Look How Hvar We've Come!

I write this now while finishing a gourmet breakfast overlooking the Adriatic from our hotel in Hvar.

According to Clete, Hvar is Croatia's sunniest island with over 2400 hours of sunlight a year (it also resisted takeover by the Turks hundreds of years ago).  It's everything we hoped for to end our trip - and we don't expect to be writing much more since our packed itinerary for the next two days includes poolside drinks, overconsumption of the day's fresh catch, and if we really get ambitious a boat to a private island.  Oh yeah - and of course the most important, at least 12 trips a day down the hotel's waterslide :)

We hope everyone at home is having a great weekend! 

Eating our Way Through the Balkans and the Croatian Comeback

Up to Sarajevo we were noticing a an inverse correlation between food price and quality. Our lunch in Bosnia for less than $15 dollars (with two beers) wins the award for best meal.

This was closely followed by the seafood platter in Montengro which was a tad more expensive but had an eclectic array of seafood deliciousness.

Last but not least is Dubrovnik’s over-priced tourist traps. Great for ambiance but unlikely to appear in the latest Michelin Guide.

However, yesterday (Friday) we left Mostar for Hvar and stopped at a little town on the ocean for an amazing meal that is putting Croatia back in second place... despite being about 4x more expensive. 

Who Needs a Tour Guide When You Have Clete?

I’m not going to lie – I didn’t do much prep work for this trip. I did read the book, Pretty Birds (a novel about the conflict in Sarajevo) and watch a documentary on the war – but this was nothing compared to Clete’s preparation. Below is one conversation that exemplifies his skills.
While strolling down Sniper’s Alley…
Clete: I feel like this is such a big city, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, it does have a population of 300,000. Well, 300,000 city proper and 700,000 metropolitan area
Lisa: And GDP per capita is...
Clete: Not very high.  It’s ranked 123… this is compared to 67 for Croatia and 106 for Montenegro.

Later at the museum…
Lisa: So how long was Yugoslavia a country?
Clete: Well it was a Kingdom of Croats, Slovenes, and Bosnians from the end of World War I until 1929 and then it was Yugoslavia until 1991. Of course, prior to that the Austro-Hungarian Empire ruled from 1878 until WWI and prior to that it was the Ottomans.

I could go on… but you get the idea. As I type while driving, Clete is informing me that we are approaching the third most visited pilgrimage site in the continent of Europe. I’m personally more excited for the waterfalls that we are stopping by after.

Remembering the War

Thursday morning we wanted to get a more local sense of Sarajevo.  We took a bus down Sniper’s Alley – the main road along the river dividing the Serb and Bosnian territory during the conflict.  We got off downtown, near the front lines, and started our tour at the Holiday Inn – where all of the journalists stayed during the war.

 

From there we walked Sniper’s Alley past the Bosnian “twin towers” that fell during the war, to a museum with hundreds of photographs and artifacts documenting the conflict.  Surrounded by bullet-laden buildings watching the locals go about their daily routine was a bit unsettling, but to some extent it is refreshing to see life go on.  

Thursday afternoon, following the shortest and easiest drive of the trip thus far, we arrived in Mostar.  The highlight of the city is the Stari Most bridge – originally constructed in 1566 and senselessly destroyed by the Croats during the war.  Like Sarajevo, the city has recovered and the bridge was reconstructed using 16^th century construction techniques and stone from the original quarry.  For tourists, it offers an unparalleled view over dinner and evening drinks.  

The Streets of Sarajevo

Miraculously – or through a combination of Clete’s love of planning and my navigation skills – we did not make a single wrong turn on the way to our hotel in the Turkish Quarter / Old City of Sarajevo.  Warned not to leave the car with Croatian license plates on the street, we parked in a semi-guarded lot and hoped for the best.  Sarajevo was a city of sharp contrasts.  While much of the old city was rebuilt and is now a bustling haven for locals and tourists alike, bullet holes covering many of the buildings painted a vivid reminder of the recent conflict.    

We hit up all the must-sees, including the location where Franz Ferdinand was shot triggering the start of World War I.  

Special shout out to Tara Kramlich and her friend Adi who was raised in Sarajevo and recommended amazing restaurants.  If you haven't tried ravioli bathed in sour cream and oil as well as various vegetables stuffed with ground beef you haven’t really lived.  

 Also thanks to Adi, we were able to watch the sunset over the whole city.

 

Who has the Passports?

