Plitvice National Park - Croatia (Yes, the water is really that color)
The park is a series of lakes of descending levels with waterfalls in between. The water has a high calcium carbonate content which builds up deposits on the plants forming dams between the lakes.
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Dubrovnik is an old walled city which has changed hands many times over the centuries. The walls were built in about 1300 AD and are supposed to be the best preserved walls in Europe. At one time time, Dubrovnik was a separate republic before being taken over by the Venetians.
The walls around the city are the best preserved in the world. It's quite a walk (not for the out of shape) around the city but well worth the effort. We took this photo from a fort across the inlet.
The walls are really thick. They spent 300 years building them.
Krka National Park, Croatia
Kyka National Park is similar to Plitvice. The falls are formed from calcium carbonate but instead of forming between spring-fed lakes, they are formed on a large river.
Can you see the man above the lower falls? He dived in a few moments after we took this photo.
The building in the background was a power plant that opened 2 days after the one at Niagara. Croatia's claim to fame with it is that they began providing power to people right away but Niagara took about 6 months to do that. Tessla who was born in Croatia was deeply involved in the Niagara power plant. Read about Tessla--he contributed a lot to science.
Split, Croatia
Split is the home of Roman emperor Diocletian's retirement palace which was built around 270 AD. It was built of white rock taken from the island of Brac in Croatia. This same white rock from Brac was used to build the White House in the USA. Diocletian was one of the foremost persecutors of the Christians. He built a prison under his mausoleum for Christians. The mausoleum was later converted to a Christian church (how ironic.)
These walls are 1700 years old.
The building on the far right is the mausoleum which was converted to a Christian church.
We hiked up a hill to get a better perspective on Split.
Other buildings were built inside the palace during the Middle Ages.
This is Jupiter's temple built by Diocletian because he (Diocletian) considered himself to be Jupiter's son.
This is a panorama of the basement of the palace. The entire palace is full of souvenir shops, restaurants and hotels today.
This a singing group performing in the vestibule of Diocletian's palace. They were singing Dalmatian folk songs and we thought they were absolutely incredible.
Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina
These pictures are taken from a day trip to Mostar, B & H which after 15 years has still not recovered from the war resulting from the breakup of Yugoslavia. There is still a lot of visible war damage. We felt very grateful and blessed to live in the United States and to not have wars like this in our homeland.
Notice all the bullet holes in the buildings. Many of the souvenirs were made from old artillery shells.
This was so sad; I nearly cried while we were here. This is a Muslim cemetery which was a park before the war. The graves are dated from 1993 to 1996 with most of them 1993. Many of the victims of these sniper shots were young-teenagers or in their 20's or 30's.
This bridge was rebuilt after the Croats destroyed it to cut off the city from the other side of the river. It was originally built by the Ottomans 400 years ago but was rebuilt using the same techniques and stones. It's a World Heritage site now.
Croatia Odds & Ends
Benny is famous even in Croatia. We found this on the island of Brac where the white stone for the White House in DC is from. Check out the coke sign, too.
Martin Sheen commissioned this statue of Mother Teresa on Brac. Lovely, isn't it.
Harbor in Supetar on Brac.
People on Korcula say this tower and house were Marco Polo's house.
Harbor coming into Korcula City on Korcula Island
These signs are self-explanatory.
The harbor in the above photo is in Cavtat, a small city south of Dubrovnik. The Slavs drove out the first settlers so they moved 10 miles north and established Dubrovnik.
This was our first view of Croatia in daylight. We had arrived the night before in the dark. We thought it was a lovely start to a great trip.
Notice the wall going up the hill--actually it's a double wall. It's the longest wall in Europe, about 5.5 kilometers. I can't imagine building it but we saw other walls on higher, more rugged hills. These people were tough!
The view from another hotel we stayed in. The narrow, windy 2 lane road is typical of the drive along the coast. It's not a drive for the faint of heart. It helps to have a car with a lot of zip when passing slower cars or trucks.
Kotor, Montenegro
Kotor is an old walled city in Montenegro. It's on one of Europe's largest fjords, Kotor Bay. There were lots of tour groups and a few huge, gigantic cruise ships in the harbor which made it difficult to take a good shot from outside the city.
Kotor is an old walled city in Montenegro. It's on one of Europe's largest fjords, Kotor Bay. There were lots of tour groups and a few huge, gigantic cruise ships in the harbor which made it difficult to take a good shot from outside the city.
Cool fire truck.
These cities are really old. This wouldn't be original in the 800 year old city.
We didn't see many overweight people on our trip. There are lots of steps and steep hills to climb.
Have you ever seen a real moat around a walled city? Look at the color of the water. Also, notice how steep the mountains are in the background. There is a wall going up the mountain on the right with buildings waaaay up high. Several people were making the trek up there.
