Jadan Dvah Tree

Just to make things more interesting, we woke to intense thunder and lightening in the middle of the night.  We had stuff drying on the balcony so Janna scrambled outside in the pouring rain (convenient for Sue that she heard it second) to bring it in.  This was some of the loudest thunder we had ever heard; there was no noticable delay between the sound and the light.  Although the intensity eventually decreased, the storm continued well into the morning  (think 5 hours of disrupted thunderstorm sleep).

At 8:00 when the alarm went off, it was still pouring rain.  We needed to be out the door at 8:30 to make our first connection.  Surprise surprise, we were both dragging our feet to get out the door into the storm.  With Sue waiting at the ferry stop under a rooftop, Janna was sent to get breakfast.  She came back with 2 chocolate filled croissants.  We may or may not be developing a fairly serious condition called "pastry belly"....

We were the only ones on our $2.50 ferry trip to Orebic (the main land).  We arrived in Orebic, found out when the bus to Trpanj was supposed to come, and commenced an hour of waiting in teh rain.  Janna did help to pass the time by acquiring a cinnamon crusted roll and a cream filled donut like pastry.  The bus was more than 30 minutes late, but we felt ok about it because a young man and his elderly mother (we thought) were also waiting.  Then the bus was almost an hour late....hmmmmmm.....

A car ferry arrived and the man at the bus station was trying to tell us that the bus wasn't going to come "nein autobus"...and signaling that we should come with him.  He also told us no money (it wouldn't cost anything) and his mother kept saying Trpanj (or so we thought- the pronunciation is a little tricky).  Since we now have no trouble crawling in cars with just about anyone, we thought, "what the heck?".  Just kidding Mom....we wouldn't really crawl in anyone's car.  It's hard to describe this, but in the US, you would think someone was crazy to offer you a ride in their car because for some reason that you don't understand the bus wasn't coming.  But in Croatia, if the bus isn't coming, and you have a friend giving you a ride, and there are more seats in the car, of course you are going to help someone out.  Plust, grandma was very very unassuming and sweet.  Understand our situation here:  There are about 15 km between Orebic and Trpanj (where we need to get to catch our ferry), and the 15 km are over a mountain.  It is raining.  Taxis are no more reputable and probably cost about $75....

So in the car we got, and grandma could not have been happier to have us as company in the backseat.  It did not take us long to call her "Mama" because she was the boy (age 33)'s mom.  The driver was a very friendly and nice guy, and was doing his friend a favor by giving him a ride.  We had a very interesting conversation during the car ride, trying to communicate with one another.  The English they spoke was limited to "Mama Mia!", "America", and "Obama" and "Clinton".  We brought to the table in Croatian "thank you", the numbers 1-10 except for 5 and poor pronunciations of the places we wanted to reach that day.

We learned that they were going to Sarajevo and that while he has a Bosnian passport and lives mostly in Sarajevo, she has a Croatian passport and lives in Orebic.  She had a daughter (the boy's sister) who died giving birth fairly recently.  She has 2 sons, 4 daughters, her new house that she is turning into a "sobe" (think bed and breakfast) cost 80,000 euros.  He works in ceramics and works in both places (the money is much better in Croatia but stuff is MUCH cheaper and more beautiful in Sarajevo.  And there is much more.  It is amazing how much you can actually communicate without any words.  And yet it is amazing how much words increase communication.

You're thinking, "wow, you learned that much about them during a short car ride to the ferry?"  Oh no.  Grandma made sure we followed her to the ticket office and got safely on the ferry, sitting with them.  As a favor, we bought his ferry ticket (as thanks for the ride that his friend would not take money for) and he bought us hot chocolate on the ferry.  We rode the ferry together, got off in Ploce together, and headed to t bus station together (even though they were taking a train at 5:00). 

Now, let's talk more about Grandma.  She is 74, speaks not a word of English but acts like we understand everything she says in Croatian.  She made sure Janna zipped up her coat, wiped Sue's hair off her forehead three times, handed Janna a napkin when she had mustard on her hands, fed us chocolate cookies, greeted every bus that arrived to check if it was our bus and took Sue to the free bathroom in the train station (as opposed to one that cost 45 cents in the bus station). 

Honestly, this day was priceless; we were surrounded and protected by our two loving Croatian escorts- they woudn't take a cent of money (not even an American quarter as a souvenir) and did not leave our side until our bus came (two hours after we arrived at the bus station).  It was a day of communication and struggling with communication and smiling and pretending to understand and being frustrated that you couldn't understand better and of thankfulness and appreciation for the goodness of some people out there.

