Hrvatska (Croatia)!

Zdravo!

Our overnight ferry docked in the port of Zadar, Croatia at 7:00am and we disembarked feeling a bit groggy but much better than previous overnight travels.  We had learned from earlier experiences and booked a private cabin this time, which was worth every penny!  We arrived to a beautiful, cool morning and hopped into a taxi to Sukosan, a small beach town 10km South of Zadar.

Sunset on the harbor in Sukosan

Sukosan

We never would have found Sukosan if it weren't for us meeting up with Alison and Almir, our good friends from home and the reason we had left Italy for Croatia in the first place.  They had set up the lodging for us as the property is run by Almir’s family from the area.  The Lacic family owns a summer home with small efficiency apartments for vacationers and they were kind enough to give us a room at a great price.  Mirko and Beba were so incredibly warm and hospitable and even though we were not able to communicate with them very well, they were some of the sweetest people we've met.  We were by ourselves with them for the first day and the only communication exchanged was the common enjoyment of food and drinks.  Our 8:00am arrival into their home included cured hams and sausages, local cheeses, fruits from their yard, strong coffee, stronger schnapps, and homemade Maraschino cordials!  Now that’s a welcome!  After all that, we intended to turn in for a nap but ended up on a beautiful walk around the town.  Alison and Almir arrived the next afternoon and being that Almir speaks Croatian and Bosnian, things got a lot easier for sure!  We had a great time and it was so nice to spend some time with another couple in such a wonderful setting, a rarity for us.  And in even bigger news, Ali and Al got engaged while we were there!  We are so happy for them and know they have a great future ahead of them.  Congrats you two!

Alison & Almir, the happy couple!

One highlight of our time in Croatia was a visit to Plitvice Lakes National Park, about a two hour drive up into the mountains.  There lakes are comprised of travertine terraces at different elevations, with hundreds of waterfalls big and small connecting each of them.  The park’s beautiful scenery is accessed by trails and elevated wooden paths around the lakes and over the crystal clear streams and waterfalls.  Plitvice was yet another incredible corner of the world that we are so happy to have experienced!

View of one of the walkways over the water from the canyon rim

We're getting rained on harder by the second but trying to get a good pic!

No, this is not photo shopped.  The streams are running through the trees, and the water is THAT blue!

Waterfalls coming out of the side of the lake above.

We climbed into a cavern in the side of the canyon wall for a good view!

Almir caught a good snapshot of how we walk around the world together.

We joined Ali, Al, and more of Al’s family in Zadar one evening for dinner and to watch a stunning sunset over the Adriatic sea.  The spot we chose to watch was quite popular because of the terrace with a “sea organ” built into it.  The sea organ is a series of chambers of different lengths, like a pipe organ, but played by sea water pushing and pulling air in and out of holes in the side of the terrace sea wall.  The sounds it creates are ethereal and a little spooky at the same time, but very, very cool any way you hear it.  Unfortunately, as it only appears as holes in the sidewalk from above, its not very photogenic!

Sunset from the Sea Organ Terrace in Zadar, while the ocean played its own concert.

We enjoyed breakfast every morning in Sukosan on the balcony of Al's aunt's room as she had the best view of the ocean.  We had breads and other goodies from the local Pekara (bakery), cheese, meats, Nutella, homemade Palacinke (small crepes made from scratch), and coffee.  It was the perfect setting with great company!  One night we had dinner at a local restaurant run by friends of the family and had the best black cuttlefish ink risotto we have ever had.  Don't knock it until you try it, its amazing!  After paying the bill, the host of the restaurant offered us all a small taste of local pear brandy and we ended up having a great chat with the restaurant’s Australian bartender, after he noticed us speaking English.  It has been really interesting along the way, hearing people’s stories from all over the world, and how they end up living where they do.

Not a bad breakfast view for the week

We enjoyed time at the local beach, and late afternoons at the beach bar and restaurant over a glass of wine or a coffee while sharing stories with our friends.  The beach is much more rocky than we were used to but the color of the water and the clarity was just incredible.  Once you got out deep enough where you could float a little and weren’t being poked in the feet by rocks, it was perfect!

