Looking at the photo above, you might think we were approaching the Rialto bridge in Venice. But this view of a mini-Rialto is from one of the tour boats which travel along the river in Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia. It is among the several downtown bridges and dozens of buildings designed by Joze Plecnik, whose mark on Ljubljana –

and whose contributions in Prague, Vienna and other Central European capitals – are a real point of pride in this beautiful little city.

Pat and I are spending three days in Ljubljana as part of our guided tour through the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Slovenia is our last stop on the tour, before a few days on our own in Budapest. I was particularly looking forward to seeing the old provincial capitals of Ljubljana and Zagreb, Croatia.

Here, as in the other stops on our journey, the breakup of the former Yugoslavia is a

persistent topic. Slovenia was the first to leave the federation. As the closest of the six nations to Austria and Germany, and furthest from Serbia, there was no resistance. It is tiny – only 2 million. And the capital is a small city of 280,000. It’s proximity also made it the most highly industrialized and most prosperous of the Balkan countries. Also, it never was bombed during World War II and was maintained mostly as a Nazi concentration camp.

The result is a beautiful and elegant town. Walking along the river, especially at night, looks like a small Paris. The many art nouveau buildings could have been moved here from Vienna. The town is spotless, with workers constantly picking up scraps here and there. There are no cars in the downtown area, although you have to be on the lookout for bicycles whizzing by. However, there’s a free electric bus for older people or people with packages. It’s also cheap by Western European standards. We thoroughly enjoyed three days here. Our tour group did a day trip one day, which Pat and I skipped to spend more time downtown.

Earlier, we’d visited Zagreb, Croatia, which shares the Austro-Hungarian heritage and has some grand architecture as well. It is a much bigger city – 800,000 – and is busier.

But it, too, has a great medieval upper town and many museums, galleries, restaurants, parks, farmer’s markets, outdoor cafes.

In both places, the tour company, Outdoor Adventure Travel (OAT), supplied local guides for an initial walking tour, in addition to the guide who is assigned permanently to accompany us. These orientation tours were essential, but I don’t think you have to be on a big tour to enjoy them. There appear to be plenty of opportunities to go on city tours.

In Zagreb, we were not yet savvy enough to know when to stay with the group and when to go off our own. We went with our group on a day tour of the Croatian countryside, including a visit to Tito’s birthplace. Yawn. I would much rather have spent another day in Zagreb seeing another museum or two and hanging out in the cafes. Our three days there, as a result, left me wanting to come back.

We enjoyed both of these cities. They are not going to replace Vienna or Paris in size or scope, but they are great places to visit. And I would not hesitate to go to either of them on my own, book a hotel in the old city center, and stay for several days. English is almost universal. Food is cheap. Pat said that if she were still working, she’d be shopping for clothes because the fashion here is so attractive.

We are off tomorrow for Budapest for four days, then we return home. We’ll plan to do a post about Budapest, although it has been visited enough by others that I am not sure we will provide any new insights. And, finally, we’ll try to make a good recommendation of tours versus independent travel.

This is from Pat:

One thing I like about our tour company,

Outdoor Adventure Travel (OAT), is that they include slices of everyday life in the countries they visit. Usually this comes in the way of home-hosted meals.

David and I are touring in the Balkan Countries, and our trip included an overnight stay at a small working farm in Karanac, a remote village in Eastern Croatia. As we traveled through the countryside to Karanac, which is north of Sarajevo and the

now-Serbian-dominated part of Bosnia, we viewed numerous homes that had been damaged in the war. Many had been abandoned.

But it became very different as we crossed into Croatia and arrived at a small farm, where owners Denis, his wife, Goca, and son, Steven, greeted us warmly. We were met with a welcome drink they called plum brandy (known alternatively as moonshine or slivovitz) and homemade donuts. The donuts were warm and wonderful with

homemade preserves on top. The moonshine was mostly left in the glasses. Everywhere we travel we are greeted with the local version of this moonshine made with whatever fruit is readily available, pears,

cherries, honey, apples etc. The only version we found drinkable was the one made with honey.

Our rooms at this small working farm were in converted, renovated stables — no hay included. Each was well-equipped and had a bathroom and shower. David was down with some kind of a stomach bug so we put him to bed for the evening. The group headed off on foot to a local restaurant for food and music. The village was beautiful and clean with colorful houses most decorated with rolled-on stencil designs.

