Across Italy, Slovenia, and to Rovinj, Croatia

Tuesday May 5

We awoke to rain in Aosta, in the Italian Alps. This town is not in the Lonely Plant guidebook, so we were on our own. Outside the old town the town has a definite ski vibe. After breakfast we drove into the old town. There was limited and expensive parking. We meandered from a roaring river and through lots of Roman era ruins. There was an arch, old town walls, an outdoor theatre and a post office, my partner is beginning a mission to mail postcards to her mother from every country we visit. Mailing postcards from Italy to the US is very expensive, over 4 euros. We were aided in our walk around by some very helpful high school students who seeing our obvious confusion, came to our assistance with directions.

We left Aosta in the early afternoon and set out on what turned out to be a boring, long drive across northern Italy largely on expensive toll roads and were fueled by expensive gasoline. As a result of our later than planned departure from France we decided to not stop in Italy and began a practice of making lodging reservations on the fly from our mobile devices.

We crossed into Slovenia without any immigration checks. However going into Croatia was confusing. We first came to an immigration station that exited us from Slovenia. Less than 10 meters after that we came to the Croatia immigration post. Neither did more than a perfunctory check and we were off to Rovinj, a coastal town on the Istria peninsula. The toll road in this area was very good, largely deserted and expensive.

We had rented a small apartment, "soba", for two nights. We had little difficulty finding its general area, but it took a bit of time to find the exact location. Parking was on the street, but it had a separate kitchen dining room and the Internet was very good. There was a small market nearby where we shopped for breakfast food. The host spoke good English and she was both helpful and talkative.

It was located just a short walk outside of the old town. we walked into town fro dinner and ate at Agua, a harbor side restaurant. This was before the summer tourist season so there were few tourists around. The meal was a large seafood platter. the waitress was a twenty something who discussed the continuing effects of the Yugoslav wars. She said that many people still do not know what happened to their relatives and that many Croats came from the interior to live in the tourist hotels and rooms during the war to escape the fighting.

Nice evening walk back to the apartment.     

  

 

Straddling Two Continents

July 30-Aug 1 The events described occurred on those days - Istanbul

I. July 30 The drive from Selcuk to Istanbul looked like a long one, over 500 km. It turned out to be longer than expected.

Before leaving the Arky Hotel I took another pool swim and then had another acceptable breakfast, but I was still sweating after bringing our luggage down from the second floor and loading the car. We got out of Selcuk without any problem and started the drive north. We passed through the outskirts of Izmir, once the center of Greek life in Asia Minor, but now Turkey's third largest city, through Manisa with many minarets and then into the mountains. Lots of ascents and tunnels which slowed us down.  We passed through Balikesir, which seemed like a big city, but was not even mentioned in the tour book and then Bursa, like Konya, a center of Islamic traditionalism.

After about 6 hours of driving we came in the mid afternoon to the Topcular ferry that would take us across an arm of the Sea of Marmara (and avoid another 160 miles of driving.). There seemed to be a score of large auto ferries plying these waters and as soon as the boats were full, they took off.  The fare was 60 lira and they only took cash, which just about exhausted our supply of lira. The trip took about 30 minutes. A very pleasant voyage with the sun descending in the west and lots of boats. I saw off to the east that a suspension bridge was being built that when completed I assume will put most of these ferries out of business.

Once we disembarked from the ferry the drive into Istanbul was now only about 45 km and should have been completed in an hour. I forgot to account for the bottleneck at the Bosphorus Bridge. There are only two bridges that cross the Bosphorus, and this one had 6 lanes from two roads converging into two lanes. It took us over an hour to get onto the bridge. I should have recalled the long line of cars I saw approaching the bridge when we left Istanbul in May, but I forgot. In any event, the only other alternative would have been a ferry. After that our GPS directions were perfect and to my amazement we arrived at our hotel without getting lost. That was in stark contrast to our first trip to Istanbul in May when I drove around for almost an hour and even then could not make it exactly to the same hotel. A little bit of experience goes a long way.

I booked into the Blisstanbul Hotel, located in the Sisili neighborhood.  We stayed there during our brief first trip to Istanbul in May and enjoyed the hotel and its staff so we rebooked. I was surprised that several staff members remembered us when we checked in. The desk clerk, who had worked in the US, had a Virginia drivers license and liked US basketball, warmly greeted us. The shift manager who had chided us about not inquiring about the breakfast hours and the chef also warmly greeted us. We were given a room on the 7th floor. However the elevator only went up to 6. The bellman carried our bags. The room was smaller than the prior stay and overlooked an air shaft. But dinner that night in the hotel restaurant, again the menu being selected by the chef, and the breakfast the next morning were very good.

II. July 31

Istanbul is a very large city. It has over 12 million inhabitants and is the fifth largest city in the world in population. We drove through large sections of it on the Asia side coming into town and it stretched for miles on our departure three days hence. We only scratched the surface and hit the tourist highlights in our 2+ days there.

We began our tour of Istanbul pretty early. The Metro station was a 7 minute walk from the hotel, but we wasted some time trying to find a place to purchase the transit card "Istanbulkarts", to get into the Metro. We ultimately had to walk to the next station where were offers some cards by a "scalper", but I finally found a vending machine that sold the cards. 10 lira to purchase the card which can be used by multiple passengers and which the tourist book said was refundable, but none was provided when I sought one at the end of the trip, so I have a souvenir. Metro fares with the card were 1.75 euro regardless of trip length or transfers.

Six stops on the Metro took us to the Sultanahmet district, the heart of old Istanbul and site of many tourist attractions. But first we had to navigate the walk from the Metro stop to that district. We made several wrong turns, but encountered groups of college age kids dressed in blue shirts who were there to help. They were very friendly and I think volunteered to practice their English, but they ultimately got us pointed in the right direction. There are a lot of mosques in Istanbul and there are frequent and loud calls to prayer five times a day. All the mosques do not start at exactly the same time nor are their prayer calls the same. It is quite a cacophony of, sometimes annoying sound throughout the day. Luckily our hotel was not near a mosque.

We passed by the Suleymaniye mosque, one of the largest and grandest in the city. It was built in the 16th century at the direction of Sultan Suleyman I, "The Magnificent". He reigned for almost 50 years and presided over the Ottoman golden age. He codified Ottoman law, enjoyed military victories over the Hungarians conquering Rhodes, Belgrade and Budapest, conquered the North African coastal areas of what is now Tunisia and Algeria, and was the first Sultan to marry. Alas he did not enjoy martial bliss and palace intrigue brought about the death of his first two sons. He was the last Sultan to lead his army in the field and he died campaigning along the Danube. His mosque was designed by Mimur Sinan. Mimur was a Christian who was converted to Islam when he was recruited into the janizaries, the Ottoman army. His mosque design with a large central dome surrounded by smaller domes and semi domes became the standard in the Muslim world.  We passed by Istanbul University and came to a main street on which a tram line ran. After changing some money, and also changing our Georgian money for lira (a bank previously refused to accept the lari) we followed the line past the Basilica Cistern, a former subterranean water storage facility that we did not enter due to a long line, and found the Aya Sofya.

There was a line at that too, but after being unable to use the machines to purchase a pass, we purchased a three day museum pass from a van (only cash). That not only provided a discount, but it enabled us to bypass the lengthy lines.  While looking for a means to purchase the pass we were frequently approached by touts who graciously welcomed us and offered to help, but ended up wanting to take us to their rug, jewelry, or textile store or restaurant. One guy even promised to meet us when we came out and escort us to his restaurant.

The Aya Sofya is quite an extraordinarily beautiful building with an interesting and varied history. It was built at the direction of Byzantine emperor Justinian (yes, he was the same guy who directed the building of the Basilica of St. John in Selcuk. His building projects exhausted the treasury and weakened the Empire.) in the 6th century and began life as the Hagia Sophia church. One of the many mosaics in the building pictures him. The building functioned in that role until the 15th century when the Ottomans under Melmut the Conqueror conquered Constantinople, destroyed the last vestiges of the Byzantine Empire and converted the building into a mosque. Ataturk the nationalist declared it a museum in 1935.

As you enter the building through the huge Imperial Doors, they roll on wheels, there are several religious mosaics. As you pass those you enter a huge main space with a huge dome overhead. The latter collapsed two times due to earthquakes, but was rebuilt. There was a throne placed on a section of inlaid marble on the main floor where the Byzantine emperors were crowned. The Ottomans added 4 very large medallions overlooking the main floor, plus several other minor items, but it still seemed like a church. Next to a side entrance is a worn copper sheet attached to a pillar with a hole known as the Weeping Column. This pillar was blessed by St. Gregory the Miracle Worker and if you stick your finger in the hole your aliment(s) will be healed. The balls of my feet and toes still tingled at the end of the day.

Upstairs, which is reached by a ramp with lots of switchbacks, you get a terrific view of the main hall. The empress' throne (there were three Byzantine empresses who ruled in their own right) and more mosaics were up here. The tomb of Enrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice in the 13th century is up here. I find it incongruous that he is buried here since he conquered and ransacked Constantinople during one of the Crusades yet ended up having an honored place in a church whose descricration he presided over. We exited through the Beautiful Gate which has a 2d century BC bronze frame that was brought in from Rome.

We then walked to the Museum of Turkish & Islamic Arts. It was housed in a former Ottoman Palace and was built on the edge of the Byzantine hippodrome. The Palace was built for Ibrahim Pasa whose life was a roller coaster ride worthy of a Fitzgerald novel. He was born a Christian in Greece and sold as a slave into the Imperial Palace There he became friends with Suleyman who was his age. When Suleyman became Sultan he freed Ibrahim who rose through the ranks to become Grand Vizier (essentially the Prime Minister) I imagine that his success was aided by, or reflected in the fact that he married Suleyman's sister. Alas, Ibrahim's good fortune did not last. One of Suleyman's wives, Roxelana, convinced Suleyman that Ibrahim was disloyal and Suleyman had him strangled 12 years after he moved into the Palace. I do not know what happened to the sister. The museum housed a lot of calligraphy and carpets from throughout the Empire as well as the history of the Ottomans.