So, the bus.  Bosnian busses aren't in a hurry.  Except when they are.  Our bus was more than 1.5 hours late to pick us up and it meandered through the countrside, stopping twice for the driver to have a cigarette (in less than 45 minutes) and eventually pulled up to a bus hub (not a station and well outside the standard route).  The driver said something in Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian???  and all the people started getting off.  Hmmmm.....we definately weren't in Mostar yet.  Once we saw our bags on the side of the road, we quickly got off too.  It seemed as if we were just standing in the sun....enjoying the view of the terminal?  For 5 minutes.  Then 10 minutes.  Then 15 minutes......then a new bus pulled up and were were apparently supposed to get on.  After confirming "Mostar" (the only word we know besides thank you and the numbers) we climb on, and literally as the passengers are getting on (before anyone has sat down) the bus zooms out.  Now we are in a hurry.  It was a speedy drive through some intense winding switchback mountains.  Nauseating.

At 5:00 we arrived in Mostar.  Whew.  The sun is out now and we found our hostel.

Mostar is beautiful and stunning and very safe and our hostel is adorable and very cute and the people are very nice and the gelato is very cheap here.  It was unreal to walk through beautfiul building that just 15 years ago were literally the front lines of a nasty war....

There is so much to say about this beautiful city and its history but that will have to be tomorrow....It is amazing how you can travel 100 miles and enter another world.

Vacation from our vacation

The last few days have been very nice and restful. Last year at the end of our trip, we had

three days in Sorrento, and it made a huge difference. This year instead of trying to hit
two different islands, we just came to Korcula and stopped moving for a bit. Although the
weather wasn't magical, it was do-able. Here are some highlights from the island.

1. We had been meaning to go to a performance here called the Moreska dance. Other than
knowing it was very local, we knew it invoved swords and music. We were sad when we found
out that last night's performance was for "invited" people only. We were seriously bummed
out. Then we were souvenir shopping, and one man was closing very early. He explained that
there was going to be a festival that night and the president of Croatia was coming to the
island. Great. We walked around looking for crowds. Finally we saw one around a circular
shapped stage. We stood around just outside the crowd barrier. Guess what it was? Yep,
the dancing. It was really amazing and fun. We are pretty sure we saw who the president
was, but it is very different here. There is none of the formality. We are pretty sure the
president was one of two differnt guys in a tan colored suit. His security was wearing t-
shirts that said "Security" (in croatian, of course.) But no metal detectors, no guns on
the security guard.

2. We ate out twice for dinner. They were even different restaurants. We had excellent
luck here. Fewer Itallian style "fish" joints. It is still heavily influenced by Itally,
but more what we would expect of Itallian food. Last night we shared some pizza and pasta,
and tonight neither one of us had pizza. Can you imagine? The restaurant was very cute.
We were sitting in this really ancient stone room with a bunch a neat artifacts. It was
near where Marco Polo grew up. Anyway, most of the seating was on the street, but when we
arrived that was full. The waitress teased us about our private romantic dinner. It was
pretty ammusing.

3. The town is very cute. If we weren't so conditioned to this middle-aged castle/cities on
the edge of a penninsula I know we would find it amazing and charming. We are enjoying it,
but maybe not quite appreciating it the way we should. One thing I will say about the town
is that it is specatular at this festival thing. Last night was the big festival with the
dancing. Tonight a whole parade made its way through town with a flag waving leader and
someone playing something the bagpipes from an animal stomach and 50 costumed people behind.
We don't understand all of the croatian ways.
4. The pastries here have been exceptionally good, and we seem to be eating more than our
fair share. That usually amounts to somewhere in the vacinity of 3 gelato cones per day + 3
pastries. Is that too much? Oh, don't worry. We also rented a kayak and paddled hard for
two hours. We aren't loosing our edge.

Janna "Scuba Diving"

Tomorrow should be a little more advenutrous. We seem to have our best stories when we
move, and tomorrow, we take a ferry to a bus to a boat to a train. Wish us luck!

Leaving Plitvice

When the alarm went off at 6:24 this morning, we bolted out of bed, into yesterday's clothes, grabbed our cold veggie pizza from last night, some water, and headed out the door sleepily. Our goal was to hit the Plitvice trails before anyone else. We succeeded. Obviously, park transportation was not running until a more reasonable hour, so we began hiking to "Stop 4"- the furthest point of the park. It was longer than we remembered, and took us more than an hour to get there.

The hike was more than worth it (even Janna agrees). We were totally alone on the trails (which is pretty amazing in a place that sees 10,000 visitors per day). Saw some fabulous waterfalls, had good (but cool) morning weather, and got our 5 plus miles of hiking in before breakfast. Once we saw our first people, we hurried toward the shuttle (literally a full out sprint, as they only come every half hour). We made it in time, and sat for 15 minutes while the driver read his morning paper.

At this point, you should know that we were following a really tight timeline for the day, in order to make all our transportation connections and enjoy the places we visited enroute. You can imagine that this full out sprint to sit and wait for 15 mins was frustrating.