What we learned in these “touch-of-life” visits:

— We ate lots of what they call “grandma cooking,” which includes stuffed peppers and cabbage and mashed potatoes. If Grandma is your host she isn’t happy until you have eaten more than enough.

— Meats and other dishes are often flavored with an abundance of paprika powder (sweet or hot) made from local peppers. Peppers are called paprika as well as the powder we call paprika . . . confusing

— Many people outside the cities have family gardens where they have

fruit trees, raise vegetables, chickens, geese and sometimes turkeys. The often use this to barter or sell at local market to receive cheese and milk from neighbor farms. The farms are neat and tidy. We saw no garbage or trash lying around. I am not sure what they do with their trash in the countryside.

— At Breakfast you usually are offered smoked meat, something like prosciuto, soft mild cheeses, tomatoes, cucumbers and local breads. In our farm stay our hostess had us help to make a deep-fried, puffy bread called longosh for our breakfast — eaten with homemade jams and jellies. And as our guide Djuka would say: “And that is the way how we do it.”

— We spoke to one small dairy farmer who complained about how

difficult it is to do business with the many inspections and regulations imposed by the European Union. She and her husband have about 20 milk cows and are struggling to survive as a small dairy, and the impression we got is that the husband’s outside work as a veterinarian and hers as a greeter and tour guide were helping make ends meet. Asked why she continues, she said she likes it in her community, is close to her parents, her children get a good education. It reminded me a little of the people we met in Sarajevo who said times were better under the “Old Yugoslovia” and Tito’s rule. I think this is part of the transition of

the economy. In Zagreb we heard that Tito is not always revered. In fact, the president had his bust removed from it’s official placement and sent to the village where he was born.   Our guide clarified that rule under Tito was “communism lite.”

The historic parts of the trip are interesting of course, but these added visits to the homes of middle-class people really make it valuable for me.

Under Tito in the old Yugoslavia, the citizens of Sarajevo had to be very careful what they said. Now, freedom of speech is well-established, but some of the people we talked to long for the “good” old days.

Of course, we can’t claim wide experience: we speak no Serbo-Croatian, and the folks we have met on this trip were selected by the tour company, but our tour guides and dinner hosts in Sarajevo have been unequivocal in their criticism of the current government and a lack of optimism that things will get better without a major change of the constitution.

Most people in the U.S. remember Sarajevo for two things: the 1984 winter Olympics, which was a celebration of the city’s peaceful blending of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Muslim heritage; and the 1990’s war when the former Yugoslavia split into six countries: Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. That peaceful blend was mostly a facade.

On this tour, we are seeing Croatia, Montengro, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Our principal tour guide is very careful not to pick sides in what was one of the most inhumane periods imaginable. There were some Croats who were plenty nasty, but when you look at the

list of those tried for war crimes in the Hague, the names – led by Slobodan Milosevic – are Serbian. Slovenia left the Yugoslav union first, without fighting because it was too far from Serbia for the Serbs to do much about it. Croatia’s split from Serbia was much longer and nastier, but there is little argument that Bosnia got the worst of it – particularly Sarajevo. The four-year siege of Sarajevo was longer than Stalingrad.

In the aftermath, Bosnia is one country split into Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim areas. It is much more

separated ethnically than before the war. Each group has its own president and its own members of the parliament. In a country of 4 million, they have Europe’s largest parliament because there are three of everything. The three presidents each preside for eight months, then rotate. And according to the folks we talked to, Bosnia will not be able to make any progress until that system changes, because the entrenched politician are doing fine. It’s just the people who are suffering. Bosnia is now the poorest country in Europe. The fighting is over, but issues remain unresolved.

As you walk around Sarejevo, you can see many buildings that are restored or under restoration. But many other still show the holes from four years of shelling. The war is a constant item of discussion. We had a dinner at the home of a teacher who maintained that times were

better under Tito’s communism. We have heard repeatedly that although they did not have the freedom to criticize the regime, they had jobs. Sarajevo was a major manufacturing center before the breakup of communist Yugoslavia, and now many of those plants are not functioning. Bosnia hardly is unique in the loss of manufacturing jobs, but it has not replaced them with other work like the more prosperous countries of the European Union. Young people get a free education but can’t find work; many move on to Northern Europe.

I don’t have evidence for this, but I have trouble believing that people were better off under Tito. I think there may be a nostalgia for a simpler time – certainly for a time before many people lost their homes and livelihoods. Our first tour guide, in Dubrovnik, was a 10-year-old in Mostar during the war. He was injured by a grenade, and his family lost their home but managed to survive. Our main tour guide – a small boy in Montenegro at the time – didn’t see or hear from his father for six months because he was serving in the Yugoslav army. There seem to be plenty of stories like this.