We then took a long walk to the Galata Bridge that spans the Golden Horn. I was seeking to eat one of the city's famous fast food fish sandwiches. However what we ended up doing was eating a full dinner at one of the many restaurants under the bridge. The food selection process consisted of waiter bringing out a platter of fish from which you selected your meal. The meal is priced by the weight of the fish selected. It was a good, long  and pricey meal during which we watched the ferries coming and going, the many mosques silhouetted against the city's hills and the sun setting over the Bosphorus.

After the meal we continued walking west until we came to the Metro bridge. There is a Metro stop in the middle of the bridge and we took that back to the hotel. Very efficient. We stopped for ice cream walking back to the hotel.

The hotel offered to upgrade our room so we packed up before going to bed.

III. August 1

Following the good and filling hotel breakfast we again took the Metro to the Sultanahmut District. We walked in the direction the Topkapi Palace. However before we arrived at the Place we stopped at a cemetery with lots of cats and several smaller tombs of former sultans. We also visited the Ottoman Tombs that are adjacent to the Aya Sofya. There are separate rooms that house the tombs of five Ottoman Sultans and their families and relatives. A lot of opulence for death.  Outside one of the rooms there were replicas of many tiles. The sign explained that during the 19th century the French took the originals to clean and repair them. Notwithstanding repeated Turkish requests, the originals remain in the Louvre. I suspect that the French have a different version of these events.

The Palace was built by the Ottoman emperors in stages. It is a gigantic compound set on a magnificent site overlooking the Bosphorus and looking out to Asia. There was a very expensive restaurant looking out to Asia. The name does not do it justice as it  has several courtyards surrounded by many building, and a pool, and at its height housed over 4000 royals and staff/servants. The highlights included: the huge Palace Kitchen which had beautiful porcelain dinnerware that allegedly changed color if the food was poisoned; the Harem, which was the royal family's quarters, consisted of over 300 rooms including a complex for the Black Eunuchs and seemed to be under the direction of the emperor's mother; the Treasury; and the Marble Terrace. The Sultans could have up to four legitimate wives, but generally had scores of concubines. Murat III allegedly had 112 children. There even was a room set aside for circumcisions. The Baghdad Kiosk commemorated the conquest of Baghdad which I thought was particularly beautiful. There was too much to see in one day, so we left.

We then walked over to the Bazaar District. This area is home to two of Istanbul's grand Ottoman buildings, the Suleymaniye and Beyazit Mosques, but we were mosqued out so we made our way to the Grand Bazaar. This was established under Mehmet in the 15th century and has grown, I might say metastasized, into a sprawling, covered shopping mall. It is a labyrinthine market in which you can seemingly purchase anything. rankly I was overwhelmed and probably shopped out. It has main thoroughfares and narrow alleyways in which goods are not only sold, but they are also produced by local craftsmen. This would be heaven for someone who likes to shop and bargain. One could easily spend days inside, but we did not.

We had reserved tickets for a Dervish ceremony that evening through our hotel, but we had to find the performance site in the Faith district to pay for and pick them up. That was a bit of a walk and by the time we got there we needed to eat in the immediate area of the event. We ate at a small restaurant, lured in by the entries of a barker and the promise of a flaming meal prepared in a clay pot in a short time. The meal's preparation was a dramatic performance performed in the narrow street.

It is a religious ceremony during which no words are spoken. It begins with extended chanting which is the most important part of the ceremony. Then the whirling begins. There were six whirlers dressed in long coats. They seemed to be in a trance. The whirling enables the adherents to achieve a higher union with God. It lasted about 75 minutes and was an interesting ceremony.

After that we walked back to the Metro station on the bridge and returned to our hotel. We had been moved to a more spacious room that did not funnel noise up the air shaft.













     

Another Idyllic, Small, Central European Capital

August 10-12 is when these events occurred. Ljubljana, Slovenia. [lyoob-lyee-AH-nah. It took me a while to get it right. Although after all that practice, one of our Slovenian guides (who spoke perfect English with a clipped, crisp British accent) told us to just forget about pronouncing the "j's."]

I. August 10th
The trip out of Zagreb went easily and smoothly. We were soon back on the toll road and after paying one toll, we were quickly approaching the Slovenian border. We stopped at a gasoline station and attempted to exhaust our accumulation of kunas with a fill-up. When that did not suffice, we purchased almost $14 of junk food and drink.

I was surprised that even through we were passing from one EU country to another, we still had to go through immigration for both countries. However, the crossing went smoothly and quickly.

Slovenia is a very small county. It is half the size of Switzerland and has about 2 million residents. It has a very different feel than the other Balkan countries that we visited. It seemed to be more prosperous, more organized, more punctual and more western than those other countries. Indeed, it is a bit hard to fathom that it was once part of Yugoslavia.  Unlike Serbia and Georgia, and to a lesser extent Croatia, we did not see any Soviet era rusting factories or hulking, ugly, apartment buildings.  The country was long ruled by the Habsburg dynasty and has a strong Germanic flavor, but it seems nicer and more laid back than Germany or Austria. In 1990 a reformer was elected in Slovenia's first free elections and the communists were removed from office. The new leader sought to pursue a Swiss-style confederation with the rest of Yugoslavia, but he was rebuffed. In the face of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic's nationalist rantings about protecting Serbs no matter where they resided, [It seems that Putin's playbook is not original.], when a vote on independence was held later in the year, 88% voted in favor of independence. In 1991, Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia and declared its independence. Slovenia is 90% ethnic Slovene, and because Milosevic was probably preoccupied with the Serbs in Croatia and making war on the also newly-independent Croatia, Slovenia managed to escape Yugoslavia with only a 10-day war and a few dozen deaths. No one else in the world speaks Slovenian, so virtually everyone, at least in Ljubljana, the capital, speaks English.

It took us less than an hour after we crossed the border to reach Ljubljana. It was a toll road and like Turkey, without any means to pay the toll on the road.  However, while Slovenia is in both in the EU and the euro zone, T-Mobile does not have a plan there.  So as we entered Ljubljana, we were driving blind when we were seeking our hotel, Lev. However, Ljubljana is not very big, but also not very car-friendly, and after driving around, but not in, the center city (which is largely a pedestrian zone), we spotted signs for our hotel and arrived there easily in mid afternoon. We were given a nice room on the tenth floor as they took our car away for parking.  [By the way, a portion of the pedestrian-only areas is a result of the super-efficient, keep-your-promises, popular mayor, Zoran Jankovic, who turned to politics after being forced out of his supermarket corporation.]

Ljubljana's history goes back a long way. It too has a good founding story. The local legend is that when Jason and his Argonauts (we have encountered that group several times on this trip) were passing through on their way home with the Golden Fleece, they were overtaken by winter and stopped at, and founded, present day Ljubljana. The legend also says that he killed a dragon while out in the marshlands and that is the reason the dragon is the city's mascot.

More likely is that the marshes outside of town were settled by lake dwellers. In the City Museum we saw the remains of what is claimed to be the world's oldest wheel, used by the lake dwellers around 3300 BC. The area was at various times overrun and ruled by the Celts, Romans, Huns and Slavs, but from the 14th century it was ruled by the Habsburg dynasty, which accounts for the pronounced Germanic flavor of the city. During a brief period of Napoleonic rule, Ljubljana was made the capital of the Illyrian Provinces, Slovenian became an official language, and the Slovenes got a taste of nationalism. However, after the Congress of Vienna, they were stuffed back into the Habsburg box under Austrian rule.

During WWI there was extensive fighting in what is now northwest Slovenia on the Soca/Isonzo front. Unlike the western front which got much more publicity, this was fought in the mountains in trenches that had to be dug into rock. Soldiers from 22 different nationalities (mainly from the disparate parts of the Austrian Hungarian empire, but also from Italy's colonies) fought on this front. With German assistance, the Austrians were beating the Italians -- even today, Italians supposedly refer to a disaster as, "at least it's not a Caporetto" (their name for the battle). However, when the Germans pulled out, the Austrian army collapsed under the weight of British and US assistance to the Italians.

There were two notables who participated in those battles. Erwin Rommel experimented with Blitzkrieg tactics that he later employed very successfully in North Africa in WWII. Earnest Hemingway served in the Red Cross Ambulance Corps on the Isonzo Front. When his ambulance was hit by a mortar shell, he allegedly packed his wound with cigarette butts to stop the bleeding. "A Farewell to Arms" was based on his experiences in this fighting.

After WWI Slovenia was included in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later renamed Yugoslavia (south Slavs). During WWII Slovenia was occupied first by the Italians, and then by the Germans. The latter found the Ljubljana resistance movement too difficult to suppress, so they encircled the city in barbed wire and turned it into a giant prison for three years. It has lots of schools and the average age of its population is 30, the youngest of any capital city in Europe.

[A digression:  There was a large Slovenian emigrant community on the west side of Cleveland when I lived there, and for years it was represented in Congress by Dennis Kucinich, a perennial candidate for President for a while and Mayor of Cleveland when the Cuyahoga River caught fire (not his fault) and the municipal electric utility went bankrupt. The latter was his fault. I occasionally went over to that side of town to eat.]

We discovered that a Ljubljana Tourist Card gets you free admission into most of the city's sights, free travel on city buses (there was no tram system) free guided tours and, as the booklet said "much much more." So we purchased two-day passes online (10% discount for that), but then had to find the Tourist office to pick up the passes. The walk into the town center was less than 5 minutes. We found the first tourist office, which directed us to the tourist office that handed out the passes.

We signed up for a one-hour riverboat cruise (Ljubljana River) that was leaving soon and after that, a tour of the Castle and a city walk. Just flash the pass.  The river cruise was guided by a young Slovenian who spoke English with an English accent. No explanation for that. The only other cruisers were an Australian couple. The river is lined with cafes and restaurants and is forded by many bridges, most with a unique history. Butchers Bridge is based on a design by local famed architect Joze Plecnik, and has several bizarre small sculptures along the railings. It also has Adam and Eve statues and lots of padlocks, following the Paris craze. Dragon Bridge has four dragons and commemorates the 40th anniversary of Emperor Franz Joesph's rule, 1848-1888 imprinted on the side. Cobbler's Bridge is a columned bridge also based on a Plecnik design, (the original bridge was lined with cobblers, or  shoemakers as we know them) which new design was conceived as a square over the river. (The cobblers did not make the cut on the replacement.) Finally, there is the Triple Bridge that joins Ljubljana's main public areas, Preseren Square and the Town Square. The middle span is the widest, but Plecnik added two other spans to help funnel traffic out of the square.

