We're in Split, Croatia, in the middle of our 7 days in Croatia, also known as Hrvatska.
Thursday 9/16: We have a scenic drive along a rock-lined River Tara, cut by massive water flows, and see a dam, a canyon and a lake. We go through miles of tunnels. At the river, we leave Montenegro and cross into Bosnia and Herzegovina where we have 100 km of curvy roads to the capital, Sarajevo, still driving through canyons. We see Cyrillic, some Arabic again. A police car signaled Branko to pull over. They tell him he was speeding, but he never passed any other cars on this road. He knows they are screwing with him because of his foreign license plates. The police tell him to go to the post office, pay this ticket, come back to them for his driver's license, which they will hold. Branko knows this routine. He suggested he make this €50 donation instead; they took the money and tore up the ticket. Like he says, Corruption is the middle name of the Balkans. We arrive in Sarajevo, which is the first city to have trams installed by the Habsburgs in 1878. We see war-damaged buildings. Branko attended military training school here decades ago. Our hotel is located at the edge of the Miljacka River, on the edge of a great bazaar and about one block from the location where Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in 1914, which provided a reason for the start of the Great War. Walking through the bazaar makes us think we are in Turkey or the Stans. It's quite large. Anne finds a baker who promises to make her a poppyseed roll the next morning. She is happy. An Ottoman-period water fountain here called Sebilj is an historic landmark built in 1753. It showers tonight, and we have a good chance of rain over the next 4 days.
9/17: This morning it's cool and raining, and we decide to take the day off from touring. Then the skies clear for most of the afternoon.
9/18: Anne and I were in our 40's when Sarajevo experienced its last war, and we paid little to no attention to it. From 1992 - 1995, Sarajevo was under siege by the Serbian forces in the hills around the city. From March through June of 1993, a tunnel and covered trenches were built by hand by the Bosnian Army from a 'free' location near the Serbian border, under an airport and into the war-torn area which was able to provide the city with humanitarian aid, food, medicines, war supplies, communication lines, oil, electricity. The war was settled by the Dayton, OH, Accords/Agreement. Today a 40' section of the tunnel, known as the Tunnel of Hope/Life/Salvation, is open for all to experience. We've had several discussions with Branko about trouble caused by borders, ethnicities, religions. We take a ride along another impressive road with high mountains and gorgeous river. Eighty percent of B & H is mountains and forest. We visit the iconic 16th C Mostar Bridge, destroyed in 1993, restored in 2004, and the bazaars on both sides of the bridge. We occasionally see Eastern toilets, sorry to say.
9/19: In Travnik we see the unusual early 19th C painted mosque, which was restored in 2019. It's unusual to see stores on the first floor of a mosque. On our way to the border town of Bihac, we drive along the highlands plateau. It rains all night.
9/20: We tried to drink a cup of Bosnian coffee at breakfast, but we couldn't do it. It is full, and I mean full, of coffee grounds. Wooh! We cross into Croatia, and head toward UNESCO listed Plitvice National Park to see the waterfalls. It's heavily drizzling and cold, so I read in the very nice dry lobby of the park's hotel while Anne and Branko go see the falls. Later we walk to an Indian restaurant in the capital city of Zagreb, where there are lots of tourists.
9/21: This is Branko's birthday; we wish him 100 years! This afternoon we take a walking city tour and see many pretty buildings. We stopped at the outside cafe of the oldest restaurant in Zagreb for a glass of wine. We sat enjoying the view, waiting for a waiter, for 40 minutes. The second time Branko got up while we were waiting, he decided to see the manager. We then enjoyed our free glasses of wine! Tonight we enjoyed Sri Lankan food and avocado ice cream.
9/22: This morning we are driving toward the Adriatic Sea to the oldest continually-inhabited city of Croatia, Zadar. We drive through miles of tunnels through the Dinaric Alps; the final tunnel is 4 miles long -- then we're seaside! We see some olive and palm trees, bougainvillea and oleander. Zadar is a peninsula, and we see Roman and Venetian ruins and the 16th C fresh water wells. Along the northwest side of the town's promenade, we listen to Nicholas Basic's Sea Organ, installed in 2005 to reinvigorate the area following lousy reconstruction from WWII damage. There are vertical pipes installed in the water underneath some large steps; as the wind and waves 'play' over them, harmonic sounds come up through holes in the concrete. Close by, a solar-powered Greeting to the Sun was installed in 2008 which lights up with random colors and patterns after dark. The three of us are happy to be seaside. When we couldn't open the shower door in our hotel room, we were given the 4th floor apartment instead. It was a huge room with a large terrace. Very nice.
9/23: Today we drove south along the Adriatic with the Dinaric Alps to our east. The water is calm and beautifully blue. There are oyster and mussel farms in these waters. On our stop at Trogir we walked across a bridge to the Old Town to look around and have an iced coffee. The bridge was closed, so we take a boat back to the other side. We arrive in Split, the ancient Greek colony from the 2nd or 3rd C BCE. It's now the 2nd largest city in Croatia. We visit the Diocletian Palace and the 3rd C Temple of Jupiter.
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