Memorial Day Cruise Around Split

The Azimut

This week marked our first foray into Dalmatia, probably the most famous region of Croatia.  A couple months ago, Adam got an email from American embassy staff inviting us to join them on a 3 day cruise from Split to Hvar island and the Krka National Park, and then back to Split.  We signed up and paid the fee, quite happy to temporarily delegate three days of logistics to someone else.

Five Wells Square, Zadar

We rented a car and took the scenic route down the coast to Zadar in northern Dalmatia.  It was a little jarring to go from Rijeka, with its lone Jadrolinija passenger ferry, to an area of Croatia where the harbor is jam packed in early high season with massive cruise ships and tourist boats.  We walked past the harbor into town, looking for lunch.  The Romans initially laid out the town, so the streets were flat and straight, practically midwestern.  When you only have a couple hours, flat, straight streets are a real bonus and we were very grateful to the Romans for that.  We had a fabulous lunch at a restaurant Pet Bunara (five wells), which was located right next to Zadar's famous Five Wells, a set of wells built over a huge cistern that helped the Zadarians withstand Turkish sieges.  We walked past St. Donatus's church to the Sea Organ, which are modern-looking steps leading down to the sea that look sort of like organ keys (in fact, the ocean currents and waves are supposed to wash up behind the steps and create music,  but it was not making sound when we were there, and I only just learned on youtube that it can make music).  We only saw a tiny bit of it, but Zadar is gorgeous.  Even moreso when you realize how many times the city has been decimated, from ancient times all the way up to the "Homeland War" (as it is called here).

Trampoline Park, Split

We arrived in Split around 6pm.  Behind our hotel and the beach was a sort of park (just $2 admission per kid, stay as long as you want) with several bouncy houses and lots of trampolines, and a bar/coffeeshop alongside it so that parents can have drinks while the kids play.  We intended to walk to the Split city center along the coast, but we were lured into the trampoline park and had too much fun drinking coffee and hanging out without kids.  We stayed there until it started to get dark, then we walked along the rocky beach for awhile, and headed back to the hotel.  It was a beautiful day.

Happy Kids, Happy Parents, Split

History lesson at the Perestil, Diocletian's Palace, Split

The next morning, we took a taxi to the wharf, dropped off our bags at the train station, and headed out to explore Split, and in particular, Diocletian's Palace.  Diocletian was a Dalmatian, and he built this massive palace for his retirement.  After his death, a city rose up within the palace walls, and parts of these walls and infrastructure are still visible today.  I liked the Egyptian columns and a headless sphinx, and the outline of his dining room with some of the floor mosaic was also visible.  Adam shook me out of my wanderer's torpor and convinced me we needed to take an official tour, so we did, and it ended up being a private tour.  Our guide gave the kids "Roman candy" which was boiled orange and lemon peels rolled in crystallized sugar.  I'm quite sure the Romans didn't have crystallized sugar but I didn't argue the point with her.  We got to see beautiful flower-shaped rain drains (which a tie shop and a bank built around), the dining room, floor mosaics, the substructure, and other things, which we wouldn't have seen without her, and then we had to run and get our bags for the boat.

Lucy in the Freezing Adriatic

Hvar Town and Spanjola Fortress

We boarded the boat around noon and that was the beginning of my first ever "cruise".  The boat had about 15 cabins (ours was below deck) and a dining room, where breakfast and lunch were served.  In short order, Jonah had made friends with a very nice 10 year old boy named Martin (from Minnesota), and the girls found a little group of girlfriends, too.  Jonah, Lucy and Georgie are completely friend-starved and Americana-starved, so this convergence was very good for our little ducklings.  They swam in the still-freezing cold Adriatic, but the water couldn't have been more inviting.  It was clear and azure and you could see down practically to the bottom.  Next, our captain drove us to Hvar Town on Hvar Island, one of the most famous Dalmatian islands.  We docked there, walked up to its castle for some gorgeous views, and then gave in to the children and let them order pizza.  That night was very loud.  Our ship was the first one at the dock, and four other ships were roped to our ship.  One of the buoys was next to our window and when the ship parked next to ours would bump up against our ship, the buoy made a loud squeaking noise.  Also, Hvar Town is quite the hopping place, and we listened to party sounds a lot later than we would have liked.

