Matt and Murphy told Dan he would get a special, belated Father’s Day gift during our visit and assured him he couldn’t guess what it was if he had until Xmas … and boy were they right! Tickets to see the Rolling Stones with Rascals Flats as the opening act and fireworks at the end. No really, who would have guessed? Since the concert was in Indianapolis, a two hour drive, we got ourselves organized after a light al fresco breakfast and headed west.

First stop: Indianapolis Museum of Art for a special Dream Cars exhibition showcasing a couple dozen rare old cars as well as prototypes. We had headsets to walk us through the unique features. One car had a steering wheel situated in the center of the dash, for example; another one had a rear camera; a few had no doors; a couple had road sensors; one was made of cloth; some had hoods as long as rockets while others had rear ends that went on forever; one had three wheels; and a couple had plexiglass roofs. We were all surprised at how much we enjoyed it.

We were checked into our downtown hotel by 4:00 with an hour of downtime before a pre-concert dinner at 5:00. Then off to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the concert. We took our first Uber ride ever and were dropped off a short walk from the entrance. First order of business was to buy t-shirts before we walked around to find a few unoccupied square feet to lay out our newly purchased (thank you Josie) Stones blanket and settle in for our first rock concert in longer than we could remember. Rascal Flats sounded great and performed with a lot of enthusiasm, but the crowd of about 100,000 was clearly there for the Stones who came on at 9:30 and played for more than two hours. The weather was perfect, the music great, and the whole belated Father Day and 4th of July a roaring success!

Just as tourists from all over the country were pouring into the nation’s capital to celebrate the 4th of July, we were headed out! Off to spend the weekend with Murphy and Josie.

We arrived in time for a delicious late lunch at a small Italian place downtown near Josie’s studio, MUJO. After lunch we popped into a doughnut shop for a quick sugar fix and then toured MUJO. We were wowed by all the wonderful improvements that had been made since our last visit. It is all white …floors, walls, ceiling, light fixtures, furniture… with pops of pink and aqua. Very bright, welcoming, contemporary, and sophisticated. Josie showed us some of the projects she recently completed and a few things in progress. We are really impressed with how far Josie (with Murphy on the sidelines) has brought the business in just over two years!

We headed home from the studio and relaxed before grilling hamburgers for dinner. Graeter’s ice cream, a Cincinnati premium brand that has been making people smile for 150 years, was the perfect compliment to our burgers.

The day ended with a trip to Coney Island, a small amusement and waterpark, to see Balloon Glow. We’d never heard of  Balloon Glow so were anxious to check it out. Anyway, there were a number of stationary, fully inflated hot air balloons situated near each other in an open area. Our favorite part was when they fired up the burners which lit up the balloons from the inside. The darker it got the cooler they looked.

We crammed a whole lot of fun into nine hours and headed to bed tired  and happy.

Wake up call at 6:00 … breakfast at 6:45 … water taxi (with two other couples) to the airport at 7:15. Our taxi picked us up at the special taxi ‘stand’ a few yards from the lobby. The depth of the step down into the boat depends on the tide. € 150 (today’s exchange rate is $1.12 = € 1) one way early in the morning … € 30 more than later in the day. Getting up early in a new time zone is always painful, for us anyway, but invariably worth it since seeing a new place in the morning before the town fully wakes up is a treat. This morning we saw delivery boats laden with all sorts of necessities, trash collection boats, laundry pick and delivery boats, and a few fellow travelers headed out of town.

Michelle Obama is arriving on the heels of our departure guaranteeing much disruption to the ordinary rhythm of a typical day here. No doubt she was following our adventure through the blog and decided to see what all the fuss is about. Yeah right.

Our flight was nonstop Venice to Newark, NJ. Dan used miles to upgrade us, so we spent a pleasant nine hours in business/first class watching movies, reading, eating, and dozing on and off. The joke was almost on us. We got to the airport early and had a lot of time to kill, so we settled in a little too comfortably and did not pay attention to the time or anticipate much of a wait at passport control. LONG does not adequately describe the line at passport control. Stressful story short, we got on the plane five minutes before the doors closed.

