Hotel Alga Tucepi

... The coffin had been on display, but was now closed. Our tour guide said that his body was only slightly touched up, but otherwise in tact meaning not decayed. To me that's amazing. We finally have some down time for the next 5 days. I just want to walk around and admire this beautiful place. Hard to believe I;m finally here, Miss you all. No word of any H1N1 here, Will write more later.

... Since it’s late October and all the locals do it, we put our jeans on and headed out for the day. Within an hour of walking around we realized that even though we would suffer stares from the locals, we could not wear jeans on this island. It was too warm. And we wanted to go swimming. So we went back to our room and changed into shorts and slippers “flip-flops.” Before we were even out the door, our “nana” caught a glimpse of ...

WOW, the storm was bright with lightening, loud with thunder and pouring like a monsoon in the Far East or Caribbean, neither expected nor usual in Croatia! Thanks!

We literally swam our way to Hotel Korcula which thankfully had a room with a view(!) and place to dry off. Can you believe that we had neither umbrellas nor rain jackets with us?! This weather is not expected here.... :-)

Not daring to venture out again we ate supper in the ...

... of Korcula was scooters. We were both scooter newbies. At first we just wanted to rent one scooter to scoot around a little. But when Lily hopped on one and found that she absolutely loved the effortless freedom, she no longer was satified being the passenger. She wanted to be liberated and face the open road on her own. So we were off on our individual scooters. First, we rode from the town of Korcula to the near by Lombarda in search of ...

even though im now in Korcula, it really feels like im not. i am absolutely surrounded by Australians. Apparently Korcula is the sister city of Fremantle- i just cant escape the place!! Its a really beautiful place though (im starting to sound like a broken record) and the lady we are staying with is so completely wonderful. She has family in Fremantle and lived there once. what a coinky dink. We tried to ask if we could do our washing-- we have bags and ...

... other hotel that ended up being open but looked completely closed as well. From there a random lady helped us make scuba reservations. It was pretty sketch because once we told her what we were looking for she picked up the phone, had a 2 second conversation with someone in Croatian, and then told us to be on the beach tomorrow morning at 11, maybe a little early. So that was that, again we had to just trust someone random. We then took the bus half way back and walked the rest of ...

... though, there weren't really many beaches that we came across during our whole time in Croatia - most of the time we just found rocks that were flat enough for us to lie down on and close enough to the water to jump clear of the rocks and sea urchins! But the waters were the most beautiful yet and such a relief from the heat! One of the evenings we were there, a town celebration for the half year (it was 30th June) was held and we watched all the townsfolk parade in costumes ...

We were enthralled in enjoying the breathtaking views that awaited us as we rolled towards Dubrovnik, one of the jewels of the Croatia and the whole seaboard. Though heavily shelled during the Balkan conflicts, the local authorities wasted no time putting their city back together to its gleaming former glory. It was quite the contrast with other places we only got to glimpse while steaming through the Balkans, but that to be sure were afforded no such ...

... the Muslims still live on one side of the river and the Serbs on the other. The country side is also quite amazing. We were greated by a woman as we walked off the bus, and she had a place for us to stay. Everyone we talked to was very nice, and once again I realized how little I know about the world. Tomorrow we are off to Sarajevo. Sorry this was short, but we are safe and sound. I'll update again soon in a few days. Aaron

Rijeka, Zadar, Plitvicka Lakes, Split, Trogir, Hvar, Dubrovnik 09/09/04 - 17/09/04 Well ended up going to Rijeka by chance as it was one of the only places we could get to from Slovenia, by train, that would fit into our time schedule.....boy the border crossings prove to be difficult - one country couldn't care less if you are trying to get into another. And the train trip wasn't one of the best as we had to stand for about an hour as there was apparently no seats. Upon my ...