Poreč
3 Nov –8 Nov 2026

We travelled from Ljubljana to Poreč, where we will spend the next five days based in one hotel while exploring the west coast of Istria by bus. A welcome change from packing and unpacking every day!

Our first stop along the way was the small medieval hilltop town of Štanjel (St. Daniel). It’s a charming old stone village, best known for its Ferrari Gardens (no relation to Enzo), the various sculptures left by the small artist community that occupied the town after the Second World War, and, somewhat less conventionally, the stone eavestroughs and downspouts on one of the buildings.

The area is notorious for the Bura, a powerful, cold northeasterly wind that sweeps down from the mountains. We didn’t need much of an explanation of what that meant because we got a demonstration. Wow, was it windy! There are several theories about why the village church steeple was rebuilt in the 1600s with its distinctive lemon-shaped top. One theory is that the unusual shape was designed to offer less resistance to the wind. That seems entirely reasonable, particularly after experiencing the Bura firsthand.

From Štanjel, we continued to a nearby prosciutteria operated by the Ščuka family, where we learned something about the traditional production of Istrian prosciutto. Depending on the size of the leg, the ham is salted, cured and then dried (in the Bura wind!) for one, two or even three years. By the time it’s ready, it has lost approximately 35% of its original weight.

Naturally, the visit concluded with lunch. We sampled prosciutto of different ages, accompanied by olives, local cheeses and fresh bread, all washed down with Teran, the region’s distinctive red wine.

Dinner was at Konoba Monika. A konoba is a traditional, often family-run restaurant. I couldn’t tell much about the building because it was dark and we arrived by bus, but it was very small and seemed to be little more than a house in a residential neighbourhood. We had ox goulash, apparently a local delicacy, and pasta with truffle sauce. Excellent!

Wednesday was devoted to exploring the tourist highlights of Poreč’s old town, including the remains of Roman temples and a basilica complex where the earliest items came form teh 4th century. The town has a long history, and you don’t have to walk very far to stumble across another reminder of it.

In the afternoon, we boarded a tour boat for a leisurely two-hour cruise along the coast to Vrsar, a picturesque hilltop town with a marina. We didn’t spot any dolphins, but the return trip offered a lovely sunset.

Wednesday evening turned out to be rather special. Our guide, Vlatka, heard about an impromptu celebration of the music of Mišo Kovač, one of Croatia’s most popular singers. His music has reportedly sold some 20 million records and cassettes, and his songs have accompanied generations of Croatians through communism, the war for independence and the difficult years of recovery that followed. He lived near Split and was a passionate supporter of the city’s soccer team. A much larger celebration of his life had taken place at the soccer stadium in Split, where some 20,000 fans gathered to sing his songs. Something much smaller, but every bit as enthusiastic, was happening in Poreč. After dinner, we joined a few hundred locals gathered in an open area, singing along with seven musicians. The crowd ranged from young to old. There was no need for song sheets, lyrics on a screen or much encouragement from the musicians. The crowd knew the words and sang along. It was a lovely glimpse into Croatia and the affection people have for their culture. We were outsiders, of course, but it was hard not to get caught up in the atmosphere.

Thursday took us by bus to Pula, where the main attraction is its enormous Roman amphitheatre. Completed around 80 AD, it was used for the gladiatorial contests and public spectacles that entertained Roman audiences. It’s remarkably well preserved and impressive in scale. These days, rather than gladiators, it hosts concerts and other performances. Our guide had seen Sting perform there, and Tom Jones has also played the venue in recent years. twice , as well as Luciano Pavarotti. Quite a change of entertainment over the past 2,000 years!

On the way back, we stopped to see a kažun, a small traditional stone shelter used by shepherds and farmers to escape bad weather and store their tools. These little buildings are constructed entirely from dry-stacked stone, without mortar. Even the roof is built from stone, using successive rings that gradually project farther inward until they meet at the top. A final capstone completes the structure.

The technique is somewhat reminiscent of the construction of Rome’s Pantheon, although on a more modest scale! It’s remarkable that these simple little shelters could be built entirely from local stone, without mortar or modern tools, and still stand today. Our guide said that stone masons learn the same techniques today during their apprenticeship.

We have a couple of days to go. More text soon

Lemon shaped spire in Štanjel - wind protection?

