Oysters, Muscles and homemade wine--on the way to Dubrovnik

islands off Adriatic Coast near Dubrovnik

On our drive to Dubrovnik from Korcula along Croatia's stunning Adriatic coast, we stopped for a very special lunch of oysters and muscles, fresh from the clear waters of the Mediterranean.  An excursion to taste oysters and wine is pretty typical for this part of the coast, but our host had clearly thought about how to make his customers' experience truly unique.

an oyster farm

Denis and his family have one of the many oyster farms found in the long, narrow bays that form the Adriatic coast.  They also own the tip of a densely wooded peninsula that is now protected from development.  He decided to set up a charming picnic spot on his family's land for his wonderful version of the oyster and wine lunch.  He built 3 long outdoor tables and benches of split logs, two flush toilets, and, recently, a small kitchen and covered eating space in case of rain.  He brings water from the mainland by boat, storing it in a large tank above the picnic area and treats his waste water in another large tank before discharging it into the bay away from the picnic site.
Inside the kitchen are a sink with fresh water, two large propane burners, a refrigerator, rack for wine glasses, dishwasher and storage for everything he needs.  The meal is very simple--fresh oysters on the half shell, with only a squirt of lemon, muscles cooked to perfection in seawater and served on a sauce of olive oil, white wine, garlic and onions, fresh bread and wine made by Denis' father.  So, you get to sit in this quiet, shady spot looking out at the Mediterranean, enjoying an incredible, absolutely fresh meal, cooked just for you as you relax and watch.  If shellfish aren't for you, Denis grills zucchini fresh from his garden and adds bread and cheese.

Denis preparing muscles in kitchen he built

He started his business 7 years ago.  Now, he is so busy that his business supports 2 families.  During the tourist season, from April to the end of October, he hosts 5 different private parties, ranging from 2 to 25 people every day.  Each party gets its own private transfer by boat, tour of the oyster farm, fresh-cooked meal of oysters and muscles taken from the ocean that morning and lecture on oyster and muscle-farming.  It takes 6 people, all family members, to serve their guests during the summer.  His biggest customers are the cruise lines that pour into Dubrovnik during the tourist season.  But, never are there more than 25 guests at one time.
In the winter, the entire family tends the oyster and muscle farms.  Because there are millions of snails on the sea floor that live on oysters, the oyster farmers put out rows of plastic line, many filaments per line, for the baby oysters to attach to as they drift about on the currents.  That way, they won't attach to rocks where the snails will kill and eat them (the snail secretes a chemical that bores a small hole into the oyster shell, killing the oyster.  The shell pops open and in goes the snail for its feast.).

muscles in the pot

When the oysters get to be year old, the farmers cement 2 oysters back to back around the plastic line so they can't fall off.  Oysters can only attach once, so this is the only way to make sure they don't drop to the sea floor.  They are ready to eat when they are 3 years old.  Denis said the farming is not a lot of work, but is very slow.  Oysters need very clean water to survive.  Denis pointed out all the sea urchins on the shallow rocks, telling us that where there are no sea urchins cleaning pollutants from the water, there will be no oysters.
When we bring a group here, this will be one of our stops which we'll all remember.

Island hopping off of Split, Croatia

view of Split from the bay

The drive from Zagreb to Split is through the mountains and down to the Mediterranean.  On the way, we stopped at the beautiful Plitvice Lakes National Park for a several mile walk along the lakes and waterfalls and through a thick forest rich with red and yellow fall colors amidst the pine trees.  It was very crowded with tourists and Croatians, which curbed the appeal a bit but we enjoyed the walk nevertheless.

basement of Diocletian's Palace, Split

Split's lovely old city dates back to pre-Greek times, but the highlight today is Diocletian's Palace, built by Diocletian in the 4th century AD for his retirement.  It is really a huge fortress filling a good portion of the old city.  It wasn't excavated and partially renovated until a few decades ago.  Today, you can enter through the old basement, though it has been occupied continuously since the 7th century, which was filled with trash and petrified human waste until it was cleaned out by the citizens.  Must have been rather disgusting, but it did seem to preserve a magnificent substructure of giant arches and long corridors.  Diocletian's mausoleum became a Catholic cathedral in the medieval period.  Today, only about 100 hardy souls reside inside the palace, in the midst of restaurants, tourists shops and, during the high season, hordes of tourists.

