Mostar-Sarajevo-Travnik-Plitvice Lakes-Zadar/Sali

Yes, I made it through the night in the museum. I slept very well, had a nice breakfast, then went to the train station. It was like going with Mr. Clean to a place that could use Mr. Clean. The train itself was fine, like being on the train in a Harry Potter movie with the aise on one side and the six passenger compartments on the other. The views were phenomenal and well worth the mention in Lonely Planet. Undescribable. Don't know why we dont't heard about the mountains in Croaia and Bosnia-Hercegovania. They are well worth the trip. I met Sarajevo in the rain. Along with the history of it being the spark that ignited World War I, it also is living with the recent war from 1992 - 1995. There is much love of Bill Clinton there--for, as they say, stopping the war in 10 days. I stayed in a room that one could consider their grandmother's house. The elderly woman was very kind. It was interesting looking through some of her stuff she left in the room. Pictures of here at a younger age with her son, and some more recent ones with a grandson.

While the tunnel at the airport interested me, I made my way to Travnik, a small mountain village with a restored palace, at least on the outside. It amazes me how they know how to recontruct something they've never seen. However it's done, I does take one back in time even if there's nothing inside. The town was not geared to tourists, which was nice, but also left me with having to find out things on my own. Lonely Planet's recommended restaurant was closed for the week so I had a meager meal in town, of what I'm calling hamburger fingers. There's a lot of beef served here. I'lll be craving a cesear salad when I get home.

One never knows where one might end up at the end of the day upon awakening. I was headed for Jajce, but the accommodations were full, it being a Friday I guess, so it was on the Bihač, which didn't look to appealing. I took the next bus headed for Zagreb, one of the more local buses, so it was packed. I shared a seat with a Bosnian first, then a Spanaird who had been to a training regarding culture in the EU, even though Bosnia isn't part of it yet. Antonio and I had a very nice chat until I got off on the side of the road near Plitvice Lakes. I can finally pronounce it--Pleet-veet-say, with emphasis on the first syllable. Where to stay? The small info center sent me to the autocamp, which had rooms, but not for a single person. Up the road was a wonderful ˝sobe˝, with a kitten and 5 puppies, so I was happy. Happy until the next day, the buses didn't stop to take me to the part entrance. I packed my bags, finally got a bus to pick me up and looked for another sobe at the entrance to the park. After waking up with anticipation of seeing the park at 6 a.m., it was noon before I got there, me and about 10,000 other people.

The park is wonderful, waterfalls everywhere, carved out limestone continually changing. No swimming or boating here. Everything is prestine. I stayed for 2 days, the second going on less used trails, so less used that I saw a bear. Then I ran into a man who I'd passed before I saw a bear, and he was camped out waiting to find one. After all the kilometers hećd hiked, I was sorry he passed up the one I'd seen.

More later about a Croatian wedding.

Moving on to Mostar, moved in to a museum

Croatia is in the distance for a while now that I've moved on to Mostar in Bosnia-Hercegonina. I'm actually staying in a museum tonight, so hope the things in movies don't really come true. I haven't seen any skeletons in this formerly upscale Muslim house, but one never knows, especially when the cities here are centuries and centuries old. I was told the furniture is original. I learned today that pictures of people are not hung in Muslim homes. Nothing with eyes hangs on these walls. Lots of pictures of plants and nature in homes and mosques.

I traveled by bus from Dubrovnik this morning after spending the weekend there. Some of the 'boat' people stayed a few days after our charter ended (and it ended uneventfully), so we took a tour of Dubrovnik, walked the city walls, heard some 'intriguing stories' on another tour, and gosh darn if we didn't run into each other when we weren't together. The old city isn't that big, or maybe it was all those ice cream cones slowing us all down. We even ran into the guy we referred to as Jayway (the Jay who made our arrangements in Dubrovnik, not the Jay who arranged for the sailing) who was showing his parents around.

One thing everyone should know about Dubrovnik is that there are lots of steps. We were warned that there were a 'few' steps to our apartment. I'd say more than a few. It was 90 from the street to the apartment, 340 from the top of Stari Grad, known as Old Town in Croatian. You really don't want to make a wrong turn like I did last night. Oh well, it made up for all that sitting on the sailboat.

