Lost in Venice

The weather forecast for Venice was overcast with a chance of rain. Grumble, grumble.

We left Pula in clear weather, with an easy run to the Slovenian border.

(It's easy to tell when you're getting close to Slovenia: the motorway becomes a goat-track, which continues to the Italian border before transforming into another motorway.)

Border control was more rigorous than at the Bosnian border. The border cop stared at the passports for minutes, looking for something - signs of forgery, immigration stamps from Libya and Iran, hundred Euro notes stuffed into the binding - I have no idea what. Eventually his frowning muscles gave way, he handed our passports back, and waved us on.

In Italy we bypassed Trieste, which looks highly bypassable, and watched BMWs and Mercedes overtake us as we doddled along at a mere 130 kph.

The clouds looked ominous, although as we drew closer it began to clear. Just north of Venice a ray of light broke through the clouds, like the light of God in. Cecil B. DeMille movie. I expected to drive past Charlton Heston in a robe with a map of Venice engraved on a stone tablet.

The GPS was working flawlessly, and I announced we only had a turn off the motorway, and another left turn a few kilometres after that, and we'd head straight onto the island of Venice.

Unfortunately the GPS didn't know about the roadworks leading into Venice. Lots and lots and lots of roadworks. 

We followed the signs, which required us to drive in circles, sometimes on the wrong side of the road, doubke back the ...and we're back on the bridge to Venice. we came, then around again, and apart from one brief diversion off a roundabout made it to the port without to the port without difficulty.

Mario and I dropped the luggage with the Princess Cruise Line baggage handlers and left Anna and Emma to check in while we returned the rental car to Sixt Car Rentals at Marco Polo Airport.

The GPS showed a simple route to the airport. Of course the roadworks meant that was never going to work, because the road we're looking for is missing. As are signs to the airport. 

So I'm improvising my navigation: turn left, turn right, go straight, under the overpass, take the exit...

...and we're back on the bridge to Venice.

We turn back, and try again: turn right, turn left, go past the exit, turn right, hit the detour, go in a circle...

...and we're back on the bridge to Venice.

The area is starting to look very familiar by now, especially a passenger walkway over the road we've driven under three times now. 

We give it another shot, and finally find the road to the airport. Success. And it only took an hour and a half.

The bus makes the trip back to the ship in about 20 minutes. Oh, that road.

Finally onboard and settled we take a shuttle boat from the docks to a pier just past Piazza San Marco, right on dusk. The skies are clear, the light is perfect. Fantastic.

We walk through the Piazza, grab dinner at a place just out of tourist central - far enough away to get a decent feed, not far enough away to completely avoid tourist prices - and drift through the streets of Venice up to Rialto Bridge. 

We're glad it's the off-season, because Venice is packed. Over summer the crowds must be horrendous.

After buying gelato we head back towards the shuttle ferry, harrassed by the Nigerian* vendors selling knock-off handbags and watches. While waiting for the boat to dock we heard someone blow a whistle, and the vendors quickly scooped up their wares and bolted. Sixty seconds after that a couple of cops saunter out of an alleyway.

Next trip I have to bring a whistle. I figure I can panic them three or four times before I get knifed.

* Maybe Ghanans. Dunno. I didn't ask for ID.

 

Death in Pula

We stepped out of our hotel and into the colosseum. Not quite, but our hotel was so close it's the next best thing to staying there. Better, actually, considering a substantial percentage of the people who stayed there in Roman times didn't walk out again.

(Buying tickets I observed that Croatians sometimes do things a bit oddly by Australian standards.

At the colosseum/amfiteatar one person was selling tickets, another collecting. Fair enough.

The weird thing is the person collecting the tickets stands right next to the ticket window, watches the guy behind the window hand us the tickets, then immediately collects them.

I imagine this makes more sense during peak season, when there a lot people milling around, and she doesn't necessarily see them all. Today it was brilliantly pointless.)

The Pula colosseum is apparently the best preserved Roman colosseum in the world. It's smaller than the one in Rome, but the basic design is similar. We wandered the grounds, took heaps of photos watched the lions preparing for their fights (OK, only cats, not lions. But fearsome cats.)

There was a German tour coming through later, and a show was being prepared for the group. There was a sunglass-wearing Roman emperor or governor practicing his lines, slaves preparing food and drinks on paper plates and in plastic cups, a patrician lady wearing Doc Martin boots - the dedication to historical accuracy was striking.

In fairness they ditched the modern trappings before the tour group arrived. Pity.

There was also a gladiator show between two beefy looking men. Mario and I put our bets on the guy with the tatts, picking the chubby one to lose.

The fight didn't look rehearsed, at least until the end (beefy guy won; wished I'd placed a bet), so I think they may have been historical reenactors. 

Either that or they were hungover and had forgotten their moves. Both are possible.

This is when the death occurred. Deaths, actually.

While we were waiting for the gladiators I was experimenting with the settings on my camera. I hit a button I haven't managed to hit before, and erased all my photos.

All of them. 100% casualties.

RTFM, Brian. RTFM.*

Fortunately I've been regularly transferring photos to my iPad, so I have copies off most of the shots.

Several of the areas under the colosseum have been turned into museums. One was simply a series of banners with information about ships in ancient times, but the second had an excellent collection Roman-era olive presses and amphorae.

At one time Pula was the second most important olive growing region in the Roman Empire. Now the major industry is shipbuilding, with 6,000 people out of a total population of 50,000 employed in the shipyards.

We walked into the town centre, and saw parts of the old Roman walls (not much left) and a Roman archway (which was remarkably well-preserved).

Generally there isn't much else left from Roman times. There is one-third of a temple, had to be rebuilt after WWII and is now a freestanding structure. The middle third is gone, while the northernmost section has been remodelled and converted into government offices.

