Part 14

Thursday, July 21

Moving on, we're headed for Dubrovnik today.

We had to get up early (again). When we were leaving Ljubljana, I set the alarm for 0610. So far, that seems to be a good time for getting up whenever we have something to do. Yesterday, it was a good time to get up to head to town to get the ferry tickets, and today, it was a good time to get up to get ready to leave.

Irena, the apartment owner, had offered to drive us down to the bus terminal; so we didn't have to schlep our bags too far to the ferry dock.

It was a much different ride on this Krilo catamaran. Fast and smooth, but also very full. Every seat was taken. When we got back to Split, there was what I now consider to be the "usual suspects" meeting the boat ... people holding signs for "Apartment/Sobe/Zimmer", tour operators meeting their next clients, porters offering to tote your bags on carts.

The transportation links in Split all converge at the same place. The ferry dock is right adjacent to the bus station, which is adjacent to the train station. It sure makes life easy for those "usual suspects". We hiked over to the bus station, and while Marg checked on where the bus was likely to be, I went in to buy the tickets. It turned out that we wouldn't have much of a wait; the next bus to Dubrovnik was leaving in about 15 minutes.

Who knew that buying your bus ticket didn't include "luggage handling". I had to pay a 20 kuna-per-bag "checked luggage" fee. And who knew that there was "assigned seating" on the bus. While I was dealing with the bags, Marg had gone on board to snag us a couple of seats on the right-hand side (for better views of the coast as we go southbound). With the bags taken care of, I went inside to get us a couple of kava z mlekom for the trip. I got on board and joined her. It was shortly afterwards, based on the conversation s of those around us, that we realized the "assigned seating" policy. Checking our tickets, we saw that we didn't even have two seats together ... let alone on the right-hand side of the bus. Fortunately, no one came to ask us to move.

We're working our way south along what is called the "Croatian Riveria" - and for good reason. The "beaches" along here are closer to what I would consider "beach" and there are all kinds of small hotels, pensions, apartments and campgrounds. The road twists and turns it's way along the coast; the views out over (and because it's a coastal road with plenty of ups and downs, down to) the water are spectacular. On the left, the coastal hills (or maybe they're mountains) rise rapidly. In the tourist centres, vendors with small stalls sell everything you might need when on vacation, outside of the towns, roadside fruit stands have giant watermelons. Every turn in the road brings something new.

A few passengers just got off in Makarska ... another tourist-centred town. A few more are getting on. The bus station here looks a lot like the one in Split.

We carried on slowly down the coast. The bus stopped in Ploče for a quick five-minute break and Marg managed to get in to the bathroom. I stayed behind - on the bus - to make sure that we didn't leave without her.

The road made a large loop around what appeared to be some sort of flood plain; the area was latticed with irrigation canals and roadside fruit and vegetable stands were everywhere. As we left the flood plain, the road climbed up, and up, and up - over a shoulder of yet another mountain. We rounded a few more bends in the highway and came to a passport control. This part of Croatia's Dalmation coast is fractured into two pieces by a small slice of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But it wasn't Bosnians that boarded the bus, they were Croatians. As happened on the train from Ljubljana to Zagreb, passports were checked *leaving* the country. A little further on, we came to the town of Neum. Here, the bus stopped for a 15 minute break.

Marg and I got sandwiches at the small snack bar. Many of the other passengers were getting ice cream. The "rest area" has a terrace with yet another gorgeous view out over the Croatian Adriatic ... or at least what I assume is the Croatian Adriatic since the Bosnian piece of coastline is so small and includes no offshore islands.

Back on the bus and we're off - only to arrive shortly after at another passport control/customs stop. Again, it's Croatian. Margaret and I are beginning to make jokes about the secret police forces of Bosnia and Croatia ... but maybe it's no joke. At the last passport control, they checked everyone's documents ... at this control they just waved the bus through. I started to wonder what all of these people will do for a living when Croatia (and eventually Bosnia) joins the EU. What happened at the Slovenia/Austria border will happen here - the only difference being that these recently-established borders (post-Yugoslavia breakup) have not yet developed as much infrastructure.

