European Adventure - First stop Croatia!

We were excited to start our adventure in Europe! We carefully packed everything we would need for the next month into a carry-on size bag and flew from Kansas City to Houston. That's where we met our nephew and niece and their four children for the beginning of a wonderful adventure. We left our house at 4:30 in the morning when our daughter-in-law drove us to the Kansas City airport. We might have already been a bit tired before we started this 9 1/2-hour flight to Amsterdam from Houston. But the rest of our group was fresh and ready to go. This might be the most rested we will be for the next two weeks.

We landed in Amsterdam, where we got in a short line for customs. They have a famous clock overlooking their main airport concourse. It has no working mechanical parts--only a guy inside the translucent clock face that erases and repaints the minute hand every minute. He just finished painting that longer hand to indicate the time was 9:18. Occasionally he also erases and repaints the smaller hour hand as it should progress slowly toward the next hour on the dial. Sometimes he has time to sit down and rest for a few seconds on his lunch pail. 

This ten-foot-tall clock in the Amsterdam airport is the work of Martin Baas. The clock face is actually a 12-hour video. But it was fascinating to watch and certainly seemed to speed up the time we spent in line for customs. We are with a well-traveled group of young travelers. They have been in Europe before, and are already familiar with the sugary goodness of stroopwafels that are famous here in the Netherlands. A stroopwafel is two thin waffeled wafers with caramelized syrup in between to hold them together.

But Amsterdam was just a customs stop, as we caught the next flight to Zagreb, Croatia. Then a short hopper flight to Dubrovnik, Croatia, and our 29-hour travel day was finally over. No pictures, but after four flights, let's just say we didn't look as rested as that flight out of Houston. We had flown across seven time zones and our internal clocks were a bit confused about what time it was. It was an interesting uber ride out to the villa they had rented for three days in Croatia.

The kids (and Mark and Denisa) had a well-deserved swim in our private pool before we explored our new temporary home.

We're in the middle of a garden oasis with flowers around the house that are attracted butterflies.

We were also surrounded by orchards and vegetable gardens! Our host welcomed us to pick and eat anything that we wanted. The kids thought it was fun going "grocery shopping" right out of a garden!

We were sad to see that we were a little early for some of the vegetables. But the next renters are going to enjoy some beautiful tomatoes!

After some much-needed sleep, we were acclimating to our new time zone. All eight of us were up and ready to tackle our first tourist day in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Historic Dubrovnik was an important sea port when these tall city walls were built to protect it. This port also required a 40-day quarantine for anyone arriving here. That protected them from many of the plagues that wiped out other port cities. Coupled with their modern sewage system, Dubrovnik was one of the healthiest places to live in ancient times.

Fortified with a breakfast that consisted of a spinach and cheese roll and a raspberry strudel from a little bakery inside those white stone walls, we were ready for the day! That was a breakfast of champions!

Our guide, Desa, met us inside the historic city. She has lived her entire life in Dubrovnik. She led us through the narrow lanes and down the white stone streets. For the next hour and a half she explained the significance of different buildings, as well as the old history of this very young country. This area was part of the country of Yugoslavia until the war that divided that country into four new ones in 1991. 

Prior to being part of Yugoslavia, Croatia's history included seasons of being a happy republic on its own, or being under the control of many different empires. In the United States our kids only have to learn history dates spanning a little more than 200 years. On the other hand, European students have more complicated and longer history lessons spanning thousands of years.  Our guide pointed out St. Blaise Church. The statue on top with the guy with the pointy hat is St. Blaise--the patron saint of Dubrovnik.

This summer we would find ourselves exploring many churches. This was the first in a long line of European cathedrals on our agenda.

It was hot during this first day in Europe, and we knew it was important to stay hydrated. Our local guide assured us that filling our bottles at the ancient water fountain was perfectly safe.

It would be scary to figure how many servings of ice cream and gelato we consumed during our month in Europe. We took a twin picture when Katrina and Denisa chose the same flavor of ice cream out of a long list of options.

The flowers were popping out this summer, lighting up those plain stone walls.

Dubrovnik's old city is famous for its red tile roofs that we could see below us as we waited for the chair lift ride.

This family loves a good gondola ride, and our local guide dropped us off at the bottom of the one that whisked us up to the top of the mountain overlooking the city.

The red roofs and the blue Adriatic Sea and green of Lokrum Island made a nice color contrast from our viewpoint on Mount Srat. Tourists can also get this view by hiking to the top on a rocky trail. But with temperatures in the 90s, we were glad for that cool cable car ride.

The Restaurant Panorama at the top of the mountain usually requires a reservation. But we were there between lunch and dinner and managed to get two tables with great views.

Have we mentioned how beautiful the flowers were in Dubrovnik?

After our views from the top, we descended once again into the old city. The city has three gates, and this time we entered thru a different one. We definitely got a high step count this first day in Europe. While our tour guide stuck to ancient history, this old city has a new claim to fame. This is where many of the scenes for "Game of Thrones" was filmed. In the popular series, this Old Town was renamed Kings Landing.

No cars are allowed inside the old city, so it was easy walking without having to dodge vehicles. The white buildings of the Stradum (main street) would be lovely, but adding the matching white stone streets was amazing!

We were in search of the Maskeron Stone, and finally found it close to the local fountain. Young men are dared to stand on this narrow sloping stone sticking out of the wall. Legend says that if one can balance long enough to change his shirt, he will find love.

Even though they all tried, the men in our group came back without the blessings of the Maskeron Stone.

We refilled our water bottles, as we left the old city on this first day.

Then we changed into swim suits for another adventure--jet skiing in the Adriatic Sea!

The original booking company had lost a couple of jet skis to reckless tourists yesterday, so they changed us to a different company at the last minute. This relocation meant that our jet ski ride would be longer than planned. The four adults drove the four jet skis, trying hard to keep up with our guide. We saw those white city walls high on the cliffs zip by from this view from the water. Denisa isn't the fastest driver in the world, and the other three left her in their wake.

Our destination was the blue cave, where several other boats were already anchored.

It was a pretty long swim to get to the entrance of the cave. We noticed that the water was saltier than the ocean swimming we were more familiar with. It was also perfectly clear water. By the time we arrived, it was high tide. That means that it took a big breath to dive down in the water to swim under the entrance to get into the cave. We were sorry that we didn't have a waterproof camera to take any pictures of the inside of the blue cave.

We were on a schedule, so we only had thirty minutes at the blue cave, then we were headed back for the thirty-minute ride back to our dock. We paused for a group picture with the lighthouse on the rocks behind us. 

You might notice that Katrina and Denisa have changed places. Eighteen-year-old Katrina figured that if an old gray-haired grandma could drive this jet ski, anyone could. She did a great job of driving back, and Denisa enjoyed getting to see the scenery this time. We paused for a second group picture, and that's when it happened . . .

One of the jet skis wouldn't start again. We can't complain about the beautiful place on the Adriatic Sea where we were stuck.

Our guides jumped in the water and tried to fix the ailing jet ski. It looks like tourists are hard on these machines. This company has governors installed on all their jet skis that slows them down when they get close to another boat or to the shore. So we couldn't crash into each other, and it wasn't our fault when one jet ski wouldn't start.

But in the open water, these jet skis really do zip. Cole loved riding with Mark, who tested the speed limits. They saw their speedometer climb to 69 kilometers per hour in the open sea!

Wow! That was a lot of fun to pack into one day! It was a lovely and exciting day in Dubrovnik, and we so enjoyed our first day on our first stop on this European adventure!