Hit the road last weekend to the land of "Game of Thrones" and, unbeknownst to me, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi."
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| VW UP! with four operating tires |
For the non-movie buffs, that’d be Croatia, which was on my
bucket list not for movies but just because. It’s a really amazing little
country, and I wanted to drive. I flew into Zagreb, the capital to the north,
and out of Dubrovnik, which is almost as far south as you can go before you hit
Montenegro.
There are just so many places you can go to from Istanbul,
and Croatia, with its rugged shorelines and rocky beaches, was on my list.
Hitting the road, it reminded me of Ireland somewhat – all the cliffs and
rocks.
My little car was similar, too. In Ireland, I had some
purple little car that looked like a gumdrop. This time around, I got a VW UP!
(not an editorial; it had an exclamation point), and it was also a gumdrop-like
bright red. And, fortunately, had the steering wheel on the more-familiar left
side of the car.
I’d told people all I wanted to do was drive some, and it
was true. Pretty much, anything else was gravy. I knew there’d be gorgeous
sites but didn’t really have much of a plan in Zagreb, Split (my first evening)
or Dubrovnik, although I knew Dubrovnik had an old town or something.
And as it turned out, the gravy had a few lumps. My first
place to stay didn’t have wifi, which was inconvenient but not the end of the
world. To solve that, I wound up treating myself to a McFlurry at a McDonalds
so that I could filch their internet. And my work-issued phone is on its last
legs, so the phone died here and there anyway, so wife couldn’t save me.
The bigger gravy lump came the morning I was leaving Split.
I decided on a morning swim and drove the gumdrop down the steep hill to the
Adriatic Sea, parked and wandered to the rocky beach.
It was way colder than I expected, so I waded in as much as
I could stand, collected a few rocks in lieu of shells and then headed back to
the apartment/hotel. (In all, I saw a total of one chain hotel, and that was
south of Dubrovnik on my way to the airport the last day. It’s mostly little
hotels and homestay-like things. I stayed in Split in an apartment building up
on a hill.)
When I went to throw my little backpack in the gumdrop, I
realized I had a flat tire! AARGH! I tried to enlist the landlord guy to help me,
but he was busy with someone else, so I figured what the heck and checked to
see what kind of spare I had. Fortunately, I guess since the car’s small enough
to only have donut tires to begin with, it had a full-size tire. I struggled
with the darn lug nuts but again, by the grace of God, some litterbug had left a
drained carton of oil and I managed to pour the dregs into the lid and then,
dipping a flower into the lid, I spread it on the lugs and loosened the nuts.
Macgyvered my way out of it. And, true to my luck with men, some random guy
showed up too late to help with the actual repair but in time to tighten the lug nuts again.
No further problems with the tire, and debated on whether to
fix it or not. In the end, I found a place and for maybe $7 got it plugged by
the car wash guy, for whom it took maybe 138 seconds to do it. Impressive. Not
exactly a souvenir I was looking for, but I DID want all that driving entailed,
and I got it.
The hotel – a real one, though not a chain and not a big one
– had advertised wifi and free parking, which was why I chose it, but both of
those were hard to come by. My phone, coming and going off life support, couldn’t
time holding a connection to when the wifi worked, but what was a bigger hurdle
was the free parking.
I found the hotel just fine, but there was no parking lot,
just about 16 spots across the street – street parking, not hotel parking. And,
this being August in a destination with throngs of tourists, not a vacant spot.
Drove up and down three or four times before double-parking in front of two little
scooters with “for rent” signs on them. That didn’t make that business owner
happy, but I assured him I’d be right back after checking in.
When I asked the hotel manager about parking, though, he
paled and asked me if I had a car. Resisting any sarcastic replies based on an
incoming migraine, I said yes and I was illegally parked downstairs. He came
out with me, and, as sheer luck would have it, a spot opened up and he held it
for me. The car didn’t go anywhere after that, and I totally hoofed it for
three days.
The guy really was nice, too, so despite the hiccups I liked
the hotel stay. It was right close to the beach, which faced west and had an
amazing sunset. Either the water wasn’t as cold as it was in Split or I just
sucked it up and went in – it was fantastic, and now I’ve dipped in the
Adriatic Sea!
But the Old Town was the thing to do, and, without a car, I
decided to walk. They had little directional on the ground, and the first one
said 26 minutes. The second said 23, and then the third said 29! I have no idea
what was up with that, and I am a fast walker but it took 40 minutes to get
there. Still, it was a great walk with wonderful sea views.
Entering the old town was when I realized Star Wars was
filmed there. Not that I recognized it, but because there were stores and signs
that said “Star Wars was here.” And “Game of Thrones.” Holy cow, that was everywhere.
Upon return, I discovered Wendy is a fan so I blew a shot to get her something
super cool, but I had no idea at the time.
It was Sunday morning and I happened to be wandering at one
of the churches right when mass was about to begin, so I stayed for the
service, which was nice to do. It was in English, fortunately, and talked about
Peter being the rock on which the church was founded, and I wondered, since
Croatia is so rocky, if that was the regular Sunday service.
If I ever have a house with a nautical-themed room, Croatia
is the place to furnish it. They had so much stuff! I loved it, but just didn’t
see getting anything then and there. My favorite thing was these rocks that had
two little stained glass triangles on top of them, forming a little sailboat. I’d
seen them in Split and didn’t get one, and then they were double the price in
Dubrovnik.
Croatia also has a ton of limestone – I passed several
quarries on the way to the airport – and they had a lot of limestone crafty
things. Coral is big, too, but that didn’t tempt me. In Split, I’d seen some
crosses made out of the limestone and wanted one of those, but held off. Bad
decision, as they were more than double the price there, but I really wanted
one so I got it.
My little cross collection is getting pretty darn big. I don’t
even know when I figured out it was a collection. One became two, which became three and is now
up to …. 21. (I just counted.) At some point, I need to get a wall or
something. Right now, they’re just lying in the little Drexel hutch. I love
them.
Since Istanbul is still on “movement restrictions” and I can’t
go to museums, malls or movies, I tend to do this on vacation. In Dublin, I saw
“Dunkirk,” and, continuing the tradition, I went to “Atomic Blonde” in
Dubrovnik. I didn’t even have to seek it out. The movie theater was a 5-minute
walk from the hotel.
Looking back, I really do see movies a lot when I travel. My
Foreign Service “get to know you” fact is that I saw all four “Hunger Games”
movies in different countries: Indonesia, the U.S., China and Hong Kong. I’ve
also seen movies in Canada, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Croatia, Taiwan,
Australia, Turkey, and maybe Malaysia or somewhere else. At this point, I don’t
remember.
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