The Istrian Penninsula, Croatia

Before you ask, we didn't have time to see Split or Dubrovnik while we were in Croatia. I know you must think we are serious idiots, but in our defense, we only had five days to see Croatia, and another five to see Italy before meeting friends in France. Additionally, Dubrovnik is a 10 hour drive (in each direction) from where we were with no traffic. Just the same, missing these cities was a bitter pill since every travel book says the white marble sidewalks and crystal clear water of Dubrovnik are two of the prettiest things you'll see in Europe, and the thought of seeing a town built in and around a Roman Emperor's palace (Split) has more than a little appeal.

We also didn't travel inland to see Plitvice Park, but I was less heartsick about that than Split and Dubrovnik. Just a note: if you venture inland, one should be aware that there is still a threat of land mines in sections of the interior. Sadly, although the war is over in the former Yugoslavia, there are still unpleasant reminders.

If you follow our path through Europe, Croatia will be the first time you clear customs since leaving Zurich Airport. This isn't a big deal except that you go through two vehicle checkpoints (one on the Slovenia side and one on the Croatia side) and it's an opportunity to get your passport stamped by both--though only Slovenia will. It's also an opportunity to say "Dobar dan" and "hvala" to both sets of border security because they mean "good day" and "thank you", respectively, in both Slovenian and Croatian. Neither customs officer will be pleased or impressed with your command of basic phrases because that's not their job, but you'll be proud of yourself as you shift into first gear and head into Croatia.

Now, the kids have been complaining about many things since we left the States (a lack of pancakes, maple syrup, and peanut butter; missing their grandmother, dogs, cats, fish, electronic devices, the couch, TV, and people speaking English, etc). They've complained that they're tired of traveling, tired of seeing "old stuff" and they're tired of mountains and meadows. If you can avoid beginning a tirade that starts with "a vacation when I was a kid was a weekend in a hotel near Port Plaza Mall," you're better off, because you're both wasting your time, and you're about to remove the "mountains and meadows" complaint from their list.

As you near the Croatian border, the topography that was recently pine forests and Julian Alps (named after Julius Caesar) has turned into dry red clay, cypress trees, and sapphire blue water. I'm not exactly sure when this happened because "suddenly" leaps to mind, but it was subtle enough that we didn't notice the change until we drove down a straight, narrow road shaded by cypress trees on both sides just before the right side opened to the Adriatic Sea.

Apartment Aside:
We stayed in an apartment a half hour south of the border which we found the day before we arrived using http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/ .  It cost 90 Euro per night, and although the currency of Croatia is the Kuna, the landlord requested we pay in Euros. Now, all of the literature we read stated that it isn't wise to suggest paying in Euros while in Croatia unless you are invited to do so, so I double-checked the e-mail before sending the deposit in Euros via PayPal.  If you can avoid paying in Euros though, you're better off since the Croatian government devalued the Kuna enough to make almost everything you buy a bargain.

Our apartment in Croatia featured a view of Piran, Slovenia a short distance across the sea (first picture below) and we were told that Venice was visible to the south, but we didn't see it until we took a reasonably priced boat ride to Venice on the fourth day, but I'll cover that later because it doesn't matter what you see or where you go if you don't have clean laundry, and better than the apartment's view was the free washing machine which leads me to my second aside.....

Washing Machines (skip to *** below to avoid this aside):
In campgrounds, washing machines are widely available. They use tokens you buy from the front desk or Euro coins directly in the machines, but they're not hard to find or to use. The real problems occur when you stay in a hotel or a B&B and you need to find a laundromat.  If there are laundromats in the towns we're visiting, they are camouflaged better than anti-aircraft guns in a neutral country.  Your "Around Me" app can't find them and neither can your GPS when you input the address you found on Google.

If you're not washing your clothes every night in the sink, the laundry can get out of control quickly, but even if you are on top of things, trust me when I say you just can't wash socks and underwear well enough in a sink to feel good about wearing them.

By the time we left Slovenia, we hadn't seen a washing machine in over a week, and I swear on my soul that when your bathing suit is your last clean pair of underwear, you really don't care if you can see the Vatican from your balcony. The only view you want is the washing machine the landlord advertised on his website.

Unfortunately, the washing machine was a shared one for all six apartments--one of which occupied it with towels the entire afternoon of the first day. Later that day, someone beat us to the empty machine and didn't retrieve their clothes after the final spin cycle. By 11pm, we considered moving the abandoned clothes to the top of the machine, but since it wasn't a dorm and we weren't sure of the protocol in Europe, we walked away thinking curses we didn't say.

