Croatia, Slovenia and Austria

Our days were coming to an end on the cruise and in this picture we are shown with Zlatko, the outstanding maitre ' d on our ship. He did everything for us at dinner. Zlatko and most of the crew were Croatian.
Here we are shown at the dinner table one night. We usually tried to move around to different tables as the people we were on the cruise with were from mostly Europe, with 3 from Canada and 1 from Australia. There were 24 people in all, with a crew of 8.
We had fish on most nights and it was excellent. On this night, we had sea bass that they had just caught.
Here we are riding on cobblestones on the island of Solta, which is known as the Island of Olives.
We toured a small olive oil factory and then had a taste testing of different kinds of of flavored olive oils.
In this picture we are shown, after our last ride, on the top deck of our boat.
Pat got us started shopping at the Aqua stores. They are a uniquely Croatian store, with clothing and accessories that have stripes like many of the nautical clothing lines tend to have.
On our last day, Helen, Alana and I walked around the streets of Trogir, an ancient city where our cruise started and ended. Because Croatia has been under Italian influence and governance for many centuries, the country looks very much like an uncrowded Italy.
Zlatko, Mom, Alana and Erin just before enjoying our final dinner of the trip.
Jenny, one of our tour guides, plays guitar on the last night while the crew members sing. One night in Skradin, Jenny took her guitar out to a cafe/bar with all of us and we sang for awhile that evening for the customers at the cafe.
After leaving the ship today, the 7 of us headed through Slovenia and stopped at the absolutely beautiful town of Bled. It was pretty crowded today due to it being a Saturday and many people from the capital city of Ljubljana were visiting. We decided to continue onto Austria where it wasn't so crowded.
We found a small town in Austria call Mollebrucke and saw that instead of people and cars on the streets, that we had to contend with cows blocking the road.
Here we are on the balcony of our hotel in Austria. It was a beautiful little village and had the best spaetzel I have had in a long time.
The town also had a real maypole in front of the city hall. It was a tree that had been cut down from the local forest.
This was the little hotel that we stayed at in Mollebrucke. Onto the Brenner Pass and Lake Garda.

Beautiful Croatia

This is the Croatian flag. The five crests at the top of the checkered part symbolize the 5 regions of Croatia.
We rode our bikes up and over some mountains today, to the part of the Krka River. There is a monastery behind us in the middle of this slow moving river that flows into the sea about 5 miles further on.
Donna, Erin, Natalie and Alana did the "jump" shot right in front of the Franciscan monastery.
Here are Helen and Mom riding down the last hill before we got back to Skradin, the town we stayed in last night.
Pat and I went out kayaking off the boat, and even though the swans were friendly when we were feeding them from the ship, they steered clear of us when we tried to kayak near them.
Here is the town of Skradin taken from the kayak.
Helen and I went out kayaking next and here is a picture of Erin, Alana and Pat waiting for us on the back of the ship.
In the afternoon, we took a boat up to Krka National Park, that has amazing travertine falls.
We are all pictured here in front of some of the falls.
We walked around some of the boardwalks, up and down the waterfalls.

Zadar and the Kornati Islands

Last night we spent docked at Zadar, an ancient city. Helen and Mom are shown here in front of St. Donat's Cathedral, which was built over a Roman forum. This city was under Italian control in World War II and was bombed pretty heavily by the Allies.
Alana and Pat are shown here by the Sea Organ. This was constructed on the strait between Zadar and the Kornati Islands. When the waves come in they push air up through some pipes and we heard different harmonious sounds coming out of the Sea Organ. This was built here on the shore in 2005.
This was sunset over the strait next to Zadar.
After watching sunset, we went to a local outside cafe and posted to the blog. There are so many outside areas where people congregate here. . .really a lot of fun.
This is another modern art piece that was built right on the harbor. It is called a Salute to the Sun. There are hundreds of solar batteries that collect the light during the day on the ground, and then at night there is a computerized light show that was so fun to walk on and take a jumping picture on.
Here are Aunt Eileen and my Dad on the bow of the boat.
When we were riding on one of the islands, a goat came out from the hills and started running behind us. These islands in many cases have been overgrazed by sheep and the goats. There are only a few cities on these islands and most are inhabited by seasonal people.
This was one of the highest points that we rode to on the island of Dugi Otok (which means Long Island in Croatian).
Here is Pat on the bow of the boat, going through a narrow strait between the islands.
Here are some of the cliffs on the south side of Dugi Otok. We only rode about 20 miles today but it was all up and down hill.
We hiked to the Salt Lake and these donkeys were there waiting for us. They were very tame and liked to be patted.

We had about a 5 hour ride in the afternoon to get to our location tonight at Skradin so we had a yoga class on the upper deck(er) of the ship.
This is part of our group just prior to being called to dinner. We spent most of the afternoon reading and relaxing.

Bicycling in the Zadar Archipelago

After being kept in the port of Vodice one day, due to 45 knot winds, we sailed to Pashman Island and rode about 20 miles today.
This is Alana before breakfast with Zlatko, the maitre d in the dining room.
Donna, Natalie and Erin were riding on one of the paths.
We stopped at a high point on the island to watch our boat sailing through the strait.
Alana and Pat were crossing the bridge here.
Alana, Jenny (one of our tour leaders from England) and Chris from Australia doing a jump picture on the island.
We stopped for a gelato (one of many) and this man decorated the gelato in kind of a fun way.
Donna and Pat enjoyed a gelato treat at the same place.
Here is our group from California.
Dad is riding back to the boat.

The Bike Trip on the Adriatic

Yesterday we got on board our ship, the Romantica. We all have above deck cabins. Alana is shown here at the back of the boat in Trogir at the beginning of the trip.
Here are Pat, Alana, Erin and Helen on the front of the boat in Trogir harbor.
Our first night of dinner. . .we have 6 German people on board and 2 Italians and 3 Canadians and us.
Mom and Dad after the first day of biking. We did about 10 miles that day.
Erin, Natalie and Alana skinning a sea bass that we had for dinner last night.
Sunset from our ship.
We rode our bikes about 12 miles today to the village of Primosten, shown in the background. The ocean is unbelievably blue.
Primosten in the background. . .a really lovely town.
We took the ship to Sibenik and toured the city, that has a cathedral that is a UNESCO world heritage site. We are shown here playing at the playground.
Our ship, the Romantica, at dock tonight.