joelmac

We left the coast for good today. We had to stop early into our trip to take a picture of the photogenic town of Primošten. Then it was off to Letinac. Although Lika was not on out list of destinations originally, I was not going to drive by Letinac and Brinje and be the person to decide NOT to let dad see family. It was really worth it as we spent a good hour at Letinac. Nevenka looked good even though she has not been feeling well lately. A little cheese, crackers, and rakija later, we bid Nevenka farewell and we were off to Brinje. We thought Mike had gotten lost on the way. We had to turn around to go to try to find him. Little did we know that he had left his iPad ... read more

Today began with a cup of coffee and then 7 of us headed up the coast to Sibenik. As we got to the city that was home to a young Dražen Petrović, we headed inland towards the medieval fortress town of Knin. Dad, Mike, Tom, Tomi, Mariah, Kailee and I traveled through a part of Croatia we had never been to before. With the looks of many of the buildings along the way, the war does not seem to be 20 years in the past. Mike also spotted the usual sign that warned of travel off of the road due to the possibility of land mines left behind. When we arrived in Knin, we climbed the hill in the van to the parking spot at the base of the fortress. We visited the gift shop, (which ... read more

Today was our last full day in Hvar. I really like this town. Everything is quite compact here - even more so than Dubrovnik - it seems. There are always pepoke that seem to be on their way someplace. To begin the day, everyone but Carrie and Dad made the hike up the hillside above Hvar. We went early enough to avoid most the heat of the early day sun. The views from the 13 century fort (that's when construction started) were incredible. It reminded me of the scenes that were shot here from the one season TV series MISSING. It was also the location of a small museum that had amphora from 3 different shipwrecks from Antiquity. One of the ships was originally from Asia Minor, another from Italy and the third was from Spain. ... read more

Today was our last day in the city if Dubrovnik. The day started with dad visiting with Tom's Tripadvisor friend Carol. After breakfast, we were off to our 2nd day at Banje. The weather was really nice. It was the hottest day of the trip so far. Aside from all of the swimming and jumping into the water, 5 of the grand kids went parasailing. Abbey teamed up with Adam, Tomi and Kailee went together, amd Mariah went solo to finish up the group. Our trip seemed a little worrisome as the workers on the boat struggled to get the chute prepared for about 15 minutes. Fortunately, they finally got things set and Abbey and Ayden were off! After a bit more swimming, we headed back to the apartment where 9 (Mike, Dayla, Kailee, Kyle, Tom, ... read more

Although we were promised another miserable weather day by our driver to our apartment, today ended up being a great weather day from the start. It began with Abbey and I making the 484 stair trek up to the Adriatic highway to find the entry point to the path up Mt. Srd. From there we made it back to the Old Town and checked out Gundelič Square and made our way up to Buža 2. We were actually looking for a basketball court we have seen from the walls on past trips, but we were not successful. Our journey ended up being our morning workout today regardless. Upon returning to our apartment, it was off to the Dubravka for breakfast. The area around the Pile Gate was quite busy shortly after 10 am. Following breakfast, we ... read more