Surprizingly accurate sun dial. It was 10:50

Ferrari gardens

an idea for when kids grow out of their crocs

stone eavestrough and downspout

drying prosciutto

Mulberry trees - used to be used to feed silk worms

Poreč downtown

4th century christian symbol at the Euphrasian Basilica

Euphrasian Basilica with gold mosaics

Vrsar marina and hill town

Sunset over Poreč

Poreč main square

Singing Mišo Kovač songs

Pula amphitheatre

Pula Ampitheatre

A kažun. The entrance is about 4' tall

I can't believe I was the only one in the bus who had seen Fifth Element

 

31 Oct 3 Nov 2026
Ljubljana, Slovenia

Slovenia may be a small country, but it certainly packs a lot into a small space. It also has a somewhat different recent history from its neighbours. When Yugoslavia began to break apart in 1991, Slovenia was the first republic to declare independence. This led to the Ten-Day War between Slovenian forces and the Yugoslav army. Compared with Croatia and especially Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia escaped relatively lightly. The fighting was brief, casualties and physical damage were limited, and the country avoided the devastating destruction that affected much of the former Yugoslavia during the 1991–95 conflicts. As a result, Slovenia feels quite different from some of the places we have visited on this trip. Unlike many major cities that put military generals or political figures in their central squares, Ljubljana features a poet.

We spent our time visiting the Slovenian trifecta: Lake Bled, Postojna Cave, and Ljubljana.

Postojna Cave was spectacular – the best cave system I’ve seen. This is an enormous underground world of limestone formations, vast chambers and winding passages, created over millions of years. The visit begins with a ride on a little underground electric train that takes you 3.7km into the cave system. From there, we continued on foot for another 1 km, walking past spectacular stalactites and stalagmites. The sheer scale of the caverns is remarkable. The pictures don’t do it justice.

Ljubljana was a pleasant surprise. It’s a relaxed, attractive little capital city of about 300,000 people, with a beautiful old town, a river winding through the centre, outdoor cafés and restaurants, and plenty of pedestrian streets. The castle sits on a hill overlooking the city, and the bridges crossing the river give the downtown area much of its character. It has a lively atmosphere without the intensity of some of Europe’s larger capitals. Part of that liveliness may be explained by the university, which adds another 50,000 students to a city of 300,000.

I was also impressed by the number of people commuting by bicycle. Ljubljana seems to have embraced cycling, although I did have one reservation about how they’ve accommodated it. Rather than taking space from the roadway (like Canada), the cycle paths are on part of the sidewalks. I’m sure motorists think that’s a terrific arrangement, but as a pedestrian I found it difficult… and I’m sure cyclists feel the same. Zagreb has adopted a similar approach, but its sidewalks were narrower to begin with, making the experience even more challenging. You can probably tell I bike-commuted in Canada for most of my 40+ year career, so I have a opinion!

Lake Bled is probably Slovenia’s most photographed destination, and it’s easy to see why. The lake is surrounded by mountains, with a small island in the middle featuring a picturesque church. A medieval castle perched high on a cliff overlooks the lake. We took the traditional wooden pletna boat out to the island, where the church bell is said to grant wishes if you ring it. Both Sarah and I rang it – I’ll let you know how it goes. 12 families were given the royal charter in 1740 by Empress Maria Theresa to operate the boats. That tradition continues and all the boat operators are male heirs of those original 12 families.

Slovenia turned out to be a lovely combination of natural beauty and European charm. Three very different experiences in a country small enough that getting between them was relatively easy. It’s a place that deserves more attention than it sometimes gets.

This post is the end of the main OAT trip. We continue on the extended trip back to Istria on 3 Nov.

The people in the centre will give a sense of the size of the cave

Sarah the Spelunker

Tricked you: this is only about 60cm high and 200cm wide

Ljubljana castle and the Philharmonic building

same picture at night

Ljubljana core from teh castle

Franciscan Church of the Annunciation from the boat

Ljubljanica river

#Invader is similar to Banksy. He has installed 42 tiled space invader in Ljubljana... and also 80 cities around the world

Dragons are the symbol of Ljubljana. This wire one was in the castle

Kavalir provides free transportation in the pedestrian zone

Vending machine for bottled milk in the main market

Reproduction Gutenberg press in Bled castle

View from Bled castle

Always happy in a boat

Ringing the wishing bell for good luck

What West Vancouver houses would look like if they were built 100 years ago

Bled Island

lucky shot of bled castle

Lots of cyclists at work

 

Opatija
29-31 October 2026

We left Zagreb in the morning and headed towards Opatija. Along the way, we stopped at a roadside restaurant for kremšnita, a dessert about the size of half a brick that tastes something like a cream pie. Apparently, the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media has officially added its recipe and traditional preparation techniques to the country’s Register of Protected Cultural Goods. I have no idea exactly what that means, but perhaps Canada should do the same for poutine, bannock, beaver tails and maple syrup. We need to highlight our culinary excellence!

We continued to Rijeka, Croatia’s major port, where we had a pasta-making lesson. According to Ada, our instructor, the secret is 00 flour. We learned to make fresh pasta, and the taste took me right back to my younger days in Italy. There’s really no comparison. Fresh pasta is simply better than the dried stuff you buy in a store. It’s amazing what a little flour, an egg, a fork and a rolling pin can produce.

Opatija is often called the Croatian Riviera, and tourists have been coming here for some 180 years. As we drove around, it certainly felt like a holiday town. Back in the 19th century, Austrian royalty and wealthy Europeans came for the clean sea air, mild climate and relaxation. It became so popular that a direct railway line was built connecting it with Austria. Clearly, Opatija was the place to be long before package tours came along.