The riverside market and colonnade is yet another Plecnik design and is based on an ancient Greek agara design, similar to what we saw in Ephesus.

Plecnik was a native of Ljubljana and through his work in the first half of the 20th century, he has had a strong impact on how the city looks today. His style seems to be a synthesis of historical and modern elements. He was also the chief architect for the renovation of the Prague Castle after WWI. He was very religious and fell out of favor with the post WWII communist regime. After his death in the 1990s, his reputation was revived and his designs have been incorporated into several recent projects; his work definitely gives Ljubljana an idiosyncratic sense of style.

After the boat ride, we walked over to the Town Square for the next tour. The tour began in the Town Hall. Built in the 15th century and still used as the city hall, it has lots of artwork in the courtyard and a big clock tower. The fountain in the square is the Fountain of Three Carniolian Rivers, representing the areas' three main rivers, the Ljubljana, Sava and Krka. It resembles the fountains in Rome, which is not surprising since it was designed by an Italian, Francesco Robba. His claim to fame is that in all his sculptures, he joins together the two middle fingers on the left hand. He has many sculptures in Ljubljana, which can be spotted by the hand signals.

We then took a tourist train up to Ljubljana Castle. The hill upon which it sits has a commanding view of the town and countryside looking out as far as the Julian Alps. It has had settlements going back to prehistoric times. The Romans built the first fortress and it was added to over the years. In the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, it was used as a penitentiary and a POW camp, and has been rebuilt as a tourist attraction. We toured the free exhibits, the penitentiary, a small chapel and the Slovenian history exhibit. The Italians do not get "credit" for this, but they ran some pretty bad concentration camps, too.

We walked down a long winding ramp to Gotnji Trg (upper) square which is one of the town gates of medieval Ljubljana. That led into Stari Trg (old) square that constitutes the center of old town Ljubljana, with the castle overshadowing it. This street is now lined with shops, restaurants and cafes. Most of the buildings along this street had only three horizontal windows, the medieval city's vehicle for limiting the size of buildings within the walled city. The Schweiger House was purchased by a rich merchant who combined two houses for his mansion (thus, six windows wide).

We ate dinner outside at a restaurant on Stari Trg that employed disabled people and thus was subsidized by the government. It served Slovenian food, and we had kranjska klobasa, a Slovenian sausage as well as Slovenian wine and beer. The former allegedly has a growing international reputation. We followed that up with some very good ice cream at a shop on the same street.

II. August 11

The breakfast at the Lev had the largest selection of foods that we encountered on the trip. No cooked to order, but it had multiple fruits and an unending supply of chocolate coussiants.

After breakfast we took the bus (just flash the pass) to the National Museum of Contemporary History that is located within Tivoli (shades of Copenhagen) Park. This museum focused on Slovenia's history from the beginning of the 20th century, essentially starting with the last years of Habsburg rule. During WWII Slovenia was invaded by and chopped up between Germany, Italy and Hungary. There were exhibits of the socialist era that were not as negative as those we saw in Georgia and Croatia. However, they also showed the prison camps and secret police of the early Tito years. Tito remains popular here and there was both his bust and a book detailing his trips to Slovenia. There was great focus on the War for Independence in 1991 and the actions of civilians in blocking the barracks of the Yugoslav People's Army, some of whose conscripts were Slovenians There is one exhibit which decries how Yugoslavian bombers at one point were herded to the city but were called back by a Yugoslav officer who was Slovenian.  It culminated in the Army sailing away with its equipment. The most moving exhibit was one describing the trials and tribulations of about 30 Slovenes who had been displaced by various wars and their efforts, sometimes over many years, to return to families that had no idea they were still alive. One of these returnees even ended up in Ft Dix in New Jersey as a POW.

Then we took the bus back to the old town area and explored the artificial rain storm in Preseren Square. This is now pedestrian only. (The current mayor has made large sections of the center city car-free. A boon for pedestrians, but I imagine a burden for people who live in that area.) At the center of the square is a large statue of France Preseren, a 19th century nationalist poet. In most other countries you would find a military hero there. The statue shows him being inspired from above by a naked Muse. That did not sit well with the local Bishop whose church, Franciscan Church of the Annunciation, sits on the square and faces the statue. I was told that for years the church covered the scandalous statue each night with a tarp, and the model who posed as the Muse could no longer find work and had to permanently emigrate to South America. Preseren's gaze is directed to a picture in a second story window of Julija, the unrequited love of his life. Not as romantic as it sounds. I was told that they met when he was in his 30s as a teacher in her father's house and she was a child. She might have inspired him, but she married another, opting for wealth and status. All he could offer was poverty and fame.

We then took a cirquitious route to the City Museum. Lots of city history which showed how the city has been ruled by 10 different states during the past 200 years. Imagine being the buyer in the school district trying to keep up with the different textbooks. They had an old Fiat Zastava 750 car that was popular in communist Yugoslavia. There was a Faces of Ljubljana exhibit, a Roman road and and an exhibit on water usage. Seems to me that unlike California, they have plenty of water here. I even drank it without getting sick, another sign that we had returned to Europe.

After that we crossed back into old town and took the funicular (just flash the pass) up to the Castle. This time we used our pass to visit the paid exhibits. Most prominent were the torture museum (it is amazing how creative, and cruel, people can get when they want to torture someone) and the puppets museum. We ate dinner in the Castle's courtyard at the Gostilna na Gradu restaurant. Nice dinner of Slovenian food with small portions, but affordable prices.

On the way back to the hotel, took a detour, maybe even got a bit lost, and so we passed through Congress Square and Square of the Republic. The former is ringed by cultural buildings while the latter is ringed by commercial buildings and is where Slovenian independence was declared in 1991. It also houses a tower with a gigantic digital sign flashing the time, temperature and date. We also passed the US embassy during our walk, which I think is the only US embassy, other than the US embassy in Delhi where my son works, that we saw on the trip.

III. August 12
Another big breakfast at the Lev. We then walked back to center city. First we went to the post office to purchase a tollway sticker. 15 euro for one week. Then we went to an athletic store to purchase running shoes, thinking that they would be too expensive in France. Turns out they were expensive here too, but good on French country roads. We then turned away from old town and passed a big department store, Galerija Emporium that dates back to the late 19th century, the Grand Union Hotel, (where I wanted to stay, but it was pretty expensive), with its domed spire that has been replicated on many other buildings in the city, a government building that was hideously painted in red, blue and white colors (Slovenian flag) and finally, a noisy, pink zigzagged building that houses a bank.

By early afternoon we took off for Germany, not knowing where we would stay, or even in what city, but secure in our knowledge that we were good with the Slovenian toll road authority.
     

Ephesus and the Temple of Artemis - One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

July 27-29 is when these events occurred

I. July 27
It was surprisingly easy to get out of Konya and get on our long drive to Selcuk, the living town outside the ruins of Ephesus. The drive passed through a lot of the Turkish agricultural heartland. There were many fields of grain, primarily what seems to me to be corn and wheat, acres of tomatoes [We saw lots of 18-wheel trucks whose trailers were loaded with tomatoes. I could only wonder what shape the tomatoes at the bottom were in.] and cucumbers, sun flowers, scores of vineyards and lots of grazing cattle. Otherwise the drive was pretty nondescript. The roads were four-lane, well-maintained highways until the end, and they did not have a toll. Even when we turned off at the end onto a two-lane road, it was very good.

We arrived in Selcuk in the early evening and, except for one missed turn, we found our hotel fairly easily. We stayed in the Akay Hotel, an older hotel which is just across from an imposing 16th century mosque, Isa Bey Camii. It is supposedly run by a Swiss family, and while it had very good service and lots of attention to detail, most of the staff did not speak English. The rooms were comfortable, but a bit old. We parked on the street right in front of the hotel. It has a terrific pool and is located within walking distance of some of Selcuk's major sights and the downtown eateries.

After settling in the room, I went out to the pool for a very refreshing swim. Since it had turned dark by the time I finished, we chose to eat dinner at the hotel's rooftop restaurant. The chef prepared a meal for us that began with melon, offered a main course of grilled chicken and beef with vegetables and ended with a plate of watermelon. Washed it down with some Turkish beer and wine.

II. July 28
After returning to the rooftop for a somewhat standard breakfast of cheeses, meats, watermelon, tomatoes, cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs and bread the next morning, we set out for Ephesus.

Understanding how the south Aegean coast in general, and Ephesus in particular, were so important 2000 years ago requires one to visualize bays, islands and peninsulas where they no longer exist. At the time when the Mediterranean Sea was effectively a Roman lake, the coastline was 6km inland from where it is today. Over time, the Cayster River silted the area, the island of Ayasuluk became a hill and the thriving ancient port cites that were fully integrated into the Greek and later Roman worlds, became landlocked and eventually abandoned.

The legend surrounding the founding of Ephesus is one of the more endearing founding legends that I heard on this trip. According to the Greek historian Heroddotus, Ephesus was founded by Greek colonists coming from the west during the 10th century BC (that was before Homer composed the Odyssey) when Kodros, the King of Athens was told by the oracle before one of Athens' many wars with neighboring states, that the armies of the king who will die first will be victorious. Kodros died first, his army won and then a quarrel broke out among his sons over who should rule his kingdom. Androclos, one of his sons, lost out in that struggle and rather than sticking around sailing yachts and collecting mistresses, he consulted the oracle and asked about locations to start a new city. The oracle told him that he will know the right place when a fish and a boar indicate to him the exact place. Androclos and his men set sail into the Aegean Sea and landed on the Anatolian shore near today's ruins of the Temple of Artemis. While cooking dinner a fresh fish they had caught was so fresh that it jumped out of the pan, knocked over some coals and started a fire, which fleshed a wild boar out of the woods. Androclos killed the wild boar, ate it [I guess the fish was burned or dirty], and decided to build Ephesus on that spot.