After the shuttle ride and 1 mile uphill hike back to our hotel, Sue went to find some bus information. Here, again, some important information: think about today a little bit like an extension to the Amazing Race. Plitvice is a very isolated place, far from cities and substantial towns. Busses come through on the main road from Zagreb (capital city, 3 hours north) and Split (big coastal city 4 hours south). We had been warned that catching one from here was tricky, and involved standing at the bus station (a small roofed fort) and trying to hail a very crowded passing bus, looking as desperate as possible. We needed to make it to Split for a 5:00 ferry, and wanted to make it by 4:00 if possible.

Well, Sue found some "information". Keep in mind that before this we had tried the internet, guidebooks, and busstations and had been able to attain no worthy bus schedules other than "look pathetic and try to hail a bus on the way by". The woman cleaning rooms at our hotel, who spoke only Croatian and Deutsch, was very helpful and told Sue that a bus went by the bus station (which was very close by) at 10:00 am every day. Sue returned to the room where Janna had begun to pack with this important information. It was 9:52.

We literally THREW all of our stuff in our bags (to give some more context here, before leaving the room, Sue had to unpack the big bag of trash including a 1.5 liter soda bottle Janna had packed in Sue's backpack in her haste). We dropped our key in the lobby, sprinted out the front door, jumped over the plants, off the 3 foot high ledge, rolly suitcases in tow. Landing on the grass below, we continued to huff it into the street, and out to the main road, not even pausing to roll the bags. A local tractor driver driving by our hotel at that moment watched the scene and must have wondered what we stole.

Janna was in the lead out the door and off the ledge, but 20 feet before the end of the road succumbed to fatigue and began a slow plod the final stretch. Sue, behind through the jumping phase, sprinted all the way to the bus stop, passing Janna in the final stretch and arriving a full 30 seconds ahead of Janna.
It was 9:58 when we got to the bus stop. Whew.
Janna wanted to make lunch, but Sue insisted that we didn't have time. We took turns pasting our eyes on the corner of the road from which the bus would come, ready to flail and wave as soon as the bus rounded the turn. The one not watching was allowed to get a drink, finish brushing hair, clean out the bags, and get ready for the day.

At 10:30 we were still waiting, but our hopes were bolstered because a local man had arrived and was also waiting for a bus to somewhere. He said it would come in 10 minutes. At this point, Janna was resting in the shade of the small station (think tree fort) and Sue was practicing synchronized rolly bag dancing routines. Lunch had been eaten. Janna clipped her fingernails, and Sue was wishing she had had time to wash her face.

At about 10:55 (one hour after our mad sprint to the bus stop), a large bus pulled over. It didn't have a sign on the front window, but it did have a Atlas Bus (big tour company in Croatia) label on the side. One of the drivers got out, asked where we were going, put our luggage underneath, and on we hopped. We had almost sat down when we realized that the bus was empty, save for two other people. Hmmmm....
The second driver was a very friendly man who spoke good English with a thick Croatian accent. He was thrilled to have Americans on his bus and engaged us in conversation for 30 minutes. We learned that the bus had actually just spent 7 days in England leading a tour group around and was just being driven back to its home in Dubrovnik. The drivers were so friendly and thought it was wasteful to drive an empty bus...so were picking up people like us. The other couple was from the Netherlands. We also learned that soon we would get on the highway and fly to Split.
Really, somehow we had caught an amazing break. Busses to Split take 4-6 (and usually 6) hours. We would make it in 3.

The only problem is...Split center and bus station is actually a good 18-20 kilometers off of the expressway....hmmmmmm.......
So, at 2:00 we got dropped off at the edge of the greater Split area. We waited half an hour for another bus, heading into Split, got on and made it....Whew. 3:00, ahead of schedule (miraculously). Note here that our ride from Plitvice to Split cost us 8 dollars total. It should have cost almost 100. Lucky.
So, we had 1.5 hours in Split until we had to be on our ferry. We were efficient experts, as we had been in Split just last year (albeit in a Bonnine hangover-type state, but there). We left our bags with a bag-leaving man, bought fruit and pastry and water and AMAZING dark chocolate gelato, a backpack full of Christmas present (Split is the biggest shopping place we have been thus far and knew we needed to take full advantage of it), and the piece de resistance: a take away mexican salad and a fishburger from the Black Cat Bistro (we needed to not eat pizza tonight).

Even though throughout our day everything seemed to be going wrong and going right at the same time, we somehow made it to Korcula (in the right place), with full bellies and good storeis.
After a wonderful but frenzied 2 days getting to and away from Plitvice, we are really excited to be settling in for 3 nights on a Dalmatian coast island.

In Korcula, the 13 year old son of the Guest House owner met us at the ferry, led us to the place, showed us our room and checked us in (Willie- this could be you!).  He copied our passports, took our money, showed us around......

The Wrong Bus Stop

We had a relaxing morning in Rovinj preparing for what we thought would be a tricky day of traveling. Sue went on a run, we ate delicious croissants at our free breakfast and headed to the bus station 20 minutes early. Somehow we managed to almost miss the bus we needed (because it had been sitting in the station for 30 minutes and we didn't notice it).
The bus ride was a little amusing because Rovinj is on a peninsula called Istria. The bus left Rovinj, heading south, the eventually went back north. After 2.5 hours of driving on back roads we were 24 kilometers from Rovinj. That is about 15 miles. Hmmm....

