Where’s Paul?

Paris

When I set up this trip I kind of threw in Paris as an afterthought, thinking that I would pass through for a few days on my way home. After having spent the last two days here I can say for 100% certain that I’ll be back here some day. This might be the most beautiful city I’ve ever visited.

It didn’t start out very well though. I had a lot of anxiety over the language issue. I don’t speak a lick of French, and everyone I’ve talked to (even the Italians that I’d just met last Saturday!) said the French were a pain in ass about the language. They really want you to speak French, to the point that they pretend they don’t know English just to make you uncomfortable. This is part of the reason why I had avoided coming here sooner. I mean, how ungrateful could you be when so many people are adding to your economy! Then I realized that it’s not a whole lot different than having a bunch of immigrants picking your food and cleaning your homes, and then blaming them for your lousy economy, and I came around.

Still, I was nervous. On Tuesday morning I procrastinated in my room as long as I could, then headed out. After a frustrating experience ordering lunch - a great fresh fruit salad, where the waiter wouldn’t speak to me in English until I was done with my meal - I was feeling pretty dejected. Still, I had two days here so I had to make the best of it.

A couple of blocks from my hotel I walked into a huge park that turned out to be the Luxembourg Gardens and everything turned around. How could you not feel good in a place like this?

I walked through the gardens and headed toward the area of the Louvre and d’Orsay museums. I wasn’t going to go into the museums on Tuesday though - the forecast was for rain on Wednesday and Thursday, so I decided to delay the indoor activities until then. As I was leaving the grounds of the Louvre a beggar came up to me and asked “Do you speak English?”, and then showed me a card saying she was a Bosniak (yes, Joe Biden was right - suck it!), her brother had leukemia and her mother was dead. I don’t know if it was all true but I had to give her some money just for the creativity even if it was a lie. About ten minutes later another beggar came up to me and asked if I spoke English, and when I was at Arc de Triomphe an American came up and asked me if I spoke English. What is wrong with you people? Why do you think I’m American? I’M WEARING PANTS IN NINETY DEGREE HEAT, CAN’T YOU TELL I’M A LOCAL?!

I also took this picture as I was walking through the gardens leading away from the Louvre.

Here you can clearly see the Champs-Elysees leading to the Arc de Triomphe, as well as the Eiffel Tower, all of which I would walk to on this day. If you’ve ever been to Vegas and said “Let’s just walk to the next hotel, it’s the next one down” you know where this is going. These sights are WAY farther away than they seem due to their size.

So I headed toward the Arc de Triomphe, but I didn’t get very far before I had to stop again. At one point I was at an intersection and just stopped in my tracks. One one side was this (the "Petite Palace"),

on the other the Grand Palace, and straight ahead was this (Les Invalides)


This is an extreme example, but there’s stuff like this all over the place. It seems like every time you walk a block you see some amazing sight. By the time I got to the park by the Louvre I just gave up putting my camera away. I ended up taking 265 pictures on Tuesday, by far the most of any day on the trip.

So I get back on track and head toward the arch, and after a loooong walk and a couple of breaks due to the weight of my camera gear (never again will I bring this much stuff) I got there. And once you’re there you have to go to the top! It’s a lot of steps, but I eventually got there and the view was worth it.


Under the arch is a memorial to the unknown soldier.

Next stop: Eiffel Tower

I finally figured out how to get to the right road leading to the Eiffel Tower and made my way there. I had a map, but the roads are pretty confusing so I wasn’t sure if I was in exactly the place I wanted to be. Then I turned a corner and I was there...

I knew it was big, but until you see it in person you have no idea. It’s just massive, both in the area it takes up and its height. I was going to pass on going to the top because the line was so long, but I eventually decided that it was worth it. The line was two and a half hours long, which while not great turned out to be a blessing in disguise because by the time I got to the top (it takes three elevators, and the last one could be pretty scary if you’re claustrophobic or afraid of heights). At the very top there’s a small apartment that Eiffel lived in.


I don’t know if he was there full time though because it was pretty small; the mannequin you see at the back is against the back wall. The apartment is set up to recreate the moment when Thomas Edison (on the right) was up there showing off his latest invention, the phonograph.