We had two hours in Newark, NJ to go through immigration and customs plus a flight delay of one hour, and then a 40 minute flight. We got home 18 hours after we woke up happy to be here but thrilled with the trip.

We woke up at 6:30 to a beautiful sunny day … luggage out by 7:30 … on the road at 8:00 for our three hour drive to the city of 118 islands and 400+ bridges with not a single road to its name. Now home to a quarter million+  people but once the epicenter of an empire that oversaw the entire Adriatic and major trade routes to the Middle East. Not bad for a city compressed into a whopping four square miles and built in/on silt.

Just in case I have piqued your interest in the nuances of border crossings, I’ll mention we did not have to stop at the Italian boarder. We drove on toll roads for the most part that were not hurting for truck traffic. The drive took us through beautiful green countryside with villages, farms, fields, and a little livestock in the distance. We saw lots of evidence of the worst natural disaster to hit Slovenia in the last 100 years … last hear’s ice storm. Forty percent of the forest was destroyed leaving huge, dark blemishes in the massive patches of green in the distance. We drove by the first Lipizzaner stud farm that dates back to 1580. A field of sunflowers in full bloom provided a huge pop of color in the sea of green. There were lots of poplar groves visible from the road which are harvested for use in the paper industry.

In Italy we passed near the battlefield where Ernest Hemingway was an ambulance driver in World War I (think A Farewell to Arms, his first best seller). Visible from the road was a huge, white memorial where 100,000 of the 300,000 soldiers were buried after a protracted period of trench warfare. The pope officiated at a special commemorative mass at this memorial last year to mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of WWI.

Our last potty stop was at a truck stop that had an ingenious procedure for admission to the toilets. If you bought anything (a coffee or a snack) you got a receipt that gained you admission to the toilet through a special door. If no purchase was made, you put € 0.50 in a machine, got a receipt, and then went through a turnstile to access the toilets. If you decided, on second thought, you needed to make a purchase, you showed your receipt and got € 0.50 off the total price. Forethought is key obviously.

Anyway, upon arriving in Venice we went (water taxi) straight to a Murano glass factory for a demonstration in the workroom. In record time a craftsman created two things: a vase and a horse. Impressive! Murano glass is world famous, beautiful, and made by hand in the old way. We also had a nice walking tour with a local guide who took us off the major tourist paths as well as inside Saint Mark’s Basilica with its 75,000 square feet of gold leaf mosaics. Saint Mark’s is a stunner both inside and out! We stopped in front of the building where George Clooney got married and learned that people rented windows with a good view of any part of the proceedings for $1,000 each. Far more important for the educators in our group was a plaque commemorating the first woman ever, an Italian, to earn a philosophy doctorate which she managed in 1678, a mere 70 years after the first woman ever, a Spaniard, to earn a college degree. You go girls!

We said goodbye to our Croatian driver, Mirko, earlier today and had a farewell dinner tonight in the hotel as a group of eight plus our amazing guide and trip logistician, Jasmina. Dinner was on a large, open air veranda with an amazing Murano glass water fountain. Our four course meal was delicious and since the evening temperature was perfect, the roof was retracted for us. It’s hard to believe we’ve been on the road for two full weeks and head home tomorrow morning. It has been a fantastic trip that exceeded our already high expectations.

We headed out of town this morning at 8:00 for a 45 minute drive to northwest Slovenia. Once out of the old sector, we passed block after block of tall square and rectangular socialist apartment buildings that were built when Slovenia was part of former Yugoslavia. At the time of their construction they were all owned by the state and units were assigned according to family size and special needs. Today the units are all privately owned and though not of much interest from the outside are impeccably maintained inside and out by the residents.

Once we were out of town we saw some medium sized wooden bee keeping buildings … stacks of little cubbies each with a cheerful, brightly painted door. They hold banks of small hives rather than a few large ones like we do in the U.S. Honey production aside, it was a thrill to look out and spot two Lipizzaner horses in a pasture. One was completely white and the other too young to have completely turned. I loved the old school hay drying racks that were designed long ago because there is too much rain for the hay to dry on the ground before it is bailed. They look like a dozen or so clotheslines, each 12″ or so above the other, with a mini-pitched roof on top. Hay is draped over the bottom pole (wood traditionally but some are now metal) first. When that row is full the next row up gets its hay and so on until there is a wall of hay in the middle of the field. Sometimes two of these are designed to be far enough apart so that equipment like a tractor or wagon can be stored between giving it the look of a carport with hay sides. Corn can also be dried on these poles. The husks from two pieces are pulled back, tied together, and draped over the poles. This corn is meant for animal food, of course, not the popcorn popper or dinner. We saw some round, plastic wrapped bales so clearly alternate methods are in use today.

