Author: John Bassett

After our late evening at the opera, it was hard to wake up early and be ready for another adventure. I think we both wished we had another day or two in Vienna. But we need to be on our way to Prague because after two days in Prague we will begin our cruise down the Elbe River. The good part of scheduling everything in advance is that you know you always have a place to sleep and will not miss some important events or attractions. The bad part is that sometimes a little spontaneity is a good thing, too.

We again used Day Trip to get from one capital to another. Our driver this time was named Marek. He was a nice guy, but we did not quite bond with him as much as we had with Davor. He picked us up promptly at nine o’clock. His Mercedes was not quite as spacious as our previous Land Rover and I wished I had more room in the back. As usual, John was more chatty than I was. I admire his ease in not only making small talk but sometimes plunging into topics of conversation that I probably would have avoided. 

Our stop on this route was Lednice Castle. This was originally one of the many palaces of the ruling family of Liechtenstein. In fact, Lednice, the adjacent estate of Valtrice, and the surrounding farms which provided income to the family covered nearly 200 square miles, significantly larger than Liechtenstein itself. The family, with its close ties to the Hapsburgs and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, considered this to be home until 1939. 

This stop should have been more carefully planned I guess. When we arrived, there were no more tours for about three hours, and we could hardly wait that long. Instead, we walked around the outside of the castle. As it appears today, the house is a classic Gothic revival structure from the middle of the nineteenth century. 

John and I immediately thought of a line from Beauty and the Beast when we saw these windows.

Of course, that’s the point where Gaston sings “I use antlers in all of my decorating….”

The original house, underneath all the Gothic Revival decor, is much different. The riding stables nearby were not updated to the Gothic style. They give a sense of what the original house must have looked like.

Extensive gardens, done in the English style, still remain. One of the characteristics of that style was to build “follies,” small buildings that only serve to decorate the garden. In many English gardens of this period fake ruined monasteries were built. In this case, the “folly” is a minaret, supposedly the largest in this part of Europe, and certainly the only one not attached to a mosque. 

After about 30 minutes of walking about the grounds, we had a coffee and continued on to Prague.

We arrived in the Czech capital about mid-afternoon. Few cities look attractive seen from their industrial and commercial suburbs, and Prague certainly seemed if anything bleaker than most. Things did not seem much brighter when we arrived at our hotel. John and I did not plan this leg of the trip:  we decided to splurge on a Viking river cruise down the Elbe. As a result, Viking had selected our hotel for us, and it was certainly not one that I would have chosen on my own. 

Marek gave us a little background. The Prague Hilton was one of the last construction projects of the socialist regime.  It was primarily designed to house western tourists to the Czechoslovakia — at that time, the government tolerated tourists in large, carefully controlled groups — and the building also was the center for annual party meetings at the adjacent “Congress Hall.” It is about half a mile from the historic center of Prague, but directly adjacent to an elevated highway. 

Inside, it looked about as sterile as it did on the outside. Typical of that era, it had a large atrium in the center and several floors of rooms opened to the the atrium. There were the inevitable glass elevators, of course. John found the enormous arrangement of artificial flowers particularly horrifying. 

John and I checked in with Viking, and we received our room keys. One of the local representatives seemed helpful, and we asked her where we could take laundry to get washed. She seemed to understand that with two weeks of dirty clothes we had no desire to pay the Hilton’s laundry prices. She recommended a place not that far away. We went up to our room. It was utterly sterile as we expected, but at least reasonably spacious. It would have been even more spacious if we can get rid of the trundle bed they they put in there. 

It was not altogether easy, but we found the laundry on the lower floor of an open air shopping center. The woman who ran the small shop was not happy when we said that we needed it all done by Friday, but she promised, in halting English, to do her best. No longer carrying a large box and a couple bags of dirty clothes, we went on to the center. 

Prague was a bit grittier than I expected. I suppose I thought it would be a somewhat larger version of Dubrovnik. It is also more Slavic than I thought it would be. These two ladies could have been straight from Warsaw. 

We walked about a bit more. Prague does have all that historic architecture, but it is also overrun with young American tourists. I am not completely sure why they are here. So far, the prices I see here are cheaper than Paris or London, but still not exactly dirt cheap. But there are thousands of them filling the streets. 

Tomorrow, we will do some more serious exploring of this city. 

 The next morning we had breakfast at our hotel. I have never quite understood why people in central Europe seem so devoted to having cold cuts and cheese for breakfast. Still, I usually seem to have some kind of sandwich for breakfast. I figure that the protein is good for me and the cereal choices offered in Europe are bleak, either some kind of sugary American flakes or something with oats which even most horses would refuse. The offerings at this hotel, however, included some perfect pastries. “We have entered the croissant zone,” John decided. And, as always, he is probably right. 

The hotel made arrangements for a driver in a golf cart to take us and our luggage to a place where Davor could meet us. We have a much longer drive today. We are headed to Vienna. John and I spent a couple days in Vienna over ten years ago, and we have fond memories of riding bikes around the city. We only spending a night here this time as our ultimate destination is Prague. But our plans included an evening at the Wiener Statsoper, the Vienna State Opera. 

One of the cool things about the Day Trip service is that you can choose stops along your way, and your driver serves as your tour guide. John and I had chosen the Austrian town of Graz, located about halfway between Ljubljana and Vienna as our stop on this trip. Davor proved to be an outstanding tour guide. 

We parked in an underground lot and came up near a church. Davor pointed it out to us, but of course I wanted to go in. The interior was both ornate 

and austere.

Davor told us that Graz had recently been a “European City of Culture.” This is one of those things that the European Union does that really makes me understand why the British bolted from the EU. Some city, usually one that you do not normally associate with high culture, gets this nomination and a great deal of money is spent on dubious projects designed improve culture. It is more or less artistic “urban renewal.” In this case, one of the projects had been the construction of an artificial island in the center of the river.

Another project had been the construction of a new künsthalle, or art museum. But I will show you that eyesore later. 

Graz has delightful medieval and Renaissance buildings on both sides of the river.

