Morača Monastery

Tuesday May 23, 2017
Back toward the sea and the Bay of Kotor, we followed Morača Canyon stopping at Morača Monastery for a lunch break. The outside frescoes were weathered, but we were awed as we stepped inside the small St Nicholas Church (Crkva Sv Nikole). So many of the churches here have been destroyed in conflicts over the ages that to find one in such a state of preservation is glorious.

The larger Church of the Dormition (Crkva Uspenja Bogorodice) has an amazing frescoe with a slide of fire to hell, two-headed sea monsters and angels spearing deamons......sounds like Dan Brown.

Biogradska Gora National Park

Monday May 22, 2017
Almost missing the park sign pointing to a very small bridge crossing the river (Turn here?), we were able to catch the afternoon light hiking around Lake Biograd. This was a park for wood nymphs and fairies, one of the few remaining primordial forests in Europe. Many of the hardwoods here are over 300 years old and it is forbidden to remove dead ones. Mosss thrives in the moist cool air, and wild garlic blankets the forest floor. The river feeding the lake enters through a long braid of lush growth crossed on a boardwalk. Magical and surreal, I really wanted to linger here.

We found Hotel Ravnjak nestled next to a beautiful waterfall near Biogradska Gora National Park. This is our glamping experience - a wooden bungalow right by the river and rushing waterfall sounds to fall asleep to.

Durmitor National Park, Montenegro

Sunday afternoon May 21, 2017
The weather seemed to be lifting a bit, so we took the mountain road from Žabljak toward Plužine, not knowing what we might encounter in these snow-studded peaks. I have never seen the clouds move so quickly across the mountain tops. We were treated to stunning vistas, wildflower drenched meadows, sunshine and the cold alpine wind. It was exhilarating! This asphalt road, about a car and a half in width, would be an amazing bike ride complete with benches to enjoy the view!

Medieval Graveyards

Sunday morning May 21', 2017
With no GPS marker or sign to guide us, finding these midieval tombstones (stecci) in the Zabljak countryside was a challenge, but one filled with an erie, mystical reverance, engulfed in the cold mist of time.

Tara Canyon

Saturday May 20, 2017
Blessed with sun, our driver and river guide, Veselin Kliajević, picked us up at the hotel for the drive to Tara Bridge and the start of our rafting trip. We chose the full day trip which took us into the deepest part of the canyon. Tara Canyon is Europe's deepest canyon, with our Grand Canyon being only 600 feet deeper. But Tara Canyon is lush green all the way down to the blue water, evergreens percariously holding on to their rocky ledges above.

Veselin spoke very little English, but our paddling intructions were clear - "Everybody in, OK. Uros, the only other pasenger in our raft, helped to translate.

Waterfalls, thundering torrents to broad gentle cascades, entered the river from both sides, while around every bend we were met with another stunning view.

How many times can you say beautiful, magnificent and incredible?

Tom enjoyed the dirt road ride out of the canyon to the viewpoint above - thankful he was not driving!

Žabljak, Montenegro

Friday May 19-21, 2017
From Dubronik we crossed the border into Bosnia & Hercegovina (expect border delays) before entering Montenegro and back to the EU. From the dry coast, we twisted and turned through the mountains to Durmitor National Park, and our homebase, Hotel SOA in Žabljak. Montenegro's National Parks are what Tom and I call "self-service". There is usually a handpainted sign, no one to pay, and rarely a printed map. Our hotel receptionist was amazing, helping us with trails (and a map!) and arranging our rafting trip down the Tara Canyon for tomorrow. Within walking distance of the hotel is a "park entrance", and a trail around Black Lake, Crno Jezero, a glacial lake so named for the encircling black pines and the dark shadow they cast.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Tuesday May 16-18, 2017
The great walled city of Dubrovnik, Pearl of the Adriatic, survived the bloody Yugoslav Wars of 1991-1992, barely. After Tito's death in 1980, ethnic tensions fueled territorial disputes and full scale war erupted as Yogoslavia began to split apart in the 1990's. Heavily fortified with battlements and walls since midieval times, Dubrovnic had been a separate republic before Napoleon's 1808 conquests, fending off the Venetians from the north and the Ottomans from the south and west. When the Serbs beseiged the city in 1991 and began shelling it, the international community was outraged and the United Nations stepped in to negotiate a ceasefire. Dubrovnik has been rebuilt, the destruction evidenced by the new roof tiles over more than two-thirds of the walled city and some pock marks in the shiny marble streets. We followed Rick Steve around old town, orienting ourselves and deciding what we wanted to explore over the next two days.

From our hotel it was a 10 minute walk to the Ploče Gate into the old town. A walk down the main street, the Stradun, a wide stone comercial street, lead to the Pile Gate connecting our landmarks - Luža Square with its Bell Tower, Orlando's Column, and the Church of St. Blaise (the protector of Dubrovnik) to St. Savior Square with it small church, Franciscan Monestary, and Onofrio's Big Fountain. We found the Franciscan Monestary and Museum particularly beautiful, an oasis with its arched courtyard, each capital different, and its museum of embroidered vestments, altar pieces, chalices, and thuribles.

Cruise ships can flood the city, so we followed our early morning, late afternoon routine, returning to our hotel to relax and enjoy the view from afar. Once oriented we explored the side streets, stopping to listen to muscians, to have a drink, to just watch the people and kids playing in the square in the late afternoon light.

The first two season's of Game of Thrones (affectionately refered to as GOT) were filmed here. We found the Steps of Shane, Kings Landing, and Backwater Bay, after stripping away all the CGI. During the filming, Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) was said to have frequently walked the streets in costume.

Our early morning walk of the wall was beautiful, and being able to recognize from above the places we had been, was particularly memorable.

The streets of Dubrovnik will always shimmer in my dreams like a pearl.

Diocletian's Palace, Split

Tuesday May 16, 2017
Trying to discern Diocletian's 305AD retirement palace from the town of Split, growing in and out of it, was an exercise in adaptive reuse. Walls of the palace became walls of medieval shops, archs and arcades became the base for second story dwellings. Imagining Diocletian addressing his subjects in the Peristyle juxtaposed with the bustling everyday activities today, was quite an anachronism - old and new intertwined. Diocletian was especially know for executing Christians; so, in the 7th century, when his octagonal mausoleum was converted into a church, stories say his bones were thrown into the sea. Diocletian's successor, Constantine, made Christianity legal and the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 4th century.

The black sphinx is one of 13 that Diocletian looted from Egypt. Of the 4 remaining, this one the most intact.

For luck, Tom rubs the toe of Bishop Gregory of Nin, who tried to get the Vatican to allow the sermons during mass to be said in Croatian.