Driving over the Sedlo Pass en route to Sarajevo was the best part of the Montenegrin national park… the first time.  After just crossing the pass with snow piled high on both sides of the road Clete asked if I remembered our passports when I checked out of the hotel.  In fairness to me – Clete was the one who checked in and gave the guy our passports, but nevertheless, our little mishap provided us with the unique opportunity to experience the pass twice. 

As we descended the mountains we drove a beautiful road along the river marking the Montenegro-Bosnia Border.  Which of the following do you think happened within the first 10 minutes of crossing the border?

1.  Road blocked by cows

2.  Pulled over for the Bosnian police to warn us it was illegal to drive without our lights on/solicit a bribe

3.  Road blocked by sheep

4.  All of the above

On to Sarajevo!

Montenegro has a National Park?

Prior to leaving the States I shared our itinerary with a former manager of mine who is from (what is now) Montenegro.  Her response to seeing a day in Durmitor National Park “Montenegro has a national park?  I’ve never heard of anyone going there…”  Nonetheless, around 5:00pm on Tuesday we arrived in Durmitor National Park.  Clete would probably object but I think the national park status is pretty arbitrary, although there were fewer rocks than the rest of the country.  

Not too much to report other than our conversation with the park ranger when we arrived: 

Us:  Hello, do you speak English?

Him:  Two Euros

Us:  Ok, which way to the Black Lake?

Him:  Sorry

Us:  Do you have a map?

Him:  Goodbye

The lake and forest were beautiful but decidedly not that unique to Montenegro.  We still had a good time despite a wolf false alarm. (The dog looked big and wild, I swear!)

A Vertiginous Route

After a very local and delicious breakfast on our terrace in the 70-degree weather, we set off for the mountains. Our final destination goal was Durmitor National Park – with some planned stops along the way to break up the supposed four-hour drive. I was prepared for it to take at least six hours – and am happy I set those expectations. From the guidebook we knew we would begin with 25 hairpin turns up Mt. Lovcen (the Black Mountain that is the namesake of the country).

Little did we know that these turns would continue along a road the size of a bike path for the better part of three hours (some of which was in the pouring rain) leaving my stomach rather unhappy. The mountains continued the whole drive with few signs of civilization. All of the landscape was covered in rocks – so short of rock-farming we hypothesized that there wasn’t much in terms of agriculture business in this part of the country.

We eventually made it to what was supposed to be the half-way point, the Ostrg Monastery built high into a stone cliff. It is apparently one of the more holy places in the Orthodox Church and also rumored to be the hiding place of a Serb commander wanted for genocide. If you visit, make sure you walk backwards out of all of the doors. Dad – any explanation on this?

I was dreading the final 70km to the national park (the first three hours were also only 70k) but fortunately the rumors Clete heard of a newly constructed highway were true and we cruised to our 4-star hotel in the middle of nowhere in about an hour.

Conquering the Black Mountain

The main tourist attraction in Kotor is climbing the the 1200 steps up to the ruins of St. John's castle - both for the ruins and a beautiful view of the city. 

Naturally, we arrived at the top of the fortress, looked out of a broken-down window and the "black mountain" beckoned us.  While a jump out of most of the castle windows would have found us at the bottom of a sheer cliff, we found one crumbling window that offered a natural staircase leading to the base of our next challenge.

 But that was the easy part.  Little did we know that our path would soon be blocked by no less than 50 "killer" goats who at first seemed cute, but were intimidating with their fierce looking horns and evil eyes.

 

After a near re-route, we preserved and good thing we did because here was the result:

To celebrate, dinner number one was beer and pizza in the main square.  This was followed by dinner number two.  You can take the Wisconsinites out of Wisconsin, but they will still find fried cheese.  And maybe slightly less "native," we also took down a massive fish plate for two. 

The Road to Montenegro

Monday morning we cabbed to the airport to rent a car... thankfully, Clete was prepared with his newly acquired international drivers license.  Driving in the Balkans lived up to the billing and we immediately found ourselves in an extended road work zone with no workers.  After 30 minutes of dirt road followed by a semi-painfully long border check we decided to pull over in Herceg Novi for some breakfast.  We quickly aborted our attempt to get breakfast at a smoke-filled electricity-less cafe, and instead followed Lisa's suggestion to picnic on a nearby castle.  I'll let you be the judge but it might be the best dining view ever.  Good start Montenegro!  (and clearly we're grabbing the computer from each other while writing this)

After brunch it was a short but beautiful Bond-esque 45 minute drive around the bay to Kotor. 