Spending the morning on Ugljan waiting for Al's uncle to grill the fish caught just yards from us!

One morning we took a quick ferry out to the island of Ugljan.  We spent the afternoon with some of Al's relatives, enjoyed swimming in beautiful water and a delicious fresh fish lunch that they caught themselves and grilled for us, then enjoyed another sunset on the ferry back to Zadar.  We had yet another great meal from our hosts back in Sukosan one evening called peka.  It consisted of a huge pot filled with different cuts of lamb and pork, potatoes, and carrots, cooked for hours over coals in the outdoor oven.  I'm not sure what we enjoyed more....the smell of it cooking on the fire or actually eating it.  Both were pretty incredible.  There is a great article on Honest Cooking describing its ingredients and history here.  Give it a quick read.

Almir's cousins cleaning fish for lunch

"Peka" almost ready to open up and eat!

The peka opened up, fresh tomatoes, and a pitcher of something similar to lemonade with mint and lavender!

After saying bittersweet goodbyes to Alison, Almir, and our hosts, we boarded an eight hour bus southbound from Zadar to Dubrovnik.  The last hour was somewhat terrifying while the bus driver took curves like we were in a sports car, on the edge of a cliff, with frequent oncoming traffic, in the pitch black.  Whew, glad we made it to the hotel in one piece!

Dubrovnik

The owner of the small pension we had booked was kind enough to pick us up at the bus station and drive us up to the apartment.  When we settled into our room and walked out on our balcony, we knew that we had made the right decision to spend a few more days exploring what Croatia was all about.  Our view looked out over Old Dubrovnik and its walls, Lokrum Island in the bay, and the expansive ocean beyond.  It was quite a sight and only got better in the morning.  Since we had made the decision to continue our Croatian visit fairly quickly, we weren't quite sure what Dubrovnik had to offer but we had work to do for the remaining days of our trip so we decided to go get some food, walk the old city for a bit, and spend the rest of the day on the balcony being productive.  We proceeded to walk down 411 stairs, which we quickly remembered we would have to walk back up to get to the pension.  Luckily we found a short cut and avoided some of the stairs on the way back.

View of the old walled city from our balcony

Our apartment was FOUR HUNDRED AND ELEVEN STEPS from the old city...

We spent some time at two different beaches and enjoyed them both.  The water was chilly but refreshing and perfectly clear.  We had one of our best unexpected days just walking the Old Town, Wes getting a haircut, enjoying cappuccinos while listening to a jazz band, hitting the beach until the sunset, eating a fabulous dinner, more coffee, and finally a stroll home and an amazing view from our balcony.  We have realized that just enjoying the surroundings and experiencing a city like a local, is for us, the better way to get a feel for a city than running to the tourism driven attractions.  And we know we keep saying this, and the list is getting very long, but Croatia is now definitely up there on our favorites list!

We walked up to this cafe as the pianist was playing the first notes of New York, New York.

Wes has a fascination with old municipal drinking fountains, and the water was COLD!

The Stradun, main street, at night.

We bid Croatia farewell, took a short flight to Rome, a train from the airport, a train to Naples, another train to Salerno, a bus to Amalfi, and a taxi to arrive in the cliff side village of Conca dei Marini!  Updates soon...

Italy...Take One - Where is “our Italy”?!

Ciao!

We have placed some big expectations on our visit to Italy.  Some have rung true, some have been better than we ever thought, and some have missed the mark a bit but mostly because we were naively unrealistic about the volume of tourists here in the summer.  Please don’t read that as negative because we are still having a wonderful time!  We just have to remember to travel to destinations that WE want to go to, not where everyone else wants to go.  We are currently just across the Adriatic sea from the East coast of Italy on the coast of Croatia taking a little beach break with friends before we return to the second half of our Italian experience.

