Geo: 42.6537, 18.0948For our second full day in Dubrovnik, we had the option of a full-day excursion into the neighboring country of Montenegro. We have a good friend here (well, they actually moved to Colorado a few months ago, but still...) who is from Montenegro, and we thought it would be a unique opportunity to see the country. She also raved about the beauty and said we had to go. The vast majority of our group did also opt for the tour, though a few remained behind for another day of sightseeing in Dubrovnik,When we awoke, the sky had a weird pale to it, and we had heard the winds pick up during the night. As soon as we walked outside to board the bus, we could tell that it was 20-30 degrees warmer than the ... read more

Geo: 42.6537, 18.0948We all slept well, though we did have an early wake-up this morning. After checking out, we were to have our formal tour of the city of Split this morning. As we were finishing breakfast in the hotel, a long and steady stream of incredibly beautiful young women started to stream into the restaurant. We were walking out at the time, and the sheer cacophony of their collective perfume was overwhelming. What we joked was a Playboy convention turned out to be the Miss Croatia beauty contest which, unbeknownst to us, was taking place at our hotel.Though we had our own guilde with us the entire week -- Rok -- in each of the cities we visited, we had local guides show us around. Our guide in Split was particularly good and incredibly funny. ... read more

Geo: 45.3392, 14.3063Something I have enjoyed about our tours with Gate1 is that they build in time to be flexible, and there are usually several optional tours for which you can sign up, or you can go and do something on your own. The first full day of tour was, in fact, optional, and involved visits to several towns on the Istrian Peninsula, of which Opatija is part. As nearly everyone had just arrived from the States, some elected to stay behind and rest, while others went off on their own -- some went to the lake region up in Slovenia, while another couple went scuba diving. We -- along with more than half of our group -- joined the tour, and we very glad we did. Our first stop was in the town of Pula, ... read more

Geo: 46.0546, 14.5044As I mentioned earlier, our gateway to the Adriatic was to be the city of Ljubljana -- the capital of Slovenia and a city, the spelling of which still confounds me to this day. Our flight departed from the old terminal in Vienna, which I knew all too well. The day started and ended with crystal-clear skies, which made for fantastic views of the Julian Alps during our very short 30-minute flight from Vienna.The airport is tiny, and beautifully situated in the foothills. We had a pre-arranged transfer, and our driver was waiting for us, after we retrieved our bags from the airport's one-and-only luggage carousel. It was a two-hour drive down to Opatija, on the coast, but that was less than half the time it would have taken to drive from Venice, and ... read more

Geo: 39.0095, -77.4647The particular tour we booked was nine nights, and was to commence in the city of Opatija, on the coast of Croatia. Had we booked flights through the tour company, we would have commenced at the airport in Venice, Italy, from where they transported people by bus over to Opatija. This didn't seem the most convenient routing, and as we were using award miles to book our tickets, I got out a map of the area and looked at other options, in terms of airports more convenient for Opatija. The best option turned out to be Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. The best flight routing to get there involved a change of planes in Vienna. Upon seeing that, we decided to break up our trip and spend a day in Vienna before continuing on ... read more