The temple doubles as an archeological museum, although this stretches the definition of museum. It consists of a couple dozen small statuettes, a few fragments of columns and statuary, and a couple bits knocked off from a mausoleum, in an area the size of a decent broom cupboard. It took five minutes to see the lot, and I was taking my time. 

Anna and Mario went off to see Mario's Uncle, and Emma and I grabbed lunch in a tourist trap restaurant on the plaza. Overpriced mediocre food, but the staff were nice, so we didn't do a runner.

There's also a very old church near here, dating back to the fourth century. Most of the current structure was added over the years, finishing in the fourteenth century, with a fifteenth century bell-tower in the plaza. You can't rush these things.

In the evening we went for another walk near the centre, and found a superb cafe near the Pula Train Station, which is a wonderfully overwrought building from the late 19th/ early 20th century. After dark we wandered into a very seedy part of town, saw the saddest casino in the history of gambling (the "Admiral Automat Club", a hideous box with peeling paint that would be vastly improved by fire), and beat a hasty retreat back to civilised country.

Our sense of adventure exhausted, we returned to our room and packed. Early start, for tomorrow is - Venice!

* RTFM = Read The Foto Manual

Pula the other one

The mosquito died, crushed by a mighty blow delivered with my strong right arm. Thus was order restored to the world.

I think I killed it, although I never found the corpse. It's possible I didn't kill the mossie, it may have simply moved on after watching me slap myself in the head a dozen times.

Whatever. It left, and I got a decent night's sleep.

Sadly we said goodbye to Plitvica and set off for Pula, in the far north-west of Croatia. Easy driving, clear weather, no cliffs. Nothing of note until I saw the tanks and armored personnel carriers in Karlovac.

Mario did a u-turn, and we drove back. Sure enough there were tanks, APCs, jets, artillery pieces in an outdoor museum dedicated to "the Homeland War", the Croatian name for the war following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the late 80s to early 90s. The fort at Karlovac was the site of "the battle that stopped the Serbian conquerors" according to a sign on the site.

The tanks were a strange mixture of Soviet, American and Croatian fighting vehicles, ranging from World War II era Sherman tanks to odd-looking improvised Croatian armored cars. I don't know if all if the equipment we saw was used in the "Homeland War" - some of it was well and truly obsolete - but it may have been a case of using whatever they had available.

We had coffee at a small coffees hop across the road. There were still bullet holes in the building next door, a fact Emma found very disturbing. 

(We also had the most honest waitress in Europe. Mario gave her Euros instead of Croatian Kuna, which are about seven times more valuable, and she gave the correct change back. Then I left my bag with my iPad there, and she ran across the street to the shop we were in to make sure we got it back. Mario gave her five Euros as a thank-you, which I keep forgetting to recompense him for. But I'm not the most honest waitress in Europe, so maybe I'll keep "forgetting".)

We hit the motorway after that, followed by rain, and a truly horrendous fog that reduced visibility to fifty metres. No more 160 kph driving after that. More like 40, with all eyes out for morons like the guy driving his truck bumper to bumper. While texting.

The weather cleared as we drew close to Pula, and this time the GPS didn't fail us. We found the Amfiteatar Hotel on the first attempt, although finding parking added five minutes to the trip.

The Hotel was reasonable, smallish and a bit run-down around the edges, but with polite staff and a brilliant location, just a few hundred meters from the colosseum (AKA amphitheatre, and "amfiteatar" in Croatian, hence the name.)

Mario and Anna went to visit another of his countless uncles, and Emma and I wandered along the waterfront, catching a lovely sunset, and walked a short way into town. Just on the edge of a park I spotted a small excavated site, cordoned off from the public with a small sign.

"Wow!" I said. "This is so cool! This is a first century mausoleum!"

"I see a nice red coat in that shop across the road," Emma replied.

We seem to have quite different interests on this trip.

The meal back in the hotel was good, with Emma ordering the pasta with truffles. She's wanted to try real truffles for years, and finally had the chance. Verdict: ok, but not worth the squillion dolars an ounce they charge for them.

Worn out by this stage we climbed into bed, readying ourselves for adventuring in the local colosseum. BYO swords.

Falling for Plitvica

Wow.

Just wow.

I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew Plitvica was famous for its waterfalls, and had seen a few photos, but it's one of those places you need to experience for yourself to truly appreciate.

Carlos, owner of the lodge we were staying at, advised us to walk the falls in a clockwise direction. This would take us past three lookouts, down to the Big Falls, across to the other side, up to a rest area, then onto a train to the north-west end of the lakes. From there we'd walk back to near the middle of the lakes and catch the ferry to the tourist centre down the road from the lodge.

The day started ominously, with grey skies, a light drizzling rain, and indication it would clear anytime today. Great.

On the plus side the walk towards the falls was gorgeous. It's autumn, and the forest floor was carpeted with orange and red leaves.

We made it to the first lookout, and the view was impressive. Not bad at all.

It just got better over the course of the day.

In retrospect the light rain was a good thing. It kept us cool during the most physically demanding part of the day, the walk down the carved stairs to the bottom of the canyon to the Big Falls - whch were literally breath-taking after a 20 minute walk - and up the switchbacks on the other side. 

At the rest area we caught the "train" (more of an articulated bus, which explained the absence of tracks) to the start of the falls. Especially fun when the driver took a corner way too fast, in true Croatian style, and the wheels of the last carriage juddered towards the edge. 

"Due to the rain" he said. Yeah, right.

Anyhow, this was the real payoff. From the top to the end there are four lakes, with twelve sets of drops not counting the river that feeds into the Big Falls. It looks like the entire system was designed by a team of one hundred of the world's best landscape gardeners. Waterfalls and creeks and ducks and trees and fish and mushrooms and more waterfalls. 

All of it natural, apart from the wooden pathway winding back and forth across the valley floor. One of the most spectacular nature walks I've ever done. I understand why UNESCO declared it a natural wonder.