We took a funicular up to the castle overlooking the town. We had a cup of coffee at the cafe there. Davor runs a coffee shop in Zagreb, so he gave us his ideas on beans, roasting, and espresso. John and I walked to the overlook

where we saw the old and new town

and the grotesque art museum.

Honestly, this building might be interesting or even fun in a different environment — a new city, or in the middle of a leafy park. But stuck in the middle of a neighborhood of late medieval and early eighteenth century buildings it is just a monument to the unbridled hubris of architects. 

We walked down instead of taking the funicular. This gave us an opportunity to admire the castle.

Many years ago I read an essay by a British architectural historian about ancient versus modern architecture. One of the points he made which has remained with me ever since, was the in traditional societies buildings are almost always made of local materials. The stones used for the houses or churches are the same stones you see on the hillsides and in the fields. This naturally makes the buildings blend in more harmoniously with the landscape around them. Modern societies, in contrast, almost always transport materials from great distances, that is, when natural materials are used at all, and this creates an often jarring contrast with nature. I think that is what the Graz castle blends in so well while the künsthalle never can, no matter where it is placed.  

John posed with the Hapsburg royal eagles.

The town of Graz is quite charming.

Unlike some other towns where the historic center has turned into a tourist area. Graz does not have that many tourists, so there were local people shopping in quite ordinary stores there. Even the shop that sold traditional dress was not selling it to tourists. 

Austrians — and, as my Austrian friend in Croatia reminded me, “Vienna is not Austria” — will often dress in national costume for special days and events.

From Graz we continued on into Vienna. We arrived in the late afternoon. I picked the “Motel One” just a block from the opera house. Motel One, despite its name, is not what Americans think of as a motel. Instead, it is a German chain that aims at a younger clientele that wants location and style and will accept small, somewhat spartan rooms, as a tradeoff for paying less. Once we had put our bags in our room we did not have much space to move around! 

We took a brief nap and then dressed up a bit and headed over to the opera house. Located on the Ringstraße that circles central Vienna, it is a monument from the very last years of the Empire. Many of the grand war horses of the modern Opera repertoire had their premieres here. 

I was so excited to be in such an almost sacred space for music, at least my favorite kind of music. We had splurged on really good tickets and our seats were just below the old royal box in the front row. We had a small screen that offered us English and German translations.

The opera was Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. The music for this opera is wonderful; the libretto, based on a play by the Symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck, is utterly incoherent. The production was overall quite good. The singers were great; the set and costume design ingenious but almost as incoherent as the text. But the audience was generally appreciative.

One of the things I love about going to plays and concerts in Europe is that they do not always end with standing ovations. In Los Angeles, the audience jumps to its feet at the end of every performance, mostly, I think, because people are plotting to get to their cars before the rest of the audience does. 

After the opera, we walked around central Vienna a bit, including Saint Stephen’s Cathedral. 

Tomorrow we will be off to Prague.

We left Zagreb fairly early today. We were not taking the train this time. Instead, for the next three days we will be using a new service call On Day Trip. Day Trip is sort of something like Uber. It matches selected local drivers to tourists who want to travel between European cities. Passengers can pick one or two side trips along the route. The drivers need to be knowledgeable, speak English and usually German as well, and have some kind of better-than-average vehicle. Day Trip is cheaper than flying, and offers the door-to-door convenience that taking the train lacks. 

Our driver was named Davor and he showed up in a fairly new Range Rover. He will be our driver not only today but tomorrow. We liked him right away. He drove us today to Lbubjana, the capital of Slovenia. Now at least until the Trumps burst into public attention, most Americans would have looked blankly at the mention of the country of Slovenia. Even now I suspect that most would have difficulty locating it on a map. This is a pity indeed as both John and I decided it was one of the most charming places we have been in Europe. 

A little background. Most of us grew up knowing a country called Yugoslavia. This country had been cobbled together from a small number of previous countries and parts of countries. Yugoslavia means “South Slavic Region.” All the parts of Yugoslavia spoke some kind of Slavic language and most of the people there considered themselves ethnically Slavic. But really, the cultural differences were always more important than the similarities. And so, in 1991, not longer after the Berlin Wall fell, the Yugoslavian project fell apart, too. Today the area is now six different countries — Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Slovenia. 

Each of these countries speaks a somewhat different language, though most can understand each other. Croatia and Slovenia are Catholic, Serbia and Macedonia are Orthodox, and Bosnia has a large Muslim minority. Some were parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, some were parts of the Ottoman Empire, and some of the most mountainous areas were always functionally independent. 

Slovenia was the first part of Yugoslavia to declare independence. Slovenia was always the most prosperous part of the old socialist country, and the area most closely connected to the west because of its borders with Austria and Italy. Unlike other parts of Croatia, there were no significant groups of Serbs or Croats living in Slovenia. This meant that there was no rationale for the remaining Yugoslav forces, composed mostly of the Serbians, to attack Slovenia. As a result, Slovenia’s independence was established early and fairly easily. 

Zagreb is fairly close to the border of Slovenia. We stopped briefly to have our passports checked and stamped:  Croatia is part of the European Union, but it is not park of the Schengen area. Almost as soon as we crossed the border the land became pleasantly mountainous. We passed small villages with clusters of small houses surrounding a parish church. “I looks like the Sound of Music,” John commented. And indeed it did. 

We were in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia in less than an hour after we crossed the border. For those not fluent in Slovenian, the name is pronounced “Loo blee YAH nah.” Davor was a little troubled when we gave him the address of our hotel. “That’s in the pedestrian area,” he said. “I cannot drive there.” He took us about as far as the GPS told him to go, into a parking garage near the river. We took our bags and started walking. 

We were enchanted by Ljubljana the moment we came above ground. Clusters of beautiful seventeenth and eighteenth century buildings line a small river crossed with many small pedestrian bridges. 

We found the hotel without much difficulty. We are staying at the Wander Urbani Resort. This is a boutique hotel right in the heart of the historic district. It has the great disadvantage of that kind of hotel as well — pretty tiny rooms! John and I were ready to do some exploring anyhow, so we left our small room and headed out. 

We strolled into the nearby square. This looked like something straight out of any Baroque German or northern Italian city. 