The top floor is pretty small, so I went down to the second where the better views are and took advantage of the light to get some decent shots of the city. This one faces toward where I took the picture above (just to the right of the purple lights):

By the time I got to the bottom it was dark enough that they’d turned on the lights on the tower.

By now it was late - 10:50pm - but I had one last thing to do before calling it a night. At the top of every hour the do a little light show on the tower, so I walked to a nice dark area, sat down and waited. The park was packed full of people. There had to have been around a thousand people there, most in groups of 10 or so, picnicking at 11:00 at night! Mea culpa, Rick Steves. You were right about that part.


After the show I packed everything up and hunted down a taxi. I was really far from my hotel, and by that time I had easily walked 10-15 miles and spent over ten hours on my feet so there was no way I was going to walk back.

Still, after I got back to the hotel I didn’t go to sleep for a couple of hours. I think I was so jazzed by what I’d experienced that day that I wasn’t tired.

Today (Wednesday) was spent in the Louvre and the d’Orsay museums. The Louvre is the first museum I’ve ever been to where I’ve thought “I’ve got to come back here”, and the d’Orsay is where the Impressionists are, so it was a great day. I walked back to the hotel, and just as I got to the front door it started raining. Even the weather cooperated.

Paris is an incredible city, and there’s no way you can experience it all in a couple of days or maybe even a week. In Rome you have to kind imagine how things used to be, but in Paris everything is still there and working so you can actually experience it first hand.

If there’s any way you can come here, you should. It’s worth it.

Tomorrow it's a walk around the Notre Dame area, weather permitting (thunderstorms right now). I won't have time to post pictures because I fly out of Paris tomorrow afternoon as I start my trip home, so you probably won't hear from me again until I'm back state side.

Salut!

A Religious Experience In Rome

No, not the Vatican.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

I don't remember why I Google'd (hey, it was before Bing launched. Gimme a break) Bruce Springsteen's tour originally, but when I saw that he was playing at Stadio Olimpico in Rome on July 19th I knew I had to extend my stay in Rome by an extra day. I had never seen him live and I'd heard great things about it, plus how can you pass up that kind of opportunity?

The concert was supposed to start at 8:30 but it was postponed until 10:00pm because of a conflict with the swimming world championships, and then they started half an hour late on top of that. People were getting pretty restless.

The first song was Badlands, the last one was Twist and Shout, and the concert was THREE HOURS LONG with no opening act. During the entire act there were maybe half a dozen times where there was actual silence; at the end of most of the songs the band just kept playing the last chord while Bruce changed guitars (he changed between almost every song).

The set was pretty straightforward except for one small part in the middle. During that section he walked around the front of the stage and collected a bunch of signs that people had made that included the names of his songs (clearly people knew about this in advance). Then he'd just pick up a sign, show it to the band, say "1, 2, 3, 4" and they'd play that song.

Shortly before 1:00am the house lights came up and they finished with Born to Run - or so we thought. They walked off for about 15 seconds (everyone except Clarence Clemons, who appears to have some health problems; he sat down during stretches) and then came back to play seven more songs.

The last section just brought the house down. The first one was one he said they hadn't played for a while, My City of Ruins, which was a really nice touch in Rome. And thankfully I got to see Thunder Road, which they didn't play the previous show (?!).

Every time they finished a song the crowd assumed that was it; they were probably ready to go home. And then he'd walk back and pick up another guitar and people would just look at each other and say "no way!". At least that's what I assume they were saying by the looks on their faces. Did I mention I no capeche Italiano?

When they played Bobby Jean (which I don't remember hearing before) things just came unglued. The two keyboardists were playing accordions, the musicians in the back came up front and they just kept going. Then all of a sudden to ladies in the 70s (at least) came out and started dancing behind Bruce as he was playing. He turned around and had no idea what was going on, but he went along with it. By the end of the song the entire band was just laughing their heads off.

The last song was Twist and Shout, which included some weird part of La Bamba, and it went on forever. When they finished everyone including the fans were exhausted, but if he would have kept on playing I'd still be there watching.