We lazed around on Sunday, got some laundry done, which we were then able to act like locals when we hung it outside our balcony. We then tried to find the apartment based on our laundry when we went down to old town, and going and coming back from the island of Lokrum just across the bay from Dubrovnik. How relaxing to swim, sit on the rocks, hike to a spectacular fort in terms of architecture and come back to cobbled streets in search of a place for dinner. Now we were hoping that the sounds of a classical music concert would once again greet our ears when sitting out on the deck before turning in for the night. That worked on Saturday night, but not Sunday night. Instead, we were all packing, me to move to a smaller apartment.

I took a tour of a few towns in Montenegro on Monday. Another relaxing day. I enjoyed the countryside, though missed being on the water we were hurrying by, not all that fast given the switchbacks up and down the mountains. The devastation of the 1979 earthquake could be seen way into Montenegro. The new buildings are testament to the rebuilding by the locals, both as a result of the earthquake and the 1991-1995 war in Croatia, that hit Dubrovnik very hard, including Lukrum. Most residents had evacuated, to Italy and further. Stories make it sound like what happened in Pearl Harbor and during WWII. Luckily the younger generation has no memory of it, so are more optimistic about the future than their parents.

Mostar has also been through a war at the same time (1992-1994). Troops from other countries were here up until last year. Some buildings have been repaired, others are still vacant, have holes through them, or are in piles of stones. In both countries, the locals now have to pay for any reconstruction so it's going much slower than the first few years.

I did get an understanding about why a Croatian documentary was made of New Orleans volunteerism. Croatians take care of their own after such a disaster. It seems they were appalled at how Americans didn't do the same thing. One Croatian tradition is that when people visit friends at home for the first time, they bring a gift. Guess you could say this is how housewarming presents started. We also learned that dating in Croatia is more traditional--where the man pays for everything, even if they both are earning salaries.

Croatia has a history of aristocracy and infidelity. Orphanages were created to house the illegitimate children of aristocrats. They also took in babies of others less fortunate. There was a revolving door which was used to transport the babies from their mothers to the orphanage. If the mother wanted the baby to know who she was, she left so me token, a handkerchief or half of a coin, which would match the half she kept. The boys and girls were kept together until age 6. At 16, the girls would go on to be nuns, the boys to work on ships. After all, this was one of the biggest ports for imports and exports in the world in the past.

Of note are the roofs in Croatia, and so far in Bosnia-Herc. In Croatia, they were virtually all tile. About 90% of the tile roofs had to be replaced after the recent civil war. In Mostar, the roofs are stone. They are beautiful, but I don't know how they are held up. It seems they'd be even heavier than the tiles.

The mosques are active now, especially since it's Ramadan from 13 Sept. to 13 Oct. Prayers are announced over loud speakers 5 times a day. Having heard this before in Malaysia, Turkey and other countries, I kinda like it. Maybe I should go to some services myself, but as a woman here, I'd be in the balcony, so now one could see up my . . . pants.

Off to Sarajevo by train in the morning for the scenic views.

Vis to Dubrovnik

The sites and marinas we've seen have been varied. Vis (pronounced Veeye) was a lovely little village that was hard to leave. Vela Luka was very different in that it was an industrial town, not at all geared to tourists. That made it nice, but I didn't even go ashore there, partly because we didn't get in until late, and since we'd anchored in very tight quarters, it was entertaining watching other boats try to squeeze in. The next morning, we watched as a huge fishing boat that had come in very late the precious night was being kissed by the bow of the sailboat next to us. As they let out their anchor, we were on watch, and decided to let ours out as well.

We headed for Korćula after our live entertainment ended, only to have the sailboat alongside us part of the way down the coast. Korčula was a delightful town, and provided more entertainment. A storm was coming through so no boats could moor outside the breakwall. THis proved to be problematic for us because we were in line after 14 Aussie racing boats were to come in. Our boat got in, then Skipper Wayne managed to get spots for the other two. That was nice because they were out of food. Not a problem for our boat. We had a walking tour of the ancient city which wants to claim this is the birthplace of Marco Polo. Probably not though. The town activitiy really picked up during the day, so we headed down to Mljet.

Our boat stayed on Mljet for a full day while the other boats took off to see Dubrovnik. We made a great decision, confirmed within five minutes of us traveling bz minivan to the west end of the island. The vistas were magnificent. We aimed for the national park which has strict restsrictions for fire, matches, cigarettes, etc. I rode a bike for 2 hours, hiked around, canoed for a bit and just had a relaxing, non-sailing day.

