer to Rab, we saw these rock islands jutting out of the water.

Doesn't that look Mediterranean? Adriatic-an? [oh, that reminds me: Marc insists on calling Croatians Crowdaddies. I have no idea why. Just like he called the Hondurans Honduricans.]

So we got onto the island and drove to our hotel, the Hotel Arbiana. It's even better than we thought!

That's our room, on the top floor, all those windows across the middle.
Our view is the harbor, and it's lovely.

This is the view from the end of the promenade - our hotel on the left:

The hotel has a beautiful park out back:

And finally, our room! It's every bit as red as we thought it would be when we saw it on the hotel's website. Hello red:

That's a whole wall of windows, to the right, and they open onto the full balcony spanning the front of the hotel. We sit there and watch people and boats, and it's cool and wonderful.

We stitched together a panorama of our view, from the left end of the balcony all across the harbor, to the right end. Click to see it bigger:

So we got to our room and I crashed. Marc went out for a little walk, and when I got up I had a cappuccino. Finally, after days of bad coffee (dark water, really), I had a great and strong cappuccino. There are chairs and tables out front of our hotel, so I sat and watched people and drank my coffee. Can you tell I was excited about my coffee?

We spent the afternoon walking around the little town, scouting places to eat, and seeing the sights of this little town. We also walked down to the water, which felt so great I wanted to jump in. It's crystal clear - we saw crabs scuttling around, and shrimp jetting back and forth.

Lots of the streets are little alley-like mazes, like this one:

For dinner, we picked a spot Marc had seen - a nice little restaurant with a terrace upstairs, where we could sit and look out at the harbor. Food here isn't nearly as inexpensive as it has been on our other vacations; nothing is, really. But what we got for dinner was so great, and the polar opposite of our meal the night before. We were really really happy.

See? HAPPY. That's the harbor on the right side of the picture, and Marc facing me.
Happy.

and my meal - shrimp and bruschetta, and Dalmatian prosciutto with local olives:

and Marc getting ready for his mixed seafood grill:

This platter included a baby octopus, a huge shrimp, mussels, tuna, squid, a whole fish, and two other small filets of firm fish, one dark and one light. Plus potatoes with chard.

After dinner, we took a short walk, and then some al fresco blogging with another great cappucino (which, by the way, is only 9 kuna, which is less than $2!).

Good night from Rab, Croatia.

p.s. perfect perfect weather. No rain, no clouds.

Plitvicka National Park

2009-09-20T14:24:00.008-04:00

Our plan was to drive to this national park and spend the first night - about halfway from Zagreb to Rab, and the pictures we saw [of the park] were really beautiful. We knew we'd be very tired, and jetlagged, so we planned an easy first day. The drive was pretty easy, though we made one mistake that took us about half an hour out of our way. My impressions of the countryside: houses with huge baskets of flowers hanging off every balcony; lots of balloons festooning fences and gates, and passing cars; little produce stands that seem to feature potatoes exclusively; slow lives.

When we got to the hotel, at the park, it looked exactly as we expected based on the photos we'd seen. No better, no worse.

The room had a huge window with a really nice view of the mountains, but it was institutional gross - again, no better or worse than we expected.

oy, the carpet job:

Check the hallway........redrum, redrum, redrum.....

Looks like a prison bathroom to me:

And is it just me, or is this super creepy?

So we saw our room, and decided we'd better take a walk because we were so exhausted, if we lay down for a minute we might crash for hours. It was kind of cool and hazy, and really beautiful.

oh, wait. This wasn't the beautiful part. Pull those thong straps down, honey.

THIS was beautiful, and the water was just this color. Minerals, maybe:
And this, a late summer feeling in the air, waterfall sounds in the background,
ducks floating around.

And this, a bit of a tree that looked like a bull head to me. To you too?
And this, it looks like this at twilight:
We could've rented a rowboat if we'd wanted - they had a few:

So we walked around, rested a little, and decided to go to this nearby restaurant that was the only one recommended. "Just good local food," we read. "There aren't any good places to eat, but this one is probably the best." The restaurant was called Licka kuca, and listen to me now: never ever eat there. Ever. Really. The restaurant is underground, kind of in a cellar. When we walked in, it was very much like that scene in the movie Everything Is Illuminated, where the main character Jonathan, the translator, and the grandfather are ordering food and Jonathan wants vegetarian, and the waitress doesn't get it. It was that aesthetic, that kind of food, that kind of feeling, that whole thing. Let's just cut to the food:

Bread on the table, and butter. Bread: white, totally uninteresting, and luckily without any flavor. Butter: two greasy, oily blobby mounds of something that was white - but don't think of the nice white French butter, something delicate like that. This was creamy sourness.