Venice

Our train to Venice arrived in the evening and we caught the last ferry out to our hotel.  As we booked the room close to our arrival date, we didn’t find a reasonably priced hotel in Venice itself but we did find a cute little B&B on the island of Murano, a ten minute ferry ride from the center of town.  This was the BEST thing that happened to us the whole time we were in Venice.  When we arrived in Murano the streets were almost deserted except for one restaurant with a few couples enjoying a very quiet and peaceful dinner by the canal.  After checking in, we joined the “crowd” and enjoyed our first Italian meal of Caprese salad, homemade pasta with local clams, and a bottle of prosecco.  It was a delicious meal and a perfect night after a long travel day.

An exhibit by one of Murano's famous glass artists.

The next morning we grabbed a ferry back to the city center.  Venice was an adorable city for just getting lost exploring the back alleys and nooks and crannies of neighborhoods, but when we got the heart of the city it was packed with tourists.  This made simply walking down the streets difficult and turned us off so we caught a ferry and enjoyed a ride around the canals while exploring Venice from the water.  We did manage to visit the “must see” spots of Piazzetta San Marco and Ponte Di Rialto but the quieter neighborhoods were our favorite!

We could barely walk side by side in some places!

One of the many small canals.

Grand Canal or "Main Street Venice"

Gondola traffic jam.  Not so romantic, eh?

We also spent an afternoon taking a ferry to Burano which is famous for it’s colorful houses and delicate lace making.  It was a very small town but we enjoyed seeing the locals live their quiet, remote lives.  We had another quiet dinner near our hotel in Murano and packed up for our quick train to Florence.  We enjoyed Venice but left still wondering where the Italy was that has been in our minds for so long.

Leaning bell tower of Murano...who needs Pisa's crowds?

Florence

By the time we reached Florence we were tired of “sightseeing” per se and must admit that we weren’t in the right frame of mind to truly explore the city and enjoy what it had to offer, nor did we really do the city justice through the lens.  We wandered around visiting the city’s highlight areas for a few hours and didn’t fall in love like we had expected.  That being said, we had the best gelato since arriving in Italy and some delicious pasta and wine!  Both of our pasta dishes were firsts for us with one having sautéed zucchini flower and the other having cinghiale (wild boar).  Both were wonderful!  And in case you were ever considering it, pistachio and hazelnut gelato do make a perfect lunch!  We did enjoy our short time in Florence but again left wondering where the Italy was that we had been daydreaming about. 

The Duomo was much more impressive from the outside than inside.

The River Arno and Ponte Vecchio beyond.

Greve in Chianti!

We were ready for something with a slower pace in a more rural setting.  As luck would have it, we picked Greve in Chianti, smack in the middle of the Tuscan countryside and only a forty-five minute bus ride south of Florence.  This location was the Italian postcard perfection that we had been looking for!  We booked a room in a small B&B on a hilltop at the edge of town and as a bonus we gained a set of Italian grandparents for a few days!  After getting settled into our room, we took a stroll through the town and picked out a few restaurants for our stay, visited some great shops with local products in the town square, then spent the afternoon back at the B&B sitting in lounge chairs overlooking the Tuscan countryside.  While relaxing, we were almost hit in the head with falling plums, which we promptly ate, then continued to eat for the remainder of our stay.  After discovering the plum trees over our head, we walked the gardens and found pear trees, apricot trees, tomatoes, green peppers, grapes, olives, herbs, all of which seem to comprise your everyday Mediterranean back yard. 

View from behind our room.

We spent some wonderful time on the back patio and in the yard.

View from the front patio.  The hill was good for walking off big meals!

Lunch of fresh mozzarella, pecorino, salami, rosemary toast, cherries, and wine of course!

This plum almost hit Wes on the head, so it paid the ultimate price!

Greve's main square, which is actually a triangle...

We've seen A LOT of hanging hams, but not many with tails still attached.  We're not fans.