In fact, that area had already been settled by the Lelegians and Carians, the latter of whom subsequently attacked the new settlement and killed Androclos. However, the former worshipped the Anatolian fertility goddess Cybele. The Greeks adopted portions of the Lelegians fertility rituals and and created the Artemis of Ephesus. It became a tremendous religious and commercial success, indeed a cult that inspired pilgrimages to the Temple, which had been rebuilt several times after floods and invaders damaged the temple. The wealth that the pilgrims and maritime trade brought led to Ephesus' first golden age in the 6th century BC. That success attracted the attention and envy of King Croesus [he had early spring bulbs named after him] of Lydia, who sent troops to conquer the city. The Ephesians supposedly had such faith in the powers of Artemis that they protected the Artemision (the Temple) and city with a simple rope to block passage. The rope did not keep the Lydian troops out, but Croesus did not destroy the city. Instead he renovated the Temple. Persia then attacked and defeated Lydia, and captured Croesus. He was about to be burned to death when he cried out, "Oh Solon". The Persian king asked what he meant and Croesus told him that he had previously asked Solon the Athenian philosopher if there was anyone happier than him. The philosopher replied that he could not tell if he was happy until he saw him die.  Croesus said that now that he was about to be burned to death, the philosopher was right. The Persian king was so impressed he terminated the bonfire and made Croesus the world's first consultant.

Ephesus was subsequently involved in the many Greek Persian wars, ultimately picking the wrong side and ended up under Persian rule. On July 21, 356 BC a notoriety seeker, Herostratus, burned down the Temple of Artemis, reasoning that by doing so his name would be forever remembered. The disgusted Ephesian government immediately executed him and decreed that a similar fate would befall anyone who mentioned his name. However, here it is, centuries later and he is still remembered.

Alexander the Great passed through in 334 BC and offered to fund the rebuilding of the Temple, if it was dedicated to him. The proud citizens of Ephesus cleverly declined by pointing out that it would be unfitting for one god's temple to be dedicated to another. When it was finished, it was about 350 ft long and 120 ft wide with about 127 columns, and was the largest marble temple ever built -- one of the wonders of the ancient world. Now all that remains of it are portions of the foundation and one reconstructed column.

Rome took over the city in 133 BC and ushered in Ephesus' second golden age. Ephesus was made the capital of the Roman province of Asia in 33 BC, and thus became the most important city and trading center of Asia Minor. Its population swelled to 250,000, who were drawn from all parts of the empire. The annual festival of Artemis (Diana to the Romans) was a month-long party that drew in tens of thousands.

St. Paul came through and began to convert people. That caused a riot among the silversmiths, who made a living selling statues of Artemis and were suffering losses. St. Paul fled to Rome where he was ultimately beheaded.

During the period of Roman rule there was a large amount of construction. However, all good things usually come to an end. Despite repeated efforts to drain the harbor, or even divert the river, the harbor continued to silt up and eventually the port was lost. Ephesus' increasing Christian composition meant less funds for the Artemis cult. In 263 AD the Goths sacked the city and burned the temple. The Byzantine emperors, particularly Constantine in the 4th century and Justinian in the 6th century, made efforts to revive its fortunes; but as Izmir became a viable port, Ephesus continued its decline, and following invasions by pirates from the sea and Arabs from land, it was abandoned in the 10th century. Imagine the disappointment of the medieval Crusaders who, when passing through on the way to killing Muslims, (if schooled in the classics) came to Ephesus expecting to find an epic ancient city, but instead found a forlorn little village populated by a few ancient residents.

Ephesus has been privatized now. It is run by a Turkish company and all the continuing archaeological digs are run by the Austrians. We parked at the Koressian Gate (not the city's main entrance), and it cost 7.5 lira to park, 25 to enter and 15 to visit the terraced houses. There are scores of vendors at the Gate.

There is a lot in the city. We first saw the Gymnasium which had exercise rooms, a swimming pool, fields, baths and a ceremonial hall. There was an adjacent stadium for athletic contests. Wrestling was a big deal. Then we walked onto Harbor Street. This street linked the harbor with the great theater. It was a later addition to the city as the harbor retreated. It had underground water and sewer pipes and 50 streetlights on its colonnades. Street lighting was very unusual during that period and only three cities in the empire had that. The length of this street shows how far the sea receded. On a side street off this street is a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, who was brought here to live by St. John. The Ecumenical Council of 431 took place here. It was precipitated by an assertion from the Bishop of Antakya (this is when most of Asia Minor was Christian) that the Virgin Mary did not give birth to Jesus as God, but to the man Jesus, who was the bearer of the word of God -- or something like that. That caused a huge uproar, so the Emperor called a council in Ephesus of all the Bishops, who decided that the Virgin Mary did in fact give birth to Jesus Christ as a complete man and complete God, and that she had indeed lived in Ephesus after the death of Christ. End of controversy.

The Great Theatre had a seating capacity of 25,000 and was the largest theatre in Asia Minor. It is in very good shape. It was originally built by Lysimachus, one of Alexander's generals, but it was rebuilt and expanded by the Romans in the 1st century. As you climb up the theater's seats they are pitched steeper, as I noted when I walked to the top, making the viewing still good from the nose-bleed seats.

We then proceeded up Marble Street, which connects the Theatre with the Library of Celsus and is the third longest street in the city. On the right is Lower Agora that was a large commercial place. It had a massive colonnade with a wooden roof that sheltered the vendors.

At the end of Marble Street is the Celsus Library. This is the star of Ephesus. It was built in the 2d century by Counsel Aquila to commemorate his father who was governor of Asia Minor and was buried under the library. It was three stories, (only two remain) and it was the third largest ancient library, behind only Alexandria and Pergamum. It protected its contents from temperature and humidity extremes with a 1 meter gap between its inner and outer walls. The front has replica statues (the originals are in a Vienna museum) of the Greek virtues: Goodness; Thought; Knowledge and Wisdom. By now it was about 10:30 am and the crowds from the tour buses (which all seemed to arrive at about the same time), were arriving down Curetes Way from the Upper Gate.

So we walked the length of Curetes Way to the Upper Gate. Had some ice cream and a cold drink and then began to walk back over the route, now devoid of crowds. Like most Roman cities, at the main entrance you find the Baths so people entering the city can clean themselves. There were visible cold and hot rooms. On the plaza in front of the Baths was the State Agora. This was not a market, rather it was a square used for political and social meetings. In the center is a small Temple of Isis, a tribute to the Egyptian Goddess, because there was hope of a second life in the other world and she ruled over that.

The Odeon was a 5000-seat auditorium that served as a meeting place for the Senate, the Popular Chamber and a concert hall. It had marble seats and Terra-cotta piping that was part of the aqueduct system. The Prytaneion was where the eternal flame was maintained by the pytane, youngsters who were only from noble families and performed this duty without compensation. (Even then the desirable internships were unpaid.) Here I thought I saw differences between Greek and Roman architecture.  The former's columns were spiraling and ornamental, while the latter's were smooth and unadorned. Down a side street is a two-story building that is believed to have been Ephesus' hospital and possibly its medical school. There was an image of a snake on the building.

Next to that is Domitian Square and the ruined Domitian Temple. It was built by Emperor Domitian in the first century. He banished St. John to the island of Patmos for three years and executed his own nephew after the boy showed an interest in Christianity. He was so disliked that his Temple was demolished when he died.  In contrast is the temple of Hadrian, a beloved emperor who restored Ephesus' status in the empire. His temple has two preserved arches which are supported by central keystones without the need for any mortar.

These and other buildings lined Curetes Way, which was Ephesus' main thoroughfare and was named after the religious order that held an annual procession on the Way to celebrate the birth of Artemis. There are several large fountains and public latrines, at which one could purchase a private spot. Across from that is a building that allegedly was the brothel.

Another star attraction is the Terraced Houses. This was a rich residential area. The homes were large and multi-storied. There were lots of colorful mosaics and frescoes and a central heating and cooling system supplied hot and cold running water.  They had richly decorated inner courtyards and servants quarters. As I walked the the stairs that snaked throughout the structures, I wondered whether it would be better to live like that then, or a middle-class existence now.

That was the end of our two-person tour, aided by our Ephesus guide book, so we trudged back to the car and drove back to the hotel. After some pool time, we walked to downtown Selcuk and passed a group of older women eating large slices of watermelon. We ate dinner outside at the Ejder Restaurant. There was a very energetic host who proudly showed off his guestbook that included a visit by then President Clinton. There were also lots of cats. The restaurant was opposite the Byzantine aqueduct and next to a fountain that was lit up with many colors.  The tops of the aqueduct are now home to huge nests of storks which seem to stand guard over both their nests and the aqueduct. We had a couple of grilled meat Turkish dinners. Then walked around the still lively town and got some ice cream. On the way back, we spoke at length with a Kurdish store owner. He too spoke very negatively about the government. It was a long day.

III. July 29

After breakfast and a morning swim, we walked over to the Basilica of St. John. (It is amazing how in a predominately Muslim country, there are so many Christian antiquities; but until the Seljuks and later the Ottomans swept in to weaken and then destroy the Byzantine empire, this was a Christian area.) St. John came here in the first century, after being chased out of Jerusalem, bringing with him the Virgin Mary. Except for the time he was expelled, he lived here most of the rest of his life and was buried here. In the 6th century Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora caused to be built what was then the largest church in the world, and even today, would be the seventh largest, if it were still in one piece.

The Ayasuluk Fortress at the top of the hill is very big, and its partially restored structures reflect the Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman eras. It also has vestiges from the pre-historic peoples who first settled this area when Ayasuluk was an island. From here you could see the balcony outside our hotel room. Fortunately we had taken in the laundry we had hung out to dry.

We then walked over to the Isa Bey Camii, a 14th century large mosque that is post Seljuk and pre Ottoman. It had an interesting square courtyard with several minarets that had been rebuilt following earthquakes.

We then got in the car and drove over to what little remains of the Temple of Artemis. The Temple had the privilege of providing sanctuary to those who took shelter in it. Over the years sanctuary inflation occurred. Alexander expanded it to the grounds of the Temple. King Mithridates expanded that to include the area where an arrow could be shot from the Temple. Marc Anthony doubled that area. I imagine that by the end, there was probably a colony of outlaws surrounding the Temple.