We spent something like eight hours walking through the park. It was exhilarating. Exhausting, which is why I was grateful for the final leg being on a ferry across the lake, but exhilarating. 

Emma commented she could have done it all over again the next day. I agreed, and I'm sure Anna and Mario would too. We weren't able to do it again due to time constraints, but we are planning to come back in a few years, next time in spring.

We were half asleep by dinner time, but not so sleepy we forgot to ask the waiter for the recipe for the black bread we'd had the previous night.

By 9pm we collapsed. It would have been a perfect day apart from that damn mosquito...

Plitvica bound

Leaving Korcula was easy enough. Sunday morning traffic consisted of half a dozen cars coming the opposite direction along a 48 km stretch. We arrived forty minutes before departure, and the guy selling the ferry tickets to Orebic (rhymes with "you're a bitch") hadn't even bothered opening for business yet.

Life isn't rushed on Korcula. 

Conditions for the ferry ride were spectacular. My only complaint was the trip was too short, only 15 minutes from Korcula to Orebic.

Conditions for the drive were spectacular. My only complaint was the trip was too long, an hour or so along very narrow winding roads with very dramatic drops into the Adriatic.

The town of Ston at the base of the peninsula* has a very impressive wall winding up the hill, very similar to the Great Wall of China, but with more palm trees and fewer Mongols. We stopped for lunch just around the corner from Ston in Mali Ston.** Fabulous little seafood restaurant right on the water, which served an outstanding vegetable platter with waaaaay too much food for us.

We kept to the coast road up to Makarska, made less terrifying by being on the inside lane for a change. The views remind Emma and I of the south of France, or along the Californian coast between LA and San Francisco.

Somewhat bizarrely there is one small section of the drive where we leave Croatia and enter Bosnia-Herzegovina. There's a small 20 km wide section that ended up with the Bosnians after the war, bisecting Croatia. Given the slackness of the guard at the border, who only bothered to check two of our four passports before waving us on, tensions aren't high. Even so I understand the Croatians are planning to build bridges from the mainland to the nearby islands so they don't have to cross the border.

We didnt see much of Bosnia. Just enough time to notice the signs are in both Bosnian and Russian, and that somebody has obliterated the Russian text with a spray can.

By the time we made it to Makarska we were ready for a break. Not much open, although we did find the rather wonderfully-named Yeti Cafe Bar. Nice looking town, and worth spending more time in than we could afford.

As we wanted to make it to our accommodation in Plitvica by nightful we went inland to the motorway. Mario said the funding for the motorways came from the EU. Nice perk for joining, because the roads are outstanding and fast. We were averaging around 130 kph, and Mario managed to hit 160 along one section. 

And there were still cars overtaking us.

The final section was on the old highway, and we managed to navigate perfectly to the Plitvica Hotel. We walked in booking forms ready, only to find out we were in the wrong place. 

Plitvica Hotel, Plitivica Lodge... Guess which one wasn't in the GPS?

We found it, along even narrower roads than the early ones, just before sunset. The newly-opened Plitvica Lodge is owned and run by a chap named Carlo, possibly the most accommodating lodge operator in Europe. He's from Zagreb, looking for a change, and figured building two lodges (the second is still a work-in-progress) in the middle of a forest meets that criteria. 

Apart from the incredibly noisy room-fridges (we had to unplug them), the rooms are excellent. Clean, spacious, with two balconies, and only a short walk from the falls.

The lodge is still waiting for its restaurant license, so he sent us up the road to a restaurant that was part of a health retreat. Excellent food, with the best black bread I've ever had (completely different from the dry tasteless cardboard I'm used to, and the waiter promised to give us the recipe), and game pâté. Anna made the mistake of asking what sort if game, and was horrified to learn it was dear.

Yes, we were eating Bambi. 

That explains why we never saw any deer in the "deer crossing" areas. They were already in the kitchen.

We turned in early, hoping for clear weather. Walking through a forest in the rain = unpleasant.

* The Croatian word for peninsula literally translates to "half island". I rather like that.

** "Mali Ston" means "Little Stone". The waiter told us Ston comes from Latin. Personally I think Ston was settled by English tourists and originally named "Mali Stone", but they lost the "e" during one if the periodic vowel-raiding expeditions from the mainland.

Old man Zvonko had a farm...

Daybreak in Prigradica, and our last full day on Korcula. Nice day to be alive.

Mario and Anna started their day catching up with some of Mario's relatives who weren't.

They dropped us off for coffee and picked up Mara, Mario's mother, for a visit to the Blato graveyard to leave flowers on the graves of close relatives.

Emma and I chose to walk up the little hill in town, appropriately named Little Hill, which cleverly differentiates it from Big Hill.

We'd been warned it was actually harder to walk up than Big Hill, because it's steeper, and that it's easy to get lost on if you wind back and forth.

Pfffff.

Five minutes to the top. Where we found another church. What else?

The outlook is better than on Big Hill, because there are fewer trees, so we took our time soaking up the views. And letting Emma have her Sound of Music moment ("climb every mountain...").

In the afternoon we caught up with Mario's relatives again, this time for lunch at his Uncle Zvonko's and Aunt Nena's farm. 

Wow.

The town is charming, but the farm was phenomenal. This is the sort of experience that let's you know you're in the Mediterranean: wooded hills, sunshine, and food and wine (obviously).

This was an old family farm that had essentially been abandoned years before, and Zvonko re-built it in his free time. Not that he has much of that. Nobody does in Blato, apart from visitors.

Zvonko rebuilt the walls along the road, cleared the fields, repaired and renovated the house, planted spinach, tomatoes, artichokes, and olive and fruit trees.

Another amazing spread of food, with the cabbage rolls and citrus cheesecake the standouts.

By this point in the trip Emma and I had had enough of sitting around doing nothing while everyone else worked, so we offered to dry the dishes.

To my utter astonishment they accepted. 

