Dubrovnik, Croatia ... July 29-31, 2008

We swam again this morning before packing up and checking out of the hotel and making our way to Dubrovnik, Croatia. Dubrovnik is about 220 KM down the coast from Split, but takes about 4 hours since it is on a 2 lane road basically the whole way. It is a beautiful drive, though, mostly following the Adriatiac coast, allowing for a mostly pleasant drive (except when behind a semi or two).This city is AWESOME! The old town sits right on the coast, surrounded by the mostly original 13th century wall that has protected it from both ancient attackers as well as modern ones. I say "mostly original" since in 1991 the Serbian-Montengrin remains of the Yugoslav People's Army (loyal to Serb Slobodan Milosivic's government) besieged the city for seven months until the Croatian army liberated it in 1992. The damage was repaired in the original style.
It is a completely automobile free city, so we had to park outside the walls and haul our stuff in by foot. We rented an apartment right in the middle of the old town, up a LOT of steps, but completely worth the trek. We got organized in our apartment and then took a walk through the cobblestoned narrow streets of this ancient city. We found a pizza place and of course had Gelato for dessert before putting the girls to bed.
The next morning we got up and casually made our way to scale the wall and hike the greater than 2KM of stone that circumvents the city. The wall itself was amazing, as was the view that it provided of both the interior of the city and the red roofed buildings, as well as the view to the surrounding countryside and the Adriatic.
We were told that Dubrovnik had a couple of SAND beaches. Maybe they do, but the one we arrived to was something in between rocks and sand...good enough, I guess. We took a bus that stopped right outside the city gate to the beach and spent a few hours relaxing in the sun. The weather was perfect, as it had been throughout the trip.
After the beach we made our way back to our apartment, but not before taking a drink from Onophrio's fountain, right after the entrance to the city.

We also tried out the famous tradition of the city of standing on the Gargoyle that is located just across from the fountain. You are supposed to see how long you can balance on this. I couldn't last more than a couple of seconds, but Katie and Ashley did pretty well.We had some more pizza for dinner and gelato for dessert (we are just across the sea from Italy, remember!) before being passed by the "parade" of Dubrovnik soldiers and heading back to our apartment for sleep.

Although it is not very accessible to get to for visitors that don't live in the area, Dubrovnik is certainly one of our top 2 or 3 European destinations that we have visited and recommend this to anyone!

Split/Trogir, Croatia ... July 28, 2008

We woke up Monday and drove to the island of Trogir, about 30 minutes outside of Split. This is a 9th century island town on the Adriatic Sea, where we enjoyed strolling the small cobblestoned streets, seeing the shops and experiencing the old town. While Heather was feeding Ryan, I took the girls to the medieval tower that was once used to fortify and protect the city. We walked up to the top of the tower for a great view of the city and the Adriatic Sea.

We drove back to the hotel and went swimming for the afternoon. The girls were surprised that the water was salty, and didn’t enjoy it so much. They spent about 2 minutes in the Adriatic and the rest of the time in the pool. That was fine with me, because most of Croatia’s beaches are pebbles and rocks, and it really is not all that fun (at least for me) to be out there with the uncomfortable rocks, even with water shoes. Ashley actually threw up after taking in a gulp of the seawater. We took a few pictures of them in the sea and then went back to the pool. Katie finally realized she could swim (she has been able to swim for a while, she is just too afraid to actually do it!), but only if she had either her flippers on, or a mask/snorkel. It’s like Dumbo and that feather. As long as she had her “feather” she was fine. If she lost a flipper she would panic and start to falter. But with her mask and snorkel she was all over the pool, thoroughly enjoying herself. Ashley, on the other hand, CAN’T swim, but is so fearless she would just jump into the water without her floaties (and has before!) if we would let her. She is happy to hold her breath and keep her head under water, even having contests with me (she also likes it when I throw her across the pool).
We went to a seafood restaurant recommended by the hotel, Restoran Nicolas, where we chose our freshly caught fish for dinner. It was good, but not worth what we paid, but at least we experienced Croatian seafood. We drove back into Split for more of that ice-cream (and finally realized that we had already visited the Palace, as I mentioned earlier) before going to bed.

Zadar/Split, Croatia ... July 27, 2008

We drove to Zadar, Croatia where we attended church in the small branch of Zadar. We had a little trouble finding the meeting house, which was based out of a small house, so we arrived a few minutes late (we asked a number of people if they recognized the name of the street that we had written on a piece of paper, but nobody seemed to know, EVEN a lady that was living THREE houses down from the meeting house ON the street!). It was a small branch of about 20 people (half of them Missionaries) with the front door leading right into the small room where they were conducting sacrament meeting, so the late entrance of our family of five was very well noticed. And considering the meeting was done in Croatian and we forgot to bring in the bag of books for the girls, it was difficult for Katie and Ashley to get through the hour. And of course, normally quiet and content Ryan decided to get fussy, requiring us to get up and make our way for a separate room with him (separate in the sense that a homemade curtain separated this room from the Sacrament Meeting). Basically we were a big distraction, and we felt bad. That being said, the members and missionaries were super nice to us, arguing that it was nice to have a family (and some noise) in the meeting. An older missionary couple from Utah told us it made them feel more like a ward from back home, so I guess we didn’t cause too much of a problem.
From church we drove directly to Split, where we would be staying for the next 3 days (2 nights). We had some friends recommend the Le Meridien Hotel in Split, which has a pool complex and its own private beach. We checked in and were glad to be in a full-service hotel for a few days. We drove down to the center of Split, where we walked through the Diocletian Palace. Although, at the time we didn’t even know that was what it was. We were told we had to visit this palace, but we expected just that, a palace, and were unaware that the Diocletian Palace was really what was left of a Roman palace, which only the basement survives. The rooms have been turned into shops and it seems more like a little city than a palace. It took us returning there later and then again before we finally convinced ourselves that we actually HAD visited the Palace! We had pizza and some really good ice cream before driving back to the hotel for the night.

Plitvice, Croatia ... July 26-27, 2008

We woke up relatively early and started our drive to begin our week long vacation to Croatia. Two years ago we had visited the Northern coast of Croatia with my parents, so this time we decided to see the Southern most parts of the country, along the Dalmation coast. We decided to spend the first day, though, in the National Park, Plitvice, about a 5 hour drive from Budapest. This is in the interior of the country and is a UNESCO World Heritage site, protecting a beautiful park of lakes connected by beautiful waterfalls and rivers, with wooden bridges guiding you through the wetlands.
We found our apartment that was located right outside the park entrance, dropped off our stuff, and made our way into the park. A bus takes you up as far as you feel like going (depending on how long/how hard of a hike you want to do) and then you hike down. We chose the 2-3 hour hike, considering we had Ryan in the Baby Bjorn, Ashley in a backpack on my back, and Katie, being the oldest, hiking with us. The landscape is amazing, the flowing waterfalls from wimpy to breathtaking. I carried Ashley in the backpack for a little less than half the hike, and then convinced her to walk the rest of the way with Katie. Considering this was a long hike for them, they did great. Once in a while one or the other, or both, would just decide to sit down in the middle of the trail or bridge, forcing us to convince them to keep going with some sort of bribe. We made it back to the park entrance, exhausted, but having experienced a spectacular element of nature that we had previously only had explained to us.