cave for hiding warships--Vis

We spent yesterday taking a speedboat to the islands of Vis and Hvar to check them out for a future trip with a group.  Croatia has over 1000 islands off its coast, mostly tiny, but quite a few that are long, narrow, mountainous and very rocky.  Today, the larger islands live on tourism, vineyards and wineries, and olive production.  The steep mountainsides were terraced millennia ago for vineyards and, later, lavender and olive orchards.  Today, many of them are returning to viniculture.  The huge piles of rocks and endless stone walls prove the unbelievable effort farmers made to clear enough limestone rocks to allow them to farm.  Many of their old villages are empty today because it is much easier to make a living off of tourists than agriculture.

Vis

Vis, far out in the Adriatic, was a military island until 1989.  During World War II, American and British airmen flew B-17 bombing raids over Italy and Yugoslavia from a small airbase cut into one of the valleys.  Our guide stopped to show us poignant monuments to the Americans and British who died helping to free Yugoslavia from German occupation. 

Hvar's old city

Marshal Tito used Vis as a base for the resistance to the Germans during World War II, an effort he led.  He holed up in  a cave on Vis when necessary and cut giant tunnels into the rocky promontories jutting out into the sea to hide warships.  After he became the dictator of the former Yugoslavia, he turned the island into a military base, so no one but local islanders could live or visit there.  Vis has only been developing its tourist industry for the last 30 years, so the infrastructure is small.  Yesterday, all the hotels had already closed for the season and only a few restaurants remained open. 

Hvar's main piazza

But, we toured part of the island in a ratty old Land Rover with a guide who talked non-stop and showed us the old airfield and tunnels along with vineyards and olive orchards.
An hour's race in our speedboat over rather rough seas took us to Hvar (pronounced Hwar), another rugged and beautiful island of rugged mountains, deep coves, several villages and towns (in addition to Hvar) and 15 wineries.  Hvar, too, has steeply terraced fields surrounded by huge mounds of limestone rocks.  Most of these are fallow because a fire destroyed the vineyards.  But, some are being replanted with grapes. 

Count's lion--Hvar

islands in the Adriatic from a Hvar mountaintop

Both Vis and Hvar date to Greek times, but the ruins are mostly from the Roman era.  Their old cities are beautiful medieval towns built of bricks carved from the limestone mountains.  They are both on gorgeous bays of clear turquoise water with steep, stark mountains rising above them.  Both have castles high on the mountaintops.  Hvar has a much more developed tourist infrastructure because it has been a mecca for travelers for decades.  The views are spectacular no matter where you go.  We drove up over the mountains from Hvar to see more of the island and to take in its magnificent views out over the countless islands and back to the mainland (lost in haze).

Zagreb, Croatia--a gem in the heart of Europe

cathedral towers looming above Zagreb

Croatia has had many overlords on its way to independence, including the Venetians, Turks, Austro-Hungarians and Serbs.  Under General Tito, Croatia became a part of Yugoslavia after World War II, but on his death, Yugoslavia crumbled and, finally in 1991, after a brutal war with Serbia, became an independent nation.

baroque Art Museum

Its capital, Zagreb, is a lovely mini-Vienna, with beautiful baroque buildings and parks filling its old city center.  Often destroyed by earthquakes, Zagreb was mostly rebuilt in the late 19th century.  The atrium roof of the Art Museum is rather interesting.  It was built for an exhibition hall in Vienna, but after the exhibition, was transported to Zagreb where it needed a building to hold it up--hence the art museum.
The cathedral, which collapsed in the 1880 earthquake, is still under reconstruction, though mostly rebuilt.  Inside is a very interesting slab covered with an inscription in the early Croatian script, Glagolitsa.  Apparently, there are many stones and papers with Glagolitsa inscriptions being decoded and studied by Croatian scholars.

glagolitsa script

Zagreb's population of 1 million is a cafe-loving culture.  Long streets of sidewalk cafes are filled with people drinking their beloved coffee and, too many of them, smoking, as they chat with friends and watch the life of the city around them.  In the main square, which is noisy with trams, tourists and shoppers, there is a fountain powered by an artesian flow of water rather than a pump.  Sometimes it shoots up 10 feet or so and sometimes it is quieter.