Our hosts, Paulo and Ana, were so warm and welcoming and made us feel as if we were staying with long lost Italian family.  The only other guests were an older couple from Lyon, France that have stayed with them for several years.  One evening after dinner, we were relaxing in the yard after sunset and decided it was time to turn in for the night.  On our way inside, we crossed the patio where our hosts and their other guests were finishing dinner and were invited (firmly told) to sit down for dessert with them.  We had a wonderful and quite humorous end to the day while eating tiramisu and sipping homemade lemoncello, all while trying to have a conversation with a couple that spoke Italian and just a little French, a couple that spoke only French, and us who spoke neither! 

There is an enormous opinion in the online travel community that you MUST have a car to “do Tuscany”.  While a car would certainly be valuable if you wanted many quick visits in several places, seeing the countryside on foot and getting to know one town intimately was an amazing experience.  We took a beautiful walk through vineyards and olive groves to Montefioralle, a medieval village just outside Greve.  We found a perfect bench and just passed some time soaking up the view and reminiscing on the experiences of the last few months.  We also followed a ten kilometer loop trail through the rolling countryside.  Following that trail proved a little bit challenging but we managed to not get too lost! 

The village of Montefioralle.

Vineyard above Greve.

Starting our 10k walk, marked "easy" on the local guidebook.

It's only easy if you can follow the trail!  We wandered in the hills for a bit before we found this and continued!

We hopped on a local bus to Panzano, another charming Tuscan hilltop town.  Panzano is home to Dario Cecchini and his Antica Macelleria (butcher shop) and world famous restaurant Solociccia.  If you’re a fan of Anthony Bourdain you’ve probably seen this guy on No Reservations.  We were intending on trying to eat dinner a Solociccia but discovered that his Macelleria has a restaurant upstairs with a wonderful lunch.  It was one of the best meals we’ve ever had, even if a little protein heavy!  We knew we were in the right place to eat when you enter the front door of the butcher shop and a server pours you a glass of local red wine and offers you bread, salami, lardo on toast, and then walks you through a secret door in the back of the kitchen that leads to the restaurant upstairs!  The other meals back in Greve may not have had the cache that this lunch had but were definitely wonderful in their own right. 

We found “our Italy” in Greve in Chianti!  We are not suggesting that we did not enjoy Venice or Florence, but Greve was what we had been looking for in every way.  We will have a chance to find even more of “our Italy” in just a few days after we return from Croatia’s Dalmatian coast! 

The Swiss Alps

Gruezi Mitenand from Switzerland!

Switzerland was a destination where we weren't really sure what to expect but just knew  that we wanted to see the Swiss Alps.  We did a little research and decided on the town of Interlaken as it provided easy access to the Bernese Oberland region.  Since we were planning last minute as most everything has been during this portion of the trip, we had trouble finding accommodations within the town.  We found a wonderful holiday apartment just up the valley from the small town of Interlaken, above the even smaller town of Wilderswill, in the even smaller village of Gsteigweiler.  We think this was truly meant to be.  Over the next few days, Switzerland would become one of our favorite stops on our trip and we know that's a strong statement!

Gsteigweiler was exactly what we wanted our Swiss experience to be.  We stayed in a furnished studio apartment built within a portion of an 800 year old chalet that has been in the owner's family for over 300 years!  (Remodeled a few times we're sure!) We almost didn't believe the owner until she brought out the local history books.  The view of the mountains and meadows from our front porch was priceless and we spent many hours sitting and enjoying homemade nutmeg lattes and of course some Swiss chocolate!  We got pretty good at using the Keurig Nespresso machine in our kitchen.  Who needs Starbucks anyway?

Front of the old chalet.

Rear of the chalet where we lived for 5 days.

Our quaint studio apartment with lofted bedroom.

View from our front porch at sunset.

These water fountains provided pure untreated water from the glaciers.

From the train station in Wilderswil below the town below Gsteigwiler.

Posing for the picture!  We woke up to these bells clanging EARLY in the morning!

Now that's a pretty pile of firewood.  The locals are VERY meticulous with this.

Yes, Christine made this great Nutmeg Latte!