The square was dominated by the town hall.

We found an ATM. Slovenia is part of the Eurozone, and it was nice to once again deal with a currency we understood. We noticed the large church with the copper dome and decided to explore it. From the plaque at its entrance, we learned that it is named for Saint Nicholas and that it was the cathedral for Ljubljana. The interior was beautiful.

Nothing in the church was more lovely than the ceiling. I have discovered the best use of the iPhone’s front camera is to use it to photograph ceilings. I am not using it for selfies….

After we were finished with the church, it was time to find our city tour. Our hotel had told us that there was a free tour of Ljubljana leaving each day at 3:00 from the bridge near the old Franciscan church. That particular edifice had once been painted red, but time and the sun had faded it into some shade in between rose and bubble gum. It was not hard to find. 

There was a strange “Ljubljana weather” fountain in the square in front of the church. It shot up water, but not where you expected it. Instead, you had the sensation that somehow it was raining. It was a hot day, so John didn’t mind getting wet.

 Our tour guide spoke faultless English. I suspect she had lived in the U. S. for some time as a child. 

She started off by telling us a bit about the very early history of Slovenia and Ljubljana. I was not surprised to learn that the Roman had settled much of this area. They had not settled the area that is today’s Ljubljana as it was something of a swamp originally. She talked about how the Slavs had moved into the area in the sixth century, and about early efforts to make them Christian. We learned that both the Venetians and the Austrians had struggled for control of Slovenia, and the centuries it had spent as a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

As we started to walk around, she gave us a lot of interesting facts about the buildings. Much of the area around the Franciscan church had been flattened by an earthquake in the nineteenth century. The government gave property owners money to rebuild. On house survived somewhat intact. Instead of being grateful, the owner was angry he was not receiving any money. So, he placed beams on the outside walls as if it were about to collapse and asked for assistance. The ploy worked. Not needing any money for structural supports, he used it to decorate his house in the then fashionable Secession style.

 Ljubljana had a lot of pedestrian bridges, and a couple are covered with the inevitable — and annoying — “love locks.” All over Europe young couples take a lock to symbolize the idea that their love will last forever, put the lock on a bridge, and toss the key into the river below. Paris, despite its reputation as the City of Love, routinely cuts all these locks and throws them away. Ljubljana seems more willing to tolerate this nonsense. 

Another bridge is decorated with dragons, the city’s emblem.

About halfway through the tour, it was just too hot for John and he went back to the hotel. I continued with the tour. Each street seemed cuter than the one before it. 

I also learned a lot. For example, most of the so-called Congress of Vienna, the conference that reestablished European borders after the defeat of Napoleon, took place not in Vienna, which had too many distractions for the dignitaries, but in Ljubljana.

Returning to the hotel, John was feeling a bit refreshed from a nap, not to mention the air conditioned room. He had been told that if he went to Slovenia he really had to see Lake Bled. He had made arrangements with the desk for a cab driver to take us there and back that evening. 

A bit of geography and geology. While we usually think of Switzerland when someone mentions the Alps, that group of mountains extends into a number of different countries including Austria, Germany, Italy, France, and Slovenia. The Slovenian mountains are known as the Julian Alps. These mountains are not quite as large as the Swiss peaks as they are mainly made of limestone rather than dolomite. Limestone is softer and wears down more easily. The Julian Alps look more like the Adirondacks than the Rockies.

It took us about an hour to get to Lake Bled. Our driver did not speak much English, and we obviously spoke no Slovenian. He had learned the word “beautiful,” however, and he liberally applied this adjective to everything we saw along the way. After a while I wanted to rebel and say, “No, damn it, it’s not beautiful.” But for the most part, it was. It was just monotonous being told it so many times.

Lake Bled does look like something from a Disney cartoon with a castle on a cliff overlooking the water and a church tower rising up from an island in the middle of the lake. 

Our driver pulled into a hotel with a beautiful view of the lake. In his basic English, he told us that this had been Tito’s summer house. He came here a couple weeks each year and brought visitors to stay with him here. It had some of the best views of the lake imaginable, a good example of how, under socialism, some people are just more equal than others. Now, under capitalism, anyone who can pay can enjoy the view from the restaurant or a hotel verandah. Or, for that matter, you can just walk around the grounds like John and I did. 

The driver dropped us off in the town of Lake Bled, a somewhat depressing commercial stretch on the far end of the lake. We had no desire to stay there, so we started to do a circuit around the lake. We saw a number of former houses. Some had been converted into hotels and restaurants, and there were others whose current function was not clear. This rather attractive lodge had the EU and Croatian flags on it, indicating some connection to the government, but it did not seem to be in use at all. 

There are also a number of campgrounds and recreational facilities not far from the lake. It looks like this may be a popular family vacation spot, though frankly it would seem like a pretty boring place to spend a vacation for me. 

After about an hour walking, we still were not quite back to the town of Lake Bled. Fortunately, our driver had given us his card so we call him and had him pick us up and drive us back to Ljubljana. Along the way, he kept reminding us that things were “beautiful.” We nodded and said, “Yes, beautiful” to keep him happy.

He dropped us off at the castle, the fortifications high on the hill overlooking the city. Although it was dusk, the views were still good. Unfortunately, that view showed how the outskirts of the town had been marred by ugly tower blocks and factories built during the communist years.

Oscar Wilde wrote a book called The Soul of Man under Socialism. Wilde assured his readers that life would be not only equal but utterly beautiful under socialism. He was so wrong. 

John and I wandered around the castle for a bit, but decided against buying a ticket to look at all the attractions. 

I find tourists taking selfies amusing, and when I can I try to catch them in the act. 

It’s mean, I know, but I never represented myself as a nice person.

We took the funicular down the hill to the historic center of town. John was exhausted and wandered back to the hotel. I was not far behind, though I stopped at a sausage shop and bought him some food. 

Tomorrow we head off to Vienna.

“We took the night train to Zagreb, arriving in the capital just after dawn.” I think that would be a wonderful opening sentence for a short story by E. M. Forrester or perhaps even Virginia Woolf. It was less enchanting as a description of our travels last night. Most Americans assume that train travel in Europe is clean, affordable, efficient, and comfortable, and I think that those thing are generally true. But John and I learned that none of those adjectives apply to Hrvatske Željeznice, the Croatian National Railways. 