Most of our OAT group took the optional excursion into Istria. One of the highlights was a demonstration of truffle-hunting dogs. Dogs are used rather than pigs because pigs tend to eat the truffles they find, whereas dogs can be trained to find them and then leave them.

It hasn’t been a particularly good year for truffles. It’s been too hot and there hasn’t been enough rain. Normally, this would be the peak season for white truffles, which are considerably more valuable than the black variety. The woods around Motovun are particularly well known for them.

Our guide explained that when truffles are ready to be harvested, they release a scent underground that dogs can detect. To demonstrate, we hid two small black truffles in separate spots beneath the soil, and he then sent his dog out to find them. The dog was an exuberant ten-month-old cross between a Labrador and a Lagotto Romagnolo, a breed traditionally used for truffle hunting. He quickly led his handler to both hiding places and was clearly delighted with his success.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the fully trained dog in action. He was still sitting in the car while the youngster handled the entire demonstration. Perhaps he was taking the day off, or perhaps his handler didn’t want the apprentice showing him up!

Hilltop villages are common throughout Istria. Their elevated locations offered defensive advantages, helped people avoid the malaria that historically plagued the lowlands, and left the more valuable flat land available for agriculture. We visited two of them: Motovun and Hum (pronounced “Whom”, not “Hum”).

Motovun is particularly popular with cyclists. Getting there involves a challenging climb up a series of switchbacks, and I saw quite a few determined cyclists making their way uphill. It looked like a lot of work.

Hum, meanwhile, is famous for being one of the smallest towns in the world. It’s a charming little place with a population of just 29. Our guide reminded us that in Istria, some of the most interesting destinations are tucked away in the hills rather than along the coast.

Our guide had written his thesis on Byzantine churches in Croatia, so he was one of the few people permitted to enter the Church of St. Jerome. It’s a tiny 12th-century Romanesque church, famous for its remarkably well-preserved Byzantine frescoes and ancient Croatian Glagolitic inscriptions on the walls.

There are two particularly interesting traditions in Opatija.

The first is an annual cart race for children down the town’s main street. There’s even a small statue commemorating it. Apparently, racing carts down the hill was a popular pastime a century ago, and the tradition was revived in 1983. Some things are apparently too much fun to let disappear.

The second tradition involves the zvončari, or bell ringers. These are men dressed in animal furs, carrying clubs and wearing large bells. They take part in the Carnival parade in March, ringing their bells to drive away winter and welcome spring. That seems considerably more logical than relying on a groundhog!

The opera house desinged by Fellner and Helmer

The abbey in Opatija - started around 1420

Church of St Nicholas - patron saint of sailors and fisherman

There have been annual cart races since 1983

Pasta: medium egg, 100gm 00 Flour . Shot of brandy for the cook

Statue of the bell ringers

Opatija looking towards Rijeka

The OAT group on the waterfront promenade

Mark and Sarah burying a black truffle

The handler and his dog

View from Motovun

Store with a view in Motovun

Hum window

group lunch in Hum

fresco in the church of St Jerome

 

26-29 October
Zagreb, Croatia

Compared to Sarajevo, Zagreb is more distinctly European. Unlike Sarajevo, it was never part of the Ottoman Empire, so there are no neighbourhoods where you feel you could be wandering around Istanbul. Instead, Zagreb wears its Austro-Hungarian heritage on its sleeve, with impressive old buildings and streetcars rattling through the downtown streets.

We spent our time wandering around the Old Town, browsing the markets, riding the funicular, and visiting the Museum of Naïve Art. We also stopped for a snack near Flower Square, which is a pleasant place to sit and watch the city go about its business… pleasant except for the number of people who smoke! The cigarette smoke has been terrible throughout our trip in the Balkans. The funicular was a novelty, although it doesn’t take long to appreciate it: Zagreb’s is famously short, making the ride more of a brief interlude than a major expedition. Still, getting around is part of the fun of exploring a new city.

All major statues currently have red scarves on them. October 18 is world cravat day, and Croatia is the birthplace of the necktie.

Sarah and I walked over to the Opera House. Carmen was playing that evening with a Croatian cast, but the performance was sold out. We only admired the building from the outside. It would have been nice to see the interior, but we had just seen Carmen in Vienna, so we already knew the ending. No suspense there.

Zagreb has also had its share of bad luck. An earthquake struck in 2020, just as the world was dealing with COVID. The damage is still evident in parts of the city. Some buildings have yet to be fully restored, giving the historic centre an unfinished look in places. The most conspicuous example is Zagreb Cathedral, whose towers remain completely wrapped in scaffolding. Apparently, the earthquake wasn’t entirely to blame for the long-running construction project. The cathedral had already been undergoing almost continuous renovation since 1990, as weather, pollution and the general wear and tear of centuries took their toll. Our guide joked that he might never live to see the cathedral without scaffolding.

