August 17 A miserable Island, a grand hotel, and a mountain.

 We left Dubrovnik and headed West along the Dalmatian coast.  Our next destination after Dubrovnik was the town of Sibenik which is an hour west of Split, and a small island offshore from it.  We had reserved two nights there, and it was to be our total vacation spot.  Nothing scheduled except swimming in the Adriatic Sea, snorkeling, soaking up the sun (or shade in my case), and enjoying the cool breezes.  

We were instructed to meet the red van at a little restaurant there.  We were supposed to call them when we got there and the van would be there shortly.  We parked in the middle of the street outside the restaurant because there was not a single parking spot, and as we got out of the car, the red van pulled up beside us to unload some people.  He told us to follow him, and he led the way to a dusty parking lot between two buildings in a remote part of town.  He loaded our luggage into the van and took us to the little pier.  There he handed our luggage to a man on a boat with the name of the hotel on it.  He boarded and had a 10 minute ride (it was a slow boat) to the island.  We checked in and went up to our room.

That day my stomach didn't feel quite right, but it was a nagger, not anything serious.  We unpacked and went down for dinner.  They had monkfish on the menu, and I ordered it because I have never had it before.  They brought a little appetizer, and it was tasty, but it just didn't appeal to me.  I had to force it down.  When the monkfish arrived, I took one bite and had to excuse myself to go up to my room.

WARNING!  Graphic description.

I had diarrhea and I felt on verge of throwing up.  So I took 2 Immodium tablets, which almost invariably is all that is needed.  I went back down to join Liz, but as soon as I sat down, I knew it was useless.  I told Liz I was going back to the room and go ahead and enjoy her dinner.  I found out later that she enjoyed mine too.  She said the monkfish was delicious!

I went back to the bathroom, and then went to bed.  I had a fever, my stomach hurt, and I hurt just about everywhere.  A while later, I went to the bathroom again, and I took another Immodium and went back to bed.  Later, I took 2 more Immodium.  It didn't work at all, so I gave up on meds.  I napped, and went to the bathroom over and over and over.  By about 1:30 in the morning I was getting empty and I went to sleep hoping to get a good night's rest.  

Next morning, I sat up in bed and drank some water, but I still felt miserable and had a fever.  So, I told Liz I was going to lie down again.  I did and slept all day.  That evening I woke up at about 8:00 and we talked and watched some videos and stuff.  At 10:30 we both went to bed and neither of us thought I would sleep.  But I slept until 7:30 in the morning.  Finally, I felt like my fever had broken, although it came back briefly a couple more times that day.  Sadly, it was time to check out and go home, so I lost my chance to snorkel and swim in the Adriatic.  I hadn't eaten anything the day before and had a piece of bread that morning, but I felt weak as a baby as we got back on the boat to return to terra firma major.

This is looking back at the island.  We had stayed in the yellow building just to the left of the triangular mast of the sailboat.  It had beautiful sandy beaches between the piers, and I am sad I missed them.

Here we are going back to retrieve our car.  The boat is what they call a "displacement hull", meaning it can't get up on a plane.  It has to displace all the water around it to move forward.  Modern boats mostly have enough power to push up over the water and plane along on top of it.

I was very careful that day, and drank lots of water, but not much food until evening.  We drove to Rijeka where Liz had reserved us a room in a hotel right on the waterfront.  I took another nap, and woke famished.   I ordered monkfish again that evening, and it truly was delicious.

I took photos in Rijeka, but they are not on my phone anymore.  Why does this happen?

After we ate, we changed into swim clothes and went down the stairs to the edge of the water.  The water was somewhat choppy, which made it a bit uncomfortable getting into the water and swimming.  The concrete steps had little barnacles, seaweed and a few limpits growing on them, and we both slipped getting in and out.  Liz cut her hand, and I wrenched my back, but we enjoyed our dip, thoroughly.

One day along this long trip, Liz said a funny thing.  "The line between casual clothes and underclothes is hard to find here."  It is true that Europeans are more casual about exposure, so why not?  It was not uncommon on those hot days to see women shuck their blouse and tie it around their waste.  A bra is probably more modest than many bikini tops.

Liz called her cousin who lives in Rijeka, but he and his family were on vacation in Slovenia.  So we weren't able to meet up with them, but we let them know we will be back with Liz's brother and his wife in a couple of weeks.

Next morning I ate a hearty breakfast.  What a joy to be able to eat!

Then we headed for Slovenia and the Senior Conference.  That last border crossing was not too bad, and then we drove up into the mountains.