We arrive in the dark at the railroad station in Split. As transportation centers go, this place makes the average American bus station look like the Tuileries Palace. We stumbled in the dark over a couple tracks to the train. There was a large group of young tourists, mostly German, also looking around for the sleeping car. I tried to ask the one older man who appeared to be the conductor, and I showed him my ticket. We had purchased these tickets in the United States, and the conductor seemed completely perplexed by these apparently unfamiliar forms. Our tickets gave use a compartment on carriage 20, and this was nowhere to be found on the train. He almost pushed us onto carriage 40. The car was stiflingly hot, at least 90 degrees. I few windows were open, but that did nothing to relieve the heat. There was already a crew of young Germans in the compartment indicated on our ticket. John went out to find the conductor. When he arrived, he looked at our tickets again, brow furrowed, and finally pointed to another compartment. We put our luggage through the narrow opening.

There were six berths, though two of them had been pulled up to allow for a seating area. Only about half of the lights worked, and what passed for a temperature control did absolutely nothing when we attempted to use it. We did manage to open the window and that allowed a bit of air in, though the smell of burning diesel fuel was almost enough to make us close it. A few minutes after the train pulled out, the conductor appeared again and handed us some pillows that must have been at least twenty years old. He also handed us a package containing some disposable pillow covers. Considering the dirt we could see and the bacteria we could not see on those pillows, we quickly put them on. John settled on one of the lower bunks, and I took one of the upper ones. We turn off the lights and tried to get to sleep as the train started through a series of switchbacks through the mountains. 

We somehow managed to get some sleep. When I woke up and looked outside the window, I was stunned by how much the landscape had changed. The brown, dry, rocky hills of Dalmatia had been replaced with flat farmland and small groves of trees. It was as if I had somehow gone from Baja California to central Ohio. We had about a half hour before the train pulled into Zagreb at about six in the morning. The station in Zagreb was obviously once quite grand, but a few decades of deferred maintenance had yet to be remedied. I took this picture of the station a few hours later. 

Right when we came, we only wanted to find our hotel and we hoped that the just might already have a room for us. I had picked a hotel I knew was both one of the best in the city and quite close to the station, the Esplanade. Here is a photograph of the hotel, again one I took later in the day. 

I am sure we did not quite look like the most elegant of guests when we entered. The doorman muttered something about “check out time, not check in time” as I pushed past him loaded with way too much luggage. The woman at the reception desk was more polite, but she looked dumbfounded when we said we had come on the train from Split. I could also see her thinking, “What kind of a fool does that?” She was kind enough not to say it. She said instead that she regretted that our room would not be ready until about one o’clock, but that they would be happy to hold our luggage for us. That was an offer I could hardly refuse. John and I had Sunday brunch at the hotel — we figured few if any other restaurants would be open yet. I was actually pretty decent, and after drinking a couple cups of coffee were ready to check out Croatia’s capital. 

The area around the hotel and the train station looks like it was once one of the most elegant in central Europe. The buildings all date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Most are in the Beaux Arts style with elaborate window and door decoration. 

The nicest buildings all face onto a narrow park several blocks long. I could tell that this part of the city had been carefully planned by people who deeply admired Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s reconstruction of Paris. 

We came to the central square of the city dominated by an enormous equestrian statue. 

The figure is Ban Jelačić, and the square is named for him. I learned from my guidebook that he was a 19th-century governor who led Croatian troops into an unsuccessful battle with Hungary. That statue stood in square with his sword facing toward Hungary until 1947 when Tito ordered it removed. Croatian nationalism did not fit into his vision for a socialist Yugoslavia. When Tito’s worker’s paradise disintegrated in 1991, the statue was quickly placed back in a place of honor. One small change — this time the sword was pointed towards Serbia!

There are a number of nice buildings on Jelačić Square, mostly in the Beaux Arts and Secession styles. I did find this more Moderne building with some interesting terra cotta work. 

We walked to the upper town in where the market is normally held looking for some fresh produce. Alas, Sunday is not a market day in Zagreb. Of the former Soviet Block countries, only Poland and Croatia are still resolutely Catholic, and no doubt that is the reason that the market was empty. Still, the lack of people buying and selling did allow me to get a good shot of a mural on one end of the market square.

We decided to do the route that Rick Steves suggested in his book. We went through Zagreb’s nineteenth century shopping arcade. It was never as grand as the one in Milan, but it covered in scaffolding it was even less impressive. We heard some church bells ringing at what looked to me like an Anglican or Presbyterian church. When I came closer I saw the bits of mosaic on the outside and realized that it must be a Serbian Orthodox parish.

 We stood respectfully in the back.

Even though John has been in many Orthodox churches, he had never been present for Divine Liturgy and found the service rather moving. “Much less boring than the Catholics,” was, I think, the review, and from John that is a liturgical five stars. 

We continued on and went toward the Upper Town. This is the most medieval part of Zagreb, but it is not primarily a tourist area. It still functions as the center of national government. We took a small funicular instead of a couple flights of stairs. 

The entrance to the Upper Town is dominated by a large tower. 

You can climb to the top of the tower for a better look, but I passed on that. We passed by the Parliament building. 

This was bombed by the Serbians during the war in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Croatian president. Across from the National Assembly is Saint Mark’s church with it distinctive tile roof. 

We went inside. It was close to full, and I was fairly impressed with the choir. Of course, Croatians are famous for their love of singing. We stayed only through the Gloria and then pushed on. 

There are a number of state museums including the Croatian Museum of Naïve Art, a highly-regarded collection of Balkan folk art. Unfortunately, although museums are open on Sundays, they are closed on national holidays and it turned out that today is Statehood Day, a national holiday. Private museums are open, and we chose to check out Zagreb’s most unique collection at The Museum of Broken Relationships.

The museum does not quite live up to its intriguing premise. Inside there are a variety of donated objects. Each object is connected to a narrative describing a the end of a troubled relationship. The objects are sometimes odd

and sometimes predictable.