Zagreb was an enjoyable city to explore on foot. It may not have the dramatic historical contrasts of Sarajevo, but it has its own Central European character, attractive streets and plenty of places to stop for a bite to eat.

Plitvička jezera (Plitvice Lakes) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site a few hours west of Zagreb famous for its unusual limestone and dolomite geology. The park consists of a series of 16 lakes, connected by waterfalls and cascades as the water tumbles from one level to the next. The water was remarkably clear, with an almost unreal turquoise colour in places.

We followed the walking trails through the woods, crossing wooden boardwalks and getting close to the lower lakes and waterfalls. The scenery was beautiful, with water seemingly everywhere, flowing over limestone ledges and through the lush greenery. It was a pleasant walk, although we were definitely sharing the experience with plenty of other people. At times, the crowds made it less of a peaceful nature escape than one might have hoped for. Still, it was easy to see why the park is so popular.

Josipa Jelačića... with a cravat

a very short 66m funicular

Sarah found the wooden spoons she has been looking for.

the octagon building - the glass roof was a technical marvel when it was built in 1898

Zagreb cathedral - they've left space in the scafolding to build the spires

bells in storage inside the church

most ornate roof ever. St Mark's church

the cravat shop

painted on the other side of a window glass... and then backlit

Ivan Meštrović gallery. He worked in the US in later life

Zagreb Opera house - also designed by Fellner and Helmer

The Art Pavilion was built in Budapest in 1896 for a exhibition. And then moved brick by brick a year later to Zagreb

78m water falls - not much water currently

small falls seperating two of the lower lakes

lovely turquiose

 

25-26 October
Karanac, Croatia

Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and Slovenian are all closely related languages, although they have different vocabularies and some differences in grammar and pronunciation. They’re not much help if, like me, you’re familiar with the Romance languages. I don’t understand a word. I can’t even read it properly. For example, try our guide’s last name: Brkljačić. We just call him Nikola.

This is the land that vowels forgot. But not to worry because sometimes R is a vowel. So it’s A, E, I, O, U and sometimes R because there is no Y in Croatian. Examples are Mount Srđ overlooks Dubrovnik, Krk is the name of an island in the adriatic, and Trg means a public square.

Also, the letter J is always pronounced like a Y. And then there are three ways to pronounce the letter C.

• C is pronounced like “ts”. So here we are in Karanac (roughly, “Karanats”), and one of our hosts is Goca (roughly, “Goatsa”).
• Č (C with a caron) is pronounced like the “ch” in church.
• Ć (C with an acute accent) is similar to Č, but softer. Despite this rule, I still can’t hear or say the difference between this one and Č.

So the main square in Zagreb, Trg bana Josipa Jelačića, is roughly pronounced “Terg bana Yosipa Yelachicha”. Easy, right?

One of the features of all OAT trips is a “day in the life”, when you get to see how some locals live. We spent the day with the Sklepić family on their small farm in Karanac, Croatia, near the borders with Serbia and Hungary in the Baranja plains. Did you pronounce all that properly?

It was a fascinating day. The village, with a population of about 800, consists largely of small farms, each occupying roughly two acres. The typical property has about 15 metres of frontage on the main road and stretches back some 400 metres. Apparently, when the Austrians established the farms a few centuries ago, taxes were calculated on road frontage. The result was a collection of long, narrow properties.

The village operates largely on a barter system. Our hosts are seventh-generation farmers: Denis, affectionately known as “Denis the Menace”, his wife Goca, and their 23-year-old son Steven. They keep chickens, geese and quail, and grow their own vegetables. They make sweet and hot paprika powder, pickle just about everything, produce cheese, and have a smokehouse for preserving food. They also have plenty of eggs. They now have gas, but traditionally their ovens were wood-fired.

On our first evening, we had dinner at a neighbour’s house. His wife was working, so he and their six-year-old daughter looked after us. I was expecting a harrased Dad to serve reheated frozen pizza, but it turned out that he makes award-winning sausages. So much for my assumptions!

Meanwhile, back at the farm, we had helped make two blocks of cheese from whole milk and rennet, adding garlic and dill to one of them. Breakfast the next morning was fresh eggs, the cheese, fry bread, regular bread and an assortment of homemade jams. Lunch was bean goulash.

They had their patter down – it was both fun and funny to particpate and watch in the preparation of meals. They work very hard – they were responsible for 3 meals and an overnight stay for 14 guests plus our guide and driver in 12 rooms that they had renovated for OAT. This is their busy season with back to back visits of groups every day

As I sat in their dining room, I realised that virtually everything around us had been made by someone in the family or elsewhere in the village — the furniture, the decorative stencilling on the walls, and, of course, the food. People grew things, made things, preserved things and traded with their neighbours. They even had pear brandy that the Dad with the sausages had made.

It was a remarkably self-sufficient way of life, so different from our own. Simple, practical and deeply connected to the neighbours around them. There was something rather appealing about it.