Out of Bosnia and back in Croatia, we were on the "home stretch" for Dubrovnik. Traffic was heavy on this two-lane road. We crossed a really nice-looking single-pillar cable-stay bridge (Franjo Tudjman Bridge), turned left and down to the bus terminal/ferry/cruise ship dock. From there, we had to take a bus to the Pile Gate - the main entrance to the old city.

The old city was not quite as confusing to navigate as Venice. We quickly found our way to the apartment and got squared away. We'd had a pretty early start to the day so we had a brief siesta before going out to start exploring the city.

We started by taking a walk around the city atop the old walls. Other empires swirled about Dubrovnik ... Venetians, Ottomans, Byzantium ... all were influential in the area. But Dubrovnik (formerly Ragusa until 1918) maintained independence and in the Middle Ages offered a counter-balance to the Adriatic influence of Venice. The city remained staunchly independent as a republic until being conquered by Napoleon in 1808. Even today, the city's motto is "Libertas".

The original city walls were built up to their present state in the 15th century as protection from the Ottomans. The walls offered a measure of protection to the residents during the Siege of Dubrovnik in 1991. But not completely. As we circled the city and looked down across the roofs, the areas of destruction were identifiable by the presence of new roof tiles. And from the number of new tiles,it was obvious that nearly no area had been untouched.

The view out over the city from the walls was only outdone done by the view out over the Adriatic. Our choice to walk the wall late in the afternoon seemed to have been a good one; we'd heard that the parapets can become quite crowded when all of the day-trippers from the cruise ships flood the city during the early-to-middle part of the day. All told, it was about 2 km all around.

The walk around the city helped to give us a sense of perspective on Dubrovnik. For good reason it has the nickname "Pearl of the Adriatic".

We came down from the wall right where we'd started ... at the Old Port gate near the Sponza Palace. Back up along the Stradun and a couple of left turns brought us back to the apartment.

Supper that evening was at a restaurant near the site of the morning market; we had a mixed fish grill plate (for two) which was very good. After that, we did what Dubrovnik does best ... enjoyed the evening stroll around town. The streets were alive with street performers and pedestrians.

But all great days must come to an end ... so it was back to the apartment for a good night's sleep.

Part 13

Wednesday, July 20

We leave Hvar tomorrow. Yesterday afternoon, we went to the local agency that sells tickets for the fast catamaran ferry back to Split. We were told that they only sell tickets one day in advance - so we would have to come back the next day. They had a sign posted in their window advising that the tickets for the next day (Wednesday) were already sold out; so I asked how quickly they sold out of tickets. "We open at seven, and the tickets are usually sold out by 10:30" she said.

With that in mind, we woke up early to head down into town to hit the ticket office first thing.

We haven't yet had the chance to see this side of Hvar ... the regular work-a-day things that go on out of sight of the tourists. In the town centre, deliveries were being made to the various restaurants and hotels. At the waterfront, small boats were loading up with supplies to be taken to the beach restaurants on the out-islands. The last of yesterday evening's partiers were staggering their way up the hill.

We were second into the ticket office, behind what appeared to be some sort of tour guide. Marg was worried that the guide would buy up all of the available tickets; I said not to worry because it's a big boat. In the end she only bought about 8 tickets. We got our two, so now we're set for getting to Split.

We went to a little coffee shop and had our morning kava z melekom (café au lait) along with a couple of little shortbread-type cookies. It rained overnight and it still looked as though it might rain again. At one point while we were sitting outside the coffee shop, several big gusts of wind blew some of the seat cushions around and knocked an ashtray (ever-present on tables here) to the ground. But the rain passed a bit to the north and the sky cleared off (just a bit). We even saw a rainbow.

After coffee, we walked back up to the apartment. We stopped for a bit to watch the ferry (the one we'll take tomorrow) pull in ... to get an idea of how it's going to work tomorrow. Suitably armed with that foreknowledge, we headed back up to the apartment for a proper breakfast.

