Back to Brussels

I have been remiss in not writing more frequently; most style guides for blogs suggest frequent short posts rather than big ones, but I have had neither the wifi connection nor the inclination to write before now.

Our trip from Postira started very early in the morning; fortunately travelling with a small car means that the cargo space is limited, and so packing up wasn't terribly time-consuming, nor was it traumatic.  We managed to make the 7:45 ferry to Split, returned out empty bottles to the ferry terminal grocery (hey, five kuna is still five kuna) and then hit the road, heading north to Plitvicka Lakes national park.  This is the oldest and largest of Croatia's eight national parks, and has been a UNESCO world heritage site since 1979.

There are sixteen lakes with numerous waterfalls to view, and the park itself covers almost 300 square kilometres.  The lakes are very clear, and full of fish; we saw a few of the original lake trout and also some brookies (!) but much of the habitat has been taken over recently by pearl roach and chub, both types of carp.  The control of these invasive species is still being attempted by environmental scientists.

There are a number of caves to visit on the various walking routes, and we all had a good hiking workout, as the elevations of the various pathways change quite drastically.

 

 

We are quite spoiled by the large number of freshwater lakes and rivers in Canada, and also remember fondly our swimming and cliff-jumping adventures in the mountain rivers and pools in Corsica back in 2009, so we were happy to get in some waterfall time.  The only problem was that as the lake environments are fragile, no swimming was possible, which vexed Duncan to no end.

But that lack of swimming was to be remedied over the next few days as we carried on to Jennersdorf, near Graz, and stopped in for the Summer Opera festival there, run by our friend Dietmar.  He and his wife Renata have a lovely home overlooking the village, and Duncan spent a lot of time in their swimming pool.

 

The festival began ten years ago with a modest production of Die Zauberflöte, but has grown each year, undertaking progressively more and more ambitious projects.  The main venue is Schloss Tabor, a historic castle purchased from a local baron, and modified with a permanent orchestra pit, some lighting infrastructure, and removable raked seating.  The regular orchestra is the Junge
Philharmonie Brandenburg, led by conductor Sebastian Weigle for the last 20 years, and they did a wonderful job of the late romantic music of Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel.  Renata played Gretel, and interestingly Dietmar himself performed the role of the witch; he was really hilarious and also scary as a cannibal transvestite...  The cast was excellent both vocally and physically, and the staging was quite beautiful.  I have never seen an opera played under the summer night sky before, but found the whole thing enchanting, as did Maggie and the boys.

We stayed for the first couple of days at an apartment near the castle, and got to know our temporary neighbours from Berlin a little bit: these were the assistant conductor, Martin Braun, his wife Katharina (who is a soprano), and their young son, whom Duncan hit it off with very well.

We also spent some time with Dietmar and Renata and their two children at their beautiful home, enjoyed a barbeque, met some of their friends, relatives and festival sponsors, and took in some of the tourist attractions nearby.  Duncan was particularly taken with the local chocolate factory, and while he was frustrated that the chocolate fountain was off-limits...

... he still enjoyed seeing the "Oompah-Loompahs" at work, and he and Maggie had plenty of opportunities to taste the different types of chocolate on offer.

The boys also enjoyed a trip to the nearby Riegersburg castle, where they saw some great exhibitions on medieval weaponry and on witches and sorcerers.

There is really a lot to do in that part of the world, and after the very hot ocean climate of Croatia it felt a bit like being in the shield country of eastern ontario, with rolling treed countryside mixed with corn and diary farms, and temperatures in the 20s, not the 30s.

After a few days visit we got back in the car, and headed north again.  Fortunately our Volkswagen held up just fine during the trip; Schnelli turns out to be a really stingy fuel-sipper, but those efficiency benefits get counterbalanced somewhat by all the road tolls, and the necessity of buying vignettes for a number of countries.  Germany has no vignette system, but the Austrian sticker was 8 euros for fifteen days, the Swiss one was 33 euros for a year, and Slovenia (through which we drove only a total of perhaps 100 kms) was 30 euros.  Yikes!

Our next stop was Salzburg, where we had lunch at the café Triangle; Maggie and Duncan opted for the Hungarian goulasch while I had the "Michael Schade" fish soup, and Malcolm had schnitzel.