Sarajevo has beautiful old buildings that look like an Austria-Hungarian capital, but rows of ugly, Soviet-style, concrete apartment buildings and plenty of evidence of the war with shelled and damaged structures yet to be repaired. It is an amazing place to visit.

We have an unwritten rule against two art museums in one day, but I have found that I can do two medieval, walled cities, in two days, in 90-degree weather.

Pat and I are on a tour of the Balkan countries of the former Yugoslavia with a group called Outdoor Adventure Travel (OAT.) I am being careful in this blog not to claim as my own work or knowledge the details passed on by the tour’s excellent guides, so I will try to restrict the subject matter a little and not cheat. Because this is my first guided tour, I want to talk a

little bit about tours in general and whether other folks might like them – as opposed to traveling independently, as we have always done in the past. I am not sufficiently experienced to evaluate OAT tours versus those by other groups, but I hope by the end of this blogging experience to make some worthwhile comments on tours in general.

The group is small – 16 – and many of them have been on OAT tours in the past. One couple has been on nine. One other thing I can tell you about tours – as opposed to independent travel – we are working harder than we might have otherwise. Thursday began at 8:20 a.m., and yesterday at 7:45 a.m. It was in the 90’s both days, but you can’t just give up and go back to

the hotel pool if you get too hot and tired. I also can tell you first-hand that some of our colleagues are unbelievably fit. There is a couple from Long Island, N.Y. who have been married for 67 years. I heard the male half say that he is 91, and they are hiking the rest of us out of our socks.

The first full day of our tour was in the old walled city of Dubrovnik – a republic for centuries until conquered by Napoleon in 1806. The old town was shelled heavily during the wars in the 1990’s over the split-up of Yugoslavia, but as a UNESCO world-heritage site, it received some significant financial help to restore buildings. There is a map at the entry gates that shows the vast number of buildings which were damaged, but it was difficult for me to tell that as we walked around. The city was jammed with people, and this is mid-September; our tour guide said it is nothing compared to July and August.

If I were coming here again, I would wait a couple of weeks until early October. It’s plenty touristy, but I don’t think that takes away from the beauty of the setting and architecture. And, completely unexpected, we saw an amazing Salvador Dali exhibit at one of the galleries. Kind of a contrast with the 14^th-16^th Century construction right outside. One day in the old city is enough, but there are beaches and one-day tours available for people who want to enjoy the Dalmatian coast. I don’t think you need a tour group to see Dubrovnik.

The second day we traveled to Kotor, Montenegro, via another amazing little town, Perast. Kotor is on a beautiful bay, with limestone mountains immediately rising outside of town. It was not as crowded as Dubrovnik, and the attendant in the 12^th Century cathedral and basilica told Pat it was a “peace day.” He meant that it was a day without cruise ships. Our guide told us they had ruled against building a bridge across the bay because of the need to get cruise ships through. So the route is a winding road with beautiful views, or a car ferry with beautiful views. Tough choice.

While Dubrovnik was an independent city-state from the middle ages, Kotor was part of the Venetian Republic. Interestingly, they were on opposite sides in the last war – Dubrovnik as part of Croatia and Montenegro allied with Serbia. The next post will explore the war issues and its aftermath in more detail. (I suppose that will keep people from reading further, huh?)

Again, amazing history and architecture, protected by UNESCO, and clearly worth our day. The question is, would Pat and I have done this on our own? Sure, we would now, knowing what it’s like. But Kotor wasn’t on my original list, and getting there and back from Dubrovnik was easy on the tour bus but complicated on your own. So the tradeoff is the convenience of the tour versus the freedom to come and go as you wish. It’s definitely worth a day trip from Dubrovnik. Montenegro has an international airline and international flights — there are no non-international flights because the country is too small for that — so I could see just coming here and spending some time on the beaches as well.

A couple final thoughts on Vienna: Our actual trip began in Vienna, which we saw on our own, and the tour began three days later in Dubrovnik. Two reasons: 1) We wanted to see Vienna, and 2) we also didn’t want to start the tour jet-lagged.

Vienna is so rich in history, music, art and architecture that you need more than a couple of days there. Personally, I can do one historic site and one museum in one day, or two historic sites, but not two art museums.

