My Willage

I mentioned, I think, in an earlier post before the trip, that after a little research, and some help from my mom, I found that the village my great great grandmother emigrated from is a tiny little one just a bit south of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Not that my family ancestry is Slovenian, mind you - rather it's a complicated story of a German settlement in present-day Slovenia, in existence since the 1400's. Then, Nazi racial policy intervened, and they decided this German community would need to be resettled to a more acceptable location within Slovenia. In doing so, they displaced and killed 46,000 Slovenes, and effectively moved the little German community to a place where they were suspicious to the local population, persecuted, and also eventually killed. There's really no good in the story for anyone, and what was once the German-speaking parish of Ebental is now the Slovene village Polom.

We set out to find Polom, which looked so tiny on Google maps that I wasn't sure our GPS (his nickname is "Daniel") would be able to find it. But Daniel was a champ today - he led us directly there.

Here's Daniel leading us across the Croatian/Slovenian border

We wound through more of the beautiful scenery that we'd seen earlier in Slovenia - alpine meadows, little ponds, cows, fields of wild flowers all around. Here's the road to Polom, complete with a little hand-painted map to show th

Pokey and I on the road

We slowly came around a curve, and suddenly there was the sign, a few houses, and not much else. I thought that was going to be it, so Erin I. (always a completely willing helper) took a little video while I drove:





As you can see from the end of the video, I was excited to find that there was a little church, so we pulled over to take a look.

It turned out that house #13 was right across the road:

where lived an older gentleman who didn't speak English but understood that we wanted to see the church, and walked us over there to open up:


It was pretty amazing to know that this building, from 1638, was the parish church where my great great grandmother would have worshipped - a place she would certainly have been in many times. We let the little old man lock up the church, and headed to the tiny cemetery across the way. I had low hopes that we'd find any gravestone with the family name Gliebe, especially after all that happened. Erin and I were searching the oldest ones, at the fringes of the little plot, when I found this:

Walking down the road from the church to the graveyard

Apparently a Franziska Gliebe lived nearby until 1993....hopefully Erin I.'s friend in Berlin can help translate and I can get the rest of the story!

It was very exciting to find and strange as well...for someone who grew up with no sense of coming from somewhere else, however far back...very exciting.

Where Croatians go to vacation

We spent our last night in Croatia in a seaside town called Zadar. Rick Steves has no information about it, but it was a convenient stop as we were driving back north. It was mentioned in Lonely Planet, notable for a few, slightly odd things: shiny marble streets (see above), the world's only working sea organ, and a trippy solar-powered light installation called the Sun Salutation. Hmm.

We drove up from Split, found our little pension, checked in and were oriented by an extremely kind Croatian man whose English was so impressive despite his shyness about using it. We have, to a person, been amazed by the kindness and hospitality of the folks in the small places we've stayed along the way. We would head into town later; in the meantime, it was time for snacks and siesta. Here's Erin I, displaying her afternoon plans:


When we finally roused ourselves, we drove by a (crowded, handicap-accessible) beach on the way back into town and finally dipped our toes into the rocky shores of the Adriatic:

In town, we had some trouble with parking, as we didn't have enough kuna coins for the machine. We wandered into the market, where a few vendors still had stalls out, and tried to buy something small to get enough coins in change to solve our problem. What followed was an extremely confusing interaction with an older woman selling vegetables that resulted in us getting most of the coins we needed and Erin I. with a rock-hard piece of fruit she may or may not have paid too much for that we named The Parking Peach. We still haven't eaten it yet, as it's definitely not ready for consumption:


Dinner was lovely, we tried the local liqueur, made of sour cherries, and appropriately called a maraschino:


Dinner consumed, we wandered down to the shore for the sea organ and Sun Salutation, passing hordes of other tourists out strolling, lots of families with kids toddling about, and a few Croatian break-dancers taking turns doing some pretty impressive moves. The Sun Salutation was just...trippy. It did bring out the John Travolta in Erin I:


And I'll leave you with this quite low-quality video of the eerie sounds of the sea organ, along with dim picture of the moon shimmering over the sea.

