East to Vinkovci

Be sure to see our Photo Album - days 19-21 for lots more pictures from Vinkovci.
Also stay tuned for a post by Jim talking more about our experiences where his grandfather lived.

We had originally planned to stay a couple days in Zagreb, the Capitol of Croatia, before traveling on to Vinkovci. But we got anxious to visit this town that Jim knew of because of his grandfather. So we took our longest train ride so far, about 6 hours, from Ljubljana past Zagreb and all the way to the eastern edge of Croatia - almost to Serbia.

I had downloaded all of Rick Steve's audio segments on anything to do with eastern Europe so Jim and I could listen to them on the train with no internet required. We learned a lot.

Jim had booked us another apartment here and it was great. All white, sparkling clean, fully equipped kitchen, bathroom with washer, bedroom and walk in closet! And ... the Wi-Fi was really good: 4Mbps down, 2 up.

We were here for 3 nights, so we decided to take advantage of the kitchen for some of our meals. Google Maps told us there was a grocery store about 1/2 mile away. Sure enough!

Now the hard part is understanding what things are. Google Translate helped a lot here. Just open the app, tap the camera icon and focus on whatever you want to translate - you can read the translation right on the screen!

What a treat to have a home cooked meal when you're so far from home!

We also put the internet connection to good use! We got our June newsletter out, published an encore episode of What Does This Button Do, and even did a Facebook live session.

Facebook Live session from Vinkovci

For some unknown reason the live broadcast ended at just a few minutes. So, we started another one:

Ljubljana

It's really not that hard to pronounce ... The j is used like a y. So it sounds like lee-oob-lee-ah-na. The accent is at the ah.  We saw one road sign that simplified the spelling to Lubiana :-)

When we planned this trip, all we knew was that we wanted to spend a couple weeks in Italy, then travel west to Vinkovci, Croatia, where Jim's grandfather was born. We didn't even realize that there's this whole other country, Slovenia, in between the two. 

We had knowledgeable help with our basic plans from our travel agent, Liz, of Dolphin Travel in Fort Lauderdale. I've known Liz many years thru membership in Women's Executive Club. She arranged for our Eurail pass and she recommended the 2 country, 10 travel days, pass. But, uh-oh, we're actually traveling thru 3 countries. That's ok, she said because Slovenia/Croatia count as one! And, she said, I think you should stop in Ljubljana, it's the Capitol of Slovenia and there's lots to see. 

Thank you Liz! You were so right. 

Although Liz made all our basic arrangements, flights, rail pass, and hotels upon arrival and departure, we left all the details in between wide open. Jim mostly used trip advisor and booking.com to find places to stay. In Ljubljana, he found our first "apartment." How great! It had a bed, couch, desk, bathroom/shower, a kitchenette, and even a washing machine so we could do our laundry. All this for 40 euros-about $50/night. And it was 1/2 block from the river and the old town, less than a mile from the bus/train station. It wasn't pretty or charming and it didn't have a view, but it was clean and functional. And it had free Wi-Fi that was pretty good - 2Mbps down, 1 up. Jim originally booked two nights, but we added a third when we found we enjoyed Ljubljana so much. 

Our apartment is n the gray building just ahead of Jim

We traveled to Ljubljana by bus from Trieste. Using google maps to guide us, it was a beautiful walk from the bus station, along the river, to our apartment. We arrived about 5pm and immediately made arrangements to take the river cruise.

One of the sights that were pointed out to us were the glasses encased woken boxes that sprouted in several places on the grassy slopes of the riverbank. These boxes hold books. It's a lending library on the honor system. Take one, leave one. Read lots. Ljubljana is a UNESCO City of Literature. How cool is that. 

We also saw these lending libraries during our walk thru the beautiful Tivoli park. I'd love to come back sometime, just hang out, and read books!

Slovenia is a Slavic country. The language sounds so very different from Italian - so close in geography. I could imaging being able to learn Italian, given enough time. Slovenian - no way. The only word I learned was Thank You = Hvala and it is pronounced more like kevala. Luckily most people we met spoke some English. Not much though, and there were many - even in the restaurants - who spoke no English. This is well off the American tourist path. We used our Google translate app a lot. We even downloaded the Slovenian language so we could use it offline.
See our newsletter article

• Google Maps and Google Translate make International Travel Do-able

Now THAT'S a Castle

Look up from anywhere in Ljubljana and you'll see the castle watching over you. From the moment we walked into town, we knew that one of the things we had to do is walk up that hill to see the Ljubljana castle, and the view of town from the castle.

it was a pretty steep trail, but it was paved and had a handrail most of the way, so it was no problem. We had gorgeous weather and beautiful views. We usually are content to just walk around castles like this - the main point is the view. For this one we decided to pay the entrance fee and go inside. I'm SO glad we did. They've obviously spent a lot of resources restoring this site.