After breakfast, we walked back down to the town centre to catch a boat to Palmažana. We lucked in, there was a boat just about to leave as we got to the taxi boat stand. Palmažana is a bit further out than Marinkovac or Jerolim, so the fare was a bit higher. It was still a bit breezy, so the ride was a bit rough. I was really surprised at the number of boats docked at the harbor. The main dock was full of sail and power boats; the smallest of which was in the 30 ft. range. The majority were 40+ footers. 

After we docked, we took the trail up the hill to see the beach at Vinogradišće Harbour. It was a very small (as in narrow strip of pebbles) beach that wrapped around the cove. There were at least three different restaurants/beach clubs doing business there. And although it wasn't "packed" with people, it was "busy" nonetheless.

Our objective for the day was lunch at a restaurant in Vlaka - Konoba Dionis. There are no roads (at least none that we saw) and the trail to Vlaka is quite rough. Not only was the surface of the trail rough - rocks, tree roots - the path was narrow and grown at the sides with small plants. Given that the climate is quite dry here, it's incredibly green everywhere. But that greenery is of the somewhat "dry, scratchy" variety. Think of picking your way through a narrow path at a Christmas tree farm. And as for the trail itself, it was sometimes difficult to follow the blue dots that had been painted as trail blazes. A couple of times we found ourselves at forks in the trail wondering which was the correct path.

We got our legs scratched up a bit ... but nothing too serious. Along the trail, we would every so often come to a break in the tree cover and be given a glimpse of yet another bay. And every bay had several boats anchored within. Palmažana, a sailor's paradise! That would explain all the boats we saw moored at the main harbour. And of you want to get a sense of how many different bays there are on the island, I invite you to look it up.

As recommended in our guidebook, we'd called ahead for a reservation. I had figured we could be there by 1400. We were a bit early, so at the last bay before the restaurant, we went for a bit of sun and a swim. The shore here was very rough, so the best we could do was sit in between some rocks and let the waves wash up and over us. It was certainly refreshing after the hike through the bush.

We headed up to the restaurant ... and it turns out that we really didn't have to make a reservation. However, if you're thinking of going, I'd recommend a reservation because his six tables could fill up very quickly.

Less a "restaurant" and more like an covered terrace, the place oozed rustic old world charm. The terrace opened off to a view of the olive grove, and beyond that, the Adriatic. We started with a pitcher of lemonade - made with lemons from their farm. Followed with a salad - made with vegetables from their farm. And shared grilled squid - no doubt caught within sight of the restaurant. The owner apologized when we ordered the squid; saying that it would be a little while for the squid because he had not yet built his fire. No problem! We were more than happy to sit and enjoy his place.

The single order of squid that (along with the salads and a bit of bread) we shared proved to be more than enough for lunch. But the owner managed to talk us into desert ... a slice of lemon cake accompanied by two small wedges of a jellied cantaloupe. Both were delicious.

But, our time there had come to an end, and we had to start the hike back to catch the taxi-boat.

It didn't seem to take quite as long to get back. And when we got to the dock area, the water taxi was waiting. "just going to wait until it fills up a bit more" he said. Well! He waited til it filled up COMPLETELY! As in "people standing at the back" full. The wind was still blowing at around 15 knots. The wind and the passenger load made for an interesting (rough) ride back.

But, make it back safely we did. For the second-to-last time, we walked back up the hill to our apartment to get ready for our last walk back down for supper.

There are some big yachts in town. We'd been noticing these behemoths the past couple of evenings. But today, there was one that has to top them all. Excellence III dwarfed all of the others it was tied up alongside. I'm not sure who was on board ... but whoever it is mush have a ton of Kuna, or Euro, Dollars or Yen at their disposal. (Later in the evening we looked up "Excellence III" on the Internet and found that it's available for charters ... and if you have to ask the price ...)

Even though the weather has turned a bit cooler, The town centre was once again crawling with people this evening. There seemed to be a lot more Brits in evidence, but I would still say that the majority of tourists here are German. At supper this evening, there was a mom/dad-2-kid family from Britain (at least judging from their accents and the fact that they ordered "chips"). At another table, we heard more British-accented English and down the square a bit, a small group of yobbos were breaking out in what I thought were English soccer songs.