We went down the hill. Along the way, we looked at the former red-light district. 

We stopped at a small cafe on an incredibly cute street nearby. As we were drinking some coffee, an odd little parade came by. We never could figure out what it was about. 

After this we returned to the hotel. Our room was ready, and we were ready to nap for a bit. Not longer after we checked in, it began to pour torrentially for a couple hours. After it cleared up, in the early evening, we went to the park area where there was supposed to be an opera performance. 

However, even though the rain had stopped, it was wet enough for the performance to have been canceled. We walked around a bit looking for something to eat before returning to the hotel. 

Tomorrow, we head back to Ljubljana, Slovenia. 

After the captain’s dinner last night, where we all rather tearfully hugged and said goodbye to each other, it seemed oddly strange to see everyone again and to once more say goodbye. But this time everyone was in a hurry to leave, and the crew of the ship and our guides we also in a hurry for us to leave as well. Mike and Wendy left before anyone else, as they had to catch an early flight to Basel and a connection to Venice. So we did not see them this morning. By now they should be on yet another bike ride, this time from Italy to Istria. Everyone else we once again hugged and made sure that we all knew that we would all welcome each other should we meet again, though of course the likelihood is that we probably never will. Still, the offers were honestly made by all. 

John and I were, I think, the last to leave the ship. We really had nothing to do today except to find a way to get to Split to catch the night train to Zagreb. Most of our other companions had driven here from other parts of Europe, and many planned to catch the ferry from Split to Ancona on the other side of the Adriatic Sea. It is apparently easier to drive from there to most parts of Germany than it is to go through Croatia and Slavonia. I suspect that the roads are much better. But I was surprised that most of them had not flown as I thought that airfares were now pretty cheap within Europe. But John and I did not have any particularly easy way to get to our fairly nearby location, either. There is frequent bus service between Trogir and Split, but we have probably overpacked for this trip and have no desire to try to cram large pieces of luggage on a bus and maneuver crowded bus stations, many not much more pleasant than their American counterparts. We ended up finally getting an Uber to pick us up. This was not as easy as it sounds, either. Uber has only recently arrived in Croatia, and its legal status is unclear. The taxi industry as always is ferociously opposed to competition. It is not safe for the drivers to put the customary U symbol on their cars, and both drivers and passengers have to be cautious about meeting. 

We were able to meet, however, and on the way there John asked Damir, our driver, if he knew of a place near the train station where we could get a cheap room for the day. John did not want to be stuck wandering around for 12 hours in the heat, particularly if he had to take some or all of our luggage with us. Now the same kind of conversation in the United States or Britain would likely result is a blank stare or an admission that the person has absolutely no idea how to answer the question. But Croatia is in many ways like other developing countries where everybody is scrambling to make a living and where family and interpersonal relationships are strong. So Damir called his wife, and she called a friend, and before long they had a place arranged for us, and just as we had requested, it was not expensive and quite close to the train station. 

It was not completely easy to get there, however. Despite a long history of fascist and socialist governments, both of whom seem to be able to usually built roads by displacing peasants and blowing up historic buildings, Split is a traffic nightmare. Perhaps because it was summer, perhaps because many people were trying to get on ferries, traffic in the central city was gridlocked. It took us the better part of twenty minutes to travel six blocks. But we finally made it to our apartment for the day.

Damir posed on the steps of the apartment for us

and we did get to meet a slightly anxious “neighbor.”

I never learned the name of our landlady, though I am sure we were introduced. She showed us the flat, and it was indeed exactly what we wanted and needed. The price was set at 375 kuna, about 55 dollars, and that was perfectly reasonable as far we were concerned. I had paid more than expected that morning when I settled our shipboard expenses, so I was a little shy of the amount. She told me just to leave it on the kitchen table when we left for the train. I cannot imagine anyone anywhere in North America being so trusting. But then I am from Los Angeles, the place where pay-before-you-pump gas was invented. 

We settled down and rested for a bit, and both of us enjoyed taking a real shower after a week on the boat. On ship we used something like a kitchen sprayer to clean ourselves, so even a small shower like the one in this apartment seemed like a something from a high-priced spa in comparison! But we did not want to spend the day in the apartment, so we needed to figure out something to do. Reviewing the highlights of Split in our guide books, we discovered that we had covered most of them in our short previous visit. There was one, however, that we had missed and it sounded interesting. It was a museum devoted to the work of the Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović. Most interesting of all, it seemed to be located in a former home of his, a Roman-style villa overlooking the sea. 

Google Maps told us that it was a 30 minute walk, but neither of us wanted much to walk today. The temperature was somewhere about 90, and the relative humidity could not have been much different. So we took another Uber there. This time traffic was distinctly better. 

The Meštrović home is located in what is still an affluent part of Split. The house does rather look like a Roman villa, though without the elaborate peristyle entryway. The picture I tried to take of us did not come out well for some reason, so this one is borrowed from Google Images.

We bought our tickets from a booth near the entry and walked through the gates. It was so miserably hot that it seemed like torture to walk up those stairs, but we made it. The columns seen above were wrapped in some kind of yellow fabric. I could not tell if it was supposed to be art or it was just some kind of routine maintenance. 

I was vaguely familiar with Ivan Meštrović, but other than identifying him as a sculptor I would not have been able to say much of anything about him. So, a film introduction to the artist helped give me some details. Meštrović was born in 1883 in a small village in Slavonia, the vast interior of central Croatia on the other side of the Dynaric Alps. His artistic abilities and his interest in sculpture were noted early, and his parents apprenticed him to a stone mason in Split. But Meštrović’s ambitions were much bigger than cutting stones in a small town, and he left for artistic studies in Vienna. He quickly made a name for himself there, and he became a member of the influential Succession group. His work was very popular and he soon had exhibitions in Rome, Paris, and London. Meštrović’s early work shows both his interest in classical Greek and Roman art and the obvious influence of Auguste Rodin.