Marc ordered meat stuffed with cheese, stewed vegetables, and salad. I got sausages, stewed vegetables, and salad. These were the best looking items on the menu, so you can guess about the rest of the menu. There was an unrefrigerated "refrigerated" case containing all the mounds of meat, and a big grilltop that surely hadn't been cleaned in decades. The 'cook' reached into the meat case, grabbed a hunk/pile/handful of meat, and it just kind of hung over the sides of his hand, formless and disgusting, like a thin slab of warm wet clay. Then he just kind of plopped it on the grill. Oh, and once he dropped the spatula he was using to flip the meat, dropped it on the floor. He leaned over and picked it up, gave it a little wipe, and just kept going. There was also a dead fish on the grill -- and I know all fish that you cook are dead, but this just looked like a dead fish lying on the grill.

So the waitress brought our food to the table, and it looked absolutely disgusting. Marc stuck his fork in his entree and cheese came pouring out of it. The top of the thing rose up as the cheese started pouring out, and the cheese just kept coming. It was white and oily, and puddled into globs of greasy grossness. I'm not exaggerating; in fact, I'm kind of traumatized by it so I'm not describing it with its full measure of grossness. We barely ate, though we tried to choke down a few bites. The salad was no help - thin dried-out cucumbers, tomatoes that had gone bad, a piece of lettuce, and some little piles of coleslaw. The coleslaw was the best part of the meal.

We staggered out of the restaurant, dazed with tiredness and sick from being near that food. It was the worst of Croatia. We passed a bad night, asleep immediately, around 9pm, and up at 1am for a few hours.

We ate the free breakfast that came with our room, and the price was too high for what they served. First, take a look at the dining room!

Breakfast was a buffet, and coffee came from a little make-it-yourself machine. The coffee was hot water with a little squirt of instant coffee. The bread was the same nondescript grossness.

We choked down a little food and took a walk before we left. Check it out - beautiful misty morning:

After that, we hit the road for the drive to Rab. The day got MUCH MUCH BETTER! Just wait for the next post.......

getting there - airport to airport

2009-09-20T14:17:00.002-04:00

It's always exciting, starting our trip. We get to the airport (thank you Craig, for driving us!) and I park in a seat, while Marc paces. Marc always paces. Usually I read, but this time I knitted (and grinned):

Marc was asking if Lufthansa provided electrical outlets in economy class. The answer was no.

The flight to Munich was uneventful, which is the way I like my flights to Munich. It was hard to get used to hearing all that German being spoken. I think I slept for 3-4 hours, and Marc probably dozed a bit here and there. Once, the flight attendant was making some kind of announcement, and right after the German version ended, Marc leaned over and said, "I understand what they're saying, it just doesn't seem to be what they mean." He kept hearing them saying things like Fuhrer and Mind the Fuhrer. I'm laughing while I type this.

The Munich airport isn't very big, but passengers exit the airplane and are driven in shuttle buses to the terminal for the extremely long walk to the gates. The inside of the terminals were very sterile and charmless. When it was time to board the plane for Zagreb, we walked down 4 flights of stairs to a waiting shuttle bus, which drove us to a far corner of the tarmac. When the bus parked at the plane, we all had to wait while the airplane was being readied, and then a couple of people waiting in a car got to board the plane. VIPs of some kind. He was much older than she was, and he must have been the VIP. He wore a casual white suit with blue suede shoes (no kidding), and he looked tired. She was a young blond Eastern European hottie, if you know what that means. It was a tiny plane and they sat in "First Class," which comprised the first 3 rows. We were in row 4, and the flight attendant pulled the tiny, short blue curtains over the top of the seat in front of me. Marc and I laughed. Short flight, land in Zagreb.

I've never had an easier time entering a country. There was no paperwork, no forms to sign, we just walked up to a window, showed our passports, and went to get our luggage. Period. No questions, how long are you staying, where are you going, nothing. We got our luggage, got our rental car, and got some dollars exchanged for kuna, the local currency.

The woman who worked at the currency exchange was right out of a bad movie featuring the most stereotypical Slavic woman you could imagine. Her lanky, greasy, thin hair hung to her shoulders. A bit of a mustache. She had a very high forehead and thick messy eyebrows.....all atop a nasty scowl. A large nose. Small eyes. Scowl - worth mentioning twice. Marc asked her if the exchange rate at the airport was fairly close to what we'd find in other places and she scowled a little harder and said "how would I know."

Welcome to Croatia.

plane info

2009-09-13T10:30:00.003-04:00

Here's the plane we'll fly on, from Newark to Munich NEXT FRIDAY! Next! Friday! Excited much?

We're 31A and 31C, nice to meet you:

And a small squatty plane from Munich to Zagreb, no seat assignments yet:

Neither of us has flown Lufthansa before, and the ratings are surprisingly modest - we'd have thought they'd be Prussian-efficient, but not so much. Still, I don't care, as long as we get there.

Slight change of plans

2009-09-06T12:21:00.004-04:00

We made a slight change in our plans. We were going to drive from Rab to Dubrovnik in one day. It's not a big deal - an 8-hour drive, or so - but we decided to leave Rab a day early, make a leisurely trip of it, and spend the night halfway, in Trogir. For one thing, we didn't want to get to our hotel outside Dubrovnik very late in the day, to give ourselves the best chance of getting a room overlooking the water. And for another, the drive along the coast is supposed to be really beautiful, and we want to be able to stop and enjoy it. So, the Aparthotel Bellevue in Trogir.