PA263905

mkaing frybread - unleavened bread dough into a fry pan with canola oil

Beans on the boil

Goca is a recognized expert in stencilling

Steven was very proud of his Momma

Steven and Denis cutting vegetables for the beans

 

Sarajevo with a stop for lunch in Mostar on the way
22 – 25 October, 2026

That was how our guide summed up the city as we left.

We’ve spent three nights in Sarajevo, a vibrant, multicultural city with a deeply scarred past.

The place where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, in 1914 was just a few blocks from our hotel. It was an event that changed the world. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia and issued an ultimatum, which Serbia did not accept. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, setting off a chain reaction of alliances and declarations of war that soon engulfed Europe. Russia mobilised in support of Serbia, Germany declared war on Russia and France, and Britain entered the war shortly afterwards. The assassination was the spark that ignited the First World War, although the underlying tensions ran much deeper. The result was a catastrophe that ultimately claimed around 20 million military and civilian lives.

Nearly 80 years later, Sarajevo found itself at the centre of another devastating conflict. The breakup of Yugoslavia led to the Bosnian War of 1992–1995, fuelled in large part by Slobodan Milošević’s Serbian nationalist ambitions and the Bosnian Serb leadership’s campaign to carve out territory for a separate Serb state. As in so many wars, truth was an early casualty. In this war, the death of humanity seemed to follow close behind. Atrocities were committed by forces on different sides, but the scale of the campaign waged by Bosnian Serb forces against Bosnian Muslims was particularly horrific.

The ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia) indicted 161 individuals. A significant majority of convictions were of ethnic Serbs, reflecting the tribunal’s findings regarding the primary instigators of systemic violence during the Balkan conflicts

Here is a summary of war crime convictions (info lifted from google!) :

We have not visited Serbia on this trip, so our impressions are necessarily limited. But the people we have spoken with have consistently emphasised how well different communities can get along, how people of different faiths live alongside one another, and how intermarriage across religious lines has long been part of life in the region. During our stay, we spoke with a Bosnian of Serb background, a Bosnian Muslim, our Croatian guide, and a Croatian woman we had met in Dubrovnik. Last night, we were also invited into the home of a local Sarajevo woman, with a translator helping us communicate. Chicken paprikash was served, and the conversation was as memorable as the meal. She described living in her 15^th floor apartment with her husband and two young daughters with the windows blown out in the middle of winter where they burned anything available for heat and cooking in the -15C temperatures: old clothes, shoes, flooring. They elected to be some of the 300,000 people who did not leave Sarajevo during the almost 4 year siege: She and the girls did not want to leave their policeman father behind.

Our guide told us that he had forgiven those responsible for the atrocities, but that he could never forget them. It was a powerful distinction.

And yet, the past has not entirely loosened its grip. The old nationalist political currents remain, particularly among some older generations. In parts of Bosnia, children still attend separate classes or schools according to their ethnic background, and different versions of the war are taught in different communities. The legacy of the conflict is not simply a matter of remembering what happened; it is also about how the next generation is taught to understand it.

Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb military commander convicted of genocide and other war crimes, including his role in the Srebrenica massacre, died in custody in The Hague just a few months ago. He was buried in Serbia with full military honors and a high-level public tribute that functioned as a state-backed hero’s funeral. His death is a reminder of how differently the same history can be understood on opposite sides of a border.

But perhaps there is reason for cautious optimism. Just yesterday, Serbia’s long-dominant political establishment suffered a historic election defeat, with a student-backed movement winning a parliamentary majority. It is far too early to know what this will mean for the region, but it may signal a generational shift and a willingness to move beyond the politics that have shaped the Balkans for decades.

In Sarajevo, the physical reminders of war are everywhere. The Sarajevo roses are perhaps the most striking. These are mortar-shell impact marks in the pavement where the pock marks have been filled with red resin. They commemorate particularly deadly impacts, where three or more people were killed. On other streets, buildings still bear the scars of bullets and shelling.

And yet, for the most part, Sarajevo has recovered. Buildings have been repaired, cafés and restaurants are full, and the streets are alive with people of different backgrounds going about their daily lives. There is laughter, conversation, music and the ordinary bustle of a city getting on with life.

Perhaps that is what our guide meant. A grave is a place where the past is buried. A garden is a place where something continues to grow.

Sarajevo has not forgotten its past, nor should it. But it has found a way to live beyond it. May it continue to grow.

Town of Noum - this is almost the entire Bosnian coastline

Mostar bridge. Built in the 1500's by Ottoman to ease trade, it was destroyed by the Croats in the war

war damage in Mostar, Bosnia

Sarajevo Rose - 68 people died in the market in this blast. Their names are on the back wall

The tunner of Hope - access to much needed supplies. It went 800m under the UN controlled airfield.

hmmm

Mostar

Dinner for 6 at Klopa Restaurant. A mixture of BBQ'd beef, chicken, veal and pork

Bosnian coffee. You're supposed to strain it through a sugar cube in your mouth

coffee sets for sale in the market

Hammering a copper bookmark

Flowers are a big thing in Bosnia and Croatia

Wedding couple having their pictures done at the National Museum when we visited

 

16 October 2026

Ryanair was three hours late, so we arrived just around sundown. I’m pretty sure I could see Mercury just above the horizon after the sun went down — a very rare sight.