The Emperor's Palace

The modern day city of Split, where we stayed last night, is Croatia's second-biggest city. We could tell it was large as we were driving in, trying to find the old part of town, getting lost, trying again. The nucleus of the city, though, is very small, and based on one building - the Roman Emperor Diocletian's palace. Which also happens to be where our hotel is. Staying here was our "hotel splurge" of the trip, and even though it was hard to find, it's been worth it.

The palace, circa 300 AD

Diocletian may not have been a very personable man - though he did retire from being emperor in order to garden here at the palace full time - but certainly his palace, built just before 300 AD, is still impressive. The entry vestibule, which our hotel is located in and named for, is host to a quartet of traditional singers. I can even hear them as I blog in our room, it's quite nice.

The vestibule - impressive even with it's dome gone

Traditional klapa singers. We admit, there was one gentleman in particular that we thought was cute, perhaps you can guess from this picture which one he is...and also, um, we bought their CD.

Even Roman soldiers need to scratch their noses occasionally

We walked around town a bit, and especially enjoyed poking around in the basement of the palace which was full of rooms with strange artifacts, not very much explanation, and sometimes creepy pigeon sounds.

I bring to you, blog readers, the most exciting picture you'll see this entire time...see below for the reveal.

I was not acting here. Erin I. snapped a photo just as I was rushing out of a small chamber in the basement after hearing wings flapping around my head. Thanks, Erin.

We strolled slowly around a few other sights - the weather was not conducive to strolling anything but slowly - which included a walk along the harbor to drop off our laundry:


And a visit to this giant statue whose toe people rub for luck. He was a lot taller than Erin I.


We leave here today and have one more stop in Croatia before driving back to Slovenia and catching our plane to Krakow on Sunday morning. Phew!

Walking the Walls of Dubrovnik

We really tried. We meant to get out of our apartment and up on the walls close to 8 am when they opened. Our guidebook warned against being up there in the middle of the day without water, and we took heed. We ended up starting off by 8:40 am, not bad, but even then, with all the narrow stone steps up and down and lack of shade, it was quite an endeavor. It was, of course, worth it, for the great views of the old town and the little glimpses we got into regular life as we walked.


Dubrovnik, "The Pearl of the Adriatic", is perched right on the edge of the sea and very popular for cruise ship travelers, which are easily identifiable by the stickers they wear as they walk through town with their tour guides. This place has always been a key tourist area, which is why some say the Yugoslav forces chose to attack it during the conflict years - here known as The Homeland War. This cross and communications tower on the hill above town were among the first targets of bombing back in 1990-1 (sorry, I know it's hard to see the cross):


And all over town there are reminders that the shelling destroyed or damaged nearly two-thirds of the buildings:


But the town has been completely rebuilt, using the same materials and the same methods, and we can attest to the fact that tourism is quite healthy. I came across this tourist today up on the wall, we'll call her by her middle name, Kimiko.


Here she is, poking out of a little guard tower:


And I later spied her rejoining her tour group:


We did enjoy the walk, despite the heat. I poked my head out too:


And we got some other shots of whatever struck our fancy...



After we climbed back down into town, the full force of the heat struck us both, but I guess it's most evident in my face in this picture:


And thank goodness for the cool water from the town fountain as well:


We went into a little monastery to look at its cloister (there's something so peaceful about cloisters) and it's ancient pharmacy. There was a poster on the wall showing several famous visiting dignitaries...it was romantic somehow to think of Jackie Kennedy being here, but somewhat less so to think of Dick Cheney.




Time for a looong siesta back in the apartment, then we did some shopping for gifts, which we hadn't done yet this trip. We were very fortunate to meet an extremely kind man, Boris, in his little shop, who makes silver jewelry as his father and grandfather did before him. We both bought some little silver filigree earrings and a few other things in the very typical style we'd seen everywhere here. After we made our purchases, Boris shyly gave us a copy of an article showing his picture and an interview with him about being a member of a dying trade. Meeting him was a highlight of our day.

Dinner was at a local vegetarian restaurant, Nishta. Its name translates to "nothing" since apparently locals couldn't understand what you'd serve at a place that didn't offer meat. We both had cold, delicious gazpacho and I had falafel - some of the best I've ever had. The small purple hippo on the table made us laugh.


We leave tomorrow to drive back north - one last shot showing how I spend at least part of each evening...the old town has free wi-fi everywhere so last night I blogged at the cafe downstairs on the square. Lovely.