Two Curious Souls

We are borrowing these words verbatim from the marketing and sales department of the park. It described the park better than we could and it explains a little of the geology and hydrology of the park. The Plitvice Lakes National Park is the oldest and largest national park in the Republic of Croatia, famous for its numerous turquoise-colored lakes separated by tufa, or travertine, barriers. Its karst landscape is characterized by specific hydrological traits and exceptional biological diversity, which helped the National Park gain international significance. The specific hydrogeological properties of the Park’s rocks have enabled the retention of water on the dolomite rocks and resulted in the water cutting canyons in the limestone deposits. For that reason, the lake system is divided into the Upper and Lower lakes. Today’s appearance of the lake system is a result of the tufa formation process, which created the barriers. It is an exceptionally complex and sensitive biodynamic proce...

  We’re in a third-floor walkup in Zadar on a Saturday evening. Staring out at the sunset. Jackson Browne on the music machine, and loving life.  I’m looking over at my beautiful wife and wondering how these two people got here. We have reservations for a ferry to Pula tomorrow afternoon arriving at 8:45 PM. We have a reservation for one night at a hotel in Pula. Our next reservation is 9 days away. No hotel reservations, no rental cars, no buses, no ferries, nada. Maybe we should get out of the present and get into something down the road. Have you ever seen such a couple of happy septuagenarians! Susanne’s on the sofa looking at a plan. Our thirty-first plan in ten days. Oops, thirty-second. We know we’ll be in Budapest in 10 days. What fricking fun! Thanks for sharing this journey with us! 

Malcolm here. I often think it would be great to be fluent in another language. But then, just for a moment, I realize that not being able to read the nutrition values on this label* is a good thing! * Hasbro Gummy Bears!

  The view from our deck in Orebic and the mountain rising behind us. The clear Adriatic waters from our balcony. Leaving the sounds of the city behind, we found the deafening sound of the almost-silent waves crashing against the shore was music to our ears. It’s Sunday morning. In the distance, there are church bells ringing. Sunday Morning Coming Down is playing in my head. The mental state is magical. The sun is starting to burn down. In the near distance, the ferries work their magic. Moving cars, and people, across the waters of the Adriatic. This is a mood we’d like to stay in. Orebić has welcomed us! The word of the day is Thalassocracy ! It’s hard to imagine that almost 5,000 years ago, the Minoan civilization mastered these waters (c. 27 th – 15 th century BCE.) The same water we're looking at right now. They created a maritime trading empire that stretched through the Mediterranean that included not only the Aegean Sea, but also these beautiful, peaceful ...