We stopped today at two magnificent glacier lakes, both crystal clear. One was in Bled (blid), a town of 5,000 founded in 1004. Lake Bled, four miles around, has an imposing castle overlooking the water and boasts Slovenia’s only inland lake, home to Church of the Assumption. We hired a boat to take us out to have a look around. Only electric and hand powered boats are allowed; ours was rowed by a hulk standing at the back working two huge oars. We approached the church from the 78 steps in the back and left via the 100 steps in the front, but not before lighting a candle for Aunt Geri, ringing the bell, and trying to capture digitally the wow factor of the interior.

The other glacial lake, Bohinj, was a quick ride away. It, like the first, was in a beautiful setting surrounded by the Alps. Agatha Christie loved it here, actually, and was a regular enough visitor that the library is named for her. A simple church covered inside with frescoes is there which was a sweet contrast to the grandeur of the bedazzled large ones we have seen.

This area has long been known for its cheese, and we had a fun cheese tasting of four distinct cheeses plus a cottage cheese spread. These were complimented by blueberry liqueur and a knock your socks off schnapps that I just couldn’t manage to get down. Dan tossed his back like a champ knowing how proud Emily would be. Before leaving we visited the small Alpine Dairy Museum which fascinated us all. It told the story of how a male from a local family, a dairyman, would take a dozen or so milk producing cows to three summer pastures, each higher than the last. Each man had a small, basic shelter where he lived by himself. During the day he would tend to his cows and maybe a couple pigs and goats. His milk was turned over to a cheese maker who set up production on the mountain with the men. After a given length of time, all the men moved higher and situated themselves in a second dwelling until time to move higher. These men lived in small communities of 20 dwellings or so and were away from their families for six months out of the year. Once the cheese maker sold the cheese, each family got their share of the profit. Pre-World War II, there were 230 dairymen. Today there are 17. This number may well grow with the renewed interest in artisan cheeses, grass fed cows, and so forth.

We stopped in Bled before leaving the area to pick up their signature dessert, cream cake. It’s a layer of custard topped with a layer of whipped cream sandwiched between two layers of phyllo dough. We took it to go since we could not hold another bite after the cheese tasting and an amazing steak and fried chicken lunch. Dan and I had ours in the room for dinner along with peanuts and an apple.

Today’s sidebars: a) Slovenia was named by Forbes magazine as being #1 in corrupted economic elite with Croatia in the #2 spot and Kenya in #3. It’s a bit unfair to compare small countries to large, of course, since corruption is so much more apparent the smaller, less populated a country is. b) Unemployment here is somewhere above 17%. c) Slovenia has been called out as the most taxed developed country in the world followed by the Scandinavian countries. To be considered developed, by the way, a nation’s citizens must net an average monthly income of € 1,000. d) Tea used to be a medicinal beverage. When today’s thirty somethings ask for tea, their parents and grandparents assume they are ill and ask what the problem is.

The Istrian Peninsula is very near (a 25 minute drive) the boarder with Slovenia, a nation of two million. Slovenian is spoken and business is conducted in euro. Although we crossed from one EU country to another, we had to stop at the boarder and show our passports. I won’t even try to summarize why that is the case although Jasmina did a wonderful job of explaining it to us.

We drove through a soft rain that complimented the coolest day we’ve had so far and saw lots of trees which makes sense because 50% of Slovenia is forested. We passed charming little roundabouts that have small babbling brook sorts of water features; one had even incorporated a small waterwheel. Slovenia has one island off its 30-miles of coastline requiring a naval presence of one patrol vessel. We were surprised to find out the famous white Lippizaner horses originated here. Speaking of horses, the locals have it on the menu to include a burger. Slovenia is home to 9,000 limestone caves as well as the tail end of the Alps.