Some of the most memorable stays on our trip have been because of the hosts in the smaller accommodations.  It would be a great blog post to describe a few of them and maybe we'll do that in the future.  As a representative example of the diverse people we've met, Marilyn, half of the couple that owns the chalet in Gsteigwiler, is native Cuban, lived in Albuquerque NM for a while, and now lives in Switzerland with her Swiss husband who is a somewhat famous piano player and their three adorable kids.  She was kind enough to pick us up from the Interlaken train station when we arrived from Paris around midnight, well after trains had stopped running near their village.  She continued to provide for everything we needed and also provided for some very interesting conversation with her mixed Spanish-English-Swiss German languages but we would always manage to get each others ideas across!  She was truly a special person and we will never forget her.

Switzerland was colder than any other area we have visited so far (ok except for a walk on a glacier in New Zealand!) and we have to admit it was kind of nice to get a bit bundled when we went out.  We spent one afternoon wandering around Interlaken, eating Swiss cheese fondue for lunch, and playing a few games of pool in a local bar because it started to rain.

The church and garden in the center of downtown Interlaken

Train passing through Wilderswil from Interlaken towards Lauterbrunnen and the highlands.

We took a short train ride to the village of Brienz and enjoyed a lovely stroll by the beautiful lake, a visit to an old church at the top of a hill, and sitting on a bench staring off across the lake into the Alps beyond, all while wondering how in the world have been so fortunate.  Numerous times on this trip we have asked each other "How is this our life right now?"  Sometimes it really is hard to believe and we are so extremely grateful that we worked hard, took a leap of faith, did something a little nuts, and made this dream a reality.  As we approach the final weeks of this adventure we are reassured every day that it was the right decision for us and one that we will never regret.

Postcard perfection on Lake Brienzersee!

Doesn't get much better than these cool chairs.

Church overlooking Lake Brienz and the village.

We wanted to get further up into the Alps so we boarded a train bound for Murren with a stop in Lauterbrunnen on the way.  To get there we took a train to a cable car to another train.  Just traveling in all of Switzerland’s different types of trains, funiculars, cable cars, and busses is an experience in itself.  Needless to say after all that travel we reached an area with exactly what we wanted.  In Lauterbrunnen we hiked up to the base of a cliff to the underside of a waterfall.  We were certainly feeling the altitude while making the climb but it was all worth it once we got there.  Wes enjoyed a bratwurst in Lauterbrunnen and let's just say that on the way back to Gsteigweiler we got off the train to get another one, but sadly they were closed for the day.

Path leading up to the waterfall.

Lauterbrunnen is known as the valley of 72 waterfalls.

View over Lauterbrunnen from behind the waterfall.

Wes and his bratwurst!  Snappy Sausage Satisfaction!

While in Murren we were planning to board a funicular train to the Schilthorn.  Unfortunately the peak was socked in with clouds for the day so the trip to the top would have been worthless.  This was a bummer but we made the best of it and found a bench in the perfect spot to enjoy the stunningly beautiful scenery, a couple apples, and of course more Swiss chocolate.  We sat there for almost two hours before deciding to walk a trail halfway back down to Lauterbrunnen and then caught the cable car back down. On our walk we stumbled onto a dairy with a small cheese stand and bought some fresh cheese.  Talk about buying local...cows in back, creamery in a barn, cheese aging in the basement, attendant selling out of the front of the barn.  And of course it was wonderful!  This was a day we will NEVER forget.

Now that's high and boy was it moving fast.

Sound of Music, anyone?! (yes we know that was Austria)  RICOLA maybe?!

There are no words and pictures just can't capture it...

We only had to try for this picture like 10 times!  The camera kept falling off the rock.

Cheesy goodness from the local cows.

We don't generate much video content while traveling and usually just rely on still pictures to tell the story.  That said, while sitting on that picture perfect bench, this may have happened...

We really hope to return to this area and see even more of Switzerland if we are lucky.  While Switzerland was beautiful and we weren't quite ready to leave the beautiful scenery and welcoming people, we couldn't wait to begin our time in Italy!

The end of the line in Murren.