Our route: fly into Zagreb [purple], drive to Plitvice National Park [yellow] for the night, drive to Rab [purple again] for a couple of nights, drive down the coast to Trogir [mauve] for a night, then down to Dubrovnik [orange] for a few nights, back up to Split [pink] for a few, and then back to Zagreb.
I can't wait to see that coast, it sounds so very beautiful. Counting down the days - only 12 to go.

for fun: Croatian traffic

2009-09-03T07:07:00.000-04:00

Stop #5: Zagreb

2009-04-24T20:16:00.005-04:00

Just to be a little confusing, in Zagreb we're staying at the Hotel Dubrovnik. That's it, the larger imposing square building on the right:

The rooms are European-semi-fancy. Our room will probably look like this:

Here's what seems to be a very flattering picture of Zagreb:

We're here for 2 nights and then we fly home. I'll place a bet now: I won't want to come home.

Stop #4: Split

2009-04-24T19:59:00.014-04:00

Split is another ancient city (flickr slideshow here), and Diocletian's Palace (photos) is the heart of it. I'm going to see Diocletian's Palace. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site: "The ruins of Diocletian's Palace, built between the late 3rd and the early 4th centuries A.D., are found throughout the city. The cathedral was built in the Middle Ages, reusing materials from the ancient mausoleum. Twelfth- and 13th-century Romanesque churches, medieval fortifications, 15th-century Gothic palaces and other palaces in Renaissance and Baroque style make up the rest of the protected area." But it's not just a bunch of dusty ruins; it's really the heart of the city. Check this out:

That's a cafe in the ruins. That's how they roll.

Still, this too:

We'll be staying at Villa Varos:

Split

Three nights in Split, and then we drive back to Zagreb. We could take the same route we took at the beginning, or we could also drive through Bosnia-Hercegovina. I think I might want to do that.

Stop #3: Dubrovnik

2009-04-24T19:42:00.008-04:00

Actually, we'll be staying just outside Dubrovnik at this beautiful family run boutique hotel situated at the beginning of the promenade in the old town of Cavtat, in a centuries old mansion. Twelve rooms. Sweet.

Apparently there are bells. Bells ringing 52 peals at 6 a.m and again at 6.30a.m. Shades of Enkhuisen. At least we know ahead of time. Cavtat is on a lovely harbor:

Cavtat sounds and looks absolutely gorgeous; click here for a slideshow of photos of the town. We'll explore Cavtat, I'm sure, but we're there for Dubrovnik. People go on and on about Dubrovnik, I cannot wait to see it (flickr slideshow here). It's an ancient walled city:

Four nights in Dubrovnik/Cavtat, and then we head up the coast to Split.

Stop #2: Rab Island

2009-04-24T18:56:00.007-04:00

We drive to the coast, take a 15-minute car ferry to the island of Rab. Is it gorgeous? YES. (photos here!)

Gorgeous. Adriatic Sea, warm clear waters, seafood deluxe. We'll be staying at this really beautiful hotel, the Arbiana Hotel. We're springing for the fancy room with a private balcony, ocean view and a view of the park.

here's the hotel, overlooking the ocean

balconies

The kind of room we'll have. God I hope it's not this red.

We'll stay here for 3 nights, then we'll drive down the coast to Dubrovnik.

Stop #1: Plitvice Hotel, Plitvice Lakes National Park

2009-04-24T18:45:00.004-04:00

We fly into Zagreb, and we're just going to rent a car and head out. We'll see Zagreb on the back side of the trip. First, we'll drive to Plitvice Lakes National Park, and stay in the hotel there. The reviews we find for the hotel say things like "go for the lakes, not the food!" The hotel is just fine, not more, but who cares? We're going for the scenery. Click here for a sample of images of the park. Can't be bothered to click through? They mostly all look like this:

So who cares if the hotel looks more like this:

Perfectly fine. We'll probably try to find someplace nearby for dinner, given the descriptions of both the food and the dining room, but breakfast the next morning should be just fine. One night here, then off for a short drive to the coast, and a ferry to the island called Rab.

Croatia!

2009-04-20T18:19:00.002-04:00

Travel dates set

2009-04-20T18:16:00.000-04:00

NEWARK LIBERTY to MUNICH departing Friday, September 18 (LUFTHANSA 413)
Depart: NEWARK LIBERTY 8:10 PM
Arrive: MUNICH 10:10 AM

MUNICH to ZAGREB departing Saturday, September 19 (LUFTHANSA 3492)
Depart: MUNICH 11:15 AM
Arrive: ZAGREB 12:15 PM

Coming home:

ZAGREB to MUNICH departing Friday, October 2 (LUFTHANSA 3493)
Depart: ZAGREB 12:55 PM
Arrive: MUNICH 2:00 PM

MUNICH to NEWARK LIBERTY departing Friday, October 2 (LUFTHANSA 412)
Depart: MUNICH 3:20 PM
Arrive: NEWARK LIBERTY 6:20 PM