Two unique things we were on the lookout for were handmade lace and pumpkin seed oil. We, in fact, tried pumpkin seed ice cream with lunch. Very good. Speaking of lunch, Dan had goulash which was served in a hanging mini-cauldron made of copper and kept warm at the table with a tea light. Very cute. We tried pumpkin oil dressing on the salad and it was great.

Our destination for two nights was the capital city of Ljubljana (LubeLeeOnUh), population 300,000. It’s tallest building dates back to the 1930s and has 12 stories. History anyone? Even though the Romans arrived here 2,001 years ago to be exact, in the year 14, it has more of a medieval flavor with architecture strongly influenced by the Austro-Hungarians who ruled here for 600 years. It is built around a narrow river and is a combination of quaint, charming, edgy, impressive, clean, and beautiful. Overlooking town is an imposing fortress. We had a short walking tour and saw the remains of the original Roman wall, the medieval town center and the beautiful, colorful buildings that shout Austria was here. The interior of one church with its imposing combination of gold leaf, frescoes, and marble took our breath away. We lit a candle for Aunt Geri.

Tonight’s dinner was at a place that hosts a ‘traditional Slovenian evening’ with music and dancing. The performers were dressed in costumes from around the country. The musicians played the base and accordion. The evening started with a small glass of blueberry liqueur and dried fruit followed by a light vegetable soup. Next was a cold meat starter and homemade bread followed by salad, buckwheat Kasha, young potatoes, and a chicken filet with smoked cheese sauce. Dessert was dried fruit and a buckwheat ravioli with pear stuffing topped with roasted breadcrumbs. We enjoyed it all but got the biggest kick out of the audience participation in the traditional dancing part of the evening. Dan was tapped as a partner for almost every dance, so I had someone to root for.

Fun facts: a) Slovenia is second only to Italy in % of sons living at home with their moms. b) The average income is 1,000 euro/month. c) Catholicism is the primary religion. d) Slovenian is the only country with the word LOVE in the name.

We spent the day touring the Istrian Peninsula which comprises the northwest corner of Croatia. It is much flatter than anything we’ve seen so far with not a mountain in sight. It is home to wild asparagus, a few turkey farms, wild boar, deer, griffon vultures …and… truffles. In fact the largest truffle on record was found here. One point three kilos worth 10,000 euros. The guy who found it, a restaurateur, decided not to sell it but had a party for his friends and ate it.

The peninsula is bilingual so all the road signs are in Italian and Croatian. We passed small, round stone sheds/huts that looked so cute. They are used to store small tools and equipment, take shelter in bad weather, stash lunch or a snack for later, or maybe sneak a nap.

Our first stop was in Pula, home to the 6th best preserved amphitheater in the world. It originally held 25,000 but today hosts concerts and events for 2,500. It is made of limestone. The lower level, below ground, is now used as a museum and has an ancient wine press, an olive press, and a large  collection of multi-shaped amphoras which were used centuries ago to transport and store things like fish, oil, and wine.

On our way to the next stop, Rovinj, we passed the town where quinine (used to treat malaria from the 17th to the 20th centuries) was discovered. We also passed the small, obscure town that boasts the second largest collection of relics from saints (the Vatican has the most) in the world. Think teeth, small pieces of clothing, arms, legs, fingers, and even a few mummies. Rovinj, an important stop on the Venetian trade route, was an island in its heyday and remained so until fear of the plague subsided and the land between it and the Istrian Peninsula was filled in. We had lunch there …guess who had truffle spaghetti… and then visited a beautiful church with an amazing alter overlooking the sea. We lit a candle for Aunt Geri.

Last stop: Porec (with a tiny v over the c). The area of Porec was the westernmost reach of the Byzantine Empire. A church is the main attraction. It is built on the site of an illegal, clandestine church from the 4th century. The remains of some mosaics, including the floor of the secret church, are there to be marveled at as well as jaw dropping mosaics in the main part of the church. It was stunning.