We really had no time to see anything as part of the Salzburg Festival, but hope to make a dedicated trip there another time.  We did explore the town on foot, and took a tour of the Mozart family's house, in which Wolfgang was born, and where he lived for many years, until moving to Vienna.  Having visited the Mozarthaus in Vienna this was an interesting complement, focusing more on the family history.

We continued north, and opted to stop in Nuremburg for the night before pressing on for Brussels the next day.  It was a great holiday but everyone was eager to get back home again.  Fortunately our terrace gardens were all doing well, thanks for frequent rains and the thoughtful attention of our landlord...

...and someone else enjoyed her stay with a friend.  Because our cat had obviously enjoyed her vacation, having the run of a large house with access to a big garden, I'm not sure if she really wanted to come home!  Still we were happy to see her, and things seems to have returned more or less to our old routines.  We are also happy that we have found a good home for her for the next time we have an extended holiday abroad.

It will only be another week or two before the children are back in school.  Maggie has already started her preparatory meetings in advance of classes, and Duncan is attending the daycamp at her school, while Malcolm and I are enjoying the peace and quiet of a (relatively) still house.

We wish you a very pleasant last few days of summer, and bonne rentrée for the return to the normal academic and/or working year in September....

Coming to a close in Brač

It's been a super lazy time since I last posted. We have really had a true vacation here, but are starting to plan meals more carefully so that we use up the food that is left, and this morning Maggie sorted laundry to get things washed prior to our departure on friday morning for Graz, Austria.

We haven't made it to too many distant places this time, but stuck to the beaches near Postira. Lovrenčina is the nearest, and the only sand beach on the island. We really enjoyed spending the afternoon there, and met a nice English family with two children who were staying on the other side of the island but had been exploring the northern coast. While the beach there shelves off extremely slowly and so is shallow for a long distance into the bay, the water was very cold; a freezing river called the Cetina empties into this section of the Adriatic just across the reach from Lovrenčina, and we had just had three days of the Bura wind that brought cool air from the mountains to the northeast, unlike the regular Maestral that comes from the northwest. As the temperatures were in the high 30s we didn't mind!

As well, on the evenings of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of August we walked into the square below the church for the film festival, and enjoyed a number of excellent short films from many different countries. The winner by audience selection was an Australian film called "Boo!" As well our favorites were another Aus film called "Old Lady Luck", and an Israeli film called "Welcome... And our Condolences", shot in a realistic amateur style, documenting one Russian Jewish family's Israel immigration nightmare. Very, very funny. There were lots of other great films, and the boys enjoyed debating the strengths and weaknesses of each before casting their votes.

Seated behind us quite by chance was Canadian/Australian couple and their four kids; they live in Haarlem near Amsterdam, and as their three oldest children are 15, 13, and 11, we have enjoyed some common activities, snorkelling and so on, and we had them over for bbq this week, trying out marinated grilled calimari, grilled flatbreads and tandoori chicken, followed by several sessions of "Loup-Garou" (Wher-wolf), a group card game introduced to us by TJ and Erica's family that works best with a large group.

We also bade farewell earlier this week to Miroslav and Ivana and their son, who left for Novisad... It has been great to catch up with them and we look forward to more dinners together when we meet again in Toronto, or next time here in Brač. Nada and her husband are also leaving to join them in Serbia, but invited us to come visit them anytime during the year. This part of Europe is definitely interesting and a very different place (and we haven't seen any of the interior, really) so perhaps we'll take advantage of a seat sale sometime soon.

No summer at the water is complete with a little cliff-jumping, so we hit the road a couple of days ago and went to the beach of Osibova, which is situated on the southwest corner of the island, near Milna, and opens out into the Adriatic proper. The water was a little different than on is side of the island as it doesn't receive the cold freshwater from Četina, and the bottom of the bay was more sandy. There is a nice rock, with a few perches of varying heights from 2 metres to four metres above the water, and the three men each had a jump. The climb was a bit challenging for Maggie's knee so she stayed in the water.

What else? I can't think of much else to report. We are leaving for Graz on Friday morning, then stop off in Bregenz for an overnight on the 13th, before heading home, arriving hopefully on the evening of the 14th. Happy summer to all!