We then drove off to the Grotto of the Seven Sleepers, or the Ephesian version of Rip Van Winkle. As I understand it, the main source of conflict between the Christians and Romans was that the former refused to follow the cult of the Emperor and participate in the sacrifices made on the altars of Temples to the Roman gods. That caused the Romans to feed lots of Christians to lions. When seven young Christians were threatened with death in 250, they took shelter in the grotto and fell asleep. When they awoke and went out for food, they realized that they had been asleep for 200 years (luckily for them they did not sleep for a 1000 years, or they would have woken up in a Muslim country) and learned that Christianity had become the state religion. The Emperor deemed their resurrection as a miracle and when they died they were buried in the grotto and a chapel was built. Excavations have revealed that the site was a necropolis (I had to look that up) and there were hundreds of tombs there.

The house of the Virgin Mary was closed, but there was a very big statue of her (placed by an American society). The house's history is the product of a disabled 18th century German nun, who had visions of the location of the house. The Pope has now declared it a pilgrimage site.

We then walked to the Ephesus Museum. It contains many of the artifacts that have been excavated from Ephesus (although others are now displayed at various western museums). The highlight was the two multi-breasted, multi-armed Artemis statues

For dinner we again walked into downtown Selcuk and ate outdoors at the Wallabies Aqueduct, which was adjacent to the restaurant we ate at the prior day. That owner acknowledged us. The meal was again Turkish and very good. We received bowls of complimentary soup. After dinner we went back to the store owned by the Kurd and purchased some evil eyes.







           

Diyarbakir

July19 is when these events occurred

The breakfast at the SV Business Hotel was pretty good. Nothing was cooked to order, but the selection was extensive, the fruit and bakery items were fresh and there were lots of vegetables.

We started the day by returning to the area we had been the prior evening, but before we got there we went up onto the City walls. Diyarbakir's single most conspicuous feature is its almost 6km circuit of walls and gates that circumvent the old city. It was claimed that the walls are second in length in the world, exceeded only by the Great Wall of China. The walls were originally built by the Romans, but their present size dates from the 5th century when the Byzantines did major renovations. The walls are being restored, but that process is not complete.

We climbed up on the north Harput Kapisi Gate and walked along the top of the wall for a short distance. We then went back to the complex of buildings and museums that we had been unable to visit the prior day. It was a Sunday, so the park that these buildings surrounded was filled with families and strollers. We spoke with a few people, several of whom had some loose American connections and a few of whom had a German connection. There was an art museum that we quickly ran through, but we spent a lot of time in the history/archaeology museum. This area falls with the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys and the museum had relics from mankind's presence here going back to 8000 BC. The history of empires in this area that was displayed in the museum started with the Hurrian and subsequently included Assyrian, Persians, Alexander the Great, the Suleucids, the Romans, the Arabs (who gave the city its present name, Realm of Bakr, and its religion), the Safavid/Persians and finally the Ottomans. We met two college girls in the museum who were visiting from the Trabzon area where we had been in May.

After we left there we got lost [it turned out that we were not far from where I wanted to be] attempting to get to the Mardin Kapisi, south gate of the walls. We asked a few people for directions, and then were sort of adopted by a woman, who is a primary school teacher, and one of her of students. (It was never clear to us what their relationship was.) For the next several hours she took us on a whirlwind tour of Diyarbakir.

We walked down a main shopping street and visited the Ulu Camii, the city's most impressive mosque. Its courtyard was rectangular, Arab style, unlike virtually all of the other mosques we saw in India and Turkey that were square.There were sculptures of a huge lion and bull framing the entrance and reliefs on the walls featuring fruits and vegetables.

The Diyarbakir house museums were built and for a long time owned by Armenians. (They were largely killed or run out of Turkey in 1915 by the Ottomans in what the Turks characterize as the fog of war, and the Armenians describe as the first genocide of the 20th century.) They had summer and winter quarters. The summer area had a center courtyard with a fountain. Sleeping was on wooden platforms in the courtyard to catch breezes. We were able to enter the house of poet Cahit Sitki Taranci that was built in 1820 of black basalt stone. He lived in the first half of the 20th century. Some of his poems were printed on charts and there were many photographs of him, his family and the period when he lived. One of his more famous poems is Age Thirty Five:

"Age thirty five! It is half the way.
We are in the middle of life like Dante.
Jewel in our young ages
Begging, imploring is useless now.
It goes with having no pity on.

"Did it snow to my temple?
Is this face with wrinkles is it really mine?
And black circles under my eyes?
Why look so hostile now,
All mirrors I mistakenly deemed as a dear friend?"

Just wait until he gets to 65!

The Dengbe Evi, a Kurdish storytelling house, was closed on Sunday.

We then went to a shopping area and had some coffee, our self-appointed guide spilled some on her blouse, and she then took us to a tacky shop that sold tourist stuff. We then went to the courtyard of an older, elegant hotel that was setting up for a wedding. We stopped for beers and cold drinks in the courtyard.  Our guide put us on her Facebook page and decried teaching in Turkey. All references to Kurdish language and customs is forbidden. She said that she was getting burned out on teaching and wanted to come to the US.

At this point I was wondering if we would be able to get rid of our guide. She took us through a maze-like set of streets until we emerged at the Mardin Kapisi, the gate I wanted to go to.  We were able to go under the wall into a cave-like area that used to be a caravanserai, a fortified way station for caravans, which now contained some shops and a small chapel. There were two towers in the vicinity, Nur Burcu and Yedi Kardes Burcu. (Tower of Seven Brothers -- I forgot the story.) The latter had an informal concert going on it, with lots of people gathered around. It also offered great views of the Tigris River, the Bridge of Ten Eyes (arches) and the surrounding countryside.  Wedding pictures were being taken on the ramparts and our guide somehow managed to get Karen included in some of the pictures. When we were watching the concert we spoke with a Turkish family. By the end of our visit to the Mardin Gate, our guide somehow persuaded this family to give us a ride in their car to our hotel.

After we got out our guide then requested 50 lira (about $17). I half expected that was going to happen, but I was too tired to protest and just paid.  While I was doing that, Karen complimented the younger girl on her earrings, and our guide instructed her to take them off and give them to her.  It took protests and sneaking them back to the young girl when the guide was turned away to get them returned.

I used the hotel's fitness room and sauna. That was refreshing, but we were too tired to go out to eat so we just ate some of the fruit and snacks we had been carrying around. Watched Al Jazzera International's report on the bombing that occurred in the Turkish border town of Serca, about 200 km to the east and called it a night.

P.S.:  During our first trip to Turkey, it was on the eve of parliamentary elections.  In those elections a Kurdish party, the People's Democratic Party ("HDP") won 13% of the vote, for the first time clearing the 10% threshold needed for representation in Parliament. That was a singular achievement for Turkey's long-suppressed Kurdish minority and was cited repeatedly by Kurds with whom we spoke. The HDP's success was largely based on the Kurdish vote, but it also attracted the votes of liberals and secular voters who flooded the streets of Istanbul two years ago in anti-government protests. That success upset Turkish politics and denied President Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, ("AKP," an Islamist party that has governed Turkey in an increasingly autocratic manner for over a decade), a majority in Parliament.  The political parties were unable to form a coalition government. Some Kurds told us that Erdogan was unwilling to enter into a coalition and thus made unreasonable demands thereby forcing another election. Others, including the Islamist wife in the couple with whom we ate lunch on the tour in Cappadocia, said that the HDP and a right-wing nationalist party were racists and they both were the ones who were unreasonable during the coalition negotiations.

Subsequent to our departure from Diyarbakir, the Turkish government launched air strikes against the Kurdish fighters in Iraq ("PKK") and Syria ("PYD") and instituted a new wave of repression against the Kurds in Turkey. (Ironically, it did this after announcing an agreement with the US to let the US use the Turkey's Incirlik Air Base to better bomb ISIS.) Yet those Kurdish fighters have been among the most effective in fighting ISIS. This reignited the conflict with the Turkish Kurds, lead by the PKK and resulted in PKK bombings of Turkish military and police installations in the Diyarbakir area.  Some Kurds told us that Erdogan's objective in all of this is to rouse nationalist feelings within Turkey and tar the HDP as a terrorist front for the PKK in order to win votes from the other two parties, thereby regaining the super majority his AKP previously had in Parliament and resume his march to make Turkey a one-party state and to grant him an imperial Presidency.  That opinion is shared by a former US Ambassador to Turkey in a NY Times op-ed piece. This all may be a good political strategy for Erdogan [We will see; the election is in November.], but it does not help in the fight against ISIS [Ultimately it is impossible to win a war without good troops on the ground.] and runs the risk of plunging Turkey back into the armed conflict that it had for 20 years with the PKK.

   

With the Help of Strangers To The Heart of Turkish Kurdistan

July 18 is when these events occurred, Tatvan to Diyarbakir

This was going to be a long drive and I wanted to get started early. The Crater Hotel provided its third very good breakfast. I enjoyed sitting on on the balcony during breakfast and looking out over Lake Van. In one direction the lake stretched as far as the eye could see. In another direction I saw Tatvan stretching around the western end of the lake and its harbor. There were several steamers, most docked, but one taking off, probably to Van. The houses cascaded down the hill to the waters edge, and in the distance you could see the lake's north shore that we had travelled on three days prior. Finally, up toward the horizon I could see Mt. Nemrut, still streaked with snow. (There are two mountains with this name in Turkey, both named after the same Turkish explorer. This one is an inactive volcano now topped by water-filled craters. The other is taller, part of the Anti-Taurus (like the Ford car) mountain range and is topped with giant heads.) Due to time constraints, we did not go up this Nemrut.