We made it to Karlovac and made our connecting bus in 5 minutes only! During this 5 minutes we needed to make and eat our lunch because we had splurged on tuna in a can and some multigrain crackers as a change from cheese and bread, but we felt rude eating tuna on a crowded bus....So, Janna drained the tuna (which turned out to be in oil instead of water-yuck) and we hopped on the bus to eat our smelly lunch.It was a very full bus; we were in the very back in the last two seats empty, but we were on the bus- hurrah!

After some very windy roads we eventually arrived at the stop called Plitvice Camping. We knew this wasn't our stop- we wanted Plitvice hotels. So, at the next stop where there was a big map of Plitvice Lakes National Park, we got off the bus. And soon realized how wrong we were to get off there.

Other than the big sign, there were two small guesthouses and a grocery store. Didn't look like Plitvice. Using the map and our poor directions, we were not quite sure where we were. So Sue went into the grocery store and (tried to) ask. We found out it was about 7 kilometers further along. We had gotten off the bus way too early.

But, there were no taxis to be found, no busses to ride. What were we going to do but walk? So we began walking. Remember, we are carrying our rolly bags and walking along the side of a road. To make it even better, the road soon began climbing a mountain pass so all but the first 1/2 mile of our walk was quite uphill.

After about 1.5 hours of hiking (which even Sue did not enjoy) we arrived at the first entrance of the park. Our hotel was past the second entrance and easily another 3 miles along. Sue got up the courage to ask a park ranger what the best way to get there would be, and as luck would have it, he actually worked at the second entrance and was being driven there by a friend in a very short amount of time and welcomed us along for the ride. What a wonderful wonderful man.

We got in his friends car and he took us right to our hotel. Sometimes luck is on our side. We have never been so happy to be in the car with two strange men.

After checking in, and still very anxious to get to the park that we had traveled so far to get to, we literally ran the trails to get there (about a mile away).

The park was amazing and lovely and we walked most of its large area between 5 and 8:30 at night, seeing so many waterfalls and lakes, and very few people during the last hour of our journey (hmmm...everyone else had left the park at that time). By the time we headed back to our hotel, we were exhausted and starving.

Across from our hotel was a Pizza Bistro, and the lack of table cloths on the tables encouraged us to sit down without even seeing a menu. Vegetariana pizza yet again. This one proved to be the most interesting yet. It was a jumbo pizza with about 48 small shreds of cheese spread across it and 1/2 cup of what seemed like frozen vegetable mix (peas, carrots, corn). Interesting.
With full stomachs, we collapsed into bed.

Biggest Loser Former Yugoslavia

Today was a beautiful, exhausting Croatian day that ended with a bunch of very cute Croatian cats, amazing gelato, a cheese Burek, and a pretty sunset. Sounds idyllic doesn't it? You obviously haven't heard all of the details yet....

A friend of ours said that we should write a travel book, and we were thinking, well, who would buy our travel book? The 4 people in the world who want to travel like we do? So then we were trying to label how we travel...and figured that it is some kind of combination of the Amazing Race and the Biggest Loser (both TV shows that we haven't really seen because we don't have tv).

Here is how it would work: you have some insane path you have to cover in a certain period of time (for example, you might have to bike around the dirt trails of the hill towns of Istria on a partly working mountain bike to reach a beautiful ocean destination) and the last person to arrive at the final destination gets kicked off. A tourist-race to get in shape, lose weight, and lose more gelato.

You can imagine how this might lead into the story of our day. We woke up and Sue was giddy with excitement because we had decided to rent bikes and bike around today. Janna had trouble getting out of bed. To her credit though, once she did, she was smiley and happy and excited for her day of adventure. We took a morning walk through town to pick up some souvenirs, and then came back to our hotel for free breakfast! Eggs and yogurt and fruit and croissants and juice- delicious!   Even Sue had more than one mini-croissants.
We got all dressed for biking (which meant bathing suits under clothes) and packed our bags (which contained towels, 1st lunch, 2nd lunch, and two heavy books for reading), rented our bikes, and we were off. Following the "red" biking trail throught the countryside. Of course, here it should be noted that we were not following the trail in the conventional manner- that would have been too easy. Rather, we followed it backwards because we wanted to climb to hilltowns first and finish by the ocean for swimming. Basically, we were going the right way, they made the trail in the wrong direction.

