Leaving Croatia

Hello again to everyone,

We are now getting ready to leave Croatia for England. It is a late flight but we are staying overnight at a hotel right by the airport in Newcastle. Tomorrow we will board the train for London and begin a 4 night stay there. This will give us some time to have a look around museums and galleries. bridey and I are really keen to visit the British Museum again and look at the Egypt exhibits with a new perspective!

Our time in Croatia with the Grimsby walking club has been brilliant. The hotel part of the trip has been a little different for us (not having ever stayed at a * type of resort) as everything is so regimented by the hotel. They cater to English, German and Scandinavian guests and they all seem to thrive on things happening at certain times. The meals have been buffet style prepared in a large industrial kitchen so you can well imagine that they have not been something you would be over the moon about. Also, mostly not typical Croatian food. They have been generous in quantity if lacking in variety and quality!

The weather here has been great for early May and we have only had a couple times of very short showers except for today. The only really˝cooler day was the day we took a boat trip to two of the local islands. We had 1 hour on the one island and 3 hours on the other. This allowed for a brief walk about in the one village and a walk along the island on the other. The boat trip included a meal which was accompanied by some rather wretched wine.

bridey had to take it easy the first couple of days due to the chest cold she left Prague with. She and I did a short local walk along the sea on the first day and just took it easy. After that she eased herself into walking with the shorter walks. I tackled the mountains with our 80 year old group leader. Mount Vosac at 1426 meters was the first ascent / descent...all on foot. I was exhausted at the end but exhilirated by what I had done. The dip in the Adriatic that day felt great even if it was fresh.

Yesterday bridey and I joined about 30 of the club for a drive up to the highest peak in the National Park for a planned descent on foot. When we arrived at the top it was enveloped in cloud and was sleeting. It has been so cold that the winter snow was still present at the top and would not likely be gone for another month. Farther down the mountain, the alpine flowers were brilliant and as we dropped in our ascent we came out of the clouds and into brilliant sunshine and blue skies with the Adriatic spread out before us in the foreground. An incredible sight!Getting down was a real accomplishment as we had a couple of women with us who just should not have been on this walk.

We have had a great time here re-connecting with the club members and they have all been so welcoming...it is as if we had not been away for the 3 years. There have been some new club members we have met as well and we have hit it off with them.

Last night finished with a free wine festival that was being held on the pool deck. This was a private function but we were all invited to participate. There were great wines and incredible food provided by local caterers. We really should not have eaten the hotel buffet dinner! There was a live band that played throughout the evening. Their music was a fusion of gypsy / jazz. It was incredible and the fiddle player and sax player were amazing with their respective instruments. What a way to finish the week!

We leave Croatia having had a great time...and would come back again to explore more of the countryside, coastline and culture.

Hugs to all and look forward to seeing you all.