And yes, he did bring out a young girl to dance with during Dancing in the Dark.

I love to see U2 whenever they're in town because they're such showmen, but after watching this I think I've seen the pinnacle of showmanship. Keep in mind: on September 23rd Bruce Springsteen will by SIXTY years old. He - and his band, who were all awesome - were still going strong at 1:30 in the morning when people half his age were ready to go to bed. They've been playing some of these songs for thirty years, and far from mailing it in, they act like they're brand new. And the production value of the show was unlike anything I've seen. There were two huge screens next to the stage, which is nothing new, but the video looked like they were filming for the DVD or something. It was awesome. And did I mention everyone was outside in shirtsleeves until 1:30 am? Gotta love Roma in July.

It was an incredible performance, and should you be so fortunate as to have him come to your town you really need to go. The tickets are expensive, but it's totally worth it. I know I'll be going if he ever comes back to Seattle.

Summary: I enjoyed the show.

OK, that's it for me. Time to get on a plane for Paris.

Because tramps like us, baby we were born to run.

Update

Here's the review of the show and the set list, from brucespringsteen.net. Turns out the two old ladies were his mom and aunt!

ROME, ITALY
Sunday, July 19, 2009

The Most Beautiful City in the World

By Guglielmo Latini

The first Springsteen concert in the biggest stadium in Rome, and definitely a concert that the Roman audience (though I should say Italian audience, because there were people from every single town of the country) won't forget for a long time. The concert was delayed by the local authorities to avoid coinciding with the Swimming World Championship, so it actually started at 10:30 p.m.--an unusual time for a Bruce show, but a good occasion to fully enjoy the magic in the Roman night.

The first emotional moment came with the opening music during the entrance of the band, which was the wonderful theme from Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in The West by Ennio Morricone, played with all the lights down. It's a tune that's been used several times by Bruce to open his Italian concerts, and also the one that acted as an intro for "Badlands" during the River tour. This mix of melancholy and epic really moved the crowd and prepared it well for the sudden explosion of "Badlands," which was quickly followed by "Out in the Street" and perfect "Outlaw Pete," which continued the homage to Morricone, as a composition in the same style of the Roman Maestro. The audience really felt it and sang even the guitar solos like they were well-known melodies, overwhelming the volume of Steve's guitar with their voices.

"No Surrender" was a punch of energy and was followed by "She's the One," which always does its work to excite the audience. During "Working on a Dream" Bruce spoke in Italian and referred to Rome as "the most beautiful city in the world," adding that the Band would bring the music, but the audience had to bring the noise! The "Recession trilogy" was embellished by a powerful "Atlantic City," and "Seeds" had very, very strong guitar work by Bruce himself.

After Bruce gathered the request signs, "Raise Your Hand" was played entirely (Bruce jumping on the piano like in the good ol' days), followed shortly by a "Hungry Heart" sung by the whole Stadio Olimpico and by a rare "Pink Cadillac." Then Bruce showed a sign made by a couple about to marry in a week, requesting "I'm on Fire," and "the wedding singer" surely didn't deny it. Another sign referred to someone's birthday, and the occasion was a good one for a happy, joyful "Surprise Surprise," but the mood changed quickly with an extraordinary rendition of "Prove It All Night", rocking the house with a superb Nils solo. The man can really play guitar!

After "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" (with a funny child trying to sing it without knowing any lyrics!) and "The Promised Land," it was time for one of the most moving moments of the entire show: a long, passionate, unexpected "American Skin," which first made the entire stadium silent and then made it explode with applause. "Hard Times" didn't make it tonight, but Rome was enough lucky to have it replaced by "Thunder Road" and another emotional moment strongly felt by the audience: a welcome "My City of Ruins" dedicated by Bruce to the city of L'Aquila, which in April was destroyed by a terrible earthquake with hundreds of people dying. The day before the concert a group of fans from L'Aquila, during a radio interview, told Stevie about this particular request, and he was great to pass it to the Boss and make this gift possible. Grazie, Steve and Bruce--we needed it.