St Mark's Church

Two unusual and delightful museums near the colorful St. Mark's Church are "must-see's".  I've never heard of a Museum of Broken Relationships before (though apparently there is now one in Los Angeles), but don't miss the one in Zagreb.  A couple started collecting mementos of broken relationships in their travels about the world and eventually opened their museum with 1500 of these objects given to them by people from many countries.  They are items and letters that remind their former owners of their ex-lovers, with a story about the broken relationship attached.  Some are very funny and others are sad and poignant.  There are 2 wedding dresses from marriages cut short by betrayal and death, a boyfriend's cell phone he gave his jilted lover so she'd stop calling him, an old bicycle one man gave his girlfriend just before he bought a new bike and rode off into the sunset, a stationery bike a husband gave his wife before he learned she "liked riding more than the bike" and much more.

Luxury cruise ship from the Museum of Naive Art

Across the street is the Croatian Museum of Naive Art, featuring wonderful paintings by self-taught Croatian "primitive" artists, full of exquisite detail and brimming with Croatian life.  I'm sure there are many naif museums in the world, but the only other one I've seen is in Rio, the Museu Internacional de Arte Naif, which is so beautiful--and right near the tram to the top of Corcavado. I recommend a visit to both these unusual museums if you come to Zagreb.

Gypsy wedding, Museum of Naive Art

Nearby is the busy Dolac Market where vendors sell vegetables and fruit, flowers and handmade souvenirs.  In the arcade below the square, more shops sell various kinds of meat, while above the square are the fishmongers. 

The Magnificent Cape of Good Hope

male ostrich with 2 chicks

A driving trip to the tip of the Cape of Good Hope is a wonderful way to spend the day.  This peninsula is very rugged, filled with flowers in the spring, and home to eland, ostriches and smaller animals.  The tip of the peninsula is a wildlife preserve with ostriches, antelope and small animals.

On our way to the point, we stopped to watch a male and female ostrich with their 2 chicks, probably only a few days old.  The chicks pretty much fend for themselves, but the parents at least were there looking like they might chase you off if you got too close.  The adults are stately and ungainly all at once while the chicks are adorable.

Cape peninsula

tip of the Cape of Good Hope

At the farthest end of the peninsula, we climbed a path to a lighthouse to get incredible views back up the coastline.  Large breakers were crashing on the rocks, throwing up spray.  You can walk about another ½ mile along the cliffs to a smaller lighthouse which is still working and peer over the final tip of land to the surf below.  All along the path there are protea in full bloom, daisies, and beautiful flowering bushes I can’t identify.

A large eland, the largest of the antelopes, grazed in a small opening in the bush near the Point.  We watched him and he ignored us, so we were able to get some good photos of this stunning animal.

A drive along the peninsula to the Cape can be an all day journey, crisscrossing the mountains that are the spine of the peninsula.  The bays, large and small, are surrounded by the rocky ridges and peaks that continue to Table Mountain in Cape Town. 

eland

Houts Bay, over the mountains from Cape Town

We ended by stopping at Boulders Beach to see the African penguins that populate the southern coastline.  Some were still very young, in their brown feathers that protect them for about 9 to 12 months, but don’t allow them to go into the water.  They are completely dependent on their parents to care for them.  But, the parents go out to sea to find fish, leaving the young ones in some peril.  We watched one adult herd a squawking baby into a little hole in the sand and peck it viciously, why I don’t know.  Obviously, it was an unprotected baby awaiting its parents return. 

penguin babies

Stunning Cape Town

view of Cape Town and Table Bay

Cape Town has many charms, not the least of which is its gorgeous setting.  We started our visit with 2 nights in Stellenbosch, a pretty town in the middle of South Africa’s wine region.  We enjoyed wine tastings at 2 wineries, La Motte and Vrede en Lust, both very professionally done and very informative about South African wines.  The wine valleys are deep and lush, filled with vineyards and framed by steep, rocky mountain ridges.  In the spring, which is right now, colorful wildflowers cover the mountainsides.  It is gorgeous. 

wine valley near Stellenbosch

A “must” visit in Cape Town is Table Mountain, open and accessible by cable car when clouds do not cover the mountain.  We had a beautiful, sunny day to visit, but the crowds waiting for the cable car drove us away.  It looked like we would have waited hours to get to the top, if we even got there before the afternoon clouds descended, and we had much more to see.  Several years ago, Don and I took a look at the long line for the cable car and decided to climb Table Mountain instead, scrambling 2000 feet up steep steps and trails cut into the rock.  After clambering back down, we could barely walk for 3 days, so we skipped that route this trip.

