Blogs from Dalmatia, Croatia, Europe - page 70

Sunday, November 7th Hi Everyone, Today we arrived in Dubrovnik. I have wanted to tour Dubrovnik for at least 8 years and I have to tell you that I am in no way disappointed. This was one of the most beautiful cities that we have ever seen. The old town of Dubrovnik is a medieval town with a wall, a gate and even a moat. Everything is stone; the streets, the buildings, and all the monuments. We had about a one-hour historical tour and then had about an hour and a half to explore on our own before beginning the second part of the tour. Later we boarded a bus and went up into the mountains where we spent time touring a couple of farm houses. We had a two-hour lunch at one of the farm ... read more

Today we headed back toward Croatia along the Montenegran coast. We stopped in a very old small town names Perast. In the center of town is a beautiful 16th century church. From the dock in town you can take a boat across to the floating cathedral that I mentioned yesterday. The monastary on the other island is only open for religious clergy on sabatical. We chartered the boat across to the cathedrel and were so taken aback by the beauty and history of this place. To think that it took 200 years just to build the island that the cathedral is on is mind boggling. Inside the museum which is attached to the cathedral there is this beautiful embroidered cloth. The story behind the cloth is that this woman whos husband was lost at sea, embroidered ... read more

This morning the four of us drove to Split. Marina didn't have to teach class, so we got to spend the day with our own private tour guide. Our first stop was a cafe at the top of a hill, looking over the bay. We could see the waterfront and the old part of the city dating back to the 3rd century. Split was a favorite city of the Roman Emperor Diocletian and he built his palace there. Because of this, Split has always been a very modern city. Before we went to the palace, Gina and Marina left us to go to a shop in a different part of the city. This left dad and Cara to wander around the square. After shopping for a bit we decided to go to a cafe bar and ... read more

Riding the Peninsula In no time at all, Zuljana was in our rear view mirror and we were ready for a good ride. The climb out of the village was pretty much 0 to 300 meters in five kilometers which turned out to be what the day would be - up and down. Most of the climbs were about 8 kilometers, but the descents were just as long. The grades were good most of the time. Dan handled all the grades with ease but I was not doing as well, especially after we tried a shortcut that did not work. It added about 6 kilometers of extra uphill, at very steep grades. Lesson here - only go to Trstenik if you want to visit, do some eating, swimming and hiking and don't have another 50 kilometers ... read more

Last night was our first formal night so we dressed up for a wonderful dinner in the Dining room. John had the sea salt cod and lobster cake which he really enjoyed. Then he couldn’t decide between the Duck and Sausage Gumbo or 4 Mushroom cream soup so tried both. He said it was the best mushroom soup he’d ever had but the Duck and Sausage one beat it out for last night. Sharon had the Blackberry soup which was good except for the seeds. For the main course he had horse radish crusted halibut and Sharon had the rack of lamb. Both were very good. We both had the chocolate crème Brule for dessert. We stopped by the casino on the way to the show which probably wasn’t a good idea. Sharon won a bit ... read more