Then... it was all fun! Starting with a wild "You Can't Sit Down" that made the whole stadium dance like crazy, "American Land" saw the special guest-starring of Bruce's mom and aunt! The Boss was singing his song as usual, when Mrs. Adele Zirilli, Italian heart, appeared on the stage and went beside her son to his surprise, and the crowd went nuts, watching these two "not so young" women dancing on stage like it was a tarantella.

But it wasn't the end: "Bobby Jean," an Italian audience favorite, had Clarence in perfect shape (in fact, he didn't miss a note the whole night); "Dancing in the Dark" had a girl dancing on stage after holding up a sign that read, "Shall we dance, Mr.Bruce?"; and for the climax we had a completely wild "Twist and Shout," with Bruce dancing like a flamenco dancer, a red hat on his head, and the crowd singing "La Bamba" along the way. Another memorable night for the Italian audience which, 24 years since Bruce's first concert here, still loves him with the same passion and heart and is still repaid with the same feelings.

 

Set List
Badlands
Out In The Street
Outlaw Pete
No Surrender
She's The One
Working On A Dream
Seeds
Johnny 99
Atlantic City
Raise Your Hand
Hungry Heart
Pink Cadillac
I'm On Fire
Surprise Surprise
Prove It All Night
Waiting On A Sunny Day
The Promised Land
American Skin (41 Shots)
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Born To Run

My City Of Ruins
Thunder Road
You Can't Sit Down
American Land
Bobby Jean
Dancing In The Dark
Twist & Shout

Rome Day 1

Yesterday was pretty brutal: 3:00am wakeup call, left the hotel at 4:00am, four hour bus ride to Zagreb...all to sit in the Zagreb airport until my flight at 2:30pm. The alternative would have been to take the public bus and I wasn’t comfortable doing that with all my bags, so that was that.

When I finally got to my hotel it was shortly after 7:00pm, and I didn’t really feel like going out. I was tired, cranky, and to be honest a little nervous. Rome is a really big change from what I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks in that it’s a huge city and I have to find my way around by myself, as opposed to having the itinerary all planned out. And then there was yet another language to worry about. I walked around for a few blocks just to get the lay of the land, but I was so tired I turned around, went to bed and slept in all the way to 8:00am, which I think is the latest I’ve slept on the trip.

After procrastinating as long as I could this morning I finally got up the nerve to head out. I was initially annoyed with my hotel choice (recommended by my sister, who was here a year ago), but it turned out to be in a great place for transportation: it’s just a couple of blocks from the Termini, which is where two major subway lines meet. I can either take the blue down to the ruins or the red to the Vatican. Both are a long walk, but the subway makes it easy. I bought a Roma Pass, which is a three-day pass that includes free admission to your first two tourism sites (and discounts at the rest) and a three day transportation pass. Since I’m only here for four days that’s just about perfect; I’ll just walk around the places by my hotel on the fourth day to minimize costs (everything here is really expensive compared to Croatia).

(As an aside, how is it that the Romans can build a subway underneath their ruins but we can’t do anything in Seattle? It’s so annoying.)

After seeing the city on the drive from the airport and analyzing a map in my room, I decided to turn around my first two days. Instead of doing the Vatican the first day I’d hit the main ruins - the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, Circus Maximus - instead, and do the Vatican once I had things figured out.


View Larger Map

It’s been a bit of a struggle because I don’t know the language very well and I keep falling into replying in Croatian, but I’m hoping it will come.

I’d heard a lot about Rome, so I was ready for seeing a lot of old stuff. What I was not ready for was the size of the stuff. The ruins are HUGE! I can’t believe a society of people that were about the size of 10yr olds today would build things that gigantic. The Colosseum fit 50,000 people, basically the size of the Kingdome. And it’s still standing, whereas the Kingdome...

I took some pictures, but to be honest they’re not that good. First, it was blazing sun (90 degrees in the shade) in early afternoon, which is terrible light. But even more important is that I don’t think the pictures do it justice. We’ve all seen pictures of these things on TV many, many times, but without the context it’s really difficult to appreciate it without knowing the context of what you’re looking at. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt “you had to be there”, and I’m glad I took the recommendation of friends and paid to have a guide. Without them telling me what I was looking at it would have been much less rewarding.