Table Mountain from Robben Island

Our small hotel (the Dock House, which we loved) was on the Victoria and Alfred waterfront, a slightly frenetic place filled with tourists and locals alike, beer joints, fine dining, dozens of shops, of course, a ferris wheel and mimes, musicians and street artists.  Lively and fun.  The terminal for visits to Robben Island, the notorious prison that housed Nelson Mandela and other ANC leaders and members for 2 decades, is in the middle of the promenade.

Nelson Mandela's cell on Robben Island

We spent a morning visiting Robben Island.  The tour starts with a 40 minute boat ride from the waterfront to the island, then a bus ride to important sites, followed by a fascinating tour of the prison itself led by one of the former political prisoners.  You get to hear from someone who was part of the resistance about life in the prison for the political prisoners and the camaraderie they built up during their years of fighting for South Africa’s freedom from apartheid.  Everyone wants to see Nelson Mandela’s tiny cell, so it is a key stop on the tour.

At first, Mandela and his fellow political prisoners were denied adequate clothing for the cold falls and winters on the island—they had shorts, short-sleeved shirts and shoes, but no coats.  The windows in their cells were barred and open, no glass.  It wasn’t until years later that their warders provided them with warmer clothing and glass windows, probably after visits by the International Red Cross and other relief agencies and endless protests from the prisoners and their families, which included long hunger strikes.  These proved to be effective in improving conditions, but very gradually.

hillside of flowers at Kirstenbosch Garden

A high point of our Cape Town visit, which I recommend to everyone, was the Stellenbosch Botanical Garden.  Cecil Rhodes bought 600 acres of land on the side of Table Mountain to create a garden with which to impress Queen Victoria when she came to South Africa.  She never came, but the garden is a beautiful legacy to his hopes.  There are both native and foreign plants and trees there.  This is high season for flowers, so the garden was full of color.  A favorite of mine is the protea, which grows wild all over the Cape, with many different varieties and colors.  It is a bush with dense color because of the showy flowers.

female spotted eagle owl on nest

One resident of the Garden is the Spotted Eagle Owl, a beautiful, speckled owl about 12 inches in height.  Our guide showed us a female hiding in a tree, sitting on her eggs and peering out over some tall grass at her visitors.  Nearby was the male, standing tall on a large branch, waiting for his role in feeding their imminent offspring.  Another one of the owls is nesting inside the Garden gift shop/headquarters building, which is open to the sky.  She found a hanging basket full of flowers for her brood and was watching us warily from this perch.

male spotted eagle owl

The wildlife of Kruger National Park

elephants and giraffes at Imbali's water hole

We were really lucky in Kruger, South Africa’s premier game reserve.  With the savvy of our guide, we saw the “Big 5”, the animals every tourist wants to see (though I think it’s just as wonderful to see giraffes and zebras)—elephant, lion, leopard, Cape buffalo and rhinoceros.

leopard and kill in tree in the midst of a camp

Except for elephants, the numbers were small, but we got to see them.  The 3 lions we spotted, 2 beautiful males and one lithesome female, were all in good shape, looking like they had eaten well and recently.  The leopard had carried its kill, a bushbuck, up onto a large branch of a shady tree.  The amazing thing was that the tree is in the middle of a tent camp, between 2 tents and above the walkway between the tents.  It seemed oblivious to the human activity of the camp, at least while it was enjoying its meal.  And the camp’s occupants were moving with great care while the leopard was a guest in their midst.