Would you believe there was a puppet museum inside? Me neither. But there was. Apparently, puppetry was part of castle life and entertainment here in Ljubljana. It was a fun museum, with hands-on exhibits. Jim got into it.

We walked thru room after room after room, a chapel, the prison, the well with a secret escape route. The prison was diabolical - just a deep pit. Prisoners were lowered into this pit with rock walls at least 30 feet high. There was no way out, and no roof - they were at the mercy of the weather. and no toilet, just 12X12 of dirt with 30 foot high walls. I wonder how many survived.

We thought this was going to be a 1-2 hour walk, we ended up taking most of the day. Luckily there were not one, but two, restaurants in the courtyard this castle! We had worked up a mighty thirst.

The highlight was walking up to the top of the tower to get the 360 degree view of the city. It was a very sturdy, circular staircase that takes you to the top. And - back down. There was a separate spiral staircase that was for going down. This was very handy because it was quite a popular destination. I think a tourbus of Japanese people were just ahead of us!

The two staircases made for a fascinating double-helix arrangement.

There were several stops to take in the views along the way.

Then you got to the top

Rather than walk back down, we took the Furnicular

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European Lifestyle

If I were ever to get interested in "birding" it would not be for the sightings, but for the singing. Every morning since we've been in Europe, we've awakened to a delightful sound of birdsongs. I don't think it's because there are more birds here or that they sing prettier, it's because they don't have airconditioning. Or at least the places where we've stayed have not been airconditioned. So we sleep with the windows open and are able to hear their beautiful melodies.

Years ago, I went on a trip with Mom to the Amazon. We went with a  guide thru the jungle for the specific purpose of learning about the exotic birds. We didn't see a one, but the guide kept cocking his head and saying, "Listen, that's a _______" He knew all the birds by their sound.

We've also gotten up close and personal with birds here at our dinner table! We love the sidewalk cafes, but the outdoor dining brings unwelcome guests!

Speaking of sidewalk cafes ... the best were in Venice. Any tiny little kitchen could simply stick a couple of tables outside and voila! they have a cafe. This is because there weren't any cars! None, nada, zilch, nessun. On the island of Venice (yes, I guess everyone but me knew it was an island) there are no cars allowed, no motorbikes, no scooters, not even any bicycles. We did see a couple of kids on skateboards, but I'll bet they were just scofflaws.

We are now in Ljubljana, Slovenia. There are plenty of cars, motorbikes, and bicycles here, but there are still large swaths of city blocked off for pedestrians only. The historic area, the tourist area, the area all around the river. It's beautiful. It makes eating such a pleasure. It helps that we've had perfect weather. I don't know what they do about their restaurants when it rains.

I do not speak Italian - Miramare

Google translate is very helpful. We're trying to learn, but most everywhere we go there is someone who speaks English.
At one restaurant, we ordered the Zuppa di Mare (fish soup / seafood stew.) When it arrived, I said,"I know what this is - Cioppino!
We've had great Cioppino in Oregon at Moe's. It looked an awful lot like this dish here in Trieste, Italy. we loved the Cioppino at Mo's Chowder and we loved the Zuppa di Pesce here in Italy. I decided to ask our server what was the difference. I expected that it had something to do with tomato base vs butter and wine.

Our server had no idea what we were talking about, so he went and found another server who spoke more English. She also was befuddled but was willing to hang in there long enough to understand what we were asking.
The problem is they never heard of a dish called Cioppino. In the states we are definitely led to believe that  Cioppino is an Italian dish, but our server said that cioppino means a hair clip!

In any case it was delicious. And the mussels are grown right there. From our vantage point at the restaurant, we could look out on the Adriatic sea and see the rows of floats marking where the screens are where the mussels are farmed.

Here's where we were, just north of Trieste. We're still in Italy here, but just barely. The marker is at the restaurant pictured above.

We were here to see the Castle Miramare. It was a crowded bus ride from our B&B in Trieste.

But it was Oh-So-Worth-It