Swimming hole, Krka Falls, near Skradin

The next day, we cruised up the Adriatic and then on the Krka River to Skradin, a town north of Split in Krka National Park.  Unfortunately for me, I spent a fair amount of the morning leaning over the back of the ship, worshipping the watery god.  Jonah and Lucy were also lying down, trying to keep their tummies happy, but Georgie and Adam had their sea legs on and were perfectly fine.  Once we approached the mouth of the river Krka, the water and my stomach calmed.  We disembarked and got onto a smaller passenger ferry to go to the Krka Waterfalls, where everyone swam in a clear freshwater lake with a huge waterfall in the background.  We walked a little in the park, but the stress of the morning (coupled with the loss of my morning coffee) gave me a huge headache, so I went back to the boat for drugs and a nap while Adam took the kids to explore Skradin.  Later, our friend Yasmina, who helped organize the trip and knows the sea, told me that there are only about two days per month of this type of rough sea, and that was one of them.  My drugs worked like a charm, so we went out to Skradin together and found a little restaurant that had had a lamb roasting on a spit earlier in the day (the oven was still smoking).  We had fresh bread, Dalmatian prsut (prosciutto), Pag cheese, and salads (and the kids had fabulous french fries), and it was perhaps the perfect meal.  On the way home from dinner, Adam bought a tall skinny-necked glass fig grappa bottle from a woman whose family produces it, so we're adding another delicious fragile thing to the summer suitcases.

2nd floor jump, Azimut

On the last day of the cruise, thankfully, the seas were calm and no one had any seasickness.  The kids and Adam again got to swim in the Adriatic, and this time, Jonah jumped off the second floor of the boat.  Five times.  We pulled into Split around 1:00PM.  We again dropped our bags off at the train station and went to the Split Archeology Museum, and we climbed the belltower in Diocletian's Palace.  We took a taxi back to the hotel and the kids convinced us to take them again to the trampoline park.  They really had to twist our arms.

Solana salt factory salt flats, Pag, Croatia

We left for home the next morning (yesterday), via the island of Pag.  Pag is famous for its lamb (the sheep eat aromatic herbs and lick salt off the rocks, giving their meat a distinctive flavor), sheep cheese, salt (there have been salt flats on the island for thousands of years), and ancient lace-making.   Because the Bora winds sweep through Pag, there are really no trees, just scruffy vegetation, which fortunately, the sheep like to eat.  On the way to Pag Town, I took a picture of some salt flats on the island and then my camera battery expired.  After we arrived in Pag Town, Adam tracked down the location of a five star restaurant/vineyard/hotel on the island.  We toured a salt museum (I was in heaven) and I bought a bit of lace from an old lady who indicated that she was the maker of it.  I'm choosing to believe her.

About to jump

We drove off to the restaurant, Boskinac, and it was an oasis of green after seeing so much of the dry, karst, treeless part of the island.  There were olive trees and grapevines on rolling hills, with a stone manor house and large balcony with crisp white table linens.  We were prepared to fork over a shopping cart full of money for the meal, which we did, but unhappily for us, the food was underwhelming.  The fabulous wine, the gorgeous setting, and the charming Australians at the next table made up for the mediocre food.  Our Aussie friends, who know lamb, said that they couldn't tell the difference between this Pag lamb and pork.  Since we don't have that many extended conversations with Australians, I mentioned to them the title of my blog.  They told me that the word "crikey" is actually a bit old-fashioned.  It's not really a cool word anymore, so it's not really used much.  Maybe it's a little bit like "gee-whiz!" or "no, duh!".  Hopefully, the word will be retro-chic someday;  I aim to be cool in every way.

Crikey discussion aside, the wine was perhaps the best I've ever had, and we plan to go back to get more wine on the way to or from our upcoming South Dalmatia trip.  Two hours later, we were back home in Rijeka.