We made it to the Shonbrun Palace and the Leopold Museum, but not to the Belvedere. There were other museums in Vienna’s “Museum Quarter” that we did not even attempt. We heard a concert in the Palais Augsburg, where Mozart had both written and played music, and ate a Sacher torte – they call it Sacher Cake here – at the Sacher Hotel for which it is named. I think the city needs a week anyhow, not three days like we did.

The subway is very modern and easy to use, but it is of limited utility in the old town because of the few number of stops. It was a good way to get to Shonbrun. I suspect it is very good for getting to the outer areas.

It’s also an expensive city. We ate meals out but not at especially fancy places, and still managed to run up some good bills. It is comparable to Rome, I think, and perhaps not as pricey as London or Paris. We also found that they often charge to use the restroom at museums and other places. At the Museum Quarter, it was either 20 Eurocents or 50 Eurocents, depending on your intentions when you got inside – at least for men. If you go to a restaurant, you can use the restroom for free. Plan ahead.

Pat and I are in staying in a small pensionne in Vienna’s old town, or Inner Stadt, an amazing mixture of neoclassic buildings with modern storefronts housing Mont Blanc, Tiffany, etc. It is the first leg of a long-awaited trip to Central Europe. There seem to be hot dog stands everywhere, with small children toting sausage sandwiches the size of baseball bats. Almost everyone speaks English, especially in the tourism business. We had a cab driver who did not, although he answered one question in Spanish and noted that he is a Habsburg, who also ruled Spain as well as Austria-Hungary at one point. But we also have found many of the denizens to be a little diffident – not overly friendly.

Vienna is the first stop on a three-week trip through the Balkans. That area had been on my personal list for a long time, and the real impetus for this trip came after a some reading about the era leading to, and the aftermath of, the first world war. It was on Pat’s list because it sounded exotic and beautiful.

In the 19^th Century, the Austria-Hungarian Empire ruled millions of people of different ethnicities: German-speakers in Austria and the Magyars of Hungary, parts of what now includes Italy, Romania, Bulgaria and the Balkan countries. In the late 19^th Century, they took over parts of Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from the Ottoman Empire. It was in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, that a Serbian nationalist assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which lead to the war, itself. And in the aftermath, the areas that composed the Habsburg empire of Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian Empire all were changed forever.

I guess it’s easy to look back with a little nostalgia, especially when you think about the wars in the Middle East, the former Yugoslavia, and World War II itself, which all resulted in one way or another from the decisions made after the Great War. We are still living with some bad decisions in the Arab states. But reading about all this in Edmonds, while a great retirement hobby for me, isn’t the same as getting to see the sites up close.

So six months or so ago, we planned this trip with our close friends, the Bukeys. The starting place is Vienna, where we decided to spend a few days adjusting to the time change, then fly to Dubrovnik for the tour itself, which will go through Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia, ending in Budapest. The major part will be with a tour group, Outdoor Adventure Travel (OAT). I have always resisted tour groups, not wanting anyone to tell me what time to be on the bus, where to eat and when to get out of bed in the morning. But I was wary of planning the logistics myself of a trip this complicated. Pat has traveled with OAT in the past and really enjoyed the guide and the experience. So this is a little bit of an experiment for me.

Other things changed in the run-up to the trip. The Bukeys were unfortunately unable to come, and I went back to work at Woodland Park Zoo on a temporary basis. The zoo kindly agreed to put up with this three-week jaunt.

So that brings us to Vienna, which is a remarkable showplace of neoclassic architecture and one-time grandeur. Before World War I, Vienna was a pretty big deal. Crossroads of Central Europe, seat of the Habsburg dynasty, last bastion in Europe against periodic attacks by the Ottomans through the Middle Ages. I have heard it referred to as the “Paris of the East,” perhaps in reference to the way the city was modernized in the 19^th Century. Of course I was fully prepared for this having once lived in Walla Walla, which some city fathers called the “Athens of the West.” I am unsure why.

In any case, Vienna’s grandeur remains, but the political significance does not. Now Vienna is the capital of Austria only. At 1.8 million, it is smaller than Rome or Paris and half the size of Berlin. This year is the 150^th anniversary of the Ringstrasse, or ring road around the old town, which the Emperor Franz Joseph began in the 1860’s and didn’t complete until just before the war. You can take a trolley ride around the circumference and see the great neoclassical edifices from the era, great museums and universities, a couple of churches and palaces, and great homes – many of which now are five-star hotels.

We have one more day here before departing for Dubrovnik and the beginning of the tour. I hope to keep up this blog during the trip. We’ll see.