The road from the Karst Region of Slovenia up to Bovec is not a major thoroughfare.  In places it is barely wide enough for two cars to pass.  There are switchbacks and sharp curves, steep inclines and stretches where you can smell the brakes of people who don't know to not ride their brakes on the downhill stretches.  In spite of all that, it was a lovely drive.  The views are incredible.  

Liz took some photos while I drove, so I will try to retrieve those later.

This is the view out of our hotel room in Bovec.  These are the Julian Alps where Earnest Hemingway had his adventures as a WWI ambulance driver (see "A Farewell to Arms".)

This is the view from the other side of the hotel.

Montenegro, Kotor Bay. Aug. 14, 2021

 Day before yesterday we had a bus tour that extended down to Kotor in Montenegro.  We had to be at the bus station down the steep hill from our hotel at 7:10 am, which is a might early for us old retired folks.  I hobbled through the smoke down the hill, using my cane, but tweaking my knee anyway.  It was one of the new buses designed to work in narrow roads.  The seats were 4 across, and they were very tight and uncomfortable.

There was already one couple on the bus.  We wound through town picking up more people here and there, then headed East.  One of the things we have noticed here is the tall, narrow trees.  I am familiar with Roman Poplars - they are fairly common in the U.S., especially for lining roads or property boundaries.  They are so skinny they are not much good for shade, but they are elegant, and work well as wind breaks.  But we noticed that there are some similar-shape trees that look more like cedars.  I asked our tour guide, and she said they are cypress.  She then told me that people don't like them around their houses, but they put them in cemeteries, because the legend is that when people die, their souls rise up through the cypress trees on their way to heaven.

I have always thought of Roman Poplars as cultivated trees only, but clearly these are growing wild.  This is their native land!  We were quite enthralled with them and struggled to get a decent photo of them from the moving bus.

The border crossing was not too long of a wait, but the guide collected all our passports to make a list, then handed them back out again.  And then we had to get off the bus and present them, one at a time, to the border guard shack.  Then we walked across the border and stood in the sun to wait for until everybody was ready, and then they let the bus across and we got back on.

We then continued driving until we got to a little town in Perast.  There we got out of the bus so we could look around for a while.  These little towns are quaint to us, but we were fascinated with the flowered alleys.

This one leads into a hotel.

And we had a nice couple take a photo of us together.

We went in an old church there.  It was supposed to be built out over the water, but the ruling Lord made them stop, so it is still small.  I always find interesting paintings.

I'm sure there is symbolism to this.  Mary's heart radiating out her love?

This one I find artistically pleasing, but ridiculous.  Did Mary ever sit on a throne?  I doubt it in her lifetime.  And she is holding baby Jesus and a string of rosary beads with a cross, symbols not adopted until a century or two or three after her death.

And this one shows a priest succoring Jesus while he was carrying his cross.  And what is with the page presenting Jesus with a sword?  Utter nonsense,

This old church has a large display of vestments.  These are the items they used in their services.  A whole room full of them.  I imagine a lot of them are solid silver, but probably some are plated,  The amazing part is how did they avoid getting pillaged sometime in the many wars that ravaged the Balkins.

And these are ceremonial clothes.  This room was entirely circled with glass closets of these vestments, with a center case holding manikins wearing some examples.

But the center stage is The Church of our Lady of the Rocks out on an artificial island.  The story goes that local fishermen were required to bring rocks and dump them off the point of a natural island.  Over the years, they built an island, and then a small church was erected.

We got on a boat and went out to the island.  It wasn't too impressive to me, but I'm sure Catholics feel differently about it.

My favorite part was that while I was walking along the edge of the island, a herring ball came up in a mating frenzy, just off the island.  I could see them clearly in the clear water.

This is the boat, and from here, it took us to the City of Kotor.  I always enjoy boat rides, but the smoke from the fire in the mountains plagued us still.

This is a bed of mussels growing on the rocks at the edge  of the island.  I was tempted to go down and get a few for lunch, but I managed to restrain myslef.

And this is the Church.  Why is this one famous, and a similar church on a little island not?  They didn't build the island, I guess.  We did enjoy sitting on a bench in the shade though.  This was the hottest day yet.  It got to 44 degrees, which is 111 degrees in our home land.  That is hot in anybody's book.  Notice that everybody was standing in the shade?

As we rode in the boat toward Kotor City, we went by a place called Donji Stoliv, which I am told means "10 olives".  The story is that if a young man wanted to marry, he would plant 10 olive trees, then go ask her father.  Apparently, this remote place had land where you could plant olives, and naturally it became an agricultural area.