It was beautiful. We rode through small farms with beautiful crops on the hillsides. Lots of olive trees and grapes mostly. There was a surprising amount of poverty; very small houses, lots of lived-in campers, very run down homes next to vibrant, breathtaking fields. Almost all of the crops were very well taken care of, though we saw no evidence of modern farming techniques; it seems to mostly be done by hand. Also the fields were big, but single family farms, not commercial at all. None more than 5-8 acres. Some of the farms were making their own olive oil and wine and selling it in fancy bottles to tourists. A few big mansions had recently been built up in the hills, but the owners were definately not farmers. There is a fair ammount of fallow ground, showing that a fair number of people have left farming for more prosperous professions (probably tourism around here). The roads were very rocky, rough dirt, but where the dirt is turned over for farming it is a beautiful dark red color that apparently is quite fertile. We saw one place with gigantic pumpkin sized winter squash growing.

As you can imagine we struggled with following the trail, but somehow always ended up back at the red signs. Lots of ups and downs (it seemed like more ups than downs), a fair amoutn of sweat, and after about 2.5 hours of pretty hard biking, we ended up at our first beach. Ah! Respite. We ate first lunch, went for a swim, and then immediately ate second lunch. Whew. We dried off, and moved on.

At this point, we had no water left and were very very thirsty, but somehow kept missing roads to towns and opportunities to buy water. Back on the main road, we bike past many many stands selling homemade wine, olive oil, fresh fruit....but no water.
Finally, at the edge of what we thought was Rovinj, we found a Konzum (Croatian grocery store) and Janna was sent in for water. She came out with water, a much needed Mars bar, and two pieces of bread. Note: Janna was sent in because Sue knew that she would not be able to resist bringing out a necessary chocolate snack, whereas Sue would have grabbed only water.
Somehow, we worked our way back to the water, found a beautiful beach, stopped, read, slept, swam, ate snacks, played cards, sunburned, and relaxed.

Getting back on our bikes, we realized we were quite a bit further south than we thought we were and still had quite the ride ahead of us....so we rode and rode along the coast. It was very very pretty, and finally we couldn't resist any longer and had to swim again. Ah, the Adriatic....this time, we didn't bother drying off, so with wet shorts we continued on our way.
At 5:45, we returned our bikes...It was an 8 hour biking bonanza. When asked what the best thing she saw on the trip was, Janna replied, "The Konzum with the water."
Showers, dinner (to-go), wandering, picture taking, dessert, cat-petting, and in our room before dark. Which, it should be noted, is when most of the Italians were just heading out.
Tomorrow morning we take a long bus ride to Plitvice lakes...it is unlikely that we will have internet tomorrow or the next night so you'll be lucky if you hear from us :)

Don't worry, plenty of pictures and stories when we emerge from our blackout.....

Lets just walk. It can't be THAT far.

Well, today was not our smoothest, most experienced day as travelers. But, it wasn't our worst either.
We started our morning with a lovely breakfast of eggs, a chocolate croissant and chopped fruit, made by Sue in our adorable little apartment in Piran, Slovenia. We left fairly early to catch a small bus to the town of Portoroz, about 6 kilometers away. Being Sunday morning, we were unsure as to whether the bus would come regularly or not. We were in luck, and after only 5 minutes of waiting, it arrived. We hopped on and were on our way. Until we passed the travel agency that gave us the key for our apartment. This is approximately 45 seconds after departure. This is the moment that Sue remembers that we need to return our key to the travel agency before skipping town. Luckily, the bus stopped just at the edge of town to let more people on the bus. Janna was forced to run a small old Sloveian (or perhaps Italian) lady doing her Sunday morning shopping off of the bus so that we could get out the door with our suitcases. Hmmm...no one was expecting anyone to get off after just two blocks. Keep in mind there is a free and frequent bus that takes visitors to the parking lot at the edge of town.
After successfully returning the key in the dropbox (I hope), we discovered that the next bus was not for more than half an hour. Drat. Here is where it is important to note that Janna does not pay close attention to distances on maps (or anything detail oriented as a matter of fact) and she insisted that we just walk to Portoroz. Well, Sue is always up for a morning hike (with the rolly suitcases through many casinos and cobbled roads and resort beaches) so we set off. We were quite enjoying our shady morning walk, and Janna was chatty and happy....until we got back on the main road and the bus that we would have taken 30 minutes later passed us. A quick mood change. It was no longer fun for anyone.

After walking awhile longer (because 6 km is in fact more than 3 miles....with rolly suitcases) we arrived in Portoroz, a large resort town, and began our search for rental bikes. We found these quite easiy and stowed our luggage and headed off on our bikes to some old salt mines south of the town. There were two ways to go. A slow meander around the coast, or up and over the very large hill. Pressed for time, up and over it was, and we were both breaking a good sweat by the time we flew into the mines.

That's good that the sweat didn't come until then; we were trying not to break a sweat until 9:30 given that it was Sunday.

The mines looked very very cool and there was a lovely bikepath and wonderful museum and reenactments of old fashioned salt panning.....But, by the time we walked to Portoroz and then biked to the mines, we had to snap a picture at the entrance and huff it back on our bikes (again up and over) in order to make an 11:23 bus from Portoroz to Rovinj.

