Day 47 Off the Coast of Croatia

Boat to Split

By morning the brilliant sky was gone, blurry gray squalls were gathering over the Adriatic, enough time, I thought, to buy this evening's boat ticket to Split and climb to the castle before it starts raining. It did. It came down in sheets just as I reached the top of the castle tower. I hastened down, getting soaked, finally finding refuge in the hotel lobby. The rain was not going to let up so I unpacked Die Unsterbilichkeit (Immortality), by Milan Kunder, left by someone on a bench outside the station in Ljubljana. I had read a few paragraphs then and found the German not too difficult and the introduction appealing. A single gesture of an older woman captured for Kunder the timelessness of a woman's inner self and inspired him to write the novel. That got me thinking how traveling can suspend one's orientation to time and place. Everyday we're reminded of our age, through family, friends, and relatives; through our house, the pictures on the walls, the souvenirs from long ago vacations - anchors tethering us to an age and point in time. Traveling alone, you're tethered no longer, you're as old as you like, only the mirror at night keeps you somewhat in check. Keep moving and there's a suspension of place - everything is strange - but since everything is strange everything is the same. You're somewhere but nowhere at the same time. Now, I'm somewhere off the coast of Croatia, by morning, Split, someplace somewhere.

Day 46 Opatija Riviera, Croatia

Opatija Riviera

Under a brilliant sky, a seductively tranquil deep blue sea, the Opatija Riviera matches the French or Italian rivieras, maybe even more attractive, with its twelve kilometers of winding stone promenade, cut into the side of the rugged rocky shore and shaded by oak trees. Below the promenade are natural and man made stone or concrete outcroppings and some very small pebbled beaches, from which the leisurely swim, dive, snorkle, and sun bathe. The promenade snakes through quaint sleepy harbors, spas that have been built into the sea; past restaurants, shops, and cafes. A relaxed casual atmosphere prevails. Above, hued out of the side of Mount Ucka, are the opulent villas and expensive but also some moderately priced hotels catering to the ubiquitous German tourist and junkies of health and wellness spas. If I had a car, this is where I would stay. Without a car, I took bus 32 from the center of town, walked the promenade in both directions, took dozens of pictures; every turn offering something new to shoot. Back in Rijeka, the charm is gone, my options less appealing, only four hotels, not one good restaurant, but lots of cafes with their ice cream and lattes, and pizzarias specializing in the overcrusted dry cardboard taste.

Day 45 Rijeka, Croatia

I'm 66, born April 3, 1944, some would say, in the twilight of my years. I sit eating my breakfast in silence. A couple tables from me sits a very fat woman, maybe in her thirties, her broad shoulders hunched over a plate of sausages, cheeses, eggs, fried potatoes, and three or four types of bread that she lathers in marmalade. I watch her as she quickly finishes off the plate and goes back to the buffet counter for seconds. At another table is an older couple picking at their food, looking straight ahead but not at each other, a travel guide open to the side of the woman, but she doesn't seem interested. The fat lady has finished her second helping and walks back to the bread section, carefully inspects and picks out two croissants, a danish roll, a glazed bun, and another container of marmalade. The older woman hesitates as though about to speak but then frowns and points at something on her husband's plate. He looks down, shakes his head. The fat lady encircles the plate of breads with her arms as if to form a fortress, "These are mine, all mine, and no one is going to take them from me." The older woman's wrinkles deepen and the husband, expressionless, places the last spot of food in his mouth. On cue and in silence, the two get up, leaving the guidebook behind. Somewhere in Kansas they're having a church barbecue and someone is saying, "It's an opportunity of a life time. I'm so envious." The fat lady is still eating as I get up and leave.

Day 44 The Julian Alps

The Soca River

It was the best of days the worst of days. Through torrents of rain I searched for a hotel only to end up in Ljubljana at the same hotel I had left a day earlier. I spent another hour looking for a parking space; it was Friday night, the rain had stopped, and the city was bursting with activity. But it was the best of days. After a morning walk along the shimmering Adriatic, I left Izola and headed north along the coast into Italy, then back into Slovenia and the Julian Alps. In Poland they say the Tatras are the most beautiful mountains in the world. Sorry, the Julian Alps have them beat hands down. Reminiscent of the mountains in Lord of the Rings and unlike the Sierra or the Rockies, there are countless individual mountains that rise straight up. Maybe due to the rain or an indication that the area has yet to be "really" discovered, there wasn't much traffic on the two lane road that follows the sharp bends and turns of the Soca river. A Frenchman told me, "I catch 20 to 30 trout a day. It's the best trout river in the world." A Kayaker said, "It's the best kayaking in the world. You can take your pick from levels one to five." The rain started gushing as I shifted down into first and second gears slowly making my way up and around limestone clifts and over the Bovec pass. The poor visibility couldn't daunt my senses of an enchanting, exhilerating, wilderness, punctuated with small villages, worth months or even years of exploring and enjoying.