Olive tree leaves are a grey color, so you can pick them out from other trees.  Just right of the steeple, you can see a patch of grey trees.  There is another at the very top of the photo, but it is harder to see.  I took quite few photos of this hillside and there are lots of small-ish olive groves along it.

There was a Greek couple sitting right in front of us, so the lady kept getting in my photos.  Then we decided she looks like "The Responsible Woman".

You be the judge.  

We got off the bus at Old Kotor, and went on a guided tour.  It was HOT!!   We finally got to a square where a restaurant had fans blowing water mist, so we decided to stay and cool off.  It took a good half hour before Liz began to look her normal, cheery self.  We order a pizza and it was the best (American like) pizza we've had here.

And now for my missionary story.  Liz wanted to buy some souvenirs, which was very easy to do.  We got a Montenegro souvenir plate so now we have all five in the Mission.  She was attracted to some jewelry, but it was way too pricey.

After that, I wanted to go straight back out the gate and find the bus.  But, Liz had prayed that morning that we would find somebody to teach the Gospel to.  She wanted to go a different way back out, still holding out hope.

We were looking in shop windows and there was a shop with silk products.  The shopkeeper scooped us in and offered us some hot cider.  They said drinking something hot makes you cooler.  I was unconvinced.  

They had some gorgeous silk rugs that were way too expensive for us - $6,000!  But we were interested in a runner for the front hallway in our house, so they brought out several of them.  He was asking $3,000 for those, but he agreed to leave while we discussed what we would be willing to pay.  Keep in mind these are hand-tied, pure silk rugs.  They were stunning!  I felt them and they do, indeed, feel like silk.  They are a different color depending on the angle you look at them, but still stunning.  Pure silk rugs are amazing.  You will see it if you come visit us in Texas after we get home.

When he came back, we offered $1,000 and he said no.  Then Liz said we wanted to pay something less than $1500, and he clapped his hands, "Sold for $1500 American dollars!"  What a salesman.

That comes to 1385 Euros, and I needed to go to an ATM to get it.  We'd been dickering with an old, bushy-bearded guy, and his partner who was totally hairless, was doing the unrolling and bringing out more goods.  We had a few questions, which they answered, and they rolled it up so that it can be carried on a plane as a carry-on.

The bald one offered to show me the way to an ATM and guard me as I withdrew the money, so we headed out.  As we walked along, he asked me why we were there.  I started to tell him we are missionaries and he got very excited.  "You can come preach to me?   I am Christian!"  Then he told me an amazing story.  His ancestors lived in Ephesus when Paul The Apostle went there on his first missionary journey, and they have been Christian since then.  But then people started to forget the details of Christianity, and the young people began to drift away.  He said they needed someone to guide them and teach them the true religion.  He said that if we don't, there won't be any of them left after him.  We could teach him, and then he would teach the rest of his people, of which there are only about 1,000 left.  I told him we were just visiting there, but that our church has teachers in Podgorica, which is  only about 1.5 hours away.

When we got back to the store, it turned out that Liz and hairy guy had been having a very similar conversation.  They were SO excited to hear about us.  I took the time to give them a brief overview of Joseph Smith as we closed the deal.  When we left, my friend of the bald head (his name is Selguk, which is Turk for Sebastion - the hairy guy is Viber)  had tears in his eyes, and he shook my hand.  We had our picture taken together.  And then when we got out the door he followed me out, and gave me a big bear hug  I've sent his contact info to the Podgorica missionaries, of course, but we are wondering if we can come back for him.  We will see.

What an amazing answer to our prayers!

The bus ride back home was long, hot, and smokey.  It would have been OK, except that the line to get into Croatia was so long.  We sat in the bus for 3-4 hours before we got up there.  This time the tour guide gathered up our passports and took them all in at once.  The guard gave them back in a bunch and we rolled out onto the road, as she passed them back out to us.

Dubrovnik August 13, 2021

 With the Sarajevo audit completed, we were on vacation.  Yeah!

We have never had to contend with traffic quite like Sarajevo.  One way roads, sidestreets entering within inches of moving cars,  massive traffic, motorcycles following no rules whatsoever, all made it terrifying.  Interestingly, there is a major road through the center of town - or rather two one-way streets only a short block from each other.  The East-bound street is two lanes with bumper to bumper traffic.  The West-bound street is also two lanes, but people park in the right lane, so it might as well be a one lane street.  That street ought to carry as much traffic as the other one, but with only one lane moving it is always jammed tight and creeps along.  Crazy!