On the Azimut

An unidentified fruit tree, Hvar (any ideas?)

a new friend Ella

Hvar Town beggar

Spanjola Fortress, Hvar Town

Spanjola Fortress, Hvar Town

Summertime

Lungomare

Summer has arrived on the Adriatic.  I've gotten tan and it's not even June.  The temperatures have been in the upper 80s all week.  The change in seasons from spring to summer was most evident along the lungomare yesterday.  For the first few months of our stay here, it was fairly empty, businesses and restaurants were closed, and the breezes off the Adriatic were chilly.  But yesterday, we noticed a sea change (pardon the pun).  The actual promenade was buzzing with people (I heard German and Italian), the beaches along the coast were full of sunbathers, some topless, the restaurants were not only open, but they had people eating in them, and there were hundreds of swimmers sprinkled all along the lungomare.  When we approached the end of the promenade, near a little town called Lovran, there were a group of probably high school-age boys diving into the water from a high cliff.  They were obviously performing for the large group of sunbathing high school girls.  Even though it wasn't for our benefit, this peacock exhibition was fun for the kids to watch too.  It was only a matter of time before the girls noticed that NO ONE wears one piece swimming suits here.  Old, young, fat, thin, foreign, Croat...  bikinis are the only female swim attire.  Mostly with the top, but sometimes without.  Sometimes just without while the women get dressed after a swim.  The girls seem to be ok with their bathing suits for now, but I'm sure I'm sending conflicting messages about how foreign women take nudity less seriously, they don't feel ashamed of their bodies... while telling my girls that it's appropriate to not show too much skin.  Someday, I'm going to get called out on this one, but that day seems far off now.

Adam, Darko Stefan, and Julie

Earlier in the week, we went to Pagliacci at the Rijeka Opera.  We went with our downstairs neighbor, Darko Stefan, who works for the university and gets all the credit for finding us this wonderful apartment.  The orchestra was excellent.  On the way home, we stopped at Adam's favorite bar, where you can often find him working (because his office is shared and not as pleasant as this bar), and we had his favorite Croatian wine (Galic Crno).    Darko has lived in our building for nearly 50 years, and he told us that when it was built, it was the fourth tallest building in Rijeka.  We also learned that the kids used to play ball games in the street outside our building because it had the only streetlamp (correction:  it actually had a string of streetlights) in the area.  He shared a lot of Rijeka history with us on the way home.  It was like having a guided tour, and you can't help but become a little more endeared to the city after hearing about its turbulent history.

Last day of school

A week before the opera, there was high school graduation.  We were taking the kids to their acting class last week, and noticed huge groups of high school students, clustered in matching t-shirts.  Then another cluster of kids would go by, wearing a different color matching t-shirt.  They were all covered in a white substance, and a lot of them were throwing this white stuff.  All the untaken outdoor coffee shop chairs were covered with a white film.  The whole Corzo was powdery white.  One kid with a huge water gun pounced right in front of me and aimed as though I would be his next victim, but instead of shooting me, he just laughed.  His prank was successful without having to get me wet.  I had to admit that it was funny, so I lightened up and laughed too.

As we later learned, we chanced upon the last day of high school, and these students have a tradition whereby they throw flour onto each other while parading down the Corzo.  Ivan, the acting coach, told us that every year, the homeless advocacy groups complain to the students that instead of throwing flour, they should donate it to the homeless shelters.  And while the weather was nice on this particular day, when it rains on the last day of school, the flour makes the pavement very slippery, causing people to fall, and gluey when it dries, creating a huge mess.  Still, it looked like fun to me.

My cold-blooded swimmers

George

Lucy

Rijeka Opera

Fuzine, Croatia

Fuzine, Croatia

Yesterday, we had a taste of some amazingly generous Croatian hospitality.   We spent the day in Fuzine, about an hour’s train ride from Rijeka, with Adam’s law school colleague Vesna Tomljenovic and her husband Edwin Tanzabel.    They have a summer/weekend home in Fuzine which they had just opened up for the season, and we were their lucky guests.  We had admired this village from the highway leading from Rijeka to Zagreb, and had planned to take a day trip there even before Vesna’s invitation.

Train passengers

We woke up at 6:00 (this is diabolically early for us) to make it on a 7:30AM train.  This was the kids’ first train trip. 

The train was on time.  We later learned that the train was on time only because Rijeka was the first point of departure.   Vesna and Edwin met us at the train station and we walked to Fuzine’s center, stopping by the market where Vesna bought some breakfast and a hanging basket of flowers.  Because people here don’t have a Home Depot or Meijer Garden Section, and in fact I don’t even know if the concept of nurseries exists here, flower vendors bring vanloads of annuals and perennials to outdoor markets in the downtown areas and sell their stuff. 

