Salzburg June 21, 2008 and Sibenik June 22-23, 2008

Written the night of June 23, 2008:

Salzburg! June 21, 2008

Sibenik, Croatia and Krka National Park - June 22 and 23, 2008

It is the eve of our departure from Sibenik, Croatia (also the eve of our second wedding anniversary) and I must admit that I am feeling extremely relaxed and content. Our big worry was whether or not we would get lost on our way from Zagreb to the Guesthouse Zlatna Ribica in Brodarica, Croatia – and we did so with ease. We are currently staying in a beautiful little Adriatic hotel with a brick walk down to the waterside, pretty Mediterranean olive, lime, and apple trees along with grape vines, and! our vehicle to freedom – our rental car! 

Okay, so Saturday was a lot of fun. We woke up early, ate a wonderful breakfast at Sallerof and were picked up by a local tourist agency to go on our Sound of Music tour. We started in Mirabelle gardens in Salzburg, boarded a bus and were toured all throughout the city and the outer lying areas. We saw the front of the house used in the movie, the back of the house used in the movie, as well as the gazebo, the lane from “I have confidence” and when the kids are swinging through the trees, along with the church from the wedding, and many other things. We also traveled to the town of Mondsee and were able to sneak away from the group and take some beautiful pictures along the lake and mountains. All in all a good time. Beth bought into the cheesiness and Daniel was very well behaved and tolerated it all quite well.

After being dropped back off at Mirabelle gardens we took a few more pictures (of the tunnel, the fountain, and the steps) and were off to explore the city. We spent the afternoon exploring the interiors of the churches, catching a glimpse of the exterior of Mozart’s birthplace, and hiking the city wall to get a beautiful view of the city. Now, the only problem was that Saturday was extremely warm – beautifully clear and sunny, but very warm to be out and about from 9 am to 6 pm – especially when the majority of the stores and restaurants have no air conditioning. So, I discovered the best way to get Daniel to church is to let him discover that churches are literally the coolest buildings. We spent quite a while exploring nearly all of the local churches and cathedrals. Unfortunately, we did not realize quite how much there was to do and see when you hike up the city wall and walk along the top. We ended up feeling a little pressed for time and were continually concerned about making it up to the fortress in time for the dinner and Mozart concert we had already paid for… Thus, we walked very fast, hiked very quickly, and became very very hot. We arrived at dinner drenched and overheated only to discover that the room dinner was served in was rather warm. I would love to say we had a fabulously romantic dinner and that we relaxed and gazed out the window of the fortress looking at the mountains…but we were dying, the room was stifling, so we continually took turns going to the restrooms (which were cooler – and had icy water you could run on your hands and splash your face with). The old people at the dinner probably thought we had issues. It was pretty bad. And almost all our food was warm so we kept feeling hotter and hotter…

Luckily after dinner we had fifteen extra minutes to step outside. The sun was beginning to go down, the breeze was picking up, and we cooled off considerably and were able to feel much more comfortable in time for our concert. The concert was in a small room off to the side in the fortress – very much the type of concert you would have witnessed back then. It felt like a private performance and was performed by a string quarter (my favorite). Overall we really enjoyed ourselves and Daniel (the harsher critic) was very happy. After the concert we snuck off and snapped a few more pictures of the city at night and had a few minutes of panic as we realized we might have missed the last cable car down and might be stuck up in the fortress overnight…but then ran into the concert performers and knew we would be able to make it down from the high hill. We came home quite tired, relieved to catch the second to last bus out of the city, and returned to discover that the internet was down throughout the hotel. I do not like to admit my dependence on the internet, but when you expect to be able to check your mail and the emails coming in from family and friends one last time before you lose internet for a week, it is very disheartening. I was embarrassed to feel so emotional, but I felt crushed. After being in a world where most don’t speak English – or if they do it’s enough English to take your order or tell you where the train station is, emails from home are nice.

Sunday morning came early – we got up at 5 am to pack and get ready (and hoping the internet would be working so I could email a few upcoming accommodations to iron out last minute details, check the train schedule one last time, and check the Croatian Kroner exchange rate…but no luck.). We finished packing, convinced housekeeping to let us sneak in and grab breakfast early, paid our bill and left by 7:25 so we could catch the bus to the train station. Most days the train we need left nearly every hour, but today the train to Zagreb left at 9:04 and at 13:04. A large margin of time, so missing our morning train was not an option. Fortunately we caught our train and luckily chose the correct car because every single other car the we started with was disconnected at various stations and connected to other cars. Over the duration of our 7 hour train ride we went from being the first car in the line-up to being the middle to being the last, and our train had two entirely different dining cars during different parts of our trip. We had a nice cabin of our own for at least 6 of the seven hours and were able to each sprawl out over three seats a piece and sleep for hours. We spent over 30 minutes at the Croatian border as all of our names were read by the passport officials over their headpieces to central control and they made quite a few people change cars. The ultimate destination of our train was Beograde (Belgrade, Serbia) – so I knew we definitely didn’t want to miss our stop. We reached Zagreb about 30 minutes late, immediately went to the ATM, and then hailed a taxi to quickly get us to the airport to pick up our rental car. Our taxi driver was efficient, even though we think we might have been ripped off a little, and drove us to the airport in 25 minutes time. We quickly found our rental company and started up the paperwork.

