The rest of the story.

I didn't have access to the Internet until now and I didn't do a good job of writing down what we did every day, but here are the installments I did write . . .

Dubrovnik, the first time. (September 14.)

So now we’re in Dubrovnik. That’s also in Croatia. But you knew that.

We went through about five kilometers of Bosnia-Herzegovina. (They have a little patch of land that gets them to the coast.) But we’re now safely back in the Croatian heartland. Well, the heartland is probably up near Zagreb somewhere. But here we are.

We were on a bus all day. So far, not much in the way of actual cruising for a cruise vacation. Our whole group is starting to chant, “where’s the boat?” But tomorrow is another bus ride. We don’t even get to see Dubrovnik yet, until later in the cruise. And Dubrovnik looks very cool. From the high-walled outside anyway. You know, we went all over Tuscany looking at these medieval cities . . . but they seem to be much better preserved here.

We spent some time in a beautiful little walled city called Trogir today. It’s very complete. Yes, some of the outside towers are gone, but what a lot of other old stuff was saved. Gorgeous.
It was hot and sunny up until this afternoon. Then it turned rainy and windy. Fortunately, I overpacked.

The other confusing thing is that we’re staying in the Hotel Argentina tonight. Thought that was on a whole different continent. Hmmm. It’s beautiful, but no Internet access. So I can’t really recommend it.

Editorial comment: I didn't overpack. It got a little chilly in places and I used all the clothes I brought. I had forgotten how much we wanted to get on the boat . . . now we're very happy to be off of it. It was a little uncomfortable.

Hvar. (September 16.)

Today – Tuesday? – we were in Hvar, the town, on the island of Hvar. I’d like to come back here some day. Even found a hotel . . . the Villa Nora. Sweet!

The town was wonderfully picturesque. We walked up and down the old town. It’s a Venetian era city. That’s kind of interesting because this area used to be known as Illyrium . . . and it was where Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night takes place. We saw Twelfth Night this summer in Seattle with our friends Todd and Linda. I didn’t even know Seattle had a free Shakespeare in the park tradition. But it does. And we finally took advantage.

We spent the afternoon sailing/motoring to Sibonek. I love looking at the sea and scenery as it passes, so I was out on deck for many hours. It was great. It did get kind of chilly once the sun started going down.

Editorial comment: Those Illyrians were everywhere! Why haven't I heard of them? They sound like lovely, peaceful people. I'm embarrassed by my ignorance. Also . . . Hvar is my favorite. I'm going back.

One medieval town after another. (September 20.)

I haven’t been keeping up with this journal . . . so my memories are a bit faded already. Last time I wrote was about Hvar – which I still think is my favorite so far. But we also visited Sibonek and Dubrovnik after that. Dubrovnik is especially appealing at night, when the crowds die down a bit and the whole town is lit up.

Today we’re in Kotor, Montenegro – our first time out of Croatia except for a few kilometers of Bosnia along the road. I’m going to say that Ross and I summitted Montenegro from now on, because we climbed up to the ruined fortress. It must be a mile up. It took an hour to climb. They say there are 1400 steps. It took 45 minutes to get down. It was harder to climb, but scarier coming down. My knees may never forgive me. Thank goodness it wasn’t an overly hot day.

We’ve been doing a lot of fortress climbing. Yesterday we walked around the top of the walls of Dubrovnik. That involved plenty of steps. I believe it’s close to two kilometers of walking. We also canoed in Krka National Park earlier in the week. So this is a much more physically challenging vacation than most cruises we’ve gone on. I’m hoping it means I won’t go home five pounds heavier. But I’ve also been eating a lot of French fries, so I’m not holding my breath.

Editorial comment: I'm still eating the French fries -- and the climbing part of the trip is officially over. Although we did get to the top of the Acropolis today.

Ithaka. (September 23.)

We’re on the Greek island of Ithaka today. Not too many remnants of Odysseus around – but they talk about him a lot. I didn’t realize that many Greek islands around here (Ionian?) were devastated by a 1953 earthquake. So there isn’t much old around here.

For the past two days we’ve been in Albania. It’s pretty sad there. The whole country is hoping to win the lottery. The most memorable thing about Albania is the garbage. They seem to just throw their trash out the window. The second most memorable thing is that they want to become a tourist destination. So they’re building a kajillion hotels—and they’re all empty or in the middle of construction. We kept saying to each other, “Pick up the garbage first, then invite people to come!”

Ross and I did a little kayaking yesterday. In Albania. Huh.

Up to the present. (Now.)

So yesterday we went to Delphi and saw the navel of the world. (Ross noted that the world has an outie.) Climbed to the top there, too.

Then we cruised through the Corinthian canal which was finished in the late 1800s. Before that, they'd unload everything from the boats and cart the boats across the isthmus. I feel like I learned about that in Latin class. Or maybe in Sunday School.

This morning, we landed in Athens and today we "did" the Acropolis, visited the Plaka (old town) and just hung out at the hotel all afternoon. Tomorrow we leave the hotel at 3 a.m. to catch a plane to Frankfurt.