Hvala Hrvatska!

14 June 2009- Rentree a Paris. Quite bittersweet as our surroundings for the past 8 days have been nothing but spectacular. But alas, we have to wake up eventually. For those who haven't kept up, we have just returned from Croatia. That unique "C" shaped country next to the boot of Italy and north of Greece. It should be on all your TO VISIT lists if you enjoy beauty, water, food and wine. We would love to buy some property of my ancestors' country. If anyone wants to help out in this endeavour, please contact me immediately!
Junior knew something was up with all the luggage and full camera gear bag. Sorry pal, you and the Gardienne need some more alone time.

I will have to break this down as usual, 7 days off would make for a mighty long post. We got off a bit late from CDG, when is this not the case? Luckily we had some time in Zagreb to make our flight to Split. We caught the bus to town and found our bearings to find our lodging for the night. Nearly every soul in Croatia speaks some english. This made this even easier. We had already hit up the ATM (ATM fix everything) for local currency. Excellent idea since the kuna were immediately needed for a gelato fix. Approximately 7 kuna equals a euro. Gelato was 7 kuna! Hooray, cheap ice cream, let's move now! Our hotel was located inside the highlight of Split, the Diocletian palace (3rd century Roman ruler's retirement palace). It was a hopping Friday evening so we joined in the fun and started our local beer sampling right away. Beers were something like 15 to 20 kuna, so not quite 3 euro. Just two as we needed some rest to get us ready for our boat in the morning.

Chad and the fisheye lens. A minor mixup from the booking company had us on the A+ boat. We had not paid the A+ fare so we were assigned to the regular A route. Okay with us, we weren't that good in school. There was a bit of inclement weather and we were delayed from heading straight out to our first stop. But of course as the lovely Croatian grandmothers (my own and her friends) would tell us, everything starts after you have eaten.

Our accommodation for the next 8 days, the LOPAR. A small but comfortable double bed with small cupboard and most important, the WC. Similar to a camping trailer but heck, Chad is used to camping without facilities for 5 days. I am game for whatever, within a level of cleanliness. Continental breakfast and a daily full 4 course lunch were also included in our fare. No AC but seabreezes were enough to cool the cabin down. Isaac the bartender (in our case Bruno was his name) got us all drinks on our room's tab.

Our boat was a mix of everyone. Edith part of the UK contingent was in Croatia celebrating her 80th birthday. Also had majority representation of Australian and New Zealanders on board. Rounding out the minority was North America. 4 in total but 2 Lindas so we must have counted for more. Viva the Lindas! We only had one Croatian speaker amongst us but he cheated by having parents from the region. Of course our crew was Croatian but they joked with us in English and Croatian.

From the first meal on board, I had flashbacks of my grandmother. I truly feel I understand her better now. There was always bread on the table. Didn't matter if you were having sandwiches, Mary needed her bread. And her definition of salad definitely has Croatian origins. Plain lettuce (nothing else, not even a variety of lettuce) with red wine vinegar and oil. I just laughed, Good old Mary S was watching over us. Luckily then the weather changed and we started heading off to the first stop, Makarska.

Kind of a rough start but thanks (hvala) to my favorite nurse, the motion sickness patch held off the majority of the nausea. Once we arrived in our stopping port for the night, we broke for dinner on our own. That was great to experience the local food, culture, people. And of course sample the varieties of gelato available in Croatia. Up next, the national parks, medieval cities and cats. Yes that is right, cats. By the Way, Hrvatska is the Croatian way of saying Croatia. Quite a unique language for such a beautiful country. Vowels are not always necessary. There is a lot of wine in the country so that could be reason for dropping the vowels. Slurred speech must have eliminated these annoying letters. All good, the wine is too!