Flower market

We walked to their adorable house in the woods above Fuzine and had a nice breakfast, but the clouds looked threatening.  Within a half hour, we were in the midst of a downpour, and this was going to be a major crimp in our morning walk.  But we dodged the bullet.  The storm passed and we had sun and fresh clean air the rest of the day.

It’s worth mentioning that Lucy and Georgie fell in love with Vesna and Edwin’s dog Rinka.  They held the leash as much as they could, played with her all day, and at one point, had even dressed poor Rinka in Lucy’s shawl and Adam’s baseball cap.

Salamandra salamandra

Vesna, Edwin, and us at breakfast

We started out our walk with a Salamanra salamandra (European Fire Salamander), who came out of the undergrowth after the rain, and even climbed Lucy’s leg.  She was unharmed by the salamander’s toxic skin secretions (no muscle convulsions or hyperventilation occurred) that I later learned about on google.  Then we walked up and down hills, around lakes and rivers, for what was actually only about 3-4 kilometers, although my legs felt that we covered twice that distance.   The scenery was almost Alpine and so green, and the air was super fresh.  Our hosts were in great walking shape and by the time we got back to the house, I was glad to have the excuse to sit with Jonah and do math.   Adam had been carrying either Lucy or Georgie on his shoulders nearly the entire time, so he was on the exhausted side too (but he likes the feeling).   Our hosts, working with some energy reserve we did not have, got to right to work making a three course dinner.  I was amazed at their stamina.  After the walk, we were joined by another of Adam’s colleagues at the law school, Vesna Crnic-Grotic, and a law school student from Poland named Rafal.

Outside Fuzine

Orata

Dinner (chef Edwin standing in back)

Our ambitious chef was Edwin.   He made a scampi risotto from scratch, with a scampi broth, and that was our first course.  I had almost as much fun watching him make it as I did eating it.  This is a dish we see frequently in restaurants but I hadn’t yet tried.  The kids loved sticking their fingers in the risotto get the scampi and de-carapace it, and those fishies were a great hit with them.  Then Edwin started the wild orata course, best translated as gilt-head sea bream, bought from the Rijeka fish market.  Adam has made this fish at home for us and we all adore it.  I am sure that someone from an Adriatic nation coming to the United States wouldn’t even be able to fathom buying picking pre-filleted, frozen fish out of the freezer section of the supermarket – fish that doesn’t have red gills to inspect (if they are Bordeaux colored, the fish is not perfectly fresh, Edwin informed me), eyes that if dull, indicate the fish isn’t fresh, and fish that smells like the ocean and not a fish.  Georgie got to smoosh down the eyeballs  of the orata and she excitedly talked about it for hours afterward (this is a child who whimpers at the sight of a bug).  Vesna prepared the blitva (the Croatian national side dish, boiled Swiss chard, potato, garlic and olive oil), and that was our next course.  All five star, all the more so because they were working out of a kitchen considerably smaller than their normal one.

Done in

Then Vesna pulled out the tiramisu she (the pasty chef) had prepared, and Adam got moscato.  Soon after dinner (by now almost 8:00PM), we had to head for the train station to catch our 8:15PM train home, which turned out to be a bit late since it wasn’t the first stop on the route.   We got home around 10:00PM, and after Georgie un-velcroed her sneakers, she fell asleep splayed out on the floor by the front door.  We all followed suit shortly thereafter, and that was the end of our lovely day in Fuzine with Vesna and Edwin.

On the walk

Homeschooling

Homeschooling in Losinj

Every day, we load up our book bags and head to a scenic, peaceful beach, where Adam and I, together, homeschool the kids.  The kids start with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, sing a patriotic or other culturally relevant song (such as Bye Bye Miss American Pie), Jonah zips through his two different math curriculums, reads a little Shakespeare, completes grammar exercises, plays a geography game, and then we discuss the differences between Hapsburgian and Venetian architecture.  Lucy completes a similarly rigorous curriculum, while Georgie plays educational preschool games.  They play chess in their breaks, which I must urge them to take, because they work so diligently on their assignments and hate to stop school.  We finish up by mid-morning, and then have the rest of the day free to spend in coffee shops sipping machiatos and hot chocolates, or on educational outings, such as the art museum, the natural history museum, and the planetarium.

That is how I thought homeschooling would be.

Homeschooling in Losinj

In reality, homeschooling here is not at all a well-oiled machine.  It’s a very squeaky process and there are work interruptions, boycotts, and strikes.  The union is powerful, and management is weak. 