We came back to last night’s hotel in Opatija (oh-Pot-e-uh) in time for dinner. On the way back into town we learned about how Austria’s Hapsburgs came to enjoy this lush, beautiful seaside town. Once word got out, just like today, that royalty liked it, others stated to come and it became a tourist destination. Isadora Dunkin, Albert Einstein, and American movie stars started coming to see what all the fuss was about.

Wake up call at 6:15 … bags out by 7:15 … take off time 7:45. One of the reasons for the early start was to check out the markets before heading out of town. The fish market is located in town by the natural sulphur spring where flies will not bother the fish, and the produce market is a few blocks away, nearer the water. It was fun to be there when the city center was quiet and the markets were just getting set up.

Remember Diocletian? Well, on the way out of town we passed a viaduct he built 1,700 years ago to supply water to his palace. It is still in use amazingly. We did a lot of driving today taking us away from the coast to the other side of the mountains where the climate is ‘continental.’ There are spring rains and snow in the winter, forests smothering the ever present mountains, farms, grass cemeteries (on the coastal side they are concrete), and small roadside stands selling honey and cheese. We saw livestock (cows and sheep) and were told that each year there is more as the land mines from the Homeland War of the early 1990s are cleared away.

Unexpected things we passed include the town where the first torpedo was made; the town where the LaGuardias (as in the NYC airport) originated; the first public beach (1880) that flew a white flag when women were allowed to bathe and a red flag when it was the men’s turn; a river that boasts the introduction of California trout; and a brown bear cub rehabilitation center that raises orphans to be repatriated to the forests nearby.

The highlight for today was Plitvicka Lakes National Park, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. The 90% that is virgin forest is closed to all but scientists, so we enjoyed the part that is open to the public. The main attraction is a series of 16 naturally terraced lakes …12 upper lakes and four lower lakes… connected by small water falls. We hiked the four lower lakes which are just magnificent! The water is Tiffany blue in spots and as clear as glass in other spots. The limestone from the surrounding mountains that dissolves, if you will, all the time leaves a white silt of sorts on everything that falls into the water. This area has only 11 cloudless days a year here leaving it lush and ideal for unexpected plants like its 55 species of orchids.

One of those 11 cloudless days was predicted today with a high near 100 degrees, if you can imagine. We all dressed as best we could for it and starting hydrating for the two hour walk as soon as we got on the bus. Well, well, well, the joke (and a good one) was on us since clouds moved in and it was no where near 100.

We drove west across the mountain back to the coast for the night. Destination: Opatija, a city of 12,000 developed in the 19th century. Just before arriving we stopped at the 45th parallel which is exactly half way between the the north and south poles. Dan insisted on having his picture taken straddling the line.

Three fun facts before you doze off. 1) We asked why most of the buildings on the heavily wooded side of the mountain were not made of wood. We saw, after all, two huge lumber yards. Jasmina explained that Croats build with future generations in mind and brick covered in stucco is far more practical in the long run than wood. 2) Hunting is allowed but only by certified hunters who are licensed, join hunting associations, and have routine psychiatric sessions with a professional. No one else is allowed to own a gun. 3) Diocletian had a vomitorium near his dining hall where he would go to stick a feather down his throat, toss his cookies, and go back to the dining area.

A late day at last! Woo hoo. Bags out by 8:45 with a short walk (no cars in the old town) to the bus at 9:30 for the 30 minute ride to the ferry port. Coming out of town we saw a mini-fleet of cute, refurbished old VW bugs for rent. Our drive took us past terraced fields, rock walls, a couple of concrete cemeteries, large agave plants, and rocks, rocks, rocks everywhere.

Fun story Jasmina shared with us: For centuries the good land and useful property (think inland where cultivating was easier) passed to the men in a family. Women got what was left (think seaside with its rocky shore and impossible soil). Fast forward to the late 1990s when tourism was kicking into gear. Investors with vision came to Croatia seeking out old ladies who might be enticed to sell their seaside property for a pretty price. They met with some success.

Another fun story: The last man of noble descent on Hvar island has a restaurant. He cooks what he’s in the mood to cook and allows customers who show up to eat … or not. A famous tennis player came and the nobleman chef told him to come back when he got his game under control. He refused anther guy well known in these parts because of his misguided politics.

