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We started the trip in Zagreb where we spent two nights and one day. It's an interesting city with modern stores surrounding 500 year old buildings. I think the tram system epitomizes the city. It's a very extensive light rail system that has four different models of trains on it. The oldest looks like it dates from Soviet times in the 60's, and then there was an angular car from the 70's or 80's, and then the modern car. There was also one who's age I couldn't tell. All were running smoothly and in decent shape. One buys a ticket a kiosk or a news-stand, but no one checks for tickets once on the train. We met a croatian on the plane ride into Zagreb who told us not to buy tickets. He said that in 20 years, he's only been checked twice for a ticket. So it's a beautiful public transport system that no one pays for that makes use of the old and the new. The picture about sums up Zagreb: free public transport, old buildings, and a "Timberland" outlet on the same street (no private cars were allowed in the center of the downtown (except for the delivery van parked on the sidewalk)).
We went from there to Plitvice. A beautiful national park that consists mostly of waterfalls. We stayed the night at a pleasant B&B near the park, then hiked for about three hours in the morning. The kids were real troopers, but exhausted after the long walk.
Silvia had the best line of the day. There was a ferry service across one of the lakes in the park, and we were debating about which way led to the ferry. Silvia looked up with eyes wide in amazement. "A real ferry?" She asked. Yes, I replied. "Not a pretend ferry?" No honey, a real ferry. "wow." she said eyes brimming with excitement. Something seemed odd. And I asked her again what she was saying. "A real Ferry."
I realized then that she had been saying Fairy. She was hoping for a real Fairy and was almost reduced to tears by the thought of a boat. It's one of those moments when it takes all you have as a parent not to laugh at your child, but to empathize with her disappointment that we weren't seeing a real fairy. When we got to the ferry landing, we realized that she'd had the exact same conversation with Debra, myself, and with Susie. I don't know what that says about her developmentally, but I think she really wanted to see a real fairy.
From Plitvice, we went to Zadar on the coast. It's an old Roman town that is now a resort. Unfortunately, during WWII, Zadar was an axis base and there were 74 bombing missions that basically leveled the city. So in many places, we saw a few stones and a plaque that told of what used to be there. But the walls of the old city were still standing and we had a good time wandering around. We saw an American street performer playing old folk tunes, which was a lot of fun and completely out of time and place. We also saw the water organ, where waves coming into the shore force air through pipes and make music. It was very relaxing. We stayed in a beautiful hotel and had an amazing dinner at the restaurant downstairs. The photo is the view of the old city from our hotel room balcony.
After two nights and a day there, we drove down the coast to Split to catch another ferry (no confusion this time). There was a roman palace there that was amazingly stunning, which we had too little time to really explore.
After a three hour ferry ride down the coast, we came to Korcula island. It was 9 pm, and we drove 45 minutes across the island or twisty, badly lit roads, until we finally found the dock we were looking for. We were met there by Vladamir Beck, who owns a house on Vrnik island that we rented for the next few days. Vrnik is an island off of an island with only one permanent resident, but 100 summer residents. We got to the dock at 9:45 pm, so it was pitch black. It was one of those moments in my life when I've gone somewhere in the dark, and with morning had my breath taken away by how beautiful it was.
We had a spartan breakfast and then took the "speedboat taxi" to Korcula city about a ten minute ride away. (This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip!)
It is a sleepy city with an old, walled city surrounded by a more modern town. It also claims to be the birthplace of Marco Polo. We fell for it and paid the 15 kuna each ($3) to go into Marco polo's birth house. They didn't tell us the whole house is in ruins except for the tower, so we walked up narrow stairs and across catwalks with scary railings for a nice view.
The next day we stayed on the Island. We ate breakfast, walked 20 meters to the beach, swam for a couple of hours, then lunch, nap, beach, dinner, read, and sleep. A very relaxing day. I found a pair of fins and a snorkle mask at the house and saw a lot of cool fish, and, I think, an octopus who was hiding in the rocks where I was swimming to collect some shells. The next day was much of the same, except we said goodbye to Susie and David in the morning (they were going ahead to Dubrovnik and then Italy).
On the next day, we called speedboat taxi again and he brought us to our car and we drove down to Dubrovnik, an incredibly stunning ancient walled town. The walls are about 75-100 feet tall (!) which made our walls here in Jerusalem looks like toys. It's built on the coast, so three sides of the old city sit atop cliffs facing the ocean. Amazing. The kids were pretty worn out by this time of the trip, so we only went into Dubrovnik once, and then stayed at the hotel for another day.
After three nights in Dubrovnik, we boarded a plane for Paris. The kids were really excited to be in Paris with their cousins and to finally get a chance to play with other kids their own age, but I'll write about that in another post.
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