Saturday, September 26, 2015
Clay was up first again and woke me at about 6:30am.
Breakfast was already being served. We made it there about 7:30am and found it
very crowded. We couldn’t find a vacant table and had to share one so we didn’t
get to eat much for responding to the quiz. Since most of our group is
departing early tomorrow maybe better luck then. I only had a carton of yogurt
and a cup of coffee so I can’t speak to the food quality at all though I prefer
it when they have a cappuccino machine and this one didn’t that I could tell.
We loaded the bus at 9am with our local guide. We drove
around for about an hour. Then we unloaded and walked around for another hour.
Free time was for the last hour. We asked Gabriella about her gold bracelet
jewelry store recommendations and went to 8 stores within a 40 minute walk and
only found 1 bracelet that was a modern twist on the traditional with a
necklace clasp. Sadly about half way through our 1 hour walk, we walked past a
shop with the exact bracelet from Split but it was too far away to get back
there, find it, shop and get back to the noon meeting point. So, the final
answer is no to the gold filigree ball bracelet. When we got back to the hotel
we went to the room for our first toilet opportunity of the day. Then we went
out looking for lunch during our noon to 2pm break. There were a couple of
bakery sandwich takeout type spots about a block away towards the train
station. We didn’t see them last night because they were across the street. We
had a ham and cheese sandwich and an apple pastry and a Coke Zero to share for
less than $4. The bread and pastry were very good.
At 2pm, about 15 of us met to travel to Kumrovec to tour the
museum village and birthplace home of Tito. It was interesting. It was about an
hour drive in a new direction. At one point we drove through a small valley
next to a river that forms a border with Slovenia. After all the fuss about
crossing that border the other day, there was nothing but basically a creek to
keep you out or in. The weather had cleared and it was warmer and sunnier than
this morning. The best part though was that we were the only tour bus there and
there were maybe only 3 cars there. It was so nice to not be in a crowd! We had
about an hour there and then drove through some hairpin turns to get to our
dinner spot at Gresna Gorica. We had taken longer than expected to get out
there in the first place because of road construction and they didn’t want to
travel that way again. The other way they would normally take, they said the road
was closed due to construction and that left the winding narrow mountain road that
we took. The views were fantastic again. There was a long steep climb to get up
to the restaurant from the bus but the views of the castle and across the
valley to it were just ideal. The meal was served family style of all locally
sourced local recipe dishes. The mains were duck and veal so I ate a pickle,
bread, some beef, some noodles, some potatoes, a glass of wine, 2 glasses of
water, a cup of coffee and half an apple strudel and half a sweet cheese
strudel. (They do salty cheese strudels here but we have declined to try one.
It doesn’t sound right!) Clay ate everything. They had 2 pine martens stuffed
by the front door. Why? In Croatian, pine marten is kuna. Kuna is the name of
their currency and a kuna is on their flag. They looked cute but I guess they are
really vicious. It was dark shortly after we started back for an hour and a
half drive so we didn’t get to see much on the way back. I asked Gabriella and Valentino
how much mileage we had put on the bus. When we got back to the Westin,
Valentino checked his bus logs and from Tirana to now he had driven 2272
kilometers. We spent a lot of time in that bus! But out of all our trips,
Valentino has been hands down the best driver and that is saying something. And
he made it all look effortless. The bus was always spotless especially the
windows. That is so important when you are spending so much time sightseeing
from a bus. It has been a pleasure. I can recommend Kompas Tours in the former Yugoslav nations with the caveat that you need to be fit. This is not a trip for anyone with mobility issues.
Tomorrow morning we can sleep later and have a leisurely
breakfast. Fingers crossed our private Mercedes Benz and driver will be here to
pick us up at 10am and in about 5 hours we’ll be at our Budapest hotel that
will be our home for the next 4 nights. It has been raining in Budapest for the
last 2 days so there should be plenty of water in the Danube there and we hope
north of there by October 1!