We returned the bikes and Sue waited at the bus stop with our suitcases while Janna ran to the grocery store to get us some food for lunch (we were starving at this point, as you can imagine). When she emerged from the store, she was carrying a FULL, HUGE bag of groceries. Sue made her promise that we would not eat it all for lunch.

Soon after the bus started rolling, (we were still downing our gigantic lunch) we crossed into Croatia and said goodbye to Slovenia. Leaving Slovenia we got a stamp, and entering Croatia our passports got less than half a glance. Apparently a notebook from Kinkos was enough to get you into Croatia. With our stomachs full of food we both passed out with sleepiness.

We arrived in Rovinj without further incidence and had a lovely afternoon swimming, eating, shopping and wandering. And taking a microbiology test.
Our second snafu of the day came with our swimming adventure. We were not sure if the weather was going to turn; the bus had driven through some intense rain enroute to Rovinj so we headed out into town ready to wander and swim only if the chance presented itself. Well, it got hot and we saw the beautiful Adriatic and lots of people swimming, so we decided to change into our suits and swim. Had we been Croatian, we would have just sat on a rock, taken off our clothes, and slowly put on our swimsuits. However, we went against some rock cliffs, taking turns holding towels up and avoiding the man photographing the rock and clouds above, and got our suits on.

After a lovely swim, we walked back down the hill into town. Janna wanted to make sure that we had the room key and that it didnt slip out of her pocket while changing so we emptied the backpack (spewing our underwear, passports and change of many currencies in someones doorstep). No key. We quickly repackaged our goods and headed back to the changing rock. Bam. Orange tagged key there, hidden in the long grass. Crisis averted. Good thing noone else needs to hide while they change. Really, we're just waiting to lose our passports.
And so after another new day of finding new places and doing new things, and the closest we came to disaster was having to tell our hotel (which is the fanciest we have stayed in yet) that we lost the key to the room we hadn't paid for yet.
Looking forward to free breakfast in the morning. What are you looking forward to?

For the record . . . .

OUR beach checklist.  . .
1. Swiming suits
2. Guns, Germs and Steel, A world histroy in less than 500 pages.
3. Microbiology: Diseases by body systems.
4. Sunscreen
5. Face sunscreen
6. Towels
7. Pastires
8. Sweet Snacks
9. 2nd breakfast
10. Lunch
11. Water
12. Money for gelato
13. Camera
14. Salty Snacks
15. Some fun new food that we don't recognize
16. Something tasty to eat.

Essential sLOVEenia

Slovenian Beach Checklist

• water wings
• water shoes
• snorkel
• mask
• sunscreen
• towel
• snacks
• umbrella
• floatie raft

Optional:  bathing suit

Slovenian Food Questions
1.  If you put cheese on bread early in the morning and it sits in a hot car all day (temperature approximately 105 degrees F) how many hours can you wait to eat the cheese?  Keep in mind, it has been on bread, think grilled cheese.
2.  If you ask for ketchup at a restaurant (an unusual request as no one here eats it) and they bring you a 1/2 gallon container half full with lukewarm ketchup, do you eat it on your fried squid?


Choosing a restaurant to eat at in Slovenia
1.  Find some place without table cloths.  These indicate a high level of class.  Exceptions to this include if the seats at the tables are white plastic porch chairs.
2.  Make sure there are pictures of all food dishes on the menu.  Some people might think this is tacky.  Tacky is ordering small fried fish and not eating any of them (see last year's post- Dubrovnik).
3.  Beware when the waiter brings you the check and a free shot of Schnapps and says, "this is for the house."

Things to watch on Slovenian television
1.  A game played on a circular field with a rugby ball, football goal posts, kicking, throwing and occasional ball dribbling.  Definately not rugby.  Definately not soccer.  Definately not football or handball.
2.  Handball.
3.  Tour de France
4.  History Channel:  Kennedy's Body- seriously.  We watched this.  It was very very interesting.
5.  Unsolved Mysteries (on 24 hours a day as a matter of fact)

You might be in Slovenia if....
The person across from you at a restaurant looks down or way off to the side, and your first inquiry is, "what's wrong, is someone topless?"

Everything in a seafood restaurant comes with its head on.  Including shrimp.

You fall by rolling your ankle on the way back from the WC, and various people in three languages ask you if you are ok.

You set up your "spot" at the "beach"  (translation, two towels perched precariously on a large rock above the ocean) and literally 1 meter away an entire extended family sets up their refugee camp for the day complete with blankets, pillows, straw mats, snacks, sunblock and toys.  Notice a key missing thing.

Essential Slovenian
Ice cream:  sladoled
Water:  Voda
Mercator = grocery store
Thank you:  Hvala
Drug store:  Drogirija
Ketchup = ketchup

Adriatic or Bust

As interesting as Slovenian television is, we wanted to take a few minutes and fill you in on the highlights of our day.  We just finished typing this only to have it lost, so we might run through things with a bit less gusto and humor than usual.