But the First World War shattered the bourgeois European society that had nurtured Meštrović, and like many others it made him reappraise his religious tradition. For Meštrović, this meant becoming more deeply Catholic and his art became dominated by religious themes. Meštrović returned to Croatia and settled in Zagreb, now a part of the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. He also began building a summer home in Split, and that home is the current gallery. Meštrović could afford this because he continued to be one of the most popular artists of the first half of the twentieth century, and he had commissions throughout Europe and North America. But Meštrović could not avoid the increasing problem of Fascism, particularly the Ustaše, Croatia’s homegrown Fascist movement. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Fascists, and facing possible death, went through a period of deep spiritual despair. Friends of Meštrović tricked the Croatian authorities to let him represent the country at the Venice Biennale. He never returned. After the war, he became an American citizen and took positions at Syracuse and Notre Dame. Some of his best work, like this statue of Job, come from this time. 

Part of Meštrović’s plan in building his summer house in Split was that it would some day become a museum, a gift to the Croatian people. Along with the house, he decided to build a small chapel. This is located about 500 feet from the main house and directly overlooks the Adriatic. The chapel is built in an early monastic style with a cloister and a small basilica.

The interior of the chapel is stark, dominated by an enormous crucifix.

Along the walls are wood bas-reliefs illustrating scenes from the four gospels such as the nativity

and the woman washing Jesus’ feet with her hair.

It is a remarkable achievement, easily equal to the similar chapels by LeCorbusier and Rothko. 

We returned to the apartment and rested for a bit more. In the evening, we went out to dinner in a restaurant that received high marks on the travel sites. It was pretty good, but not all that memorable. We went for a stroll afterwards. The sea front in Split has not completely gentrified, and there are once grand homes from the Austro-Hungarian era that have been turned into what seem like flophouses. We did come across an odd piece of public art in this slightly rundown neighborhood. 

Socialist art does not age well….

On our way back to the apartment, we stopped to listen to a group of women singing. 

I am not sure if it was their age or simply the heavy smoking of almost all Croatians, but most of these ladies were baritones. Still, they sounded reasonably good.

Tonight we are off to Zagreb on a sleeper. I am not quite sure what it will be like, but it should be fun.

Today is our last full day of our boat and bike adventure. It has been a huge amount of fun, and although we are looking forward to going on to other places in Europe, we will always remember with great fondness our time here on the Dalmatian coast.

A couple faithful readers have asked about e-bikes. These are sometimes called “pedal assist” bicycles and that is probably the most accurate description. They look pretty much the same as any ordinary bicycle. 

However, there is a battery attached to the frame

and a small motor near the pedals. This is controlled by the small handset you see on the right. There are four settings:  economy, touring, sport, and turbo. Each provides more assistance when pedaling. The white Garmin is a GPS. I brought that along because I think we will need it in Sweden. 

Today we rode on the island of Šolta. It is not a big island at all, only about 20 kilometers end to end. It was not as extraordinarily beautiful as Dugi Otok and some other islands, but we had a pretty ride. We left from the town of Maslinica and rode to the settlement of Gornje Selo on the other side. We stopped for a break in Grohote. Here I noticed a statue dedicated to the World War II anti-Fascist partisans from the area. 

I also convinced Reinhold and Petra, two of our fellow passengers from Bavaria, to pose for me here. 

Because I speak no German I have come to know them the least of everybody on the cruise. But they do seem very sweet and charming. 

Just outside Gornje Selo we stopped at an olive oil tasting factory. I was prepared to be a little annoyed by this, but it turned out to be really interesting. The owner or manager — I was not sure exactly what his role was — gave us a quite informative tour. 

He explained, in both English and German, the different reasons for the different grades of olive oil. Then he took us into the processing room where we saw where the olives enter the process and are cleaned, 

where they are crushed into a paste, including the pits, 

and where centrifugal force separates the oil from the pulp and other ingredients. 

Afterwards we were taught how to taste olive oil correctly, and we sampled some of the different varieties produced there. Everybody was wowed by the wild fennel flavored olive oil. In the tasting room, Marin took a picture of us in a Grant Wood kind of pose.

Outside, I remembered that I still needed to get a shot of Rolf and Ida. They are from Switzerland — Basel, I think — and they both speak relatively good English. I like them a lot. 

We rode back to the ship, just reversing our previous route. Around 12:30, the ship pulled anchor and started sailing towards Trogir, the port where our tour began and where it ends. But they took about 45 minutes for a swim break. I am not crazy about swimming where I cannot stand up on the ground if I feel like it, so I just took pictures. I shot this one of John entering the water in a perfectly executed dive. 

I also caught Heike relaxing on her float

and Laura observing the world using hers.

Marin loves to swim, and I really liked this shot a lot.

In the evening, we had a city tour of Trogir. Our guide was a local woman who was married to a British national. She spoke English reasonable well, although every sentence seemed to begin with “my ladies and gentleman.” I never did a decent picture of her because she wore a hat that shaded her face in the late afternoon light. 

She was a nice lady, but not much of a guide. She showed us all the sights of Trogir, but never put them together in a coherent narrative.  

Most of the walls of Trogir are gone, but we entered through the remaining gate. 

We saw the Prince’s Palace. Apparently Trogir was run on a kind of Venetian model. And I suspect that Venice probably pretty much ran the show here, though it was hard to get any real history out of our guide.

We walked down narrow streets looking at 15th and 16 century houses. I was struck by how all the homes seemed to have potted plants and window boxes. It soften the appearance of stone houses and stone streets. 

Our guide took us to the Chapel of Saint Sebastian

which appears to have been turned into a monument for the local boys who died in the Homeland War. 

The cathedral is one of the greatest artistic and architectural treasures of the city. A wedding was going on when we arrived. So we just noticed the exterior such as the magnificently carved entryway,

and some of the other architectural details like this gargoyle. 

During recent renovation some graffiti was uncovered, but as it was dated to the 16th century they decided not to remove it!

Later on, after we said goodbye to our guide, giving her a tip more out of pity than gratitude, we returned to the cathedral and were able to enter. Outside, before we entered, we listened to a man playing a Balkan bagpipe. It sounds remarkably like the Scottish, even if it sort of looks like he is doing something shocking with a pig. 

We were both struck by the  enormous, free-hanging rood cross

and a baroque side chapel.