My dish-drying was a source of huge amusement. It's just not the sort of thing Croatian men tend to do. I joked that after my visit we'd be banned from the island.

Back in town we did the rounds saying our goodbyes. There was more food, naturally, and there may have been a few tears. The generosity from people with far less than we have was humbling. Extraordinary people, and I am enormously grateful to them for their warmth and hospitality. 

Tomorrow it was time to say "Bog"* to Korcula, and head off to the mainland.

* "Bog" is Croatian for "God", and is often used as shorthand for "God be with you", a common way to say goodbye.

(B)eaten into submission

Sometimes when I'm on holiday it's just good to stop.

You can only eat so much good food in a week, and combined with the heavy socialising we were wearing out. After a week of non-stop feasting Emma and I opted to spend the day hanging around the apartment.

Which was tough because, well, it's just so ugly around there:

The day started off with a walk around the waterfront looking for fish (lots), cats (lots) and snacks (few).

We're still astonished with how clear the water is. We can see to the bottom even in the deeper parts of the harbour, and there were large schools of fish in the harbour. One school looked as if it had hundreds of small fish. It was easily the largest school I've seen outside of the Great Barrier Reef.

Cats? Squillions. Not always well-loved by the locals they're mildly suspicious of strangers. 

Emma's animal-fu quickly overcomes this, and in short time she and the local cats are the best of friends.

The one shop in Prigradica is the size of a smallish broom cupboard, so it doesn't offer a particularly wide selection.

The shop does solve one mystery: why are dogs much rarer than cats?

The answer: soup.

We passed.

Once we overcame the shopkeeper's indifference we bought a packet of vegetable noodle soup, some bread and a tin of tuna instead, and had soup with a bean and tuna salad.

I've loved the food here, but having something light to reset the appetite was wonderful.

In the afternoon we sat on the balcony and read until late afternoon when the temperature drove us indoors.

And read. 

I could get used to this...

Big day on Big Hill

We climbed Big Hill. 

The people in Blato are nothing if not pragmatic. They looked at the biggest hill in town and said "we could spend a few weeks arguing over what to name it. Or we could call it Big Hill and have lunch."

Climbing the hill wasn't all that difficult. The good weather returned, and distance from ground to crest is probably only a couple of hundred meters. Of course factoring in winding roads and wrong turns and it's about 12.5 km. 

You wind your way past the houses, hit a wooded pathway beyond that, then continue to the top where, as with every other hill in Croatia, there's a church on the top. The date on the archway was hard to read, but I think it was built in the 18th century. 

I figure maybe 250 years ago the local priest probably had a chat with the town leaders and said, "I've been thinking. We've got a prime piece of real estate sitting there unused. It's the only hill on the island without a church on it.

"What I reckon we should do is get a whole bunch of impoverished peasants, who have spent all week slogging in their fields, to do more work. How about we get them to spend what little free time they have lugging rocks up the hill, to build a church that holds about eight people - standing - that we'll use twice a year for special occasions?"

"Yeah, sure," they said, "why not? Have some rakija."

Oy gevalt.

But lest you think I'm completely cynical about religion, not so. 

On the walk down from Big Hill I saw a crucifix with electrical lines draped across it, as seen in the pic to the right.

Which is proof that Jesus really does bring light to the world.

We had a look around, took some photos, checked out where the Germans put their guns on the hill during World War II. That pretty well exhausted the entertainment potential, so we headed back down.

In the afternoon we met more of Mario's relatives, Evitca and Mikice. I'm not clear on the relationship. Third great uncle twice removed or something. Which meant more food. Palacinke: basically crepes, and ridiculously yummy.

Evitca is extremely affectionate. She made us feel like family on the first meeting, with big hugs and kisses on the cheeks.

Her story is quite sad. She was one of six children, and her parents couldnt afford to keep her. They gave her away at age eleven, to a rich couple who couldn't have children, to work as their live in housekeeper.

There's a happy ending. The couple treated her more as a daughter than a housekeeper, and when they passed away they left her their house in Blato and their house in Prigradica.

After this we had a few hours sans food, before having dinner, this time at a different relative's house. This was Mario's cousin Mikice's place, not to be confused with third great uncle twice-removed Mikice's.

Most of the homes on Korcula have two kitchens, based on a logic I don't fully understand. This meal was in the separate kitchen under the house, with meat cooked on an open grill over wood-fired embers.

This is why I'm getting fat.

Everybody on the island starts work around 6.30-7.00, and we're still going at 10.30. Time to go.

As Mikice escorts us through the winding streets towards where the car is parked, Emma quips "he's not guiding us, he's making sure we leave."

He laughed, and said, "no, no,no!"

But I wonder... 

Rain

All the wonderful weather I've been yabbering about? Gone.

The plan was to walk up Big Hill today, and Little Hill tomorrow. That was before eighty bazillion tonnes of water fell on Blato in a single morning.

Blato's storm water drainage is basically gravity sloping to where the lake used to be (it was drained early last century), which means a torrential downpour like this leaves ankle deep ponds in low points on the roads and footpaths. 

You'll never guess how I discovered they were ankle deep.

Plan B: sit in the coffee shop for an hour or two. 

Oh, we also did some banking, which in Blato is a nice leisurely activity that can fill up most of the morning before they tell you that you can't withdraw Croatian Kuna on an Australian EFTPOS card. Impossible. Can't be done.

Then we went outside to the ATM and did just that. There you go.

Eventually the rain stopped. Good thing, too.  Thirty-nine more days like this and I'd expect pairs of animals queuing up to get on a big wooden boat.

In the afternoon we went to Uncle Dick's place. Mario's Uncle Dick lived in Australia in the 70s and 80s, before moving back to Korcula, where he now lives with his son Milevoi, Milevoi's partner Mici, and their daughter Diana.