The rental company informed us that they had just gotten the new cars for the season and we would be driving a brand new car – which meant that Daniel leaned in and said “So you mean, I can’t blame anything on the guy before me?” :) He definitely illicited a laugh from our agent. We had also researched and discovered that as long as we pay for the rental on our credit card, the rental will be insured – thus we could decline additional insurance from the rental company. ...But, this meant that we had to allow a 90,000 Kuna “reservation/hold” be placed on our credit card – which for is actually 20,000 US Dollars – the supposed value of the car. Gulp. (Not actuallz a charge...just a reservation to be charged if we ran off with the car or something...but nevertheless a little nerve wracking to agree to...) So far so good -- please keep your fingers crossed for us until around 11 am tomorrow which is when we will have hopefully safely surrendered the car. Our agent was extremely helpful – he gave us an excellent map and great advice. He told us that all accidents have to have a police report for insurance companies to help and that all traffic violations are infinitely cheaper if you offer to pay them on the spot. Good stuff to know. So, we were off to Sibenik. The next two concerns? 1 – Would we get lost or would we actually be able to find out hotel… 2 – Our hotel reception was going to be closed for at least an hour by the time we were going to be able to make it down there, I had emailed them a few days ahead about this, but had not received a response….we were worried we might end up sleeping in our car…

The drive was nice and easy. Well labeled, well marked, nice new car with a nice new car smell. We had a cute, silver, VW Polo – and Daniel drove it very well. We cruised at our nice 130 kilometer speed limit and made pretty good time. We made it all the way down to the road we would find our hotel off of without any problems and really the only stress once we made it there was just figuring out while hotel was ours – looking for names and numbers, etc. Not a biggy. We didn’t even have to turn around. We pulled up to our hotel and realized it was adjoined to a restaurant. We crossed our fingers and went inside to inquire if we were in the right place. Yes, we were – and the restaurant manager had our keys and would be happy to escort us to our room We did a mental happy dance. We followed him through the parking lots, past a lime tree and the waterfront, up a flight of stairs, and into a beautiful hotel room – that had a balcony almost the size of our room with an outside fridge, sink, and range, and an air conditioner on the inside. We bid him farewell and then physically did the happy dance! We had made it! It was beautiful! Oh! And the restaurant was open until 11!! (And we really hadn’t eaten all day).

Our meal was yummy – they had a salad bar and it was wonderful to get some fresh veggies in. We walked down by the water and even in the dark could see how ridiculously clear the Adriatic is. And we returned to our room with the AC cranked up and blissfully fell asleep.

We were naughty and slept in. We stopped at a local grocery store and picked up breakfast and food to picnic at Krka, and we were off to the Croatian National Park I had chosen to visit! Krka was absolutely beautiful – it’s a park that has a big long waterfall through the middle of it, with beautiful wooded paths over many of the rapids and a swimming area at the foot of the falls. The water was quite cold – but after the increasing temperatures in Salzburg and the hike down to the falls we were ready to cool off and it felt absolutely wonderful. We spent the whole afternoon in the park, picnicking, working our way down to Skradinski Buk (the main falls), finding a place to change, and swimming. We also chose to hike back up the steep 800 meter hill of the loose, rocky, footpath and once again saw absolutely no one – which was when we realized that the shuttle from the entrance to Skradinski Buk was either free…or we were the only stubbornly cheap people willing to endure the hike straight up.

On the way home we drove to the local grocery store and picked up ingredients for dinner! I was very excited to cook a meal on the little range we had on our balcony and enjoyed making the best out of the few kitchen utensils and pans we had. It certainly made me appreciate all the wonderful things we received as wedding gifts. I made a one skillet meal of chicken, onions, mushrooms, potatoes, and wine sauce and made some mini ravioli to go with it – a wonderful meal. We stayed in and ate dinner on the balcony with a beautiful view of the water and concluded our evening with a sunset swim.

Having a rental car and the ability to cook our own food has made it almost seem like we’re back home, as we suddenly have freedoms and abilities more associated with home. It was nice to break the city-touring mode and explore the country side. Krka was an absolutely beautiful national park and we really enjoyed the nice workout we got and the nice cold mountain water swim. Tomorrow we are off to Split for a night and then onto the island of Hvar for two more nights – so we have a few more days of Adriatic delight! It’s a different pace, nice and relaxed -- more vacation like in some ways. I’m very proud of my planning because it’s been a perfect way to break up our trip and add in variety.

I’m off to sleep – I’m finally getting lots of it – which is the other glorious thing that comes with summer. It is crazy to think I have almost a full month left over here… We reached the halfway mark of our trip today, so it really feels like we have another whole vacation left. And with my ramblings – I bid you farewell…