Dubrovnik is more than just a walled city. We walked into the Old Town in the early evening and were greeted by a spectacular sound-and-light show, similar to what we’d seen in Zurich a few years ago on New Year’s Eve, but on a much larger scale. Virtually every building along the main street was covered in multicoloured projections and animations, accompanied by loud rock music. This year, the celebrations honoured Marin Getaldić, a Croatian mathematician who died 400 years ago and made important contributions to algebra, geometry, physics and optics.

We met Mark and Cindy, our cottage neighbours, at our hotel and went out for supper. Everything in Dubrovnik seems to be made of stone: the town walls, the buildings and the streets, which are paved in polished limestone. There’s hardly any earth or greenery, apart from a few planters. Yet the town was alive with people, music, sound and light.

This was not what I was expecting. It was as if Disney had built the original Disneyland in Dubrovnic starting in the middle ages on the Adriatic coast. Every building seemed to be a shop, bar, restaurant or hotel room.

There was only one “Disney” ride, and it was appropriate for the middle ages: cliff jumping. Buža Bar is essentially a beer bar reached through a doorway in the upper city wall. From there, you climb down a rocky staircase to a narrow but flat ledge on the cliffs outside the walls, where the bar is perched. People were jumping into the sea from heights of seven to twenty metres. I can’t imagine a bar perched on a cliff, where patrons jump that far into the sea, ever being allowed in Canada!

Of course, Dubrovnik’s Old Town was built as a fortified city, not a seventh-century amusement park. But standing there amid the lights, music, crowds and cliff-jumping, it was easy to forget its original purpose.

On Saturday, we took the ferry to Lokrum Island, which sits just offshore from Dubrovnik and helps shelter the harbour from ocean swells. Ladders are bolted to the rocky shoreline at various points around the island, providing easy access to the water for swimmers. There were a few people swimming, despite it being October. The water didn’t feel cold.

The abbreviated history of Lokrum goes something like this: the Benedictine monks who lived there were ordered to leave the island by Napoleon. On their final night, they supposedly lit candles upside down and walked around the island, cursing it as they went. Their curse was that anyone who owned the island and spent at least one night there would meet an untimely death — not necessarily on the island itself.

Several nobles, including members of the Habsburg family and Empress Sisi, whom we’d learned about in Vienna, are said to have fallen victim to the curse, dying in various circumstances. The details seem to get a little tangled in the telling of the story!

After the Second World War, the island became home to a children’s hospital, treating asthma and other respiratory problems. The children would leave the island every night. Today, Lokrum is a nature reserve, and visitors must still leave every evening. Whether that’s to avoid the curse or simply because the island closes for the night, some traditions are best not tested!

A History Lesson

OK, the tour has started, so forget everything I said about Dubrovnik. There’s a lot more to this place than picturesque streets, sound-and-light shows and cliff jumping.

And forget about the Buza Bar. Our guide said locals don’t use it: it was built illegally by someone (a local) who appears to have gotten away with it. So its popular with the tourists, but a bit of an issue for locals.

During the Middle Ages, Dubrovnik — then known as the Republic of Ragusa — was one of the major trading powers in the Adriatic. Its people were skilled negotiators and understood that diplomacy could be more valuable than military strength. They reached an arrangement with the Ottoman Empire under which they paid an annual tribute in exchange for protection and the freedom to continue trading. This helped them maintain their independence and navigate the competing ambitions of the Ottomans and Venice for centuries.

Then came the devastating earthquake of 1667, which destroyed much of the city and dealt a serious blow to its prosperity. Napoleon arrived in the early 1800s, bringing an end to the old republic.

Kotor,, which we visited yesterday, took a different path. It is in Montenegro, just a hour or so drive down the coast. Its people placed more emphasis on defence than on trade, and the city developed formidable fortifications. During Dubrovnik’s golden age, Kotor was under Venetian rule, so the two cities followed rather different political and economic paths despite being relatively close neighbours.

Both cities were affected by the great earthquake of 1667, and both eventually fell under Napoleon’s control. Dubrovnik’s French occupation began after its leaders allowed French troops to enter, believing they were simply passing through. Kotor, meanwhile, endured years of brutal warfare and changing control. Both cities subsequently became political footballs in the struggles among Napoleon, the declining Venetian Republic, Russia, Austria and Britain.

Fast-forward to the twentieth century. After the Second World War, Josip Broz Tito led a unified, communist Yugoslavia until his death in 1980. The country consisted of six constituent republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Each had its own government within the Yugoslav federation.