We had pizza ... and after wards, I had an ice cream. On the walk back, we picked up some strudel-type pastries for the morning.

Back to the apartment; it's time to pack and get ready to move on tomorrow.

Part 12

Tuesday, July 19

Today, we had a "vacation from our vacation". We took a water taxi to Jerolim island, rented chairs and veg'd out on the beach ... swimming and relaxing.

Part 11

Monday, July 18

Wow! I must have been tired. I slept til 1000.

After a bit of breakfast, we got our beach stuff ready and began walking towards the town centre.

Although there are beaches not far from here, I'd read that the better "beach" experience is had by taking a water taxis to to one of the adjacent islands ... with the warning that they can be pretty deserted/desolate places. Our plan today was to visit Marinkovac Island.

As we walked towards the town centre, we stopped in at a small grocery store to pick up some things for lunch; bread, cheese, meat. Spoiler Alert: we should also have picked up more water.

We got to the dock and quickly found a boat heading out. We passed on the first stop at Jerolim and got off at the second stop - Marinkovac. there was a big "beach club" called Carpe Diem that had chairs, umbrellas and food. We stopped for a coffee and went off to explore the island.

To me, a beach is the sandy meeting between land and water. Here in Hvar, "beach" has nothing to do with sand ... although it is the meeting place between land and water. I'm pretty sure that land-based life did not crawl from the primordial ooze onto the shore of some Croatian island. If it did, it would have probably been smashed against the rocks. The Croatians could learn a lot from Canadians on the concept of "beach".

But, with a pair of sneakers and some good timing of the waves, it was possible to get into the crystal-clear water. Well, maybe more like aquamarine-crystal-clear. The sun was hot, the water refreshing ... come to think of it, maybe we Canadians could learn a thing or two about the concept of "beach" from Croatians.

We sunned, we swam, we ate our lunch, we swam some more ... and when we got bored, we packed up and explored the island a bit more. Remember earlier when I said that we should have picked up more water? Well, at one point, we found ourselves quite a way from the "beach club" under the broiling sun with less than a half-litre of water to share. And all of that swimming in the salt water made my mouth feel as though I'd been eating potato chips and pretzels!

The walk back to the "beach club" was OK ... the trail was very narrow and the bushes kept scratching our legs. We made a point of stopping for a break whenever we found ourselves on shady spots of the trail; we managed to get back to the "beach club" without having tom resort to drinking the condensation from the odd discarded plastic bottle we saw along the way.

After the boat ride back, we hiked our way backup to the apartment, stopping again at the store along way to re-stock our drink supply ... and making sure to buy extra for tomorrow.

After a snooze and showers, we headed back down into the centre for supper. We went up to an area just north of St. Steven's Square. There was a narrow lane way along which we found several restaurants. In the end, we settled for a place called Lucullus.

We thought we would have to sit indoors, but there was an open-to-the-sky area behind the front wall of the restaurant; a "courtyard" if you will. We took our table and the waiter brought menus. He described two of their specials for the evening - a shellfish/pasta combo and a baked fish ... I asked him to bring us those.

The food was fabulous! And the atmosphere was indescribable. There was a large group that came after us ... Marg thought that maybe they were the Croatian Mafia. Based on the champagne starters (opened with a small sword!) and money they kept tipping the musicians (two guitar platers), she may not have been too far wrong.

We wound up spending the entire evening at the restaurant. The service was't rushed ... it was simply understood that that was to be our table for the evening. Sometimes, the musicians played (obviously) Croatian songs that many of the other people in the restaurant sang along to, sometimes they played more familiar (at least to our ears) North American songs by Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel. They would move from table to table; play a couple of songs and move along. They came by our table, played one song, and then asked "English?". Well, yes, but also "Slovensku". That sent one of them off to chase down their songbook. After leafing through, they found one ... and started into John Denver's "Country Roads" with Slovenian lyrics. After they were done, we thanked them ... but Margaret thought she heard the "mafia" group in the back grumbling about getting back to playing "our songs". The musicians quickly headed back that direction and started back into the Croatian songs.