Don't worry parents, Lisa wasn't the one driving when this picture was taken...

The Dubrovnik Triathlon

We arrived in Dubrovnik on Saturday night and somehow were awake enough to watch the sunset over the cliffs of the old city and have a local seafood feast while being serenaded by three of Dubrovnik's finest street musicians. Although we had ambitious aspirations for the evening, we only made it until 11:00 and slept about three hours longer than planned.  Luckily, all of the rest prepared us to tackle the Dubrovnik triathlon.

Event 1: The Old City Wall
Description: A 2km walk around the old city walls (claimed by the guide book to take 2 hours)
Biggest Obstacle: Dodging all of the Asian tourists while hypocritically taking just as many pictures as they were.
Difficulty Level: 2

Event 2: Climb to the top of Mt. Srd
Description: A 4km hike up the mountain overlooking Dubrovnik (claimed by a local to take 2 hours and claimed by Dave to take 45 minutes).  38 minutes later we arrived at the top to check out the war museum and amazing views of the city.
Biggest Obstacle: Forcing ourselves to stay on the serpentine switchbacks instead of going straight up since we were warned of potential land mines
Difficulty Level: 5

Event 3: Kayak around Lokvun (an island off the coast of Dubrovnik that looks a lot closer than it is)
Description: Rent kayak and set off for island (claimed by Clete to take 10 minutes).  Actual time - 35 to island, one hour back because he claimed it would be faster to go all the around on the way back.
Biggest Obstacle: Docking kayak on island when we wanted to hike to the top and avoiding screeching peacocks.
Difficulty level:7

And this was all before 6:00pm.  The night was still young.  Drinks at Dave's favorite bar watching the sunset over the cliffs followed by an amazing Italian dinner where we ate so much we could barely walk home. 

Next, it's on to Montenegro!

Occupy Frankfurt

Upon arrival in Frankfurt we were too sleep-deprived to keep up with our ambitious plans and decided to take the 11 minute train to the city center. The first thing we saw - Occupy Frankfurt! Not kidding - complete with their own wifi network.

Beyond that - it was pretty much what you would expect. Cafe lined streets opening up into a big square, every sign containing no less than 13 letters per word (Clete's pronunciation was stellar), and Germans interspersing morning coffees with beer. We also weren't the only ones eating schnitzel and a five sausage entree at 11:30am. Not the worst place to pass through.

We just arrived in Croatia and and despite being up the better part of 50 some hours the night is still young and it is shaping up to be a pristine sunset over the Adriatic.

A Tale of Two Redeyes

Last night began my two-day journey from San Francisco to Croatia. I learned that perhaps the only thing worse than a redeye is a redeye with a layover in Cincinnati. While I feel half human half zombie right now, at least I'm in DC - trying to get some work done – and tonight’s redeye I’ll be with Clete and wouldn’t care if we were only going back to Ohio. Fortunately, final destination is Dubrovnik, scheduled to arrive sometime tomorrow evening Croatia time. Along the way we have an 8-hour layover in Frankfurt (I insisted on using miles) and how to kill the time there has been a recent topic of conversation. On the docket list so far is watching a season of Downton Abbey (per Ali’s recommendation), co-authoring a book, and solving the Eurozone crisis… all while I dream up companies I want to start that give unlimited vacation time and enough money to buy direct flights that don’t involve two redeyes in a row.

Seriously though, I think it’s time to resurrect the travel blog since we don’t really want to be on email this trip but think that family (and some friends) will appreciate the updates. I should also have ample time to type as we are getting lost, running out of gas, and or breaking down somewhere in Bosnia.

I have to say thank you to Clete – I am SO lucky that he has done 95% of the legwork on the trip planning and everything sounds amazing. My only contribution thus far has been printing out a power point presentation of maps (so consulting) and securing a hotel with access to a water slide in Hvar (so Wisconsin). You, on the other hand are lucky that I will spare you the 5+ page itinerary and just give you the highlights. Dubrovnik for two days, rent a car and drive to Kotor (Montenegro), then up through Bosnia to Sarajevo stopping for white water rafting at a national park on the way, followed by Mostar (also Bosnia) and then ending with a few days on the Hvar island (Croatia) to relax. Feel free to subscribe or check back and we’ll try to keep you updated with the latest adventure!