By 11:30pm, someone else made the command decision to place the clean clothes on the top of the machine and start a load of their own. So, we called it a night wearing our last clean clothes which for most of us consisted of a dress shirt and sweat pants. It's important to note here that the climate in Croatia is a hot one and there was no air conditioning in the apartment.

At 0700 hours the next morning, I poured myself out of bed and ran to the laundry room expecting to see clothes inside and on top of the machine, but both were gone.  I abused the stairs back to our apartment to retrieve our duffle bag--which was filled with an odor I can't describe--then returned to the empty laundry room to find the machine still unoccupied. It would take another ten minutes before I started the machine, however, because when you have nothing to wear, it's impossible to decide what to wash first without holding your chin like a pseudo-intellectual weighing the pros and cons of lights verses darks....and then there's permanent press. In the end, it doesn't matter what you wash first because one load will only get you half an outfit. So, I started a load of whites and ran up and down the stairs ever 30 minutes to monitor its progress.

Now, washing machines in Europe can take anywhere between an hour and a half, and six hours (yes, six hours). Note: the numbers displayed on the machine dials mean degrees centigrade, not time because apparently time is not as important to Europeans as Americans.

About an hour and a half into our load, a Dutch neighbor lady set three hand towels next to the machine along with a cup of soap--in essence forming a queue. I admit I cursed when I saw this because had I known Europeans used queue etiquette for washing machines, I might have subdued my paranoid tendency to lock everything up (including smelly laundry), and placed the three remaining loads next to the machine.

In any event, it is my solemn belief that one should respect the queue so I prepared myself to wear sweat pants until noon.  My husband, however, believes that "from each according to their ability and to each according to their need" should prevail in matters of laundry and he wasn't dissuaded when I reminded him that his theory was both Marxist and un-American. So, I threw up my hands and said I would have no part of skipping the queue when he walked out the door holding the duffle bag and a book.

Now, I didn't see the Dutch neighbor lady's expression as she stood in the doorway watching my husband remove the whites and load the darks, but he didn't see it either since he refused to turn around. I did hear her do what most parents do when they're upset with another adult--she yelled at her children.

I know that this is the longest aside in history, but I mention it for two reasons: 1) No matter how great you think your vacation will be, it is nothing without clean clothes, and 2) If you hear an angry Dutch woman yell about rude American washing machine hoggers, you can to tell her that the hogger is a rare breed of Marxist launderers, and there is definitely dissent in this camp.

***

Karl Marx came up a second time in Croatia when we had the misfortune to visit a nearby five star hotel (The Kempinski) which housed the only ATM machine in the area. I say "misfortune" because the kids couldn't stop talking about the massive pool, the marble bathroom, and the heated hand towels, and they wouldn't stop saying, "Man, we're poor," no matter how many times we brought-up starving children in Africa. If you're wondering what Karl Marx, my kids, and a five star hotel have in common, I'll end the suspense: in one of the few Intro to Macro-Economics lectures I didn't miss (it was an 8 o'clock course), the professor said that according to Karl Marx, people are content with their homes until their neighbor builds a bigger/better one, and the Kempinski was definitely bigger and better than our one bedroom apartment 100 yards down the road.

So, with five star hotels and shared washing machines in mind, I'd say that I wouldn't stay in a resort area again if I had the choice. I would stay in a quaint fishing village like Rovinj (pictured below) where the fishermen still pull-up their boats in the evening next to sidewalks that end abruptly in the sea. Then they walk to their homes where laundry hangs from second floor windows and their neighbors sit on the steps of their stone houses talking across narrow cobblestone streets.

Upon seeing Rovinj, my husband declared that he had found the town where he would retire. I was surprised by this statement since nothing has ever held a candle to Italy in my husband's eyes. Though I would have been less surprised had I known that this land was part of Italy until World War II, but I didn't know this until Montovun.

Montovun (see second set of pictures below) is a hill town famous as the birth place of Mario Andretti. I was more than a little confused about how Mario was considered Italian when born in a Croatian village until my husband explained the malleable border. And it was another reminder that peace in this region has been a temporary thing for a very long time.

If you drive to Montovun, you'll run into locals who drive like Mario, but you won't be able to follow them into town even if you can keep up because tourists must park near the bottom of the hill, then walk up. You won't mind though because you can have lunch at the top as you enjoy sweeping landscapes that look more like your image of Tuscany than Croatia.