At night, we had our Captain’s Dinner. I somehow was selected to present the passengers’ gifts to the crew and our guides. The food was good as always, and everybody felt a little sad to that our time was over. It has been a very special week together. 

The days pass so quickly here! Things go by in a blur, and by evening I can barely remember what I did in the morning. Part of this is the fact that there are just so many things to do each day. But there is something else, too. There is something about having all your activities planned for you which makes it makes hard to actually focus on where you have been and what what you did. It is that lack of the advance planning that forces me to learn the names of places and how these places fit together on a map. It does not help, either, that most places names in Croatian more or less sound alike to me. The names are pretty, full of zh’s and sh’s and y’s, but unlike French or Italian, where I may understand the meaning of the place names, these are almost nonsense syllables to me. And so after we finish an activity I check the photos on my phone to see where we were and to connect these lovely memories with some larger time and place so that they are something more than a kind of lucid dream.

This morning we left Zadar fairly early. I was vaguely sorry we had not had a bit more time there, particularly to see the cathedral and climb the bell tower, but I cannot say I had a deep sense that I had missed anything important. We sailed a short distance across a narrow strait to the small port of Priko on the island of Ugljan. Apparently this is close enough to Zadar that some people live on this island and take a ferry to work in Zadar each day. Preko did not seem like a particularly attractive bedroom suburb to me, though I can hardly say that it was ugly, either. Just rather nondescript. I suspected that most of it had been built in the last days of the socialist republic when making anything interesting or attractive was probably evidence of suspect bourgeois tendencies. We biked through the nearly deserted streets of the town until we found the main highway. We had to ascend a rather steep hill to get to the road, and even the “turbo” setting on my e-bike was not quite enough for me to make it without walking the bicycle a few feet.

From there the rest of the trip was fairly easy. This was our route. 

After the ship left Zadar, we sailed to Preko. We rode our bikes from Preko to Tkon where the boat met us.

Compared to yesterday, we were traveling on somewhat busier roads for much of the way, but even here the traffic was hardly bad. We stopped on the bridge as we crossed over to the island of Pušman. 

I admired the view here, and took a couple pictures.

I was a little disheartened, though, to see graffiti on the bridge. One of the many nice things about Croatia, compared to some other countries in this area, is the relative absence of tagging. After everybody caught up with us, we continued riding.

The names of the towns we passed by were often quite pretty: Kali, Kukljica, and Zdrelac were my favorites with Dobropoljana scoring an honorable mention. The scenery was not quite as dramatic as on Dugi Otok, either, but we often passed through small olive groves and saw small villages squares with lined palms and oleanders. We stopped again at a coffee shop about ten kilometers before the end of the route.

I ordered what the Croatians call a “white coffee.” This is something close to a cafe au lait. The normal Croatian “kavi” is an espresso, but one that seems even stronger and harsher than its Italian counterpart.

Meanwhile, Laura fixed Lucy’s hair.

I asked Mike and Wendy for a better picture than I had taken the first day.

After a short ride, we arrived at the tiny port of Tkon where we boarded the boat. Our ride was just about a long as the ride yesterday, but it seemed much easier and even a little bit shorter.

Just after we parked our bikes, John took a picture of the figurehead on the front of the boat.

We had lunch, and at lunch Marin told us that we could not spend the night at another island as originally planned because the harbormaster there had told our captain that all their berths were full. So sailed to Ragoznica where we had spent our first night instead. 

In the evening John and I strolled about the town a bit. It is amazing on a trip when you come back to a place where you have already been it strangely feels like home. But the place was much more full of people than it had been only a few days ago. I guess the summer rush is on!

We had our longest bike ride of the trip so far today, and it was an extraordinary experience. We were on Dugi Otok, “Long Island” in Croatian. It is about 25 miles in length and perhaps only a couple miles wide at most. Our route began in the small town of Sali, where we spent the night, and ended up in the even smaller hamlet of Božava in the north. Along the way we saw some of the Adriatic’s most breathtakingly beautiful scenery. 

After we had ridden our bikes for a couple of miles, Marin told us to stop by a small church. I was a little surprised because there seemed to be nothing particularly interesting about this small country parish. 

 Once we were off our bikes he had us walk around the church 

We arranged this part of our trip through a travel agency in Glasgow, but the tour is actually run by a German firm called “Inselhuffen” or “Island Hopping.” This is a pretty good description of what we did today. We started out of on the mainland, rode our bikes on one islands, sailed through an archipelago of over a hundred small islands, and finally docked on one of the largest of the Croatian islands, one we will explore tomorrow by bike. 

This morning we had a good ride, and our e-bikes definitely proved their worth. We started in the morning in Vodice and we made our way to the northern point of the island of Murter. I tracked roughly the route we did in ridewithgps.com, and this map give you both the distance and the elevations. As you can see, there were definitely some ups and downs!

But topography aside, the ride had no downs. It was an exhilarating ride through lovely, quiet countryside — well, except for an odd stretch or two along a busy road as we left Vodice. I stopped as we approached the end of the trip with a magnificent view. 

I also snapped some pictures of our traveling companions. These are Carsten and Uta from Leipzig. They are really sweet and make a concerted effort to speak to John and me despite the language difference. Uta is one of the most physically fit people I have ever met and she is a grandmother!

We have a family from the far south of Germany around Lake Constance. They are so much fun! The dad and the mom are Jürgen and Heike, and their kids are Tim and Laura. 

Representing Austria are Gerhardt and Anita. Their English is more limited, but they are also very friendly. When I mentioned to Gerhardt that we are going to Vienna, he snorted, “Vienna is not Austria!” 

On subsequent rides, I’ll be sure to get the other passengers. They have helped me this a really great experience for us. 

And, of course, where would we be with Marin to guide and encourage us?

After we finished up this ride, we went back to the ship. As usual, we had a wonderful meal. The crew on this boat cooks enormous and very filling Croatian meals. We typically eat as we pull out of port so we have a wonderful view as we have a great meal. The crew does make up our cabins each day, though we are responsible for our own “laundry service.”