Like every lunch here it involved wine, unlike others it involved a coleslaw-like salad (the empty bowl is an indication of how popular that was), and a gnocchi that was just amazing (why that bowl isn't empty is mystery. I don't believe it stayed this full much longer).

Uncle Dick is a sweet old man. He spent time showing me photos from his youth and his time in Australia. He had a hard life, but a happy and fulfilling one. 

"Life goes fast. Pfffft!" he said. 

He's 92. A very bittersweet moment sharing an old man's memories.

Ach. 

I gave Emma's hand a big squeeze, because, you know... It was a reminder to appreciate every day. We only have a finite number of them.

I'm glad I'm spending some of mine here.

Polo Competition

The town of Korcula claims to be the birthplace of Marco Polo. The Croatians say he was born here, the Italians say he was born in Venice. There's a fair bit of debate around the topic, and the info I've glanced at is far from conclusive. 

It may not be certain if Polo was born in Venice or Croatia, but that doesn't stop the locals from pointing out the house he was born in. It's the old grey house behind and to the right of tent, as seen in this shot from the bell tower.

Bell tower? What bell tower?

Sveti Marko's (Saint Mark's) Bell Tower of Death.

From the outside, innocent and charming.

From the inside a different story. I'm guessing St Mark was the patron saint of flimsy stone steps and poor safety standards. 

Note the long diagonal bar holding the steps in place. Not shown is the long drop, or Mario laughing at me as he took the picture. while not the most terrifying climb I've ever done, it offered plenty of opportunities for white-knuckle rail-grabbing.

This is what I get from making fun of Emma and Simon's fear of heights.

It was worth it. Once again we were fortunate to have superb weather, and the views of the old medieval town and surrounding landscape were spectacular. 

The views of the hideous new Tommy Hipermart supermarket on the hill was less appealing. 

I understand there was considerable opposition to it being built but substantive amounts of cash convincing arguments were made, so it ended up being built anyway.

We also walked through the old town, and along the outside of the walls. I love these old walled cities. There's just nothing like them in Australia.

Accompanying us on the trip was Mario's mother, Mara, who took the opportunity to buy jewellery at a jewellery shop she's been shopping at since 1978.

Anna and Emma thought it would be rude not to support the local shops, and pitched in. Emma picked up a beautiful chain, and a set of earrings.

The jeweller was quite a character, funny and charming. The family business has been around for generations, there were photos of his father and grandfather making jewellery, and he was teaching his son the trade.

We drove back along the southern road that wound through the villages on the coast. Due to the narrowness of the road, and the steep drops, Mario had described it as "a nightmare". This lessened my enthusiasm for the drive, and I prepared for round two of white-knuckled adventures. 

The road was narrow, but there was very little traffic, and this time Mario hadn't been awake for 26 hours driving a small bus in the middle of the night, so this time it was ok. I won't say I'm comfortable with narrow roads and precipitous drops onto sharp rocks, but I'm getting better.

We'll see how I hold up when we leave Korcula and drive up the coast road to Split on the way to Plitsivice next week.

Very Lucky in Vela Luka

The ferry dropped us off in Vela Luka when we arrived on the island, but we didn't see much of it on the day. Our good fortune with the weather is holding, so we went back to Vela Luka in the morning.

Another post card town, with more infrastructure catering to the tourists in terms of restaurants and shops than Prigradica or Blato. Whether this is a plus or a minus depends on the type of holiday you're looking for.

We wandered along the streets around the harbour, checked out a few shops trying to find thongs (the walking kind) for Emma, before stopping for coffee in a shop near a large statue. 

I suspect the statue is probably dedicated to soldiers who fought in World War II, and they're throwing hand grenades. However it could be dedicated to the little-known Croatian cricket team, who have some bad-ass fast bowlers.

We also ran into another of Mario's cousins, Milevoi, who runs an insurance business with offices in Vela Luka and Blato. We'll be catching up with his family for lunch in a few days.

The afternoon was quiet. Read a bit, played the ukelele, slept, then work up and went to Anna and Mario's apartment so that I could watch Emma and Anna cook.

Early night. Tomorrow we're off to the town of Korcula on the east end of the island.

Zvonked out

Bad start to the day.

I'm lying on the bed, reading, while Emma gets ready to go out. I feel something on my leg, brush at it, and continue reading.

A few seconds later I feel it again, and brush at my leg again.

It happens a third time, and I take a good leg at my leg. Nothing there. Weird.

The fourth time I wonder if there's something under my pant leg, so I stand up, drop my jeans -

- and find a two-inch centipede on my thigh.

I believe my exact words were, "ARGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

I flicked the centipede off in a panic, and then couldn't find the little bastard. It took several minutes of frantic searching before I found it. Crawling into our bed. 

This earned it one free swimming lesson, courtesy of the toilet.

I had the willies for the next two hours. And the odd twitch for some time after that.

Despite my post-traumatic stress disorder I joined the others for a bit of touring. We set off from Prigradica to Blato, and we're happily motoring along, when I notice something I thought worth raising.

"Mario?" I ask.

"Yes?" he answers.

"Why are you driving on the wrong side of the road?"

After a moments silence the car moves to the right. It seems I was the only one of the four of us who noticed. However I suspect the oncoming car we encountered around the next bend might have noticed too.

After the customary coffee in Blato we drove south to Grscica, a bastions of Coatia's ongoing war against words with vowels. 

Utterly beautiful little village, improved even more after a very sweet little boy brought over his kitten for Emma to pet.

After this we drove to Prizba, and had our second coffee for the day at a small restaurant run by Danny Franulovic - from Melbourne, Australia. He was born in Australia, but his family was from Korcula, and he moved here permanently in 2003.

Lunch was at the home of one of Mario's uncles on his father's side, Uncle Zavonko. He and the family (the relationships are extended, convoluted, and long, so I'll gloss over the details) are delightful people, and they were extremely hospitable. 