Even though the Slovenes and Croats have - as far as both Marg and I know - had good relations through the years, my guess is that there may be a bit of lingering resentment on the part of the Croats (towards the Slovenes). Twenty years after the breakup of Yugoslavia began, the Slovenes are "in" the EU and moving forward; the Croats are still waiting.

One piece of advice we read "if you encounter any political-type disturbances, just leave". It seemed like a good time to heed that advice; and in any event, our supper was long over and since it was going on midnight, it was time to head back to the apartment. We walked through a still-crowded main square and waterfront, back up to the apartment for another good night's sleep.

Part 10

Sunday, July 17

We had to get up early today. Helen's flight is at 0800 and her ride to the airport is scheduled to pick her up at 0630. She'll fly with Adria to Frankfurt and then with United on to Washington and Ottawa.

Marg and I carry on now to Croatia. Our plans take us to Zagreb by train, Split by Croatian Air and then ferry over to Hvar. In between, I'm sure there will be a couple of bus connections. When I planned this out, I knew that there were going to be a few challenging travel days; Venice to Gorizia/Nova Gorica and on to Ljubljana was one. Today is the second.

After Helen was on her way, we finished tidying up around the apartment. As instructed by Miro, we left the keys in the apartment's mailbox and headed the three blocks up to the train station.

We arrived early enough to enjoy a cup of coffee on the platform; one of the other patrons was enjoying what appeared to be his first - of what were likely to be many - beer of the day. There are several impressions that will stick with me; not all of them favourable. Ljubljana is a beautiful city and in short order, will become of the the "hot-cool" destination cities. But they really have to do something about the people on bicycles that tear in and out of pedestrians at high speed. I'm all for bikes, but there are places to ride, and places to dismount and walk. Crowded pedestrian areas (IMHO) fall into the latter category.

Smoking seems to be endemic. Although banned indoors, every outdoor table came equipped with an ash tray. And if we moved it away, the wait staff quickly tried to replace it. Even our apartment - which was listed as "non-smoking" had an ashtray available on the table!

And then, there's the drinking. Not that people were "drunk" ... but there seemed to be no limit or curb on its consumption. From early in the morning, til late at night; start the day with a beer, end the day with a beer. Maybe it's my "puritanical" North American perspective. But I have to wonder how much more the society could accomplish if so many people weren't wandering around most of the day under some small alcoholic "buzz".

Sorry, I got a little carried away.

We boarded the train and found spots in a small 6-seat compartment. There's a local (Ljubljana) youth baseball team on board ... and like any trip involving young teens, there was a lot of post-boarding scrambling around to try and find seats. All is settled now, and we're heading for the Slovenia/Croatia border and out of the EU passport zone.

First, there were the Slovenes, checking travel documents and stamping "exit" from the EU. After that was done, the train was back underway and the Croatians came through doing pretty-near the same thing. Except this time, they weren't stamping the "EU" entry, but rather entry into Croatia. I was wondering what will happen to both these sets of "inspectors" once Croatia is fully admitted to the EU and the border is rubbed away. One thing is sure, it will reduce the train's travel time between Ljubljana and Zagreb by about 20 minutes.

When we got to Zagreb, we first hit an ATM. Euros are out, Kuna are in. Then we grabbed a snack and a cup of coffee. We sat on front of the train station and plotted our next move; we had to make our way to the bus station. The maps I had looked at made it seem as if it were on 4 or 5 blocks. But, given the fact that we were schlepping our bags, we decided to take the local streetcar.

It was a couple from (of all places) Winnipeg that helped us get off at the right stop. We walked to the far end of the bus terminal and found a bus about to depart for the airport; paid the fare, loaded our bags and hopped on.

For a capital city, the Zagreb airport is nothing special. Most of the passengers were taking "international" flights; the city was certainly well-connected. But there were no loading bridges. Passengers went through the boarding gates and got on buses to be taken to the aircraft that were parked at "hard"stands.

We were there quite early for our flight - approximately 2 1/2 hours! And there was nothing but a couple of vending machines in the waiting area. Marg snoozed and I caught up on writing about our adventures. (Hey... you didn't think that I wrote this stuff in real-time ... did you?)

