Nothing scary about Croatia

Ken Perry

When my wife, Laura, and I decided to take a land tour of Croatia and

the Adriatic coast, people asked if we were afraid to go and wondered

why we’d want to go to Croatia anyway.

Fighting in the countries of the former Yugoslavia is over,

although Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo are under the protection of

troops from NATO and the United States. Tour companies don’t take

tourists to dangerous places.

We had a wonderful time, and at no time did we sense any fear or

antagonism against Americans. Serbo-Croatian is a difficult language,

but almost everyone we met spoke English and seemed genuinely glad to

see American tourists.

The reason we wanted to go to Croatia was simply to see Dubrovnik,

which we had not been able to visit while on a Mediterranean cruise

in 1991. It had been scheduled to stop at Dubrovnik but couldn’t

because of the civil war that broke out in Yugoslavia among different

ethnic groups. When the flier arrived advertising for a land tour of

Croatia and the Adriatic coast, we jumped at the opportunity.

While on our amazing trip, we saw many things we’d never even

thought of before, such as Lake Bled and Triglav National Park in

Slovenia, the Plivice Lakes National Park in Croatia, the Bay of

Kotor in Montenegro, many walled cities in addition to Dubrovnik, and

the Opatija and Dalmatian Rivieras on the Adriatic. The palace of

Diocletian in Split, Croatia was another high point. Roman Emperor

Diocletian built the palace.

Ling is an area where there is much interest in yachting and

cruising but few places to cruise to. We were fascinated by the 1,200

Croatian off-shore islands, which protect the mainland from waves,

that people can cruise. There is no tidal range in the Adriatic Sea,

so buildings and marinas can be built right to the edge of the water,

which is similar to fronting at Lake Arrowhead.

There are several attractive and well-kept marinas up and down the

coast. We were surprised to find few commercial fishing boats because

fishermen now form cooperatives to operate large fishing boats, which

sell their fish abroad, making high-quality local seafood hard to

find.

The local food is good and plentiful. It seemed as though everyone

made brandy at home from plums, cherries, apples, walnuts, honey and

anything else they could find. Some of the wine was very good,

despite being homemade.

Tourism was up this year after having been depressed since the

start of the breakup of Yugoslavia and subsequent fighting, which

began in 1991. New hotels are being built along the coast, and it is

obvious that the coast of Croatia and Montenegro is again going to

become a major tourist destination for American travelers, as it has

been historically for Italians, Israelis and Eastern Europeans.

* KEN PERRY is a resident of Newport Beach.

* TRAVEL TALES runs on Thursdays. Have you, or someone you know,

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