Here it is: update 3 of our Eastern Europe Road Trip from this summer! Yes, September was a few months ago, but we've been busy. Still no baby girl born yet, so maybe I'll even get the blog fully up to date before she's born! (yeah, sure).
After Slovenia, we spent a week just in Croatia -- so much to see!
First stop was Zagreb.
This is the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary -- construction first started in 1093 but it was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the years (and wars).
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| St Mark's church in Zagreb, it was seriously looking like rain so we didn't linger long here. Built as early as the 1200's. We did, however, stumble across the noon cannon firing (yes, a cannon) on our way back to the hotel. |
Other highlights of Zagreb included getting in a workout at Crossfit Zagreb, and then Emily locking the keys in the car and learning how to say locksmith in Croatian. (bravar)
Then we drove on down south to what was probably our most favorite part of the trip. Certainly a nice break from churches and castles and museums, anyway. Plitvice National Park is spread over 73,000 acres and contains a series of cascading lakes with gorgeous waterfalls. We were expecting slightly warmer weather, but even with 50's and rain it was really neat. We took a 4 hour hiking loop that took us around the upper lakes (where we were often the only people on the trail), down to the lower section which was unfortunately a bit crowded with slightly less nimble large tourist groups. Paul stayed warm & dry and enjoyed the view from the Deuter Bubble.
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| Even though the light wasn't great, the waterfalls were really beautiful. And the lakes too. |
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| See, I was there too! |
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| It's always fun to eat a ham & cheese sandwich that's just about as big as you are. |
Then we moved farther south and coastward in search of beach and warmer temperatures. We spent 3 nights in Trogir, which is a small island just off the coast near Split. Our "apartment" ran us 38 Euro/night, so you can imagine how luxurious it was. But we were able to cook some tasty meals. When you're on the road for 30 days, you have to plan some savings into the budget somehow!
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| Warmer weather in Split, but still not so much sun. We got caught in a pretty impressive rainstorm at lunch. We weren't that worried until the awning we were seated under started to buckle and dump sheets of water on tables. While I ran inside with Paul and our stuff, Dennis tried valiantly to save our food. The waitress looked at him like he was crazy and yelled over the howling winds that they would bring us more. Priorities, people. |
Some views of the area around Diocletian's Palace in the heart of the old city of Split. The large awning in the photo on the left was where we were eating when the rains struck. Doesn't look flimsy to me!
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| Old town in Trogir. There wasn't much on this tiny island except terrible traffic. Our island was one more bridge away. |
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| The Dalmatian Coast really does deserve its reputation as a beautiful vacation spot. |
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| Paul very much enjoyed the beach here, because it was rocky (and not sandy). He does not care for sand, but is perfectly content to pick up rocks and hand them to me. So wish we had brought water shoes. |
After Trogir, we spent one night on the island of Korcula. We took two car ferries to get there, which seems like a good way to get around on that coastline. Again, not a whole lot of "historical" stuff to see, but there was the old Korcula city fortification walls and a nice church. We did get to attend Mass here on Sunday on our way out of town. And they did it up for real -- the church was packed (seemed like regulars), and then they had a procession of the Eucharist around the outside of the church afterwards. Catholicism in Croatia is very closely intertwined with national identity.
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| And finally we made it down to Dubrovnik. Another *very* inexpensive pension, but a beautiful city. |
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| The weather was gorgeous the first afternoon we arrived so we took advantage of the lack of rain to walk the city walls. |
Dubrovnik is built into the side of a hill reaching down to the water, which I'm sure made it very defensible. I don't even think the Ottomans were able to take it by force. But it makes strollering a bit of a challenge on some streets. Fortunately our hotel was very close to the old city so we didn't have a bad climb back up. The Old Town was full of tourists as we expected, but the architecture was pretty impressive.
Next stop: Bosnia!
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