Finally, the departure lounge started to fill and before long, we were boarding the bus.

Croatian Airlines operates Dash 8-400 series aircraft (just like home) with a small "premium" cabin at the front. The flight was uneventful and about 45 minutes after departure we landed in Split. The approach was a bit odd ... there are high hills (actually more like a ridge) to the north of runway 05/23. We did an overhead procedure, crossing mid-field at about 3 thousand feet before turning into a left-hand downwind for landing on runway 23. At first I thought that the pilot was ex-F18 by the way he slammed it into the deck. But as we taxied in, I looked back and saw that there was a significant uphill tilt to the runway. I guess it was less about him slamming it on the deck and more about how the deck rapidly rose up to slam him.

After a short wait for our bags, and a wrong turn in our quest to find the Croatian Airlines bus, we were headed for Split.

I only knew a couple of things about how we were getting to Hvar. The first ... since it's an island, we're (probably) going to be taking a ferry to get there. The second ... it leaves at 1700.

Let's see ... depart Zagreb at 1435 with 45 minutes enroute. Then, time spent waiting for bags and a 45 minute bus ride into the city. Hmmm ... it was looking like this would be cutting it close ... especially if there's any sort of walking distance involved.

We'd looked at a map in the guidebook, but nothing can take the place of actually seeing it and sizing it up for yourself. The chaos of the port was evident as the bus approached the terminal. Buses, cars, foot passengers, ferries large and small ... all loading and unloading; locals who had come to meet the airport bus were holding signs advertising rooms, over there, some dock workers trying to cram an intercity bus onto a ferry.

It turned out that there were two options for a 1700 departure: a "fast" catamaran that would get us there in about 45 minutes, and the regular car ferry that would take 3 hours and leave us a 20 minute ride from Hvar town. Now, you may well ask, why did you take the car ferry? Well, for the obvious reason ... the catamaran was SOLD OUT! Nothing much to do now except enjoy the ride.

We arrived in the town of Stari Grad and took a bus over to Hvar. The island is very dry, very rocky and quite a bit hillier than I'd thought it would be. When we arrived at the town, the owner of the apartment was there to meet us and drive us up to the place.

The apartment is small, but functional. The terrace/balcony/lanai looks out over the town and the bay ... amazing!

We had showers and took the walk down to town to get some supper. It's quite compact at the centre, and the sidewalks (no cars) were jammed wi people. At the docks were some of the most impressive boats I've ever seen.

We settled on a pizza joint on St. Stephen's square. And, apart from a 45 minute delay in getting our food from the kitchen to our table, had a nice meal. After supper, we wandered through some of the back alleys. Despite the fact that it was after 2300 most shops were still open.

We left the town centre and headed back up to the apartment for a good night's sleep.

Part 9

Saturday, July 16

I woke up early to return the rental car. When I'd picked it p a couple of days ago, I was told not to take it back to the hotel's parking garage because I would have to pay (perhaps at the entrance?). I'd left the car in the apartment agency's parking lot and wanted to get it out of the way as early as possible.

I was at the car rental desk in the City Hotel a little after their advertised start time of 0800, but the desk agent didn't show up til about 0820. He must have been out enjoying the town's Friday evening entertainment yesterday.

With the car dropped off, and it still being quite early, I took the walk up to the train station to pick up our tickets for tomorrow's train ride to Zagreb. Tomorrow promises to be one of our more challenging travel days; train to Zagreb, fly to Split and ferry to Hvar. I wanted to make sure we were all set without having to scramble at the last minute. No worries on that front. Although there was a bit of a line at the"international" ticket sales window, it wasn't that bad ... and 26 euros later, I was out the door with our tickets.

I went back to the apartment. Helen and Marg were up and ready to have breakfast. After eating, we went to what's become our regular morning coffee hangout - The Prince of Orange. We had our coffee and headed towards the centre part of the city to do a last bit of kicking around and shopping.