Adam usually has to work so the bulk of the schooling has been on me.  We typically start in our pajamas around 9:00AM, after I've cleaned up breakfast, researched hotels for our next trip, and hung a load of laundry out to dry.  We're open for business after I've stacked up Jonah and Lucy's books [Jonah's are math, spelling, writing, handwriting, reading comprehension, some sort of novel, world history, an aloud book (I've read almost all of the Narnia series to them), and occasionally grammar and science].  I write their assignments on a sticky note on the front of each book.  Lucy has Singapore Math, reading outloud to me, the Narnia book, world history, and writing in her journal (which gets posted to her blog).

Command Central

By far, the squeakiest cog in the wheel is the union boss, Jonah.  His most difficult subjects are math and writing.  When I say difficult, I don’t mean that they are hard for him to do.  He’s a very fast learner and smart as a whip.  But he doesn’t like to do these subjects.  After a lot of yelling and frustration, we negotiated that Jonah has to complete ten pages of math per day, out of four different books (three books are Singapore Math and one book is Everyday Math for his school, so he won't start 4th grade with any math gaps—we’ll risk other gaps but we didn’t want to risk any math gaps).  In a typical day, when the math isn't thrilling for him, Jonah will work on math for ten minutes, then I'll work with Lucy or Georgie on something and lose track of time and Jonah's ipad break has turned into a 20 minute break.  I call for him to come and do his math and he yells back, "just one more minute", which becomes five minutes.  Then we start the whole cycle over again:  math, ipad break, yelling, math, DS break, yelling, math, snack, yelling, math, electronic game, yelling, etc. etc. etc.  Occasionally, he'll take the soccer ball and go to the field with a sister for a break, and other times, I'll send him to the grocery store to get bread or eggs for an ipad-free break.  With a three bedroom apartment five floors up, an extremely limited collection of toys, no English-language television shows for kids, and three kids who spend way too much time together... there is really no way around the electronics if I am to maintain my sanity.  Get rid of the electronics and I’ll need a psychiatrist within a week.   

Lucy's journal

 

Jonah wants everyone to know that lately, he has been doing about 15 pages of math a day (20 today!) with far fewer complaints and requests for breaks.  It's true, and it's entirely due to the fact that he likes fractions a heck of a lot more than he likes multiplying and dividing big numbers.

Georgie working

While managing this back and forth with Jonah, I also have to oversee Lucy's subjects.  She has fewer of them, and she is a much more conscientious student, so it takes a lot less energy.  Lucy is now so far ahead of her cohorts in math, that we're probably going to need to work with her teachers to get her some more challenging work when she starts first grade.  Georgie has gone through several pre-K books, but she also enjoys coloring and playing with Lucy during Lucy's breaks.  She listens to the Narnia books and the world history, although I'm not sure how much she's absorbing.  She loves to compare the clothes worn a long time ago.   Corset, crinoline, pinafore are words in her vocabulary. 

After an hour or two, when the sloppy answers are made neat and the wrong answers corrected, his math is finally done.  Then Jonah will work on spelling.  After another break, he may do a couple pages of cursive practice. 

Then I'll gather all the kids together and we will read about 2-3 pages of world history, and then I'll read a chapter in the Narnia series.  We're up to The Silver Chair, and we aren't planning to read the last book in the series, the preachy one.  At this point in our day, I insist that everyone, including myself, get dressed and brush teeth.     

After another break, he very grudgingly pulls out his journaling notebook to write about things we've done here, or maybe an essay on some cultural difference he has observed.  Good writing is not his favorite thing to do.  Getting him to do a good job requires a lot of undivided attention, a scarce commodity.   The knowledge that it will be posted on his blog has not turned out to be the incentive for good writing that I hoped it would be. Then he'll have to read something on his own for 30 minutes.  When Adam gets home, he will work with Jonah on grammar and identifying parts of speech, or he'll help correct mispellings and confusing things in Jonah's essays.  

On rainy days, we can draw out these assignments until 3 or 4 in the afternoon.  On nice days, we try to finish early so we can go to a beach, a park, go on a hike or get gelato, but there have been more than a few gorgeous days that we've spent entirely inside when Jonah decides it's a good day for a school strike.   On these days, management has the last word, but it can take until dinnertime to get the day’s assignments all done.  These are very long days. 