So today was a pretty big chunk of sightseeing, with the Vatican and possibly Castel Sant’Angelo tomorrow in the day, and a nice walk for some pictures after dinner depending on how tired I am.

One last thing: I did try the gelato at a stand outside the Palatine Hills, and based on that sample the ice cream in Croatia is better. If someone has a recommendation of where to get the good stuff let me know. I’m also taking dinner recommendations.

Rome Photos | All Europe Photos

 

A Croatian Feast in Zadar

On Sunday we packed our bags and headed back north to Zadar, where we would be spending our last two days on the tour. The bus ride was another long one, leaving at 9:00am, stopping in Sibenik for a brief city tour, then finally arriving in Zadar around 5:30pm and immediately getting a tour of the city there as well. The only thing to see in Sibenik was St Jacob’s Cathedral, which was nice, but to be honest I think we would have been better served driving straight through because everyone was completely beat at the end of the day. I’d been doing pretty well on the tour so far. We had a late dinner and most people went to bed. I had to find a cash machine, so I went with our guide Sid, Johnny, Joanne and Pat for what I thought was going to be a short walk to the city that turned out to be an hour and a half round trip. When we got to the hotel I was so tired I had a hard time figuring out how to open my suitcase. I had definitely hit a wall, and I was not really looking forward to the next (and last) day of the tour at all. I think if I had a chance to fly home at that point I would have.

I’m glad I didn’t, because the last day turned out to be the best day of the entire trip. We got back on the bus at 9:00am and headed for the harbor, where we boarded a ferry and took a two hour trip to the small town of Sali on Dugi Otok (“long island”). I was so tired that I overslept and missed breakfast, so I was a little concerned that I was going to crash again if we had a lot of walking to do.

As with every other stop on the tour, there were people on the island we knew and they were waiting for us. In this case it was Tony, his wife Neva and Valerie and her children. Tony and Neva spend half the year in Ballard and the other half in Sali, in a home that has been in their family for four hundred years.

The house is literally two flights of stairs from the harbor, and across an alley from a small church. They had set up tables for us on  the small courtyard in front of the church, and  after everyone got seated sat down and the two hour parade of food began.

As with much of Europe, in Croatia lunch is the big meal. There are usually several courses, including appetizers, soup (we had soup several times this trip, even though it was over 80 degrees), the main course and dessert. Dinner is around 8:00pm (if you’re still hungry) and is usually leftovers from lunch.

Every lunch starts with platters of meat, including fresh prosciutto, cheese and olives and fresh bread.

Around that time Peter walked up the stairs with the fresh sardines, which had been sitting in the water of the harbor waiting for our arrival. A fire pit was created (which we all thought was pretty funny given that it was over ninety degrees), and the sardines were put on skewers and sprinkled with sea salt. Here you can also see how close they are to the harbor - it's just behind the tree at the bottom of the steps.

As the sardines were being prepared the pasta came out and cucumber and tomato salad came out, followed shortly by fried chicken.

Then we hear “Freedom fries!”, and what we thought were the french fries came out. These were cut like steak fries, but instead of being in an oven they appeared to be boiled with some kind of meat and drizzled with olive oil. Then the real french fries came out, along with the zucchini, prepared with garlic and olive oil.

At this point I was already too stuffed to continue, so I took a pass on the zucchini and sardines (I’m also not a sardine fan).

Then, just when we thought we were done, Neva comes out with bowls of freshly made frittes (don’t know if I spelled that right). The best I can describe them is to say they’re similar to donut holes, but that doesn’t do them justice. They’re nowhere near as heavy - they’re so light they’re almost like cotton candy in your mouth.

I had a couple of these, but at this point I was in a food coma and had to just sit in my chair for a few minutes to take it all in. It was around 2:30 at this point and the performance (the last one on the tour) was scheduled for 7:00pm so we had some time to walk down to the nearby swimming hole for a few hours and relax.