We got going pretty early and before we left town, I decided to fill the gas tank at a BP station on the edge of town. While we were being filled up -- there is no self-service in Turkey, or indeed anywhere on our trip except in France-- the owner came over. First commenting on the wretched appearance of our car, he directed us to the car wash, brushing aside my objections with the promise that "it's free, on me". Then he directed us over to some chairs and had a youngster get us some tea. That began a lengthy discussion with several teas. The owner is relatively young and lives outside Istanbul with his wife and three children. With his brother, who he said is an architect, he owns a string of gas stations across Turkey. This station was very clean and well maintained. It is relatively new. He said that it took him two years to get all the permits and approvals needed to construct and open the station. He said that he has several BP stations and knew about the Gulf platform fire and oil spill. He joked that the Americans were taking all his money with the BP billion-dollar-settlement. He is a Kurd, and although he lives near Istanbul (we were later told that there are 5 million Kurds living in the Istanbul area), like many of the Kurds we spoke with, he was very negative about the current Turkish government's dealings with the Kurds. He had just gotten back from a vacation with his brother in Sarajevo. So much for getting an early start.

On our drive we initially passed Bitlis and began a very long descent through Bitlis Canyon along a river. It was a pretty, engaging drive negotiating the canyon twists and turns that went on for over 70 km. However, once we exited the canyon we began a long, hot, boring drive on D360 across the Anatolian plateau, punctuated only by bathroom and gas stops (the later to do the former).

We arrived at Diyarbakir in mid afternoon. It was a much larger town than I expected with over one million people. Turns out it is the heart of the Kurdish "nation" in Turkey and as such was the center of the 20-year-long PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) guerrilla war against Turkey. A legacy of this violence seems to be the many military installations that are present in the area. All surrounded by barbed wire. (Whom do they need protection from?) Indeed, later in our trip when we were in western Turkey, many expressed surprise, "You were there!" when we told them that we had gone to Diyarbakir. Anyway, our GPS seemed to be working, but it led us astray when seeking our hotel. I finally stopped at a tea house to ask for directions. The seated customers promised to help, but first we had to sit down with them and drink tea, for which they would accept no payment. They were all Kurdish young men. They spoke limited English, but were delighted to learn that we had been traveling through Kurdish areas and wanted to know how we liked the area, its people and what we had seen. A lot of the communication was facilitated by showing them our pictures.

After about 30 minutes and several tea refills, they decided to get a car and lead us to our hotel. We waited a bit for the car, more tea (by then I really had to go to the bathroom) and then they led us to our hotel. Just thanks was all they required. We checked into the SV Business Hotel, which was near one of the gates of the city walls and on a bustling street that our room overlooked. Most of the corners were occupied with food carts, usually mountains of melons of various types. I could not definitively determine what the requested price was, but it seemed as if they sought 5 lira for a kilogram of melon. If correct, that would be about 75 cents per pound. Our car was taken away to an unknown destination for parking.

After getting set up in our hotel, we ventured out and walked to the wall. We passed through the gate and entered an area of official looking buildings that surrounded a park. Many of the buildings are museums that were closed for the day. We encountered a group of six young men who invited us for a drink, tea of course, at a cafe that overlooked the Tigris River. About half spoke English. The most vocal was in the travel/tourist business, and he was very interested in the details of our trip. He recommended that we go up to Mt. Nemrut and said that he would be taking a group there on Monday. He also gave us a checklist of things to see in Diyarbakir. Another was a chemist and two were teachers. To varying degrees, they all were not happy with the current government and felt that it was not permitting the Kurds to express their cultural identity. They were happy that a cease fire had been negotiated between the PKK and the government, but felt that the problems persisted. Virtually all expressed a desire to visit America some day. (I wonder if they tell that to Russian visitors?)

Leaving them when it started to turn dark, we sought out a restaurant for dinner. After striking out on a few places that were not open for dinner, we ended up going to a restaurant on a second floor that seemed to be a local place. Lots of families with kids. I thought that we ordered meat skewers, but unlike the patrons, our meat, while cooked, did not come on a skewer. I passed on the tea, but drank lots of cold, bottled water while other patrons drank out of free pitchers. A good dinner at a reasonable price.  We enjoyed conversation with a young man at the table next to us, who was in the Turkish Air Force.

On the way back to our hotel we walked through the Nebi Camii, a mosque with a detached minaret (we had not seen that before) that was covered in alternating black and white bands of stone.  End of a long day of tea drinking.

    

Thessaloniki

August 3 is when these events occurred- Thessaloniki

The hotel provided a terrific buffet breakfast that we ate adjacent to the pool. Then we drove into the city and found free parking near the university. Probably only because school was not in session.

This city was named for a woman who herself was named for a military victory. Thessaloniki was the daughter of Macedonian king Phillip II (and thus the sister of Alexander the Great) who won the battle of Thessaly. She married one of Alexander's generals who named the city after his wife in 316 BC. It was the eastern capital of the Roman empire and the western capital of the Byzantine empire. After the Ottomans captured the city, they welcomed Sephardic Jews who were fleeing the Inquisition to resettle there, so there was a lot of population diversity. I read that the Ottoman Sultan questioned, how smart can King Ferdinand be if he exiles some of his most able and productive citizens? At some point in the 16th century, these Jews formed the largest population group in the city and on the eve of WWII they numbered 60,000. However, all but a few thousand of the Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps during WWII. Another population jolt was the 1923 forced deportation of people of Turkish ethnicity and the assimilation of tens of thousands of ethnic Greeks who were evicted from western Turkey.

We attempted to do a self-guided walking tour of the city. It began with a climb to the highest point in the old city, the tower and eastern end of the Byzantine walls. However, before we got there we had to pass a local cemetery which contained the graves of many local notables, and scores of cats. While the climb was hard and hot, at least we knew that it would be all downhill after that. The walls and tower ("pyrgos") offered expansive views of the city and the gulf. They were originally built during the 4th century by the Byzantines  to resemble the walls of Constantinpole, and were rebuilt by the Ottomans in the 14th century. In 1821 in response to the Greek's war for independence, the Turks strengthened the walls using stones from the Jewish cemetery. I also saw an incredibly wrinkled and old woman up there.

After that we went to the Monastery of Viatadon (sounds like a computer game). It was an incredibly relaxing place with peacocks and flamingos on the grounds. The present structure was built in the 14th century, but its religious origins go back much further and St. Paul preached at the site in the first century. It also had a lot of well preserved frescos on its walls.

After that we got lost and missed several churches. However, we wandered through a seemingly prosperous and well landscaped neighborhood of winding and narrow streets. No sign of austerity here. We came out at the bottom at City Hall. We tried to get euros at a bank, but we were told that we had to go to a currency exchange. One would have thought that Greece would remove any impediments to obtaining foreign currency.

As we continued wandering around, we were approached by a stranger who helped us get back on course. He was a former cab driver and professed to know the city well. He directed us to a broad open area that was the Roman Agora. This was a large commercial market area that the Macedonians founded in the 3rd century BC and the Romans maintained. There were clustered shop walls and mosaic floor remnants. The English placard said that it is now the site of a city-sponsored urban picnic area with free food and music, but alas we missed that. Adjacent to the Agora is the Yeni Hamam, a large 17th century former Turkish bathhouse that now hosts concerts and art exhibits.

We walked down a broad main street that led to the water. It appeared to be the city's main shopping street and it was lined with fading multistory apartment buildings. We found a currency exchange and they offered a very bad rate, so we exchanged a small amount of money. Off on a side street, after much searching we found the Yed Lazikaron, the city's only surviving synagogue, but it was closed.

We walked to and then along the waterfront to the White Tower. This is the city's most famous landmark. It was initially built by the Byzantines and then added onto by various other rulers and now has six stories. It has been the scene of many bloody battles, most prominently in 1826 when the Ottomans massacred rebellious Islamicised formerly Christian teenage troops, and also in 1913, when the Greeks reconquered the city and the tower. After that battle the walls were whitewashed to remove the blood. The tower contained interesting interactive exhibits about the city's history.

We then started our walk back to the car and visited three Roman ruins. The first was the Palace of Emperor Galerius. Not much left except some mosaic-tiled floors, columns and walls. Then we went to the Arch of Galerius, which commemorated a Roman victory over the Persians. Lots of reliefs of lunging soldiers. Finally we went to the Rotunda. This huge structure was another Galerius project. It was intended to be his mausoleum, but he died while in retirement (I did not think that emperors got to retire) in Serbia, so it was made into a church. As they frequently did, the Ottomans converted it into a mosque.

We missed the Ataturk House and the Museum of Macedonian Struggle because these were closed on Sunday. Anyway, it was hot and we were pretty tired after all the walking, so we hiked back to the car and took off for Kastoria. GPS got us out of town without a problem and after about a two-hour drive on the toll road, we exited and began a drive through a forested area. Historically Kastoria has been deeply involved in the fur trade and it made the area rich. There are still many furs shops and factories.

We arrived at our hotel, the Esperos Palace Hotel, just before a big rainstorm. I went out on the balcony to our room and just soaked up the rain after a day in the heat. This is a terrific ski resort hotel, which unfortunately, we visited in the low season so its pool was closed. We went to dinner at a local restaurant down the street from the hotel. We each got a very good fish dinner with some good Greek wine. Initially we were the only ones there, but several couples came in after us. Lots of cats at the restaurant (the shutters at the windows were open). Again, there was no indication of austerity other than the fact that we were the only guests at the hotel.

   

Zagreb

August 8-10 is when these events occurred

Zagreb was a fun and interesting place to visit. It probably would have been better if we had come on a non weekend, non late summer day.

Zagreb is the capital of Croatia, but seems very different from the rest of the country that we have visited. Unlike the land of time-passed interior villages that we passed through or the ancient and touristy coastal towns and villages, Zagreb was a welcome jolt of big city activity and sophistication. Unfortunately, we arrived at a time -- weekend -- when much of the cultural infrastructure shuts down. It was explained to me that Sunday afternoons and Mondays, and all of early August, is when all of Croatia goes to the coast (as I saw from the opposing traffic on our drive in on the toll roads). So it was pretty quiet and largely devoid of tourists.

Zagreb used to be two walled medieval cities, Gradec and Kaptol, separated by a river. The river has long since been paved over and is now Tkaleiceva Ulica ("ulica" means street), a pedestrian only, eateries lined, people watching mecca.  Today one sixth of all Croatians live in Zagreb.