We started off the morning by going to the market and buying breakfast and lunch.  Then we picked up a few souvineers to those who are leaving comments on our blog.  For those of you lagging behind, there is plenty of merchadise in Croatia.  Don't give up.  We left for a bus to Divaca (De-VACH-a).  The bus station was very small and cute.  We tried to find somewhere to leave our bags, but the ticket man at the train station didn't speak English.  Luckily a really nice Slovenian woman who spoke english helped us find the three luggage lockers at the train station (yep, small airport.)  When we walked  back out of the station, sad that we hadn't seen a WC and were preparing for a 45 minute walk to the Skocjan caves.  Luckily, there was a free tourist bus that pulled up outside.  YEAH!

The caves were unbelieveable.  We spent two hours walking through the caves.  The first part was the silent caves, and the second part was the wet caves.  The wet caves were basically like the grand canyon under a cavern.  We were 500 feet above the river.  At one point at about 300 feet above the river we actually crossed it.  It was like it belonged in Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.  It was very cool.  It is as UNESCO world heritige site.

This is Sue at the exit to the cave.  It was enourmous.  At the end of the cave, we could either take the funicular back, or we could hike out of the valley.  If you think we took the funicular, you obviously don't know how things work.  The walk out was very sweaty, but very nice.

This is a beautiful waterfall before the river goes under the river.

 

This is a second cave that used to be a tourist cave, but has too much archeological value to enter.

We got back to Devaca and had to wait around for about an hour for a bus to show up.  The bus drive through every small town and eventually ended up in Piran. ..  a cute little seaside town in Slovenia.  So excited for the Adriatic.  The water was a bit choppy becuase a storm was coming in, but it was wonderful.

Here I am enjoying a gelato after a swim on the beach.  Notice that the beach is rocks along the ocean next to the promenade. 

This is the classic town square.  Tartini Square.  This town is technically bi-lingual.  Everything must be written in Slovenian and Itallian. 

Here is Janna standing out on that peir with the semi cloudy sunset.  It was a beautful evenning.

Ljubljana

While Sue woke up cheerful with a smile on her face ready to face the day,  Janna quickly remidied this by senidng Sue on a run back to return the rental car key.  (4 miles + @ ~85 degrees)  Janna woke up sweating and groggy.. .  and remained this way for six hours (until her nap).  The morning was quite warm, but not hot, yet Janna was in a full out sweat before we could get to the first gelato stand (1 block away. )  We had a nice breakfast of pastry and gelato.

Sue at one of the three bridges in the town square.

Janna sweating near the river.  The smile was a show for the camera.

Only in Ljubljana can peeling old buildings feel "charming"

Right by the river felt like Vennice, while away from the river was a lot like Prague.

More amazing peeling buildings.  Great ambiance.

Send your mumu  orders via self adressed stamped envelope to : slovenia, care of ljubljana.  This was the huge outdoor market.  Fish, meat, cheese, produce, mumus. 

Step right up at the market for raw unskimmed cow's milk.  Illegal in the  U.S. a treat here.

Most of the back streets are old and shop-lined like this.  Lots of outdoor restaruants.  Shop early.  Everything but the late night eating places close around 6:00 pm. 

We took a nap hoping to escape the heat, but went back out when our room got too hot to bear.  We tried to go shopping, but everything was closing up for the evening.  We were shocked that things would close that early.  We walked halfway across the city for a vegetarian restaurant that we never found.  We came back to the center of town and settled for a veggie pita, tuna salad, and french fries.  Please note the continued adhearance to the cheese and bread fast. It was surprisingly good.

Lucky for us, things perked up again at about 8:00.  The evening was beautiful.

Watch this video of the atmosphere in Preseran Square.  Yes, that is a Beetles song.

The Julian Alps - You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

On Tuesday night we ran into two Canadian girls at the Post Office (both teachers in fact) and they told us about this Excursion they went on the day before that was absolutely the BEST part of their trip.  Called the Emerald River Adventure, they traveled to the Alps and went rafting and swimming and hiking and saw all of these amazing things.  They were trying to convince us to do the Adventure, as it was so amazing.  So, Tuesday night as we ate our pizza and Cream Cake by the lake we debated and agonized over whether or not we should do it.  We are uptight, and have a plan for our trip and it wasn't in our plans....and we had planned to rent a car the next day and drive through the Alps to end up in Ljubljana.....so after much debate, we stuck with our plans.  But, we vowed that we were going to have our own "Emerald River Adventure."  And we did.  Details below.

Lake Bled in the morning- the first day we saw the mountains in the distance without clouds.

We hit the ground running pretty early and had already  broken a good sweat by the time we got in our rental car.  The rental car guy said that it was supposed to be 37 degrees C.  We later found out that that is precisely body temperature.  98.6 degrees..  This picture (abo ve) is just outside of Bled (near Zasip) where we pulled ovet to eat breakfast.

45 minutes into the drive we got our first real glimpse of some intense Alps. 

This was our first pullover- a crystal clear pond.