Day 43 Izola, Slovenia

Izola, Slovenia

I took to the road in a rented car, drove west, came back late to my hotel, and found that the electricity had gone out in my hotel - no lights, no internet, no airconditionig. There was much to talk about, the Predjama Castle, part castle and part cave. I've said too much about castles already, but this was my favorite so far. From there I continued to Koper, Slovenia, but didn't stop until I got to Izola, on the Adriatic coast. This is the most romantic place I've been; Debra would love it - sun drenched beaches with oil soaked sun bathers, an old town with streets so narrow you could touch both sides with outstretched hands, an expansive and colorful marina with wealthy yachts, fishing trawlers, and pleasure boats, restaurants boarding the beaches and marina with views and menus to die for. What's else can I say. The electricity finally came on but it's late and I'm too tired to write more.

Day 42 Ljubljana, Slovenia

Wifi Hotspots in Maribor

Outside the Maribor train station is a billboard with a map showing all of the City's wifi hot spots. If a relatively poor country like Slovenia can do this, why can't we in the States? Again, I go back to an earlier blog: The best thing Obama could do to stimulate the economy and help people in need is to give them a notebook computer and free wifi access, an observation underscored by my last month's AT&T bill, almost a whopping $1,000. Other than a text or two a day, I seldom use my phone. It's the features, like international roaming, that AT&T says will save me money, that are costing an arm and a leg. I'm turning them off. Another interesting price point comparison. My two hour train ride to Ljubljana cost 10 Euro - views alone were worth at least ten times that. The one hour ride from Cologne to Frankfurt cost 70 Euro. What gives here? On that score, you might want to rethink buying a Europass if some of your travels are in Eastern Europe, where public transportation is dirt cheap.

Slovenians wanting to talk to their neighbors in Italy, Hungary, Austria, and Croatia could learn their neighbors' languages but easier is to speak English, the lingua franca, of all these countries. On the bus in Austria, a couple of guest workers from different countries were trying to communicate with each other in broken German. When they couldn't think of a word, they resorted to English, although they knew even less English than German. When I lived in Frankfurt, the highbrow Der Spiegel used latinized words instead of their German counterparts. The lowbrow Frankfurter Rundschau stuck to German. That's changed. Latinized words or simply English words are now everywhere. In German, they write "Information" instead of Auskunft or "Television" instead of Fernseh. In stores, the internationally branded products are, for the most part, in English. On TV, in Slovenia, American programs and movies are in English with Slovene subtitles. Ads are a blend of English and the indigenous languages. My favorite in Germany: "Coole Drink fur alle Stunden (cool drink for all hours)," "Coole" is the phoenetic pronounciation for the German word kuhle and "Drink" is English for Getrankt, and the rest gratuitously is in German. Anglicization is on the march.

Day 41 Maribor, Slovenia

400 Year Old Grape Vine

If Slovenia were a city, its population of two million wouldn't rank in the top 100 cities of the world. Before 1991 Slovenia did not exist except as an ethnic enclave of Slovene speaking Slavic people within the context of other empires: Rome, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Germany, and Yugoslavia. As an independent country Slovenia joined the European Union in 1996 and the Eurozone in 2007. Do people feel they are better off as an independent country? I surveyed several people and found that independence is good but whether they are better off was far from conclusive. "The Euro has made us poorer," a young lady told me. "Life was better under Tito. Goods were scarce but we were all in the same boat," an elderly woman said. Everyone I talked to held Tito in high regard. "He kept us together. His mother was Slovenian." The hotel desk clerk assured me that the communist system was bad but others seemed to have mixed feelings. More than one person commented on the importance of the Slovenia language. "They didn't understand us in Belgrade. It was hard to work together." Everyone spoke to me in English, the linqua franca of this small country, although I ran into some who spoke neither English or German. Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia; its most prominant sight is the Old Vine House with what is purportedly the oldest grape vine in the world - over 400 years old.