We finally made it out of Sarajevo and took the road to Dubrovnik, Croatia.  Our auditing duties were over, but we are still on expense account to get back home.  However, Dubrovnik is not on the way, so I cleared with the auditing department that I would not charge them for expenses on this part of the trip, except for the tolls and gas that ARE on the way home.  It was approved by the Area Auditor, and everybody was happy.  Except President (who asked me to inform him of my itinerary so he could notify Croatia when we go anywhere on church business) decided to disapprove our vacation part of the trip.  We butted heads on that.  Basically, my view is that it is an auditing trip and they approved it - therefor, it is not in his purview.  We gave up arguing about it and I stopped telling him any more details about it.  That is very distressing to me.  I never imagined we would have friction with a mission president.

Also, he told us we had to rent a car to go on vacation, and I countered that the church charges us car rental to have a mission car, so it will be our rental car for vacation.  He said he would check with the Area on that.  By this time, we had made all our reservations and were packing our bags.  Too late to counter it now.  We left and we haven't heard back from him.  Next time we see him will be at the Senior Conference, so if he decides to send us home, that will be the time to say so, I guess.  At this  point, we don't really care which way it goes.

So, off we went into the mountains south and east of Sarajevo.  These roads are very narrow, with lots of switchbacks, and very steep.  It was white-knuckle driving the whole way.  We discovered that the Bosnians love to drive these roads in the middle of the road, only going back to their side (more or less) at the last minute.  It resembles a game of chicken in many cases, and since we yielded to all of them, I guess we gave them the thrill of a win - as opposed to instant death.

We also had to watch for road hazards.  In one place half the pavement in our lane had washed out.  They put out a rock with a hole bored in it and inserted a stick painted with red stripes.  Better than nothing, but only barely.

Then we approached a fire.  We had seen a fire on a mountain top as we drove to Sarajevo, but this time we came right up on it.  Before we saw any actual flames, we had to stop for a fireman in the road.  Just past him there was the remains of a car that had caught fire.  It had burned completely, including the tires, but was no longer smoking.  I can't quite figure it, unless the car came through the the fire and caught fire itself, but drove on for a while.  We could see smoke billowing up the other side of a ridge just ahead of us, and this burned out car on the road.  The fireman had us wait for a while, and then a line of cars came towards and passed on down the mountain.  A police car had led them and he turned around, then the fireman had us follow him back up.  When we topped the ridge, there was the fire on our right and it was intense smoke, and lots of ash.  As we went on, we started seeing flames on the right side, and then on the left side.  The smoke got so thick that I couldn't see the police car with its flashing light, and then I couldn't even see the car in front of me.  So, did they slow down?  Not on your life!  We went faster than ever.  It was such a relief when we got past all the smoke and excitement.  The police car turned off and we went on our merry way.  However, the smoke from the fire followed us and kept re-appearing the entire time we were in Dubrovnik.

That wasn't our last delay, though.  As we drove, a tractor pulled out ahead of us.  The new tractors have a road speed of perhaps 35 mph, but this was an old one that only went about 20.  With oncoming traffic we had to follow him for several miles, and he turned off before we had a chance to pass.  Just when we thought it might be smooth sailing we got stuck behind an old car that billowed smoke constantly and couldn't quite reach 30 mph.  Again we had to follow along behind him.  He finally turned off.  I think he went into a gas station and told the attendant, "Fill 'er up with oil and check the gas."

We also saw some interesting natural phenomena, such as hand-carved tunnels, and massive stones.

We also saw a lot of old-timey hay stacks.  I didn't know these were still used, because it was more than old-fashioned when I was a kid.  This was the way to make hay stacks when fairy tales were new.  But they are current production in Bosnia.

This one seems to have a wine bottle holding the hay in place.  They usually tie several branches to the pole above the hay to keep it from falling or getting blown in the wind.

The border crossing into Croatia was very easy and fast, so that was nice.  The sun was setting as we got there and it took another hour and more to get to Dubrovnik.  It amazes me that we manage to get to our hotels late and fall into bed exhausted so often.  On this leg of the trip, the white-knuckle driving had us both beat down.

Dubrovnik is famous for its Old Town that is entirely surrounded by a massive stone wall.  We decided to get to it early in the morning, because it has been entirely too hot lately!

Here is Liz at the front gate of the Fortress.

Behind her is the drawbridge over the actual moat ( but the water has been drained.)

The fortress is immense, and there is no other word to describe it better.

This from the drawbridge, looking out towards the sea.  To the right edge, you can see just the edge of another fortress across a little waterway.  It was built to protect its flank from attack by sea.