At 5:30 everyone had to head back to get ready for the performance, but first everyone stopped by the local ice cream shop, where Tony had arranged for everyone to get free ice cream with, as he says “a roof on top” (dipped in chocolate). I really couldn’t eat anymore, but of course Peter had room. Oh to be ten years old again.

I was able to say no to ice cream for probably 45 minutes before Tony showed up. As he made rounds we joked that he must be the mayor since he knows so many people, but on an island of 800 everyone knows everyone. He eventually made it to me and asked me if I’d had any ice cream. I told him I hadn’t, but I was eventually talked in to it when it became clear that by turning it down I was being impolite. So I had a scoop of lemon-flavored ice cream and we all headed back up to the house.

When we got there the tables were covered with a least half a dozen different kinds of homemade cookies.
We waddled down to the town center for the performance. During the first intermission (they need to take 10-fifteen minutes to change costumes), Johnny was entertaining the crowd with a song and Tony just got up in the middle and started singing along with him.


Eventually several others joined in, including Katherine Morovich.

The whole performance went really, really well - the best I’d seen on the tour. After it was done everyone had to run up to the house, gather our things and run to the harbor to make it there in time for the catamaran back to Zadar. Before we left I poked around the corner and saw that Tony had invited the people who were at the performance to his house and they were all seated at the table eating the leftovers.

It was an incredible meal, and it was all home made. The chicken, pasta and sardines were made while we were there, and all of the vegetables including the potatoes were from their garden. The wine was home made. Even the olive oil they used was home made.

All I can say is that if you can go through a day like that and not be sold on what Croatia has to offer, you can’t be sold. Many thanks to Neva, Valerie and Tony for being such great hosts. I look forward to seeing you when you’re back in the states!

Walking the Wall Above Old Dubrovnik

Grand Hotel Park, Dubrovnik, Croatia

Today some of us ventured back in Dubrovnik and walked around the wall encompassing the old town. It takes a good couple of hours when you add in stopping for pictures, and the weather was great.

Update, in response to Jeff's question in the comments:

According to our tour guide (and I'm going from memory so don't hold me to it ) and skimming Wikipedia, it was founded in the 7th century and eventually came under the control of Venice. The Venetians left to go conquer someone else, and when they returned they weren't invited back in the city.

It has always done a good job of holding its own in conflict, but in the war back in the '90s the Serbs bombed the crap out of it for no real reason.

It's also my understanding that the path I hiked up the other day is there because it was used by the citizens of Dubrovnik to take supplies up to the soldiers fighting at the top of the hill, where the big cross is. They were severely outmanned, and many, many lives were lost.

Dubrovnik Day 1

Grand Hotel Park, Dubrovnik, Croatia

On Thursday we left Trogir for Dubrovnik, late as usual, for the three hour drive to Dubrovnik that ended up taking almost seven hours. Turns out Croatians are known for being late everywhere, to the point that the clock town in the old town in Dubrovnik only updates every five minutes, since in Croatia if you’re within 5min you’re considered in the ballpark. Apparently this year’s tour is going much better than previous years in this regard, so I should consider myself lucky. I also now know why I’m always late: hey, it’s genetic. What can I do?

Before we left we were warned that the drive would be going down very windy roads and that we should take Dramamine if we thought there was a chance we’d get sick. I hadn’t been car sick since I was five so I figured no problem. You can guess where this is going. I’m glad that I only had two pieces of bread with three pieces of cheese for breakfast that morning (remember the commie food I mentioned previously?) because only some deep breaths and concentration allowed me to get to the first rest stop in Markarska without getting sick. We stopped for lunch, but all I could force down was some ice cream and a Dramamine. I started feeling a little better after a while so I walked along the promenade and through the town square while everyone else had lunch.




The reason we were going down the coast was because of the scenery, which did not disappoint.


Every time we’d turn a corner we’d see a different variation on the same theme.


Eventually we turned a corner and saw the bridge leading into Dubrovnik.


Upon driving into Dubrovnik our guide told us that instead of going to the hotel to check in we were going to go directly to the old town for a tour. My biggest concern was that I didn’t have any suntan lotion and the tour was going to be over two hours, but fortunately it was only 30 degrees when we got there so it wasn’t an issue.