Behind the pond, an old river bed.  The rocks are white from talc which makes a lot of things beautiful and makes the water (rivers and lakes) an emerald green color.

Then, we commenced climbing Vrsic pass- a very high pass through the Alps comprised of 24 intense driving switchbacks.  Throughout the drive there were amazing views, Alpine meadows, wandering cows and crazy bikers doing the clmb.  The road was built during WWI by Russain POWs to supply troops in the Soca Front (see Hemingway's book "A Farewell to Arms" for more about the region and the war.

An idea of scale: there  is a hole in the mountainside shown on the right side that is big enough for the Statue of Liberty to fit through.

Cows and cobbled switchbacks for better traction.  The car had to be in 1st gear to make the turns.

View from cow switchback.

Our first hike, from the top of Vrsic pass.  This was a very steep endeavor (maybe 1500 feet straight up).  We are resting and eating 1st lunch here.  Janna is a happy hiker.

We continued on from our lunch spot and saw real mountainclimbers attacking the rockier mountaintops.

Janna still a happy (but hot) hiker.

Because of the time of day, the faster we hiked to a higher altitude, the better we avoided the increasing heat down below.

We turned back here because our Adventure had only just begun.

On the way back down- the mountain took the slightly crooked picture.

After descending the pass via more switchbacks, we pulled off for another little hike.  We climbed (very steeply) to the head of the Soca River.  Look how happy Janna still looks.

Just before we reached the source, the only way to walk was holding onto the cables.  Very exciting.

Here is the source of the river.  The picture might be decieving, but the water is really clear and you can probably see 30 or 40 feet below.

It should be noted that we ate our second lunch here.  Bread, cheese, mustard.

Later, further down the Soca river, this is a picture from a very rickety suspension footbridge.  Probably 50 feet down to the water.

Rickety bridge.  See above.

Old WWI military post on the Italian border.  We snapped a picture out the window, too tired to get out and walk around.

This is on our third and "most adventurous" hike.  We were attempting to see the Boka waterfall.  When we arrived at the pulloff, we saw lots of happy kids in bathing suits and were very excited to swim in teh beautiful emerald green river.  Needless to say, we took the wrong path and after 30 minutes of very vertical climbing (in our bathing suits and flipflops), we realized that the swimming area is probably at the bottom of the waterfall, not the top.  Luckily for Sue, it was Janna who kept insisting that this was the right path (despite Sue's voiced inklings to the contrary).  Once we got to the bottom (1 sweaty hour later) we were so disgusted that we got in the car and continued on our journey rather than swimming.  The picture above is before the hike gets really steep.  You should keep in mind that this waterfall is Slovenia's second highest waterfall...and they have a LOT of high waterfalls.

In the car, recuperating from three major hikes, drinking "Cockta", the Soviet answer to Coca-Cola and eating Paprika Chips (which are very good).  Janna drove Sue to drink soda and eat chips here.  Even Sue is tired now.  Note:  still wearing bathing suits.

Hike number 4.  After stopping at the WWI museum (which was very interesting, though we had trouble focusing our tired eyes on all the pictures and captions) we were determined to still get a swim in.  So, we tried to find a "hidden gem" of a waterfall whose name I can't come close to spelling.  We did find it, but it required another mile of hiking in each direction to reach it.  The river was very green and the waterfall was very cool, but when we reached it there was no way to get to the pool to swim in it, and it was quite cold in the caves where the waterfall was.

A WWI cave we saw on our way out from our non-swimming waterfall hike.

Suspension bridge over the Soca river near the waterfall.  Note the amazing water color and the distance above the water we are and therefore the reason we were unable to swim in it yet again.

The rest of our Adventure, sans pictures. 

At this point, it is 7:30 pm.  We left our hotel at 8:00 am so needless to say, we are quite tired.  We have a 2 plus hour drive in front of us so we get moving through the beautiful tiny hilltowns of Slovenia.  Slovenian roads are very narrow and very windy and Slovenian drivers are not super concerned about that pesky "dividing line" in the middle of the road.  It was a breathtaking experience, driving those roads, but we survived.

We stopped for pizza somewhere in the middle of nowhere (note that this is three days in a row with pizza for dinner).  We ordered the "Vegi" pizza from the nice Slovenian waitress, and when we opened it up in the car we found that here a veggie pizza consists of crust, cheese, tomatoes, green olives, zucchini and mustard for sauce.  Interesting.  Not bad.

Finally we got to Ljubljana, figured out how to get petrol (more than 5 euros per gallon) and tried to return our rental car to the specified place.  For the life of us, we could not find a drop box for the key...and we were very very tired from our day.  We decided to lock the car, write a note, and take the key, to return in the morning....We hailed a cab (this is a big deal for us, first time really!), and ten euros later and some intense English language swearing by our cab driving about getting lost, we arrived at our hostel.  Phew.

Love the Alps.

Tomorrow we will be on a pizza, cheese and bread fast.  None allowed for the whole day.