white rhinoceros 

Rarely does a rhino show up right next to your vehicle, but the one we saw was on its way to water, was used to seeing Land Cruisers, and had a mission, so walked right in front of us and down the river bank.  It was late in the day, when the animals begin to stir from their resting places to seek food and water.  Because Kruger is very dry right now, there are only a few water holes and no rivers running in our part of the reserve (so no hippos), so animals have to congregate at the remaining water supplies.  It also means that many animals have moved to other areas where there is water, so while we saw the big 5, we saw relatively few animals in total.

male Sable antelope

Again, we saw Sable—such beautiful antelope.  The males have dark fur, while the females are lighter, but both are very large and quite hard to find as they tend to hide out in the bush.  When we came upon a herd of Cape Buffalo, we sat and watched them for about an hour.  Cowbirds are always busy all over the animals, picking ticks and other insects from their skin, noses, ears and around their eyes.  These little birds do the buffalo a great service, but are also really annoying, particularly when they are focusing their foraging efforts inside the buffalo’s nose or eyelid.  We watched these huge animals send the birds flying off briefly with a flick of their giant heads, but the reprieve lasted only seconds.

Cape buffalo and cowbird

Our lodge, Imbali (I don’t recommend it because of the poor management and surly staff—first time I’ve ever encountered unpleasant staff in any of the many lodges where we’ve stayed), sits across a dry river bed from a watering hole maintained by the camp.  It’s a beacon for all the animals since there is so little water in this part of Kruger right now, so we saw elephants every day and, one day, a small herd (called a “tower”, not surprisingly) of giraffes approach the water.  The elephants simply bulldoze their way wherever they want to go, but the giraffes approached a bit more gingerly in order to avoid the ire of the thirsty elephants.  Once atSeeibg water, a giraffe has to spread its legs wide and bend low to drink, making it vulnerable to predators.  Two of the large male giraffes stood watch, facing in opposite directions, as the females and young giraffes drank.

One of my favorite antelope is the furry waterbuck, which doesn’t spend much time in the water.  It has beautiful coloring, but our guide told us they smell awful because of oil glands on the insides of their legs which spew a smelly oil onto their fur when they do get into the water.  This protects them from insects in the water.  I still think they’re beautiful.

lioness out hunting

Birds, of course, are prevalent in the bush.  My two favorites are the lilac-breasted roller, a smallish bird with lilac breast (as one would expect) and brilliant turquoise wings that flash when it flies, and the fish eagle, a large black raptor with snowy white head and neck.  I know people go on safari to see the big 5, but the birds are every bit as fascinating as these giants of the savannah.

giraffe drinking from watering hole

2 fish eagles

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

baby elephant trying to reach our hot tub with its trunk

Victoria Falls is the 4^th largest falls in the world, a long expanse of cliffs with the mighty Zambezi pounding over them.  On our last visit several years ago, there was so much water, and therefore so much mist, that we couldn’t really see the Falls from the Zambia side, where we were staying.  We were soaked as we walked the circuit along the Zambian falls, but couldn’t see much more than the water pummeling the rocks far below the top of the Falls.

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe side

This year, the water is low because of severe drought.  We stayed on the Zimbabwean side of the Falls, at the Victoria Falls River Lodge (which we liked a lot), fortunately, since the Zimbabwean Falls had a lot of water, while the Zambian side was completely dry.

The River Lodge is in the Zambezi National Park, home to large herds of elephants as well as giraffes, antelope, many hippos languishing in pools in the river, baboons, vervet monkeys, warthogs, crocodiles and occasionally some cats, which we didn’t see there.  The tents of the camp spread out along the Zambezi, open to the animals, with separate hot tubs (cold water) for each tent.

2 males giraffes fighting

As we were about to leave for a safari drive our second afternoon, I looked through our glass door to see 4 large mother elephants and several babies drinking from our hot tub.  One tiny baby, probably only 2 months old, was trying to get its trunk into the water, but couldn’t quite reach.  It kept moving its tiny trunk around, getting within inches of the water, but finally gave up and tried to encourage its mom to let it suckle.  More elephants kept coming up from the river to drink, so we called our guide to pick us up lest we enrage one of the huge mama elephants by walking near her baby.

Sable antelope

We gathered our group in our Land Cruiser, drove to a shallow pond in the middle of the camp, and sat there watching as at least 80 elephants flowed around us, drinking, uprooting trees and moving placidly towards their next foraging spot.  It was the highlight of our animal viewing.  Just amazing to sit in the midst of these huge, intelligent animals and watch them live their lives, if only for an hour.