Our afternoon was spent leisurely sailing through the Kornati Islands. This area is fascinating. It is the largest chain of islands in the Adriatic. They are all limestone formations and none have any significant source of fresh water. Despite this, there were efforts at various times to develop some kind of agricultural use for the islands, principally grazing sheep. We can see evidence of this in the many stone walls that All the islands are nevertheless still privately owned despite the fact that the islands are a national park. That does not make much sense for us Americans, but I suppose that the establishment of the national park just takes away some of their rights to develop their property in specified ways. 

On one of the islands there is the remains of a fake Byzantine fortress constructed for a German movie. 

As we were sailing through this area I convinced John to do the Titanic pose. Unfortunately, the captain was not amused and came out and scolded poor John in Croatian. 

We continued on the the southern end of the island of Dugi Otok. This name actually just means “Long Island” in Croatian, and, as it is about 25 miles long, I suppose the name is deserved.

Marin took us on a short hike here. He showed us the sheer cliffs. 

I teach fourth graders geology every year, and we always discuss how limestone is make of calcium carbonate and how cleavage is a characteristic of calcite. I felt sort of happy to actually understand a geological formation. I felt sort of sorry for the people I felt compelled to explain this to….

There is also a saltwater lake on the island. Unlike the salt lakes in the western United States, formed by fresh water evaporating over centuries until the remaining solution become saline, this is basically caused by salt water leaking through the limestone basin underlying the lake. It is still, however, apparently slightly saltier than the sea. John took a swim in in it, but could not tell much difference. 

After we returned to the boat, Lucy gave us a lesson in survival Croatian. That is probably not the best description of it as almost everybody in Croatia speaks some English. They are realistic enough to know that few people in the world will learn to ever speak their language, so to be a part of the larger world community they have to master another language, and for just about everybody that is English. So, you can survive easily in Croatia without speaking a world of Croatian. But just saying “please” and “thank you” in their language wins a lot of good will. We Americans need that. Now more than ever….

As we ate dinner, the boat sailed on to the town of Sali. This is the largest settlement on Dugi Otok. We arrived right as the sun began to set and everything turned golden. 

Tonight we will be docked here, and tomorrow we have a big bike ride. I am excited!

The boat pulled out of Sibenik early this morning. Our destination was the small town of Skradin, the gateway to Krka National Park. You can see both places on the map below.

The river Krka — pronounced “KIR kuh” — forms an remarkably large estuary. Going from the upper right of the map, near Skradin, the river flows into Lake Prokljan. From there is flows down into the Bay of Sibenik and through the Saint Anthony Channel into the Adriatic Sea, in the bottom left of the map. The area just beyond Skradin is not navigable, and this area now forms the national park. The park, famous for its many waterfalls, is one of the most popular tourist sites in Croatia. Somehow, from the best can discover, it is one of the few places in Dalmatia that has never been used in an episode of Game of Thrones. 

As we sailed up the river, the scenery reminded me a lot of the dry lands of western Oregon and Washington. 

The water here is mostly fresh, though close to the bottom there is a layer or cold, salt water. Because of this, the area is ideal growing mussels and other forms of aquaculture. 

When the boat arrived in Skradin, Marin and Lucy gave us tickets to the national park and put us on a small park shuttle boat. After a short ride further up the river, we entered the park. We did not have to walk far before we saw the main attraction of the park, its waterfalls. 

Now, these are not nearly as impressive as the great waterfalls of California. But they are still interesting. The primary rock here is not granite, like California, but limestone. There are substantial deposits of travertine, and apparently some tufa formations as well. The soft stone has eroded into hundreds of small channels, each with its falls and pools. At the base of the lower falls, they allow visitors to swim in the warm water and John was happy to take advantage of this policy. 

There is a path around the area providing various viewpoints for different parts of the falls. One of the most famous is the belvedere built for the visit of the Franz Joseph I, one of the last of the Austro-Hungarian Emperors. John impersonated his highness

while I took advantage of his special platform. 

And it is a great view. 

As we walked around, we looked at various exhibits such as the reconstruction of the old mill town. There is also the remains of the world’s second hydroelectric power plant here. Apparently Nikola Tesla, an ethnic Serb who was born and raised in Croatia, was involved in building this. 

We admired the huge variety of fish and insect life in and around the small pools.

It was not possible, however, for me to a a picture of the brilliant flue dragonflies fluttering about.

Less enchanting were the crowds. By eleven o’clock the place seemed mobbed. There were large tour groups following leaders with flags. I had no idea where they had come from. Did they arrive here on a day trip from a cruise? We decided to head back to the boat even though we still had about an hour left. We briefly explored the town of Skradin. It is an ancient settlement, though most of the buildings look like they were constructed some time in the late nineteenth century. 

Around 1:00 o’clock, as we were eating lunch, the boat pulled out of Skradin, headed toward Vodice. We were originally supposed to ride our bikes between these cities and have the boat meet us there, but we had to change our schedule because of a problem with the dock where they normally under unload the bikes. I did not completely follow the explanation, though I was  a bit disappointed. 

We arrived in Vodice about an hour and a half later. It is a really cute little town, apparently mostly a summer place for mostly Croatian tourists. In the afternoon, our group went on a short bike ride. We went along the waterfront for about 3 miles. That did not seem like enough for many of us, so Marin and Lucy proposed talking us down some unpaved roads to see the ruins of a 6th century church. 

It was an lovely ride for about a mile or so through fields laced with dry stone walls. It looked like this area had once had many olive trees, few looked under active cultivation. Wispy pine trees were growing among the walled field. It was desolate, yet beautiful. 

We found the ruins of a double basilica. Nobody is completely sure why there were two churches directly adjacent to one another. There was good signage about the site in both Croatian and English. I copied this areal photo from one of the signs as it gives a better sense of the ruins than my picture does. 

On the way back my bike had a flat tire. I was sure glad Lucy was with us as she changed it in no time at all. Apparently these new e-bikes they bought this this year has one significant flaw:  very weak outer tires. They let John and I ride back by ourselves, partly because it was an easy route and partly I think because they knew I had brought along a bike GPS and would find my way back no matter what!

Tomorrow we have a longer, more challenging ride.