Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik - a medieval citadel controlled over time by the Ostrogoth, Byzantine, Ottoman, and Austral-Hungarian Empires.  An impressive walled city with beautiful stone streets.

We spent the day walking its winding streets, climbing stairs to secret corners, and finding quiet plazas.  It was such a beautiful day.  The sun shown down on the white marble of the walls.  The warm sea air blowing through the labyrinth of the citadel.

Croatian Islands

Croatia has many islands just off its coast.  We visited three of these beautiful and wild islands: Hvar, Korcula, and Mljet.  There are wonderful old towns on these islands, as well as vast wild areas where you can travel for a long time without seeing anyone.  We loved our time on the islands - camping in the car and staying with wonderful people. 

We stayed with a lovely woman and her family in this cute house.  The two American girls who were also staying there cleaned out a large closet for us to sleep in.  It was so sweet and very cozy.

We saved this tortoise from the middle of the road.  He was taking his precious time crossing and we thought it would be better to speed up his progress.

Gospić Family

In the town of Gospić, near the Plitvice Lakes, we stayed with a wonderful Christian family.  This family's business was making grave-stones, and their driveway was crowded with stone samples.  We stayed in their guest house behind their home.  It was wonderful to have a place our own.  The guest house even had a kitchen - though we never used it because they fed us the whole time.

This family had a particularly hard time during the war.  During Yugoslavian times it was not uncommon for people from one region to marry someone from another region.  The father of this family was from Serbia, and the mother was from Croatia.  Before the war started nobody had any problem with this match, and they lived happily in Gospić.  During the war it was a different story.

When the war started, the people of the town started to resent the Serbs, and the father of the family began to receive threats.  Despite the family being very active community members who had been liked, they were suddenly living in fear.

One day somebody decided to act upon their hate and resentment.  A bomb was placed in the father's car, set to go off when he left for work.  If he had not been running late for work that morning, he would be dead.  The bomb went off in the driveway, shattering house windows and sending shrapnel across the yard.

It was amazing to stay with a family who had so much love and forgiveness after surviving so much hate and mercilessness.  They still live among the people who showed them so much hostility.  They have moved on with their lives, and they know that holding grudges will not make them happy.  It is a beautiful lesson they can teach us all.

Plitvička jezera National Park

The Balkans are covered with Karst formations: limestone, dolomite, and gypsum formations worn away by water.  In central Croatia there are some particularly impressive Karst formations called Plitvička jezera. 

We had heard many good things about this national park.  Numerous people had spoken with us about the park.  One had even told us how to sneak into it.

Because we are cheap - seriously - we did manage to sneak into it.  We parked on the far side of the park and walked in.  It really wasn't so difficult, and we had absolutely no trouble while walking around the park.

The park is magnificent.  We spent a few hours walking the different parts of the park.
 

Istria

We entered Croatia in the evening.  It was the first time we had left the Schengen zone since our arrival to Europe in Christmas of 2010.  We were excited to be in a new area, different from any we had yet visited.  Of course the first thing we saw was this:

I don't know why we always come across signs that say "Montana" when it is already dark and difficult to photograph them.

We worked our way across the entire Istrian peninsula in the dark.  Our destination for the night was Pula in the south.  A young tax auditor had accepted our request - I refer to him as an auditor, because it was apparently his favorite topic of discussion.  Rather, he really liked to complain about his job.

He was pretty cool, and we did talk about other things.  He told us his opinions about Yugoslavia and the current regime.  There was no apparent animosity from him towards Yugoslavian times.  In fact he seemed to be more suspicious of current politics, and acknowledged that things were pretty peaceful for most people before the war.  We would hear these same positions from many people of different ages as we crossed the country.

The next day we went on a walk together through Pula.

There is a very well preserved Roman amphitheater in Pula.  It is so impressive that the Italians during their control of Istria supposedly considered moving it to mainland Italy.

North of Pula is Brijuni National Park.  The park is a set of islands just off the coast of the peninsula.  One of the islands was the summer resort for Josep Broz Tito - the leader of communist Yugoslavia.  This island is lush and green, with all the luxuries one could hope for.  We took the ferry to the island and toured around it. 

I have to admit it is one of the most touristic things we have ever done, but I enjoyed it.

On Brijuni there is a large menagerie - which of course was initiated and expanded upon by Tito.  This includes many zebras and an single lone elephant.   

 

Istria is the only place outside of Puglia where we have seen Truli.  There were only three or four that we spotted while on the peninsula.  It really isn't so surprising that there are Truli there, considering the Italians controlled the area at various points in time.

Along the western coast of Istria there are plenty of cute seaside towns.  We visited several of these colorful ports.