June 20-21, 2015

We are truly blessed to have been able to go on European adventure number four, this time to Croatia.  We went with some of the same group that we went to Italy and Austria.  I know what you are thinking because I thought the same thing…”isn’t Croatia some war torn country? where is it exactly? and why Croatia?”  When we were presented with the plan and after I thought those things, I went and looked it up and what I found was a beautiful country on the Adriatic sea east of Italy. It was affected by war in the early 1990’s but has since recovered and is thriving on tourism.  They’ve kept their monetary system of the kuna, which the dollar is pretty strong in its conversion rate.

We started in Split. This time it was only four couples that went. The first things I observed were purple decor, lavender oil for sale and the unusually tall people everywhere.  The next notable thing was they love their seafood but they don’t love to filet it, in fact they love to leave it just the way it came out of the sea – but cooked. Most of the photo creds go to Brandon, who is like having a professional photographer on the trip and Cherie, who were nice enough to give me copies.

I was not too happy to see a prop plane for our last leg of the trip there…obviously the props did not fall off and we made it

I must take photos of beautiful purple roses as part of the cool decor in the hotel – but wish I didn’t check to see if they were real. Let’s pretend that they were so we can believe it was much more charming…

Once I noticed the overwhelming amount of giants I started chasing them down and having Cherie take photos of me to prove they exist.

My first dinner – the WHOLE sea bass

B trying to help me manage the whole fish, isn’t he nice to me considering my phobia of all skin, bones, heads, tails and eyeballs in my food?

The benches are even built for the Croatian giants.

We rented bikes before the actual bike tour started and rode around the peninsula of Split

The view from the top of the hill overlooking the harbor of Split (see what I mean about Brandon being like a professional photographer?)

Another view of the Harbor where all the giants were first discovered and plentiful

Just looking for some of the perspective giants must experience when standing over me…it’s empowering

During the summer Santa is not at the North Pole..

 

Dr. Seuss must have visited here too

 

I have now achieved rubbing the toe for luck status – Cherie is guaranteed a particularly lucky year ahead! (Remember I rubbed David Hume’s bronzed toe in Edinburgh last year – and I am much more philosophical now)

I was resolute to not eat sugar on this trip so after everyone else got a gelato, I got a fresh fruit only smoothie..while we appreciated the hat and suspenders look.