We went to the market area; just across the river (Dragon Bridge) from the apartment area. At the market, we bought some gifts to take back home; Marg and Helen are both getting more comfortable using their Slovenian and have managed to get a couple of small deals from the local merchants.

One of our "missions" today is to pick up another bag/suitcase. Marg finally admitted that she's packed way too much stuff and Helen has agreed to take some of it back when she leaves tomorrow. We found a good candidate the other day when we were poking around in some of the shops, so we were just hunting to see if we could find anything better before making the buy.

We started by walking (and dodging cyclists) westward along one of the pedestrian-only streets. At Slovenska Cesta the pedestrian area ended but we carried on for a couple of blocks until we came to Tivoli Park. This is the main central park of Ljubljana and exploring it would have to wait for another trip.

We went a couple of blocks south and headed back along Tomšičeva Ulica. These few blocks are the homes of the formal cultural heart of Slovenia; the National Gallery, the Modern Art Museum, the National Theatre and the Slovenian National & Natural History Museum are all within these 2 to 3 square blocks. As with Tivoli Park, touring these will have to wait for our return.

As we walked back towards the old-town centre along Tomšičeva Ulica we passed by the Slovenian Parliament and the Square of the Republic. This is the 20th anniversary of The Slovenian break with Yugoslavia and in preparation for the trip, Marg and I had watched an excellent BBC series titled "The Death of Yugoslavia". It was in this square - across from the parliament buildings - that the leaders of Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia on June 26th, 1991.

What followed is called "The Ten-Day War". As a near-homogenous cultural group, the central (Serbian) authorities in Belgrade only put forward token resistance to Slovene independence. Casualties were light; 18 Slovenes and 44 members of the Yugoslav National Army were killed.

The balance of the disintegration of Yugoslavia was a much different matter.

Since then, Slovenia has gone from "independence" to "integration" by becoming (in 2006) a full member of the EU. There is a noticeable difference in levels of prosperity between - for example - Italy, Germany or France and Slovenia ... but the Slovenes are catching up fast.

History lesson over ... we headed back towards the old town centre to buy our "extra" suitcase. Marg found one that (she says) will meet her needs for years to come. With that in hand (or rather "in tow") we headed back to the apartment.

The lesson learned from our days without luggage was that we didn't need quite as many things as we had originally thought. Both Marg and I had identified clothes that we could send back with Helen. I'll leave it to you to figure out who sent back the most stuff. We also sent back some souvenirs from fils part of the trip.

With that mostly in hand, we headed back out for one last late-afternoon stroll through the old town centre. The area is really interesting and we began talking about the things we'll have to do the next time we come back.

We went back to the apartment, cleaned up and treated ourselves to supper at a restaurant named Julija. After supper, one last stroll through the centre and some sladoled (ice cream). The buskers were out in force. There was the one-man band, a guitar/drum duo and a fire-juggler with a whip. And although it would have been fun to stay out even later, the truth was that we had to get back to the apartment.

Tomorrow, Helen goes home and we go to Croatia.

Part 8

Friday, July 15

We were supposed to get going at 0900 but it was actually closer to 1000 by the time we got to the car.

Our first challenge was to try and get out of the parking spot. As is common in Europe, parking in Ljubljana is at a premium, and even though we have a small car, it was still tightly fit into its spot. Add to the problem a car parked perpendicular to us, with barely enough space to get the entire length of the car clear of the other vehicles beside us. I must have rocked that bugger back and forth about a hundred times (seriously, no exaggeration) before I managed to get it clear enough to be able to drive away. I couldn't have done it without Marg watching the stern and Helen minding the bow.

Once again, having the GPS helped get us pointed in the direction of Bled.

The weather took a significant change overnight. It's cloudy, a bit rainy, and much cooler today. Ever since we got here, the temperatures have been in the low 30's; today, the temperature is only forecast to hit the low 20's. We saw a bit of rain as we drove to Bled.

Bled is a resort town on Lake Bled. The area is considered to be Slovenia's leading lake/mountain resort area. And the crowds certainly bore this out. We had in mind going for a swim in the lake ... and drove around to the far end (from where the road and town are) towards the rowing centre. But the weather still wasn't very pleasant. We enjoyed the view of the castle on the hill, the church on the island and the lake itself before getting back in the car and heading deeper into the mountains towards Mount Triglav (tree-glau).