I digress. Anyway, we got in the ferry queue 90 minutes early in order to guarantee our small bus made it on. To kill the time we took a pretty stroll down a nice wide path along the shore. The relaxing ride was two hours which we spent on the top deck in the shade. Destination: Split, an industrial city of a quarter million right on the water. Second largest in Croatia and of no special interest other than it is the birthplace of Diocletian. We have come to see his palace.

Backstory. Diocletian was the son of two free slaves. An ambitious guy who became a soldier, moved to Rome, and worked his way right up to being emperor! We’re talking late 3rd century AD. Quite a feat for someone of such humble beginnings. He is known for strengthening the empire by dividing it into four sections and naming co-emperors, of sorts, of each section with him being número uno. He was also known for being the last emperor to persecute and kill Christians by the thousands to include his wife and daughter (beheading) who converted later in life. He abdicated the throne after 20 years and moved into a palace he had built in Split, very near his hometown. By palace I mean elaborate compound with living quarters, guest quarters, a temple, mausoleum, emergency exit right out to the sea, and so forth. Our group toured what is left of this amazing palace.

Our hotel is beautiful and I am happy to report does not have a single funky feature. It’s large, bright, and cheerful with no glass walls, photo headboards, wallpaper with nudes. Just run of the mill gorgeous.

Dan and I separated for our free day. He was a crazy guy and got up early, along with Sandy and Alan, to do two walks up and down a hill that leads to a fortress that he found interesting. The dungeons were of particular interest with their balls, chains, and shackles. As they were walking through the small town on their way to the fortress, they passed the nunnery and heard the nuns singing during their morning service. Their voices in the quiet morning came as a special, sweet surprise. Dan came back from his jaunt to clean up, have a late breakfast, and then strolled around for a few hours. He visited a monestary with …wait for it… one monk. The monestery has a spectacular painting of the last supper and a small museum where he learned that back in the day, when shipping was king and Hvar was on the main east-west trade route, one out of 50 voyages ended in a shipwreck.

While Dan was exercising and soaking up culture, I took a cooking class along with our guide, Jasmina, and Christa, the granddaughter I mentioned, who just happens to be a culinary student. It was held in the small kitchen of the Golden Shell and was a wonderful experience. We went first to the market to choose our vegetables and to visit a fish stall and a shop specializing in cheeses, cured meats, oil, etc. Then we got to work. The owners of the restaurant (a dad, daughter, and son) demonstrated as well as involved us in making lunch. For starters we prepared artichokes, baba ganauch, and goat cheese jazzed up with fennel, pepper, mint olive oil, and oregano. For the main course we made gnocchi, a potato-zucchini dish, green bean salad, and a local fish stew called gredada. The day was loads of fun and to top it off we each got a certificate attesting to our culinary skills as well as a lovely gift bag with infused olive oil, local lavender, honey, oregano, and a couple of other things. As enjoyable as the cooking was, the real fun was in sharing the meal with the owners of the restaurant as well as getting a peek behind the scenes of how so much food can come out of a small space with  a four burner stove and no oven.

A sobering story they shared was about how rude, crude, obscene, and disrespectable some of the new tourists are. Some behavior (peeing and even dedicating in public) seems to be tied to drink or drugs, but much seems to be tied to a sense of entitlement and superiority. Croatia has nothing in place in terms of consequences so the fear is that behavior like this will get worse.

Before the tour group met for dinner, Dan and I strolled back to the city center, past the beautiful yachts, to take a look at the outside of the very first public (meaning commoners could attend alongside the nobility) theatre in Europe. We stopped at the nunnery to get a glimpse of their famous, ultra delicate lace which is made of agave (as in tequila) thread. Last stop of the day was at the Catholic Church to light a candle for Aunt Geri.

Sidebars: a) Sea urchins are one sign of a clean, healthy sea and are visible by the hundreds right from the shore here just like they were in  Korcula. b) Phone booths and laundromats are pretty easy to find. c) Smoking is common in public places. Lots of people roll their own. d) There is no requirement to have an hourglass figure to wear a bikini or give the impression in any way of time in the gym to wear a speedo. e) The headboard in our room was a ceiling to floor black and white of Gina Lolobrigida or her lookalike.