The old town is as spectacular as the postcards. A small, walled city that to this day houses over 2000 people, old town also has 46 churches (not all of which are operating), which is a bit of overkill if you ask me, but they didn’t so they have 46 churches. During the war in the 90s Dubrovnik was shelled for the first time ever, and you can still see where the shells hit on some of the buildings.


It turned out that we were in town at just the right time, avoiding the huge cruise ship crowds and in great light for photography.


Everyone was really tired from sitting in a bus for so long, so we all just sat in the hotel’s outdoor lounge and had a couple of beers before heading to bed. The hotel here is exactly the opposite of the one we just came from: top-notch all the way. The food is great, it’s right by the beach and also has two really warm, salt water pools. And I even got my own room, so for the next four days I don’t have a roommate.

Life’s rough.

Trogir, Split

The morning of the 7th felt just like Seattle. We all got up and went to load the bus and it was pouring rain the entire time. It had been raining off and on the entire trip, and I was starting to get worried that we wouldn’t ever get the weather that everyone raves about here, but by the time we got to the viewpoint over the river Krkra it was sunny and hot and has stayed that way ever since.



The hotel we’re in isn’t great, but we have a decent view.

Everyone immediately hit the beach, and then went to dinner around 7:00pm or so. Unfortunately the food at this particular hotel seems to be stuck in an eternal commemoration of Tito’s last meal. In the evening most of us headed to the promenade to relax a bit, and I took the opportunity to take a few pictures before heading to bed.



One of the things I’m really liking on these coastal towns are the promenades, the long walkways along the water. They just go on and one in every direction, with restaurants, bar and shops on the side. You just find a place you like and sit down right there on the beach.





On the 8th we had a city tour of Trogir, followed by a short bus drive to Croatia’s second largest city, Split, and a tour of Diocletian’s palace. We stayed in Split for lunch and got back this afternoon with plenty of time for a nap, followed by a quick shower before we skip out on this hotel’s “dinner” and have an adult’s night out in Trogir.

Opatija, Krk, Punat

We got to Opatija the evening of the 4th of  July and got in just early enough to spent about an hour on the beach before a thunderstorm blew in and had everyone heading back to the hotel. Shortly after dinner the clouds broke enough to allow me to take a few pictures, but I was pretty beat and ended up going to bed early that night.

The rest of the group went to see the Roman ruins on the 5th, but decided to skip that and use it as an off day to spend by the pool.

On the 6th we got up early and headed to the city of Punat on the island of Krk.



After a brief tour of the city we got on a boat and were taken to the island monastery of Kosljun. We were given a tour of the monastery, got back on the boat and headed back to the mainland for lunch. The plan for lunch was to head to Vrbnik to do some wine tasting. As part of the tasting we also got great prosciutto and cheese (there doesn’t seem to be bad prosciutto here) and some really, really good pasta.



After lunch we had a few hours to kill before the SJTs performance so everyone headed to the beach. The beaches here are unlike any I’ve ever seen, in that they don’t actually have any sand - they’re just big concrete slabs where you put down your blanket. If you’re lucky you get some stairs to shallow water, and you have to be aware of sea urchins, which are basically underwater porcupines. Three of us have been stung so far, and it’s really hard to get the stingers out (no one’s been able to get them out completely yet). A lot of people brought water shoes, but since I didn’t know about this I didn’t bring any and will probably be avoiding the water most of the time.

Around 7:30 everyone went back to the bus, grabbed their bags and headed to the town square. There were a couple of rooms made available for the kids to change, and around 9pm they had their performance, which went great.

The group seems to have people they know in each town, and today was no exception. In this case we were met by Sandra, who was the tour guide for the group when they were here five years ago. They all became fast friends and have kept in touch ever since. Sandra brought her 4yr old daughter Lucia to the performance, and even made up her hair to match the performers. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a cuter girl in my life. Everyone loved her, and she had quite an eye for the camera.



After the performance everyone went for pizza, then loaded on to the bus and slept during the 90min drive back to Opatia. We got back around 1:00am and had a 7:00am wake up call. The next morning we loaded up the bus and headed to our next stop, Trogir.