Kaptol became the Bishop's seat in the 11th century and by the 16th century Gradec became the administrative center under the Austrian empire for the Croatian region. This area never fell under Ottoman rule. In 1848 the Hungarians revolted against the Austrians. During this period the Hungarians were exerting increasing control over the Croats, even attempting to make Hungarian the official language. (Throughout the trip we repeatedly learned of efforts throughout history, and continuing today [see Kurds in Turkey], by one group to stamp out the cultural identity, including language, of another group.) Josip Jelacic, a nationalist Croatian leader sided with the Austrians in the belief that they would win and that the Croatians would get a better shot of preserving their identity under the Austrians rather than the Hungarians. When the Austrians won, the Croatians indeed got more autonomy, the two towns merged to become Zagreb and Jelacic got the main square in Zagreb named after him and his statue in the center of the square.  His statue originally faced north to stare down the Hungarians. During the communist era, Jelacic was considered a dangerous nationalist so his statue was removed (but curiously not destroyed.) When Croatia became independent his statue was returned to the square, but this time facing south to stare down the Serbs. When the Austrians built a railroad from Budapest to the Adriatic port of Rijeka through Zagreb in the late 19th century, the city took off. Now it is one of Europe"s smallest capitols.

We left our guesthouse near Plitvice after making our own breakfast, a novel activity on this trip. Cereal, fruit and ice cream. Drove about an hour on the old Zagreb/Split highway, a two-lane road until we rejoined the toll road. It was pretty busy going north, but going south to the coast it was crawling. The drivers got to go slow and paid dearly for the privilege. We were moving at a good pace until we got within 12km of the toll booth. Then traffic came to a crawl and it took almost an hour to get through that bottleneck.  

That made us late for our meeting with the guy who was going to let us into the apartment that I rented in Zagreb from InZagreb. So we ate lunch around the corner and waited until the representative returned. It was a spectacular apartment. It is on the 4th floor of a late 19th century building that had one of those gated elevators that you see in old European movies. It was over 1000 sq ft with a living room, a separate bedroom and a full kitchen (including laundry) and a dining area. Also bicycles came with the apartment. I could live there. In contrast, the average Zagrebian lives in a 250 sq. ft. apartment.

After settling in the apartment and starting what turned out to be several loads of laundry, we walked out to Jelacic Square and up to the Gradec upper town area. We walked on Ilica Street and through the Octagon shopping gallery that a century ago was the ultimate in iron and glass shopping elegance and still features Croata, a tie shop. The Croatians claim that they invented the neck tie when they fought with the French during the Thirty Years War and tied their scarves in a distinctive knot. We then passed through Stone Gate, Gradec's only surviving town gate. Inside the gate is a small chapel whose focal point is a painting of Mary that survived the fire that burned down the original gate in the 18th century. As a result of that they created the chapel when they rebuilt the gate. There are lots of plaques in the chapel from people whose prayers have been answered.    Mary is also the patron saint of Zagreb. We also passed Zagreb's oldest pharmacy, dating to 1355. We then entered St. Mark's Square named after the Church in the center. The church's roof is composed of very colorful tiles with two coats of arms, on the left for Croatia and on the right for Zagreb. Zagreb is apparently trying to encourage tourism. One thing it is doing is having actors walk around St. Mark's Square in period costume from various centuries on Saturday night. So we saw soldiers, police, society couples, country maidens etc. walking around and giving little history lessons. The final group of three 19th century soldiers spoke with us after their end-of-shift time of 8:00, but then begged out citing their need for water.

Zagreb was the home of Nikola Tesla (yes, the car is named after him) who was born in Croatia, but was an ethnic Serb. He championed alternating current (AC) rather than direct current (DC) championed by Edison. So while Edison won the publicity war, Tesla's AC system prevailed. And while Zagreb was the first city in the world at Tesla's urgings to build an AC power plant (Buffalo was the first in the US), this section of town continues to be lit by gas lamps.  We saw them being lit by a lamplighter.

The square is now pedestrian only. On one side of the square is the Sabor, Croatia's Parliament. On the other side is Ban's Palace, which now houses the offices of the Prime Minister. We were told that this was one of the few buildings in Zagreb that was bombed by the Yugoslav Air Force during the 1991 war. You can see the different color tiles on the roof that were used to repair it after the bombing.

We then exited the square and walked down a street that had old time, tiny street signs in both Croatian and German. I climbed the Burglars' Tower that is the last remnant of walls built in the 13th century to keep out the Tartars who were busily ransacking central Europe at the time. On the Tower's top floor there is a small cannon It is fired every day at noon to help Zagrebians set their watches. We strolled the Strossmayer Promenade where they were showing outdoor movies and which is the upper terminus of the funicular. Lots of cafes and artists displaying their wares here.

We were unsuccessful in getting into the restaurant of our choice (made a reservation for the next night) and so we ate dinner at Bistro Agava, off the main square watching lots of people pass by. Paid a premium for location. The food was just OK.

The next morning we ate breakfast in our apartment. A mixture of fruit the hosts had provided for us and items we had brought from our prior guest house outside of Plitvice. Our first stop was the Croatian Museum of Naive Art. As I learned, in the late 19th century the art world began to broaden its definition of art and looked for works from individuals untrained in the art academies or salons. The work is not by amateur or folk artists, but by "great" artists who were not formally trained.

In Croatia in the 1930s this took the form of art by untrained peasants. At that time, 85% of Croatians lived in rural areas and were illiterate and uneducated, and lived without electricity or other modern conveniences. This movement captured that humble life in expressionist paintings. Many of the paintings are on glass rather than the more expensive and less available canvas. The star of the movement is Ivan Generalic who was discovered in Paris in the 1930s, sold several of his paintings and  returned to Croatia both rich and a star. The museum featured his work and the work of his successors. The work was so interesting, we later bought three small paintings from a current artist of this school.

We then went to the Croatian history museum (not to be confused with the Croatian National History Museum to which we were wrongly directed). It is housed in a former mansion and had interesting exhibits, especially photographs, about the 1991-95 Wars for Independence. Of course it was told from the Croatian viewpoint, so there was no mention of the Croatians massacre of hundreds of thousands of Serbs during WWII or that the the Croatians schemed with the Serbs during those wars to carve up Bosnia between them, or that while the Croats decry the siege of Dubrovnik as depraved, they do not mention their siege of Mostar. Isn't nationalism great!

By then it was 2:00 and almost all the museums were closed, so we retraced our steps and walked down to Tkalciceva Street to get some lunch. But first we passed a row of old time houses that in the past was Zagreb's red light district. Prostitution used to be legal in Zagreb and the balconies of these houses faced the spire of the main cathedral in town. This street is lined with restaurants and people seemingly just passing the time watching others pass by. We ate lunch at Restaurant Agava. It has terraces climbing up the hill and an interior that looked like a 19th century home. The food was pretty good and the prices reasonable, but the respite form the sun was great.

After lunch we walked uphill on the other side to the Kaptol area, Zagreb's other medieval city. This side of the city houses the daily morning market , that we missed, and Zagreb's main Cathedral. This is the most important church in a very Catholic country. It is almost constantly being renovated with new stone because, while it is fine to use limestone to build on the coast that does not have freezing weather, that does not work as well in the interior where there are cold freezing winters. It was burned by the Tartars in the 13th century and when rebuilt, it was surrounded by a wall, most of which still exists. The church is very big and ornate with monuments and burial sites of many prominent Croatians; but recently as money dried up, the chandeliers were supposedly imported from Las Vegas.

Three sites in the church caught my eye. First there was the monument to Josip Jelacic, the Croatian nationalist discussed above who fought the Hungarians and gained greater independence for the Croats; but right next to that is a display of three sainted Hungarian kings who (when Croatia was part of Hungary) founded and built the church. Imagine that you are a Croatian first grader who is brought to the church on a field trip.   He must be thinking, Praise those wonderful Hungarians who built the church and thank god we defeated them in battle.  The second monument that caught my eye was a sculpture of Alojzije Stepinac by the sculptor Ivan Mestrovie (we did not get to his museum) who fled communist Yugoslavia to live in Detroit. Alojzije Stepinac was the archbishop of Zagreb during WWII, who supported the Ustasc, the Nazi puppet government in Croatia that killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs, along with Jews, gypsies and communists. I assume that he did that because he thought that was the best way for Croatians to gain independence from the Serbs. After the war Tito's government convicted him and sentenced him to jail and then house arrest for the remainder of his life. However, in an independent Croatia Stepinac is considered a martyr and an inspirational figure of faith. I imagine that the Serbs have a different view of him. On the bottom of the monument is carved, "Made in Detroit". Finally within the church is a glass case that contains a sculpture of Stepinac's eerily lifelike waxy body. It looked gruesome. His actual remains are below.

We then went back to the apartment. I got a bicycle out of the basement and took a ride through the Green Horseshoe park and then further south. I got lost coming back, but then pointed the bike to the cathedral spires to get back to the apartment.

Before dinner we picked up our three pictures and I went to the Museum of Broken Relationships. Opened in 2010 by a couple who had recently broken up, it contains stories and mementos from ordinary couples who had broken up, sometimes after a short period and sometimes after many years of marriage.  Lots of stories, many poignant, but my favorite was the account of a 15-year-old Bosniak boy who met a young Croatian girl while their convoy out of Sarajevo during the siege was stranded for 4 days. When the girl's part of the convoy abruptly left they did not have a chance to say good-bye. He wrote her a letter, but all he received back was a letter from her older sister. It was in Bosnian, so I could not read it. I assume the girl was killed.

We had dinner outdoors at Konaba Didov San. Traditional hinterland Croatian food. Very nice dinner and just a few kuna more than the prior night's dinner.

The next day, Monday, we tried to leave early, primarily because virtually none of the museums were open and free street parking ended. Karen went in to a local hair dresser at 7:40am (and she wasn't their first customer).  After another self-prepared breakfast, we were on the road by 10:30.    

Crossing over and Coming in from the Heat

August 2 is when these events occurred

During our time in Istanbul, while we stayed exclusively on the European side, it did not feel as if we had returned to Europe; yet it also did not feel as if we were still in Asia. Today we got to Europe! Not only did the environment change, but our GPS with the talking instructions returned.