After Tito’s death, nationalist tensions grew. Slobodan Milošević rose to power in Serbia, promoting a vision of a more centrally controlled Yugoslavia under strong Serbian influence. The resulting conflicts and the breakup of Yugoslavia are a complicated and painful history, and I won’t attempt to cover them here. But the BBC has an excellent series of videos on YouTube about the breakup of Yugoslavia and the wars that followed. They’re well worth watching if you’re interested in understanding what happened.

One of OAT’s hallmarks is its willingness to tackle “controversial topics”. On this trip, the subject was the 1991–95 war in Croatia. We heard from a woman who still lives in Dubrovnik’s Old Town and was 24 when the war began. Listening to her recount her experiences growing from a naive young women not believing her city could be at war, to a worldly Mum responding to her daughter’s complaint that there were mosquitos at night by saying “Yeah, we used to have bullets shooting at us”. It was an extraordinary way to spend an hour. History takes on a very different meaning when you hear it from someone who lived through it.

There are 2-3 cruise ships that dock each night in both Kotor and Dubrovnik. That’s 6-10,000 tourists visiting each day. Both towns were crowded with groups of 20-30 people following guides holding their little flags. I know groups of friends who love cruises, but I’m not there yet

We’re off to Bosnia next – Sarajevo and Mostar.

Testing the Adriatic water temperature. Not cold

SItting on the throne from the game of thrones

Stijene Rock on Lokrum

You can't smoke a pipe on Lokrum?

Dead sea on Lokrum

Felt like VIctoria with the Peacocks on Lokrum

view of old town from the ferry coming back from Lokrum

lots of ladders to make swimming easier from the rocky shore

old town and the modern town of Dubrovnik

The path to our hotel: The Rilati Palace

market square

Buža Bar viewed from Lokrum with my telephoto

the actual Buža bar is on the left

Buža Bar - they highest jump is the rock outcropping in centre left

Looking straight down from the Buža Bar

night lights

down the main street

Anyone need a duck? They had two stores in town

easy to buy too much candy

this kid's jungle gym was lit up

Looking back from the Pile Gate

Downspout on a rainy day at the St Blaise church

Elderly resident of Old Town

Eastern Orthodox church in Kotor, Montenegro

True

Walls of Kotor They continue up the mountain diagonally to the right.

Old town from Napolean's fort on a stormy day

Medieval sense of humour? A handrail in the rectory in the old town

 

Vienna Austria
13-16 October, 2026

Austrian Airlines is the right airline to fly when coming to Vienna. They play Strauss waltzes during boarding and deplaning, which sets just the right tone for a visit. Then, at the airport, the speakers were playing a jazzy version of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Clearly, we arrived in Austria and not Australia.

We were going to take the train downtown to our Airbnb, but we would have had to wait 30 minutes for it to leave and then walk another 15 minutes from the station to our accommodation. For just €7 more than our combined train fares, we took an Uber, which delivered us right to the door. Boy, I love Uber.

Our first stop after dropping our bags off was the Upper Belvedere gallery. Its best-known painting is Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, but there were plenty of other works that we enjoyed as well.

Then we went to a restaurant Hannes had recommended called Figlmüller, whose speciality is Wiener Schnitzel. I once again proved to myself just how unworldly I am. I don’t think I’d ever quite put it together that Wiener means Viennese. So Wiener Schnitzel simply means schnitzel prepared in the Viennese style. The restaurant is famous for it, and most people seemed to order the schnitzel despite the many other choices on the menu.

For dessert, Hannes had recommended Kaiserschmarrn. The waiter described it as pieces of thick, fluffy pancake served warm with little pots of plum and apricot sauce. I looked at the timestamps on our photos and discovered an embarrassingly short interval between the before and after pictures.

Despite eating dessert, we’ve discovered a way to avoid the Fat 5. You may remember that this is the amount of weight you gain on safari. I have discovered since then that the Fat 5 rule applies to any vacation. The secret? Sarah and I order one portion and split it between two plates. Such a simple concept! It’s only taken 67 years to figure it out, although I really didn’t have to think much about my weight until sometime in my fifties. Thanks to cottage friends Nan and John for showing us the way.

To cap off the evening, we went to Karlskirche, a large 18th-century church, to listen to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. The ensemble consisted of five violins, including a soloist, plus a viola, cello, double bass and harpsichord.

Sarah wasn’t particularly enamoured with the soloist, and I thought the acoustics were awful. The reverberation might have been wonderful for a large church organ, but it washed out much of the detail in the ensemble’s music. It took me a while to work that out. I think it was in Autumn that the orchestra played a loud passage, paused for a beat, and then repeated it more softly. But the reverberation caused by the loud passage hadn’t died away by the time the softer one began, so much of the detail was lost. That’s when I realized that everything was getting mushed together. Perhaps there was a place to sit for better acoustics, but wherever it was, we weren’t there!