This is where we bought a ticket to climb the wall from "The Society of Friends of the Catholic Church."  They maintain the wall, so they get to collect admission.  It is free to enter the Old City, but the wall has to be climbed to be believed.

We had to stop and rest half way up the wall, and I took this photo showing the higher levels.  We opted not to climb that direction, because there were just stairs after stairs.  We opted to take the more nearly level route, and that one made my knees ache.

This is the view from the top of the wall, across the little inlet to the smaller fortress.  What looks like a ramp on the right is the edge of a stairway, and there were people on the stairs when I took this photo.  It was too far for them to show.

   They rent out kayaks under those tents at the bottom of the photo.  They go out in groups with guides, and it was kind of funny to see some of them struggling with learning how to row.  They are in many of my other photos.  Gaggles of Kayaks.

This is Liz taking a photo of the little fortress, and you can see the kayaks below.  We kept walking up from here.

This is looking down into the fortress to a part of it that is ruined from the wars.  During the Civil war in 1992-95, the city was shelled regularly.  And then Montenegro, who sided with Serbia, continued to occasionally shell it from sea until 2006.  The repairs are well done, and the biggest sign of it is when they used new red roof tiles.  We climbed up to just below the tallest building in this photo before we gave up and returned.  It is possible to walk all the way around on the top of the wall. 

This is looking down on that same ruined area, across the Old City to the other wall.

And this Panorama shot is from the highest point we reached.

Back at street level there is a wide street across the Old City.  It used to be a canal, but now it is a pedestrian way.  But its width meant that the sun had full power to heat it up and it got hot early.  We ventured into the smaller streets.

This narrow little street has gift shops and touristy things near the central street, but then turns into residential areas.  The tourists have driven many residents to seek quarters elsewhere, but there is still a sizable permanent population inside the wall.

This the market square at the end of the main street.  We bought some cups of fresh cut fruit, and it was delicious.  The day was heating up quickly and we wanted shade!

There are lots of feral cats in the Adriatic and their fur is much more varied than U.S. cats.  While feral, they are friendly, especially to anyone who feeds them.  I saw a woman go into a grocery store, and when she came out she opened a package of meat, which she tore into little chunks to feed a cat.  Soon there were three, and she continued feeding all of them until they refused any more.  Then she walked off down the street.  Everybody seems to think the cats belong to the community.

There is a church near the market, so we went inside.

Its an old church, but quite deluxe compared to ours.

I loved the light streaming through the stained glass windows.

At first, I thought this was an anchor, but it is Jesus flanked by the two Marys.

And, of course there has to be a painting of St. George slaying the dragon.  In this one, his spear has already pierced the dragon's head, but it has broken.  It seems that over time, paintings of the "event" depicted the spear intact.  It was a small painting and it hung high on the wall.  Sorry about the low quality of the photo.

From the steps of the church, we sat in the shade for a few minutes, and contemplated the back gate onto the piers.  This is a panorama including the market and a rather elaborate building just at the back gate.

It was so hot, we decided to get out on the water.  We saw signs for a glass bottom boat, so we signed up.  It wasn't too expensive, and it was much cooler out on the water.

As we went out, I was watching the bottom.  At first, I saw a lot of ropes and pipes, wine bottles and other trash.  A little further out I saw a pile of dinner plates - I bet those were not dumped intentionally.  But only a few little fishes.  Most of the time the water was too deep to see anything through the glass bottom.

We went out of the bay and around a privately-owned island.  I was trying to get a photo of the caves on the island shore, but these girls seemed to think I was shooting them.  I wasn't.  At the end of the island, there were people sunbathing on the rocks.  The men got up to wave at us and they were not clothed. 

So, I took a photo of us.

After passing around the island, we went along the shore.  People from the hotels come down steps cut in the rock to swim.

And here we are returning to the piers outside the wall.

OK, this was all about Dubrovnik.  I'll tell you about Montenegro in the next post.

But first, we had tickets to a sunset dinner cruise on a wooden sail boat.

When we came out on the dock, we were a little bit early, but here was this wonderful wooden ship.

It even had a Captain with a Johnny Depp  aura about him.

Sadly this wasn't our ship.  This ship does a show, not a dinner.

But, after a short wait, our ship came around the corner of the bay and pulled in to the quay.  It had a funny figurehead, but that's OK.

Big steel beams hold it together, so that's comforting.

We went up on the deck and looked around.  It was a nice viewpoint and we stayed here until dinner time.

The sunset was spectacular!  Finally, something good comes from having smoke in the air all day.