But before we left I experienced an odd emotion. During the prior two mornings at breakfast we had sat near the front of the restaurant, both to get more daylight and to watch the people stroll by. Another young western couple also did the same thing. However, on this day in the front there were several very traditionally clad Muslim women sitting in the front with a number of their rowdy kids. I do not know if it was their noise, the commotion or having to watch the women pass food under their veils to eat, but I did not want to be part of that so we sat in the back. The other western couple coincidentally did the same. The breakfast was still good.

It is amazing what three days in a city and not being tired does for new sense of direction. This time there was no problem driving out of Istanbul. I even ad libbed and did not follow the GPS directions, believing correctly that I knew an easier way to get to the correct route. Istanbul is a very big city. We just moved in a very small sphere. It took almost an hour to drive beyond the city limits. By then we entered a rolling farmland that we had not observed upon our first trip to Istanbul, since we arrived after darkness. The area was much flatter than anything we had previously seen in Turkey and the crops seemed to be more grains rather than orchards. Using our hard-earned PTT sticker obtained during our previous trip in Turkey, we were on the toll road for about an hour. (Ended up leaving money on the sticker.) Then we turned off to a secondary road and traveled south heading for the border crossing with Greece.

We stopped for gas balancing the desire not to run out of gasoline against the wish to minimize purchases of gasoline in a country with Europe's second highest gas prices. Used the rest of our Turkish money on ice cream and snacks.

The Turkish/Greek border crossing does not seem like a model of cooperation. We had to pass through four Turkish checkpoints to get out of the country. There was not much of a line exiting Turkey, but it took time to get through all the checkpoints, all of which seemed to ask for the same documents, passports and car registration and ownership. No verbal inquiries. When we finished with the last Turkish checkpoint, Greece was no where in sight. We drove about 1/2 mile and came to Greek immigration. This was the EU border so I anticipated an extensive inquiry. We were basically just waved through and the customs station was closed. The line going into Turkey was very long; it seemed to be at least several km. Maybe people returning on Sunday after  a weekend.

We entered Greece in its northern tier. The temperature was cooler. I had no intention of going into southern Greece, both because I did not want to experience Athens' summer heat and because we were running out of time if I was going to meet the daughter in Dubrovnik. So we set our sights for Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. The toll road we traveled on was surprisingly cheap, only a few toll gates that charged from 1.2 to 2.4 euros (fortunately we had a few of them left). However, after one toll gate we were waved over by Greek police using a little stick. The officer approached the car with his hand on his sidearm. He asked for identification, driver's license and car documentation. No reason was given for his action and after about 5 minutes the documents were returned and we were waved on.

In Turkey there were lots of gasoline stations on all types of roads. It would be hard to run out of gasoline in Turkey. There were no gas stations on this toll road and throughout our three-day trip in Greece, gasoline stations were not plentiful. We exited when we saw a sign for a gas station. Gasoline prices were lower than in Turkey, but not by a lot.

It was a spectacular ride on the well-maintained road, and most places followed the winding, twisting coastline, usually from cliffs overlooking it. Lots of small towns either clinging to a cliff or hugging a bay. The beaches seemed small, but in many cases secluded. We passed a number of marinas, many with very large boats. We passed through Thrace and saw a sign for Alexander the Great Airport outside Xanthi.

It took us several hours to reach Thessaloniki.  I had made reservations at the Les Lazaristes Hotel. It was not in the center of the city so it would be easier to find, it had free on-site parking and it had a pool. The GPS directions were good and this hotel had signs miles away with directions to it. The parking was as advertised, but alas, the pool was unavailable. The pool was set in an open-air courtyard within the hotel, but it was surrounded by the eating area for the hotel restaurant. Thus, it was open only from 11-7. No one told me that. . . so as I was about to enter the pool, a waiter hurriedly rushed over to me waving his arms and telling me entry was prohibited. It was a nice pool, too.

We had dinner along side the pool. Not adequate compensation.  

The Daughter Arrives, and Departs

August 5-6 -Three Countries

I had arranged to pick up my daughter at the Dubrovnik airport in Croatia. She was coming to Montenegro, Kotor Bay for a class reunion (they have only been out of school for only one year) and a summer beach vacation. We were spending the night in the Hotel Idea (yes, that is the real name) in Tirana, Albania and GPS informed me that it was a 5-hour drive from Tirana to Dubrovnik airport.  I planned to leave by 8:00 am to get to there 30 minutes prior to her flight's scheduled arrival. It did not work out.

Breakfast began at 7:00am. We showed up at 6:30 because, since we did not have any phone service, our phones did not change time when we left Greece and entered Albania. The latter is on central European time while the former shares a time zone with Turkey. I mistakenly thought the night before that since we were in Albania their clocks must be incorrect.

When we finally arrived at the correct time we had an adequate breakfast at the hotel. I was spoiled by the prior breakfast at the ski lodge, so while this was a perfectly fine breakfast, it paled in comparison. We left almost on time and, courtesy of the GPS we downloaded in the hotel, without getting lost. The traffic in Tirana was fairly heavy, but the travel actually got worse as we left Tirana. The main road north is a survey two-lane road with lots of truck traffic and, because there was traffic in both directions there were few opportunities to pass; even when I was able to do so, I just encountered another truck. I should know better by now.

Outside of Tirana, Albania seemed to be pretty poor. We saw many more animal-drawn carts than in any other country and many of the structures looked as if they were very old and in need of maintenance. Of course, they could have been palaces on the inside. The area was heavily agricultural, but much of it was not mechanized and the farms seemed to be smaller, like India. However, the road was largely free of potholes.

So we were behind schedule when we reached the Albanian/Montenegro border. This was a strange crossing. The Albanian immigration officer briefly looked at our paperwork and waved us forward, without giving us the paperwork back. I thought that we were being sent to Albanian customs, but no, the paperwork had been passed to the Montenegrin immigration officers. They also asked for auto documentation, but also quickly passed us through, but not before giving us a pamphlet that indicated that all foreigners had to pay a .5 euro tax per day. There is a 48-hour grace period for paying and since we were only passing through Montenegro, we concluded that it did not apply to us.

The passage through Montenegro along the coast is a very scenic and at times breathtaking drive. However, it is slow under the best conditions and since this is the summer and the height of the tourist season, when Europeans of all stripes and flags come to the coast to enjoy the beach (very rocky and narrow) and sun, passage at times was tortuously slow, particularly when passing through the numerous towns that are present in virtually every bay into which the tourists flocked. I felt as if I was driving on Route 1 along the Florida coast in February. Unfortunately, T-Mobile and Montenegro have not gotten together, so we were out of plan coverage with texts at .50 a pop and calls for $5.99 per minute, so it was pricey getting in touch with my daughter. There was no problem with directions; there was only one road along the coast.

I then entered into a long-distance electronic dance with my daughter about the best way to meet. Should she take the bus to Kotor or should she wait at the airport? i was not sure where I was or how long it would take for me to get to Dubrovnik. We ended up making bad choices. I thought that I was further away than I was and I also thought that she could get a bus directly to Kotor at the airport.  Turns out I was past Kotor and she could only get a bus to Dubrovnik and from there connect to Kotor.

So she ended up taking the bus to Dubrovnik and waiting for us there while we passed the airport and eventually picked her up at the bus station mid afternoon. On the way there we took another ferry that cut across one of the fjord-like bays, avoiding the need to drive around it. The Montenegro/Croatia border crossing took about 20 minutes. Not a lot of inspection by the officers, but just a long line, particularly at the non EU passport gate. However, over in the other direction going into Montenegro, it looked like a 2-hour wait.

Rather than try to see Dubrovnik that afternoon or drive back into Montenegro, we decided to drive about an hour north up to Mali Ston at the base of the Peljesac Peninsula. We had eaten lunch there in May, the coastal drive is spectacular (we had done it up and down in May) and Ston is a great place to relax for 24 hours.  We stayed at a small inn, Villa Koruna, that was on the dock on a finger off the Adriatic Sea and its restaurant was adjacent to the small harbor. Ston has a Great Wall that climbs up and then down the mountain to Mali Ston. Rather than climb the wall we decided to go swimming in the bay. There was a small beach. The water temperature was perfect and we swam for about an hour. Then we ate dinner at the hotel restaurant.

The next morning I again went for a swim as my daughter slept in. We had breakfast at the hotel. A very different menu than I had become used to, a platter of several meats, cheeses and bread. No cucumbers or tomatoes, although I ordered watermelon. After breakfast we hiked a portion of the wall. A very relaxing stay.

We drove back down to Dubrovnik and due to the need to get my daughter on the 3:30 bus to Kotor, our tour of the city was limited. We entered at the Pile Gate and strolled down the Stradun. Checked out Onofrio's Big Fountain (you can drink that water) and then passed through Luza Square and by Orlando's Column, a symbol of Dubrovnik's independence from Venice and the site of major government announcements. We walked around the harbor and entered some cathedrals and then had some lunch.  Got my daughter back to the bus station on time, but they overbooked the bus and she was standing in the aisle. They wheeled out a second bus to which she transferred which left before the regularly scheduled bus, She got to Kotor on time; 98 kuna fare. That currency was created under the Ustase, the Nazi puppet state set up during WWII that killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs. Imagine what the local Serbs felt in 1991 when the newly declared independent Croatia adopted the same currency?  

We then turned north, over the Franjo Tudman Bridge and along the Split-Dubrovnik coastal road for the fifth time -- it was still scenic -- on our way to Plitvice National Park. After about 2 hours we turned inland onto the relatively new toll road. This runs near and roughly parallel to the Bosnian border and goes through mountainous and sparsely populated terrain that was captured by the Yugoslavian People's Army (Serbia) in 1991, and recaptured by Croatia in Operation Storm in 1995. Many of the villages we passed seemed to be deserted, possibly abandoned by Serbs after the Croatian reconquest. The road is an engineering marvel. It has many tunnels, bridges and at times clings to the side of mountains. With all that it is an expensive toll road.

The last hour of the drive took us off the toll road and on to the old Split-Dubrovnik "highway." It is a two-lane road that made for slow travel. We arrived at our residence, the Milan Guest House, at about 10:00, under a very starry sky.