On Wednesday, we went to the Spanish Riding School to watch the morning practice of the Lipizzaner horses. The actual performances are only on weekends, so we would miss those. It was nice to be in a place I’d seen in so many movies, videos and photographs over the years, but watching the horses walk and trot around the practice area was only mildly interesting to someone who attended the Calgary Stampede for 10 years.

In the afternoon, we went to Schönbrunn Palace, just outside central Vienna. It was every bit as opulent as the other palaces we’ve visited. But I’ll admit to having a bit of an attitude thinking about how a few people throughout history have managed to accumulate more than their share of the world’s wealth, whether through birthright, political power, force of arms or business acumen. It’s funny that I’ve never really thought about palaces that way before. I suspect the current US political climate and the tech billionaires have something to do with it. They’re never far from the top of my mind these days, and it is colouring my perception of the world.

In the evening, we went to the Vienna State Opera and saw Carmen. Spoiler alert: Carmen dies at the end! One novelty was a small touchscreen in front of our seats that displayed a translation as the singing progressed. It made the story much easier to follow, although perhaps knowing all the details isn’t a good thing because I very quickly had an opinion of what Don José should do. Micaëla would have been a far better choice for him. All she wanted to do was bring him home so his dying mum could hold him in her arms one more time, whereas Carmen clearly didn’t love him and was the kind of girl who worked in a cigarette factory and started fights. But then it would have been a short lived romantic melodrama rather than an opera that has been popular for 150 years. Georges Bizet chose correctly.

We sat in a box on the second tier on the left, which meant we could see only about two-thirds of the stage. Even so, the orchestra and performers were magnificent. And there were no problems with the acoustics, unlike Vivaldi the previous evening.

On Thursday, we went to the Albertina museum. In addition to the regular exhibits, there was a temporary exhibition featuring Picasso and Francis Bacon. I’m finally becoming less of a “black and white, everything fits in a square box” type of engineer. Many of the paintings had plaques explaining the stories behind them: what was going on in the artist’s lives or that moment in history, and what they were trying to express. They weren’t just paintings of noses in the wrong place or flowers in a vase. They were expressive poems written in colour on canvas. Huh. Maybe a course in art history is a worthwhile addition to an engineering curriculum

We also walked down to have a quick look at the Danube. It isn’t blue, despite Strauss telling us otherwise. But I feel our very short visit to Vienna is now complete. On Friday 16 October we leave for Dubrovnik.

Upper Belvedere Museum

Gustav Klimst - the kiss. Two people melting into one

Unfinished portrait showing how Klimst did his work. THe model was killed at an extermination camp

Tina Blau - 1882. Could not originally be exhibited as it was painted by a woman. Other artists intervened

Yes, Sarah did share her schnitzel and salad with me

kaiserscharrn... ready, go!

Gone in about 2 minutes. Job done

Karlskirche for Vivaldi- we sat in the middle of the church not too far from the front

Could not take pictures of the Lipizzaner horses walking...

Kaiserscharrn in progress in the frying pans at a restaurant window

Ready for the Hapsburg's dinner at Schönbrunn Palace

Descriptions on many of Picasso's paintings except this one: Bust of a woman

I liked this one a lot. 1958, Paul Delveaux. Landscape with Lanterns

Rent a 'hotrod'

The not-so-blue Danube

 

We’re travelling again.

As usual, we start our European travels with a visit to Heather and Hannes in Zurich. Then a few days in Vienna. Then we join our cottage neighbours in Dubrovnik for a few days before joining another Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) trip. This one is Crossroads of the Adriatic: Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Slovenia. This will be our third OAT trip. While I never thought I’d be one of those package tour people, they do make travelling easier.

I did not update our website with our travel last March: Zurich, Nice, Monaco, Cannes, Entibbes & Avignon. Let’s simplify it by saying that I felt decidedly poor in Monaco. I’ll add some photos from that trip to this page.

We arrived in Zurich on thursday the 8th of October, and went immediately on the 9th with Heather and Hannes to Ascona on Lago Maggiore in the italian part of switzerland.

On saturday, we saw the Verzasca Dam, where the opening scene of James Bond “Goldeneye” was shot. Remember the one where James Bond bungee jumps off a dam to infiltrate the bad guys and blow up some facility? There is a bungee jump there now . For 255CHF you can re-live the experience of a 7.5 second freefall yourself.

We then went on a hike along the river upstream of the dam where we got to see the bridge that Heather jumped off an number of years ago. 12m jump into cold water! Impressive or Crazy? You decide. I love the rock houses here – including rock roofs. I assume they are stucco on the inside? After the hike, we visited the very picturesque town of Sonogno of lunch. Their outdoor ice rink is already in operation.

The next day we went to Locarno for breakfast, and then to Bellinzona for the annual cheese fair.

Monday we were on our own while H&H worked. They have a lot to do as they leave on a two month trip to Chile in two weeks.

I’ll add the pictures when we get back to Canada in November