See the rest of the Opatija pics here  All Europe Photos

Zagreb Day 2

Palace Hotel, Zagreb, Croatia

This is the second of three days we're spending in Zagreb before heading to the coast, and the only day we're spending entirely in the city.

In the morning we did a quick bus tour of the major landmarks, followed by a walking tour and then lunch.

The weather here is pretty miserable, in the mid to high 80s and with ridiculous humidity, with thunderstorms in the afternoon. During lunch today the skies just exploded, sending people scurrying. Joanne of course took this as a great time to try out the parka she got at Eddie Bauer, and Pat was there to film it all.

In the afternoon the the Seattle Junior Tamburitzans (SJT from now on) did a couple of informal performances. The first was at a Croatian government-type place (sorry, forgot the exact place; I'll edit when I find out), and the second was at an orphanage the SJTs sponsor and was the highlight of the day.

This orphanage is run by ten nuns and has thirty children (the maximum allowed by the state), ranging from their teens to at least one infant, and including five from one family (down from seven). The state gives the children an allowance of 100 kuna per month, which is the rough equivalent of twenty US dollars. The rest the money required to run the place is via donations, and the SJTs have contributed several thousand dollars over the course of the last 15 or so years.

The kids were just great, and have an amazing attitude. They go to school, date (after bringing in and receiving approval of the person they're interested in by the nuns) and seem to be doing the best you can expect given the situation. They all consider themselves one big family, so much so that they used money from some of their own fundraisers to pay for one of the older children to get their driver's license. Given the lack of funding in general it says a lot about the closeness of the group for them to put up that kind of money for something like that (licenses in Croatia are much more expensive than in the US).

After performing a few songs the kids challenged our kids to a game of football (soccer), which they play on an asphalt square about the size of half a basketball court. These kids are terrific soccer players and they just dominated us, winning 8-0. The closest our side got to scoring was when one of them headed the ball and it accidentally went in the basketball hoop.

BTW, I did get a request to talk about the food, but I'm going to wait until I'm closer to the end of the Croatia leg to do that because it changes quite a bit when we head to the coast. I'll try to remember to do a food-specific post and gallery in a week or so. Long story short: they're big on Ćevapčići and calimari here, and huge on seafoods on the coast. I've tried the Ćevapčići and eagerly await calimari. The other thing that's amazing are the baked goods. Here are some goodies the kids at the orphanage had for us:

Think multiple layers of fila-type dough with custard or fruit filling, topped with powdered sugar. It's somewhat similar to a cookie my mom makes at Christmas called pita, substituting nuts & butter in the filling. I'm told pita is a general term for "pie" and what we had today was called pita as well. If there's any way I can get my hands on some of this stuff and ship it home I'm going to try, because it's really that good.

Tomorrow's a big day: we head out from the city to check out Trakoscan Castle, followed by SJTs first formal performance. The forecast is 91 and thunderstorms, so it should be interesting.

Greetings from rainy, hot and muggy Zagreb

Palace Hotel, Zagreb, Croatia

Well, we're here, but it sure took long enough.

First we spent two hours in the plane on the runway at SeaTac while they repaired a hole on our runway. That made what was a nearly three hour layover in Frankfurt a run for the gate situation, but somehow all of us made it. After a quick hour and ten minute flight we landed as a bunch of zombies in Zagreb a little after 2pm local time. Pretty much no one had slept more than a couple of hours, and after all the running and then landing in the hot and humid Zagreb airport everyone was ready to finally be here.

After checking in most of us took a power nap and met for dinner at 7pm followed by a short walk around the main town square until 10pm local time, at which point everyone was beat and ready for bed. I went out real quick before dinner and took some pictures of the main square, which is only about two blocks from our hotel. They're not the greatest, but I didn't have much time and it was raining. Sounds like most of the area has been affected by thunderstorms, which should last until the weekend or so. We'll be here until Friday, so hopefully the weather will break long enough to get some decent shots.

I just threw these up there without and real explanation because I need to go to bed. Suffice to say, this is the main square in Zagreb.

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