We got back on the expressway and headed west. At the ski resort town of Kranjska Gora we turned south into the Julian Alps.

Kranjska Gora was part of an unsuccessful bid for the 2006 Winter Olympics under the banner of "Senza Confini"; joining with other towns in Austria and Italy (both within about 20 km of our location). From what we saw, it's a fairly small ski area; I guess they had big plans to spruce it up a lot.

We followed the signs for Vršič and began the up, up, up climb to the mountain pass. We entered Triglav National Park shortly agter the switchbacks began. In all, from one end of this road to the other there are 50 and each has been numbered for your driving convenience.

At switchback number 8 we stopped to look at the Russian chapel. The road we're driving on was built by 10,000 Russian POW's from the First World War. Hundreds died of illness and exposure. And in 1916, an avalanche in this area killed hundreds more. This chapel marks the spot where the last of the casualties was recovered.

Just after switchback 24 we reached the summit. The story goes that you're not a true Slovene until you've climbed Mt. Triglav. Even though we were up just over 5,200 ft in elevation, it would still have been another 4,100 feet of climbing. The climb is supposed to be do-able by anyone in decent condition ... but it's recommended to be a two-day activity. Instead of climbing Triglav, we had a small lunch in a restaurant at the pass' summit and then climbed a way up a trail across the road. Climbing all the way to the top of Triglav will have to wait for our next trip.

Back in the car, we carried on down the other side of the pass into the Soča River valley. It was in this area that Ernest Hemingway drove an ambulance during the First World War ... and some say gathered material that he eventually used to write "A Farewell to Arms".

We carried on down into the Soča Valley and just past the town of Trenta stopped to jump up and down on a small suspension bridge. The views back up the valley - towards the mountains - were beautiful. I took plenty of pictures, even though I know that cameras can never do these vistas justice.

We turned around and began to head back ... past the 50 switchbacks, up and over the Vršič pass ... back to Kranjska Gora. But, since we were so close, we made a detour to the west and north to stop at the Slovenian/Austrian border.

Essentially deserted now, it still echoes of the line between "communist" Yugoslavia and the rest of Europe. Now, with Slovenia part of the EU, the border posts and passport controls are gone; all that remains is a duty-free shop that seemed to be doing a land-office business in cigarettes.

The weather had been improving through the day, so we headed back to Bled.

Lake Bled looks a bit like some sort of medieval dreamland. The lake is - by Canadian standards - fairly small. The town of Bled is at one end and a walking path circles the lake. There is a castle on a cliff that looks down onto the lake, and an island in the lake is home to an old church. Rowing is popular here with several places having small rowboats available for rent. Helen went for a swim, Marg and I walked a bit on the path that circles the lake. We then rented a boat and rowed out to the island to see the church.

The church is a popular spot for weddings, although we saw none today. Slovenian tradition holds that the groom would carry his bride up the 99 steps of the church to prove that he's "fit" for marriage. I'm starting to get the feeling that being a Slovene means that you have to be in pretty good shape! What with all the mountain climbing and wife carrying to be done.

Marg and I climbed the steps, and walked round the church. Since she had rowed out, I rowed back. Lake Bled truly is the centre of Slovene rowing culture. On our way back we had to be careful not to get tangled up with the young rowers out training in their sculls. Lames had been laid out running nearly the length of the lake and there were about a dozen boats (singles, pairs) out training. I'm sure that some of the people we saw will be competing in this year's World Rowing Championships taking place in Lake Bled late this summer.

After we returned the boat, we found Helen and headed over to the local "campground" restaurant. Since our mountaintop lunch a had been pretty substantial, we opted for bowls of juha (soup) and spent some time listening to a local Slovenian combo playing a variety of polkas and "traditional" music. Our waiter even managed to talk us into having dessert - Kremšnite - a local Lake Bled specialty.

By now, it was getting late, so we got back in the car and headed to the apartment in Ljubljana for another good night's sleep.