Breakfast was once again spectacular, with our hosts going above my wildest expectations when I was looking for a replay of yesterday’s elderflower pancakes. They weren’t planned, but upon learning what I was looking for, Ivka went out in the rain to harvest a small supply of the blossoms and whipped some up in minutes. Off in the distance, a cuckoo bird let us know it was present as the rain continued right up until the time our vehicles were packed and ready for our departure.

Ivka’s parting gift to Caroline traveling with us to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It wasn’t a long drive to Bosnia and the town of Bihać. Our goal was to raft the upper and lower Una River, but heavy rains created conditions that if we were to have a boat flip, the resulting swim might be a long one at about 2 kilometers or 1.25 miles. We were also requested to leave everything in the vans so we weren’t encumbered with anything such as drybags. After the rain stopped while still on the river, we had the opportunity to listen to just how much the quiet enhanced the beauty of the canyon. Should any photos from the rest of the group show up, I’ll be sure to share them here.

While I can never see too many waterfalls, rainbows, or sunsets, I’ve already seen too many bullet holes in the homes of people who were obviously not combatants but were caught in the crossfire of others. Part of me is happy that not everything has been patched over, cosmetically hiding the horror of what was, as thinking about the atrocities that are part of war should always give one pause.

With another couple of hours driving through our landscape as we make our way to Skradin, Croatia, we snag the front seats again as it’s the only place in the vans where I can open the window to grab a few photos of what things look like outside our speeding vehicle.

We have to have these images of the route, else with fading memories, we might forget how enchanting the small villages looked like during our travels. At some point during another month or maybe a year into the future, we’ll find ourselves looking back at our first trip to the Balkans, wondering why we never planned on a return visit. These photos are key to keeping our memories alive and vivid.

Do you see bad weather on the horizon? For me, there is a potential to see the landscape under different conditions should we one day decide to make that return visit. Our sense of the world found here in the Balkans is already intriguing enough to know that we are enchanted and that just because things might be obscured doesn’t mean they won’t hold our interest. On the contrary, we know that out that way along the coast, there is a highway, and beyond the shore, there are islands that are likely worth exploring, too. To Caroline and me, scenes such as this only work to increase our curiosity about just how much more beautiful things are beyond our purview.

Able to pull a face and keep his eyes on the road, I have to give much credit to our guide, Ivan, for keeping us entertained. We are up here learning a lot about the Croatian language, road signs, good versus horrible Croatian music, a few thoughts about the conflict between people who normally have no animosity towards each other, and corruption that exploits not only Croatia but the people who need work in order to break out of their 2nd world status and join the more prosperous countries to their north.

Kind of like our first-hand impressions of the Balkans, the realities found in this corner of the world are blurred. Will we ever see enough light at the end of the tunnel to find certainty about the politics, history, religious, and economic issues that nuance the complex relationships that have shifted over the centuries from one rule to another before bouncing back on self-rule?

Rainbows portend good things, even if those are more smiles on our own faces.

Inching ever closer to our first encounter with the Adriatic along the Dalmatian coast.

Uh-oh, the van has broken down. A call to Petar assures us that we’ll only be out here minutes before he drops the other guests in Skradin and returns to pick us up. Caroline and I were aware of the faltering clutch as we’d seen the check engine light and saw Ivan struggling to get the van into gear when he downshifted a little while ago. Passing through a toll booth, the clutch no longer wanted to work at all, so we all pushed the van through and to the side of the road, then opted to hitchhike to our next stop. It turned out that manually pulling and pushing the pedal for the clutch allowed it to start functioning like normal. While saving Petar a trip out to pick us up, the guys at Raftrek opted to have another van brought to our hotel in Skradin later in the day so there’d be no ambiguity.

The smile of a great actor and a seriously decent river guide so far. I’m accusing Petar of being an actor because not only is he likely dealing this very moment with our van situation, but we also learned that the Zrmanja River we were supposed to be rafting tomorrow is rapidly rising due to the heavy rains. Matter of fact we also heard of a group that was in the canyon as the waters became unnavigable who had to hike out of a difficult spot and took five hours to finally emerge. So, knowing he’s dealing with the expectations of the group he’s guiding and the potential for disappointment, I’d say that smile is a legitimate effort to not allow the stress to show through, that or those charismatic blue eyes are able to hide his feelings and pull you into what he wants you to believe.

Time to freshen up in our room? Not unless we’d accidentally defecated on each other or ourselves. With dinner just around the corner, we were going to use as much available daylight as possible to see just where it is we were staying tonight. The village of Skradin is somewhere nearly 1,000 years old and has been under the rule of almost everyone, including the Romans, Turks, the Republic of Venice, Napoleon, and the Austrian-Hungarians. With less than 4,000 inhabitants and a small marina that leads out to the Adriatic, this seems like the perfect place to spend the night.

Inviting narrow streets and even narrower stairways lead us to parts of the city that will have to remain unexplored for now while we try to cover as much ground as possible in the shortest amount of time.

An organist is playing in Crkva Male Gospe (Church of Our Lady), thus guaranteeing that we’ll have to stop in as we cannot know if we’d be so lucky tomorrow to hear this church filled with music or even whether the doors will be unlocked then.

The Latin phrase memento mori means “Remember death.” When we visit churches, we are reminded that we are here to prepare for our death. Mortality and the sacrifices of those who have preceded us are supposed to help guide the soul of the parishioners to find salvation through the acts of others and through how we live our lives. Besides Jesus on the cross, I often wonder what the average churchgoer’s level of knowledge is regarding the symbolism adorning these walls.

After witnessing the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection, Mary Magdalene spent the last 30 years of her life in a cave in southern France. This motif of Mary in a cave is a popular one and will likely not be the only one we see on this trip.

Thin pillows on the pews with these Croatian or Slavic designs were sure to capture Caroline’s attention, and even before she started to ask me to photograph them for her, I’d grabbed a couple of images.

I must admit total ignorance of this painting while we were looking at it in stunned disbelief. Is this woman really holding a martini with a couple of eyeballs in it? Saint Lucy is, in fact, the patron saint of eye illnesses and of the blind. Legend has it that her eyes were gouged out prior to her execution or that maybe she removed them herself for some curious reason or other, but in any case, her eyes were miraculously restored upon examination in the family mausoleum; hence, she became a saint. Whatever the true nature of the story, I much prefer the idea that some gothic lady is now famous into perpetuity for sipping her martini with some cheating husband’s eyes adorning her drink.

The marina is about as far as we can get before needing to turn around and head back to our hotel, which is also where we’ll be having dinner.

I think the attraction of this village is obviously apparent, though we have no idea how crowded things get as the main tourism season gets underway. If the number of ATMs is an indicator (we counted at least eight), then this place might be packed a couple of months a year.

Ivan is not feeling his best today, hence the giant L on his forehead for LOSER. First, he failed to identify us at the airport and managed to be invisible to us; next, he took a wrong turn on his way to Plitviče Lakes, adding a significant delay to his group’s arrival (we were in Petar’s van – clearly the winner), and then today his van had mechanical issues. Poor Ivan was feeling like the low man on the totem pole, but we still like him and hope he can overcome his feelings of inferiority someday.

Back out on the romantic deserted streets of Skradin where a midnight stroll seemed well in order for the perfect punctuation of another terrific day.

Just who is it that rafts upon whitewater in the morning to stroll later in the day in a small town along the Dalmatian coast on the Adriatic Sea, passing yachts, listening to the funny songs of frogs and toads, holding the hand of someone they’ve been in love with for countless years? Today is the day that Caroline and John get to do this.