Reading for 30 minutes, but not at a desk

So you can see that homeschooling has been a little more draining than I expected it would be.  There's a lot of nagging, negotiating, cajoling, bribing, and yelling.  Admittedly, it's nice to know exactly what your kids excel at, and where they need extra attention.  It's nice to be able to whiz through concepts that take weeks in school.  It's nice to be able to take off for a day, or even a week without feeling guilty that you are pulling your kid out of school.  It's nice to skip guidance counseling and eliminate all the wasted hours in a regular school day.  It’s nice to have art, culture, language, architecture, and world history right at one’s fingertips.  What other nine year old can tell you what the Pragmatic Sanction is?  There will probably be gaps in his education, but I’m fairly confident that we’ve covered all the main bases.  What we’ve missed can be learned later.  Jonah might not know what year Michigan became a state, but Adam and I are both hopeful that in the end, this experience will have planted some knowledge, life skills, and a little curiosity about the world that will come in handy some day.    I just hope that I haven’t done too much damage with my high-decibel teaching style.

Homeschooling is very hard, but it’s been good, too.  One thing is certain.  When school starts in the fall, I'm not likely to be the mom in the dropoff line suffering from separation anxiety.

Homeschooling

Losinj, Croatia

On the ferry

After spending over a week traveling with my parents and five days of sightseeing in Vienna, we badly needed a trip to relax from those trips.  We chose Losinj, an island located about two hours from Rijeka.  Getting there required driving over a large bridge from the mainland to the island of Krk.  From Krk Island, we took a ferry to Cres Island, and then we drove across a very narrow channel (dredged in the time of the Romans) to Losinj.

Path to the beach

Our hotel, the Hotel Aurora, was slightly more luxurious than what we're accustomed to, but after all, we went there to relax and it came highly recommended.  Apparently, the greater Losinj population also thought it was a great place for relaxation, since it was the official Losinj Prom location.  That evening, we saw all sorts of fancy girls walking uneasily in high heels, most carrying a single long-stemmed rose, and we saw uncomfortable boys in tuxes.  Lucy and Georgie were fascinated.

Lunch above the beach

We arrived too early for check-in, so we walked down to the restaurant on the beach.  The hotel property was located on a tiny little bay with the cleanest, most turquoise waters we've seen yet.  The area was just stunning.  Adam and I got to enjoy our wine and grilled fish while the kids combed the beach and got their feet wet just below our patio.  We took the kids to the indoor saltwater pool complex, which also had a kid pool and two massive hottubs.  Then we took advantage of the Losinj "lungomare", which stretched for miles along the rocky karst coastline.  One of the reasons why this area is so striking, is because of all the conifer forests along the water.  But it wasn't always like that.  In 1886, a Croatian named Professor Ambroz Haracic, a teacher at a local school, spearheaded an effort to afforest Losinj (he also documented how much healthier the Losinj climate is than neighboring areas which prompted the Austrians to vacation here).  Over 300,000 black pines and Alepo pine trees were planted.  Those trees took off and spread vigorously into the abandoned (due to a blight) vineyards.  But they are not a native species.

Salt harvest

Losinj, Croatia

The next morning, after the huge breakfast (including a crepe buffet!), we took the kids to these massive slanting rocks along the bay for homeschooling.  The kids alternated between doing their math and fishing for these little crabs that lived in these holes in the rocks.  We did see several swimmers, but the water is still really really cold.  We could have stayed there for hours, but we eventually took a longer walk along the lungomare, aiming for a pizzeria Adam scouted out on his morning jog.  On our walk, Jonah thought he saw something like plastic sparkling on the rocks, but it turned out to be salt.  Knowing my fondness for salt, he called me over, and I managed to find a baggie in my purse, and with the kids, we harvested about an ounce of pure white flaky sea salt from the Losinj coastline.

Coming home, we mistimed the ferry, but they let us on the boat and the ferry was actually pulling away from the dock within 30 seconds of our parking.  We drove through some rain, but the sun was also shining directly on the white bora-blown coastal hills of Krk.  The combination of early evening slanting sun and overcast skies made the hills look like they were snow-covered.  My camera couldn't capture how striking it looked, but we enjoyed the tricks the sun played on the scenery on the ride home very much.

Losinj, Croatia

Losinj, Croatia

Homeschooling

From our hotel room