We sat near Zvonko and Mario's mum, which helped because both speak English while my Croatian extends to "hvala" (thank you), "vina" (wine) and "dobili ovu stonoga off moje noge" (get this centipede off my leg).

As I feared the food kep coming. And coming. And coming.

It was excellent, but by about the 17th course I was in danger of exploding.

A few interesting things about the local wines. Firstly just about everybody makes their own. Secondly they usually drink them with water, and they're much nicer when water is added. Thirdly watering them down won't help you stay sober once they bring out the rakija, which is around 42% alcohol.

The meal took about four or five hours. Dinner was quicker, as it takes no time at all to skip a meal.

Tomorrow we're back to Vela Luka, on the west-most side of the island. I hope we get a lot of walking in or I'm going to put on five kilos this week.

Washed. Shopped. Slept. Saw a dog.

We didn't do a lot today.

Emma had started the clothes washing last night. This was unfortunate, because she wasn't going to go to sleep until we'd hung up the washing, and when you start the machine at 8.30, and the washing machine takes two and a half hours per load, it makes for a late night.

The next day we did two more loads of washing. We have neither clothes drier nor clothes line, so we nicked a second clothes horse from outside another apartment and hung clothes off every rail and piece of furniture in the place. It looked like a laundry after a cyclone.

We also watched a bit of Power Rangers. An American production of a Japanese concept shot in New Zealand dubbed into Croatian. Sure, why not?

Prigradica, where we're staying, is a small village on the north coast of Korcula. Beautiful, and in Emma's words "an undiscovered gem of the Adriatic".

There are two restaurants, a cafe, and a small shop here. Now that tourist season is over the first three are closed.

Time to go into Blato.

Blato is inland, with a population of 4,000, and of course is where Mario was born. Settlement in the area goes back to Roman times, with Slavs moving into the area in the 7th century.

It's essentially an agricultural area, with grapes and olives in the surrounding area.

In town they also have coffee shops.

Coffee... Mmmmmmm...

After coffee we stocked up on essentials where Mario's highly-energetic and extremely likeable cousin Fanita works.

Then we wandered around for a while, and saw this dog. We became close friends, as dogs are fond of doing, for the duration of the pat.

Incidentally this is the widest space in Korcula apart from the soccer field. It's a community gathering point for things like the traditional sword dance they perform. It stands in stark contrast to the streets which, like many old streets in Europe, are narrow. We understand the width in the main road was set at "wide enough to allow two laden donkeys to pass in opposite directions"*. And that's the widest road.

Evening consisted of a light supper with Anna and Mario, and watching the Robert Downey Jr./Jude Law version of Sherlock Holmes with Croatian subtitles.

Good battery recharging day. Tomorrow we're touring, and after that we're meeting the first of Mario's 387 relatives for lunch.

* Sadly there are no longer any donkeys on the island. The last one died in the 1950s.

Split Personality

I woke up in pitch blackness, thinking it must be about 6am. No, it was just that our converted jail cell was a very effective light deterrent. It was actually closer to 10am.

Guess we needed the sleep.

We didn't need to check out until 2pm, and the ferry wasn't until 3pm, so we snuck past the warden and climbed over the wall for a few hours in Split.

We were right at the northern edge of the Old Town, and set off for the centre, walking along the harbour. Perfect weather, unlike Anna and Mario who werre drenched during their time here.

Breakfast was simple, but nice: muesli and natural yoghurt for me, bacon and eggs for Emma, and second-hand cigarette smoke for both of us.

Observation #1: everybody in Split smokes. Everybody.

At the table next to us a young couple in their late 20s and a friend the same age sat down, and immediately lit up cigarettes. Two seconds later the couple's four year old son lights one up. 

OK, that's an exageration. The kid waited a full minute. And his cigarette may have been some sort of sweet. Possibly.

But seriously, I think the only table that wasn't wreathed in cigarette smoke was ours. For all the good it did us. There's something about a beautiful view of the harbour that's lessened when it's masked in the fumes of Hell.

I don't know why you'd buy cigarettes if you lived in Split. You could just stand next to anybody and get your fix.

Anyway...

After breakfast it's walking time.  First stop the old buildings just behind us.

"Hey, this is the palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian! Awesome!" I say.

"Hey, markets! Awesome!" says Emma.

The areas under the palace have been converted into market stalls. T-shirts, tourist trinkets, a bit of jewelry, all the stuff you'd expect to find a palace used for if you lost your mind and had no sense of history. At least they've stopped using the catacombs as a rubbish tip.

The palace was built around 300 AD. Diocletian wanted somewhere nice to retire to, and figured somewhere with lots of sun, wine, olives and cigarettes would be perfect. 

Although much of the palace fell into ruin or was raided for building materials after the Romans left, it's still the most complete Roman palace in the world.

There's still considerable restoration work going on, from major works on the gates to repairing some of the damaged mosaics on the floors. 

Piece by pain-staking piece.

We did check out the markets as well. Emma found a nice necklace made of red Mediterreanean coral, and I bought her a beautiful rose.

They were also selling freshly-slaughtered meat, but I passed on that. 

Other cool stuff: they must be big on Harry Potter, because we found this statue of Albus Dumbledore.

It's actually a bishop, Grgur Ninski (Grigor of Nin), who apparently was at loggerheads with the Pope over issues like using ther Croatian language in services. Grgur won, so the Pope shipped his ass off to Skradin, where we was never heard from again.

It's supposed to be good luck if you rub his toe. The idea that you can gain good luck by rubbing the toe of a statue of a dead medieval churchman sounds vaguely Harry Potterish to me, so the connection between Grgur and Albus may be stronger than it first appears.

Time to catch the ferry to Korcula. We took the car ferry instead of the hydrofoil. It's slower (three hours instead of 90 minutes), but Mario said it's a much nicer trip.