Later that day, we were lucky enough to spot some Sable, very large antelope that I’ve only seen once before, despite having been on many game drives over the last 10 years.  In a dry ravine, we came upon 2 young male giraffes fighting, which consists of wrapping their necks around each other and doing a lot of shoving.  It looks like a large giraffe could easily break a smaller male’s neck, and I guess that does happen, but rarely, according to our guide.

hippo resting in the Zambezi River

There is a great walk through the forest along the Falls, which we enjoyed.  It’s about 2 miles to the Falls bridge and back, with lots of points for viewing the Falls and the Zambezi River rapids below.  On our way to Kruger National Park, we walked across the bridge, entering Zambia halfway across, to take a flight from Livingstone, Zambia, to one of Kruger’s airports.  The bridge crosses a deep gorge.  Walking takes about 10 minutes, including photo stops, and is a fun way to cross the border.  Our van met us on the Zambian side with our luggage, so an easy transit.

young elephant and baby sibling

The Zambezi National Park is relatively small, so doesn’t have a lot of large predators, but we enjoyed our game drives there very much.  We have stayed at hotels on both sides of the Falls and, from now on, would always stay inside the Park at one of the tent camps along the river.  Our guide was excellent and enthusiastic, encouraging us to do longer drives to see some of the farther parts of the Park, which we really appreciated.

I do think, if you want to see lots of animals, and can only go to Africa once, East Africa (Kenya’s Masai Mara and Tanzania’s Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater) is the place to go.  There are so many more animals there.  When I was there in August with my granddaughter, we saw up to 1000 zebras each day and many thousands of antelope, in addition to lots of lions (27 in the Crater one day alone), leopards, hippos, elephants, giraffes (I love them) and so much more.  In Southern Africa, where we’ve done safaris in Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa and Botswana, there are fewer tourists, but also many fewer animals.  We saw them mostly by the one’s to ten’s, compared to the dozens to thousands in East Africa.

sunset over the Zambezi

Nonetheless, there is so much to see in Southern Africa besides the game parks that it is well worth a visit. 

Johannesburg's Apartheid Museum

quote from Nelson Mandela outside Johannesburg's Apartheid Museum

If you have a short time in Johannesburg, the Apartheid Museum would be my top recommendation.  It lays out the history of apartheid and the resistance to this complete and brutal segregation of races during the middle 50 years of the 20^th century.  The segregation and brutality preceded the formal structure of segregation that became codified as apartheid, and this, too, is detailed in the museum’s exhibits.

one of many such signs on display at the Museum

On our visit last week, there was a special exhibit on Nelson Mandela, still the beacon of hope for oppressed people everywhere, and the shining light of modern South Africa.  The exhibit featured his transitions from angry young man to guerrilla leader to his 27 years in harsh bondage as a political prisoner to revered leader of a reborn nation. 

Nelson Mandela's home in  Soweto

He once told his son that he would be the first black president of South Africa, long before that dream came true.  In the process of becoming that leader, Nelson Mandela transformed his own thinking, through great hardship, from hatred to forgiveness, preparing the way for him to lead the country from white rule to democracy, through the Truth and Reconciliation process, led by Bishop Tutu, to a country governed today by its black majority. 

South Africa still has many problems, including massive corruption and poverty.  People continue to vote for the African National Congress party, despite its corrupt leadership, because it was the party that led the country to freedom.  Former President, Jacob Zuma, was removed from office because of his corruption that greatly enriched him, his family and his cronies.  Meanwhile, there is hope that a new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, will help rebuild the country from its “lost decade” under Zuma. 

We also visited the Hector Peterson Memorial.  Hector was a 12 year old boy killed by police bullets n 1976 when students protested against the new law requiring all schools to teach in Afrikaans, the hated language of apartheid.  There is a museum with photos and interesting personal stories about the many children who joined the adults in fighting apartheid.

Nelson Mandela's small bedroom in Soweto home

Nearby is the house where Nelson Mandela lived briefly, now a museum also.  The street outside is a riot of energy and color, with lots of restaurants, craft shops, locals and tourists.

Everything about Nelson Mandela is celebrated in South Africa.