Today we awoke early to get to Dubrovnik ourselves. We toured the harbor on Fizz before coming into our last harbor. We've lazed around this afternoon, and are now off for a night on the town.

Stari Grad, Palmazani, Vis and more in Croatia

It is hard to look back to see what I have written because the web site comes up in Croatian and I have not figured out how to change it yet. The keyboards are Croatian too so the y and z are reversed and there is now apostrophe. Oh well, that is part of international travel woes.

The sailing here has be tremendous. We have sailed almost every day with winds of 15 to 20 knots out of the N-NW. Yesterday they were flat, but the sun was out full time. The towns do look similar, mainly because they are all from centuries ago, made of limestone blocks, red tile roofs and shutters that always seem to be shut. We walk the back roads to get more of a flavor of local life. The bell towers always give a good indication of time as they bong 1, 2 or 3 times to mark the quarter hours, and of course, the number of the hour on the hour.

The local businesses are open in the morning and late afternoon and evening so we have to arrange our schedule around that for provisioning and touring. No matter, we are in port nearly every night enjoying the local cuisine of seafood, fish and spaghetti and pasta. The squid here is wonderfully grilled. Then every night I go to sleep in the comfort of the snores in the cabins and crabs eating away at the hull underneath. Last night there was music on the quay to lull me to sleep.

Went diving today to see the amphoras. Who knows what tomorrow brings as we change our schedule daily.

Kicking A___ in Krka Park from Sibenik, Croatia

Boy was there an awesome weather forecast yesterday. Winds gusting to 40 to 60 knots and seas 4 to 5 meters. We decided not to take the boat out and bus our way to Skradin from Sibenik to see the Krka National Park and its numerous waterfalls. The were everywhere. We appreciated the wooden walk ways and the density of the trees, which shielded us from the rains. The smells of the Pine trees reminded us of Minnesota. Lovely.

The old town of Sibenik is a sweet area for tourists. Siesta time is in place and you can certainly tell when it is over. The new part of town is sprawling, not quite as large as in the U.S., but they have a ways to catch up after the war. Luckily the coast was not as damaged from the war as was the inland part due to the mountains, that is, excluding Dubrovnik, which we will see at the end of our trip.

I am officially the captain on Fizz, our 47 foot Benneteau, thanks to my American Sailing Association certifications I received earlier this year, and for Tom McMaster being my housesitter, who happened to be at home when the call came from Croatia to get the certification number. All is well. Wayne Hokemeier, is doing great as a first mate! I took charge day before yesterday until we backed in to a very substantial concrete wall in very gusty winds. We had already observed the challenges others had faced. To give you an idea of the conditions, we are using all ten fenders. I, myself, am still remembering Don from our Turkey trip, every time I go down the gangplank, hoping I do not fall in. At least this one will not collapse--it is one long plank.

We are scheduled to head out southwest today to one of the 2100 islands off the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. That would mean the winds are decreasing to a more manageable level.

In case you are wondering, we have seen a couple of Dalmatian dogs here, but they are not originally from this area.

CRUISING IN CROATIA

After staying in the Twin Cities most of the summer (one excursion to Boston and a week long sail from New York City to Baltimore, and a week of racing on Lake Superior), I guess I could not wait until the Fall to travel again, so here I am in Croatia. I flew into London, transferred to Stansted Airport to take a cheap flight down to Zadar, then bussed it to Trogir. Trogir is a small town, part old, part new, given the rebuilding since the war, and attracting tourists in mass.

I met up with some friends, one of which scuba dives, so we did one dive, and Randy said he saw enough that he did not need to do another dive. Instead we lounged on a pebbly beach. We are spoilt by having the Caribbean so close. (As for the Caribbean, the town I lived in last Winter was dessinmated by Hurricane Dean. So sad to think of how hard everyone worked to build up that town.)

We have toured Trogir, including the wonderful bell tower, and are off to board our boat, which is half way between here and Split, then back here tomorrow night. I could go back to the restaurant we ate at last night. I had wonderfully grilled squid. MMMMmmmmm good!

Weather is warm, nice winds. This is at about the same latittude as MN, but has the seas to keep it more tempid.

Fair winds to you.