It was. We took over a booth, had coffees, beer and wine, and sailed into Vela Luka, on Korcula. First impressions were - good:

Anna and Mario picked us up, drove us to the apartments, and had a light supper (antipasto and soup) waiting for us.*

I may not be a Roman Emperor, but it works for me.

* Mario wants me to note in the blog that he prepared the plate of prosciutto, olives, and cheese. It's the only time I've known him to prepare food, not counting barbeques, and could well be the first time a male member of his family has prepared food since the time of Diocletian. 

Saved

I don't know how we would have survived the day without Zagreb Bob.

What a mensch.

To understand why we needed saving, we need to go back two days prior, when our travel agent rang. 

At 1am. Apparently travel agents don't understand complex concepts like "time zones".

I declined to answer, figuring whatever it was could wait until the next day. Just as well, because the news that our flight had been pushed back ten hours would have kept me from sleeping.

Since we figured Zagreb Airport is about as exciting as public toilet in Dubbo (which we later found out waas pretty well spot on), we decided to cancel the Zagreb-Split leg and drive instead. After all Google Maps reckons it's only a three hour drive.

So we're up at 6.00am and say goodbye to our little dog-box of a room at the abba Hotel.*

While waiting for our flight London to Zagreb we find out our second leg wasn't shifted, we were bumped by the lying, two-faced low-life scumbuckets who are Croatian Airways, may they be forever condemned to the holding patterns of hell. 

The in-flight service reinforced our poor perceptions of the airline, from the angry little dog-man who barked at Emma to put her handbag in the overhead lockers, to the tasteless olive fragments in a jar served with equally tasteless breadsticks.

Tip: dont fly Croatian Air. If the only available airline is Croatian Air, drive. Or stay home.You'll thank me.

At least they had the decency not to crash and burn, and we picked up our car for the three-hour drive, got onto the road, and saw the sign saying "Split 399 km".

So we can make it in three hours if we maintain an average speed of 133 kph/83 mph, without breaks. Oh-kayyyyy...

I've been up nine and a half hours, and I'm driving on the wrong side of the road at over 130 kph on unfamiliar roads. Gack.

This is when we spot Zagreb Bob. Some random dude with Zagreb licence plates heading our way. So we plant ourselves a few car lengths behind and use him as a pace car. He probably had no idea we were following him (just as well, as the alternative is wondering why he was being tailed the length of Croatia, which is kind of creepy). He finally turned off about 80 km north of Split, and we made the rest of the way on our own.

By the time we doubled back to the airport we dropped the car off five hours after leaving Zagreb. 

A taxi-ride into Split later and we're outside our apartments, ringing to be let in. For reasons that aren't entirely clear this takes about 15 minutes, but we're eventually let into our room, which looks like a converted prison cell, but is clean and has a bed. 

We're exhausted, but alive.

Thanks, Bob.

* I wasn't a huge fan, but Emma hated it. Detested it. Despised it. Was so wrought with fury and disgust at the overall poor amenities, space deprivation, and general disinterest from the staff. In revenge when we left she stole the soaps. And sponges. And toilet paper.

Spirited Away

The Natural History Museum's tours of the Spirit Collection only run three times a day at this time of the year. Worse still they're limited to small groups, something like five or eight people per tour, which in a city   of eight million people + tourists means a lot of competition for a small number of spaces.

I really didn't want to miss this, so I arrived at the Museum just before the 10am opening time, and raced to the booking desk. Spots still available for the 10.30 tour!

I wandered around the arachnid and insect display for twenty minutes, then headed over to the Darwin Centre, to discover the tour consisted of a gross total of one visitor. Me.

Clearly I overestimate the level of scientific interest in the world. 

So there was my guide, Sarah the Zoologist, and me, touring the centre. On the plus side I could monopolise the questions.

The Darwin Centre is an adjunct to the Natural History Museum, was completed in 2009, and houses over twenty million specimens of plants and animals. The Spirit Collection is where they store specimens in alcohol (AKA spirits). Nothing to do with ghosts.

The first room we saw was the dermestarium, where they keep the Dermestes maculatus beetles. Very handy little critters if you want something that will strip the flesh from a skeleton without damaging the bones. You can watch them eating in real time at http://www.nhm.ac.uk/kids-only/naturecams/beetlecam/index.html. 

I expect their server to crash as soon as I post this.

We spent the most time in the room with the big specimens, including the 8.6 metre giant squid below: 

There was also a cabinet with a  number of Charles Darwin's specimens collected when he was on the Beagle. For someone with a love of science like me this was akin to giving a thirteen year old girl access to the diary of some kid from One Direction. 

Evolution by Natural Selection is one of the pivotal theories in the history of science, and some of the plants and animals Darwin observed while developing it were sitting just there in a cupboard. 

Wow. 

After the tour I did more browsing in the Museum, and then set off to join Emma and Simon at Selfridges. To someone with a love of shopping going to Selfridges is akin to showing a science geek Charles Darwin's specimens from the Beagle.

(Actually Emma was a bit underwhelmed by Selfridges. Glad she went, but not much of interest to her, less than we saw in Harrods.)

We grabbed lunch and tried to do a bit of banking to exchange a 500 Euro note for smaller denominations. Beyond difficult. You'd think we were trying to exchange Israeli Shekels into Mongolian tögrög. I don't think the idea that Europe is just across the Channel has made much of an impact on the Brits.

Killing time before dinner we walked along Regent Street, looking extremely British with NFL ON REGENT STREET banners the length of the street.

The NFL held a demo game last month between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Vikings. I have no idea why the banners are still up weeks later. Maybe they didn't sell enough tickets to cover the clean-up costs.

Whatever.

Dinner was at a swish restaurant in the financial centre, near Liverpool Station, Sushi Samba. A perfect name for a place that's a fusion between Japanese, Brazilian and Peruvian food - not the most obvious fusion I'd think of, but it works. 

The food was outstanding, the staff were fantastic, and the views over the city brilliant. But the real highlight was watching Emma and Simon pressed against the inside wall of the glass lift, utterly terrified, as we rode up the 38 floors to the restaurant.

