Croatia-2024

 

Photos - https://link.shutterfly.com/amKczOZjBRb

              Next stop on the Balkan tour is Croatia. The 8-hour direct bus trip took 10 hours due to the many roads out after their hurricane the week after our hurricane Helene. I enjoy bus trips, feeling safe being in the biggest vehicle on the road vs the stress that comes with renting a car in a foreign country.  Bosnia has beautiful mountains, now in their fall colors. Croatia has short, rocky hills and lots of coastline on the Adriatic Sea. My full day in Split was a 3-hour city bike tour and a walking tour of the 4^th century Roman palace built by Emperor Diocletian.  We cycled to the top of Marjan city nature reserve, rolling through pine forests and stopping to see a 16^th century Jewish cemetery, medieval chapels and cave dwellings.   

              Friday, I started my 8-day boat tour with daily mountain biking of six beautiful islands off the coast of Croatia, in the Adriatic Sea. This area is referred to as south Dalmatia. While I originally thought this was a sailing tour (I booked it very quickly after Hurricane Helene ravaged western North Carolina), I learned today that the ship has two masts because licensing is cheaper as such. The two masts are only used for mounting radio equipment for better signals.

              Our ship, San Snova, is 102’ long with a crew of four plus our two mountain guides. We are fortunate there are only eight of us tourist’s vs the capacity of 25 mountain bikers. This is the last tour of the season since tourism gets very slow after October. Frankly, April and October are the best months to visit Croatia. The temperatures are lovely in the 70’s rather than the 100+ of July and August. My mates are six Germans and one Swiss. All are lovely people and as it turns out, more talented (and younger) than me on the rocky, loose, steep trails of this region. I’m happy to have an e-bike. But the loose pointy rocks staring up at me on the bike are a bit disconcerting. More so than the steep cliffs with no railings. In the interest of self-preservation, I have no shame in walking the scary stuff.

       I loved Zagreb, their capital and largest city, which is located in eastern Croatia, away from the coast. The bus trip included a climb up the mountain range and a 4-mile tunnel through the mountain to the other side. The mountains were gorgeous, in their yellow colors.

              In Zagreb I explored via a bicycle tour, the famous landmarks. Then the next day a walking tour on the topic of famous Croatian inventors. Statues of these smart men and women are sprinkled around city center and, as we walked my guide shared those stories, along with many other fun facts. Did you know that Croats are to blame for neckties, fingerprinting, parachutes, telescopes, fountain pens, pentel, radio waves and the internet, to name a few of the world changing inventions that came from Croatian minds? Nikolai Tesla, for whom our buddy Elon named his electric Tesla car, has many famous inventions, including the first AC current motor. (A.G. Bell did DC current). Learning about so many Croatian scientists, I made a tour of their Science and Technology Museum.

              I was in town for the popular Day of the Dead holiday. All the town was a bustle, with many fresh flower vendors so families could clean and decorate the graves of loved ones. I hopped onto a city bus to their huge cemetery to view the preparation. Then, booked an Uber to their botanical gardens. Here, Ubers are marked with “Taxi” signs and look like a regular taxi.