They were even more terrified riding it down in the darkness.

So ended our last night in London. Tomorrow, off to Croatia. Which will be a drama, given how Croatia Airlines has screwed us around.

Grrrr....

Priceless

So there I was at Harrod's...

Go figure.

Anyway, there I was, thinking the prices weren't as crazy-stupid as I expected, when I saw this:

A £1,600 bed. For a cat. I love my cats, but - seriously? 

I knew I should have avoided Harrod's, but Emma made me promise I'd come along. Without grizzling, complaining, whining, whinging, moaning, kvetching, or otherwise ruining her experience.

And I kept my promise.

In fairness it wasn't all that difficult. There were interesting things to see, especially the junk in the Millionaire Gallery. James Bond memorabilia with the autographs of all actors who have played Bond. If you like shopping, the Spy Shop with all sorts of marvellous surveillance gear - basically the dumb, pointless stuff.

But the shrine to Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed...

She owes me.

Afterwards we went to the British Museum. Now this is my idea of a good time.

Built in 1882 as a dedicated natural history museum, and still utterly awesome. It has rocks and mammals and plants and spiders and freakin' dinosaurs!!!

All told forty-one different species are represented - just in the "A's":

Aardonyx, Abelisaurus, Achelousaurus, Achillobator, Acrocantho-saurus, Aegyptosaurus, Afrovenator, Agilisaurus, Alamosaurus, Albertaceratops, Albertosaurus, Alectrosaurus, Alioramus, Allosaurus, Alvarezsaurus, Amargasaurus, Ammosaurus, Ampelosaurus, Amygdalodon, Anatotitan, Anchiceratops, Anchisaurus, Ankylosaurus, Anserimimus, Antarctopelta, Antarctosaurus, Apatosaurus, Aragosaurus, Aralosaurus, Archaeoceratops, Archaeopteryx, Archaeornitho-mimus, Argentinosaurus, Arrhinoceratops, Atlascopco-saurus, Aucasaurus, Austrosaurus, Avaceratops, Avalonia, Avimimus, and Azendohsaurus.

I can't recall who the guy to the left is. Not an A. Ericosaurus or Jeffosaurus or something.

Almost as awesome as these guys.

Incredibly, like the British Museum, it's free. I could come back again, even if it wasn't.

So that's my plan for tomorrow. Emma goes shopping at Selfridges, and I go back to the British Natural History Museum, where I'll be doing a tour of the Spirit Centre in the Museum's Darwin Centre.

East End Boys and West End Girls

We said goodbye to Anna and Mario at 5am. I think. I was asleep at the time.

Anyhow, they headed off to Croatia, we were off somewhere far more exotic: Kensington. At a much more civilised hour.

Our taxi showed up at eleven and we set off across London. At least we thought it was our taxi. Turns out we accidentally nabbed somebody else's cab by mistake. Oops.

The driver was very entertaining, in his thirties, married with two kids, the youngest a two-year old boy who just discovered the joys of breaking things. TV sets, dining room tables, whatever. His son also discovered the joys of waking dad up by kicking him in the head, which was how he'd started the day.

Which was why our driver was really looking forward to a weekend in the Canaries with a few of his mates for a friend's 40th birthday.

Stories like this make me think not having kids isn't necessarily a bad thing. I like kids, but - wow.

He also entertained us with tales of passengers he'd picked up over the years. Not too long ago he picked up some shabby-looking bloke and started chatting, asking him what he did for a living.

"I do a bit in the music business."

"Really? What?"

"I play guitar."

"Nice. Did you ever play in a band I might have heard of?"

"Maybe. I spent a few years in a small band called Led Zeppellin."

Yeah, Jimmy Page. The cabbie felt like a complete idiot for not recognising him.

He also told us about "the Knowledge", the famous exam London cabbies have to pass before they get their licence. They not only have to memorise every street in London (which I knew), they have to be able to describe the best route between any two points, and recite it street by street and turn by turn to the examiner (which I didn't know), and keep doing it while another examiner whistles, shouts abuse and throws bits of paper at them (which I really didn't know, but that was utterly brilliant).

No surprise it takes three to five years to pass. 

(In Sydney you're lucky to get a cabbie who can find the suburb. I once caught a cab in Pyrmont and asked the driver to take us to Bondi.

"Where's that?"

Even our London cabbie knew where Bondi was. He figured not knowing Bondi was like a Londn cabbie not knowing the way to Buckingham Palace.)

Back to Kensington...

The west side of London is much more refined/affluent/snobby then the east side. Beautiful Georgian buildings, with a considerable amount of restoration going on.

The abba Hotel (a Spanish chain, and no relation to the insufferable Swedish pop band of the same name) was something of a disappointment. Beautiful, but pokey rooms poorly laid out. I once spent two weeks living in a laundry with more room. 

Lunch was in the emptiest pub in London, the Gloucester Arms. There was Emma, me, and the barmaid.

And she disappeared for a while. 

Highlight was the boar burger. I love eating my way through the few remaining wild animals of Britain.

In the evening we caught up with Simon, Guy and Shira again at Baltic, a Polish restaurant in Southwark. Here's Guy and Shira being adorable, while Simon is being insular, geeky and weird in the lower left corner of the screen:

I didn't know Polish food could be that good. There was even a vodka I didn't hate. 

I have no idea what we had. Emma knows it from her childhood, but I never remember what's what. I think  we had zxytregexzh and brzexxwbghys and czyhgfervdtx, but I could be wrong.

I wish we had Polish food of this quality in Sydney. Emma's inspired to dig out the Polish cookbooks.

Back in our broom-cupboard in Kensington we tried to organise our luggage, and failed. Not to worry. We were still just up the street and across the road from the British Natural History Museum.

Guess where were going tomorrow?

(Hint: not Harrods.)