DAY 61 – Arrivederci Italia! "Bok" Croatia!

May 19 - Need to Escape Out of the Schengen Countries

Schengen Treaty- A pact between 26 of the European countries led to the creation of Europe's borderless Schengen Area in 1995. The treaty is an abolition of border checks at these countries' common borders. This makes it easy to travel between them, but there is also a rule for foreigners that you can only be in these countries total for 90 days within a 180 day period.  SO....we need to escape to some non-Schengen countries for awhile.   Let's go to the Balkan countries!!  Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Albania,  Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, and Bosnia. (We managed to go to all of them except Serbia.)

On to our next adventure! Mick and Theresa picked us up from the train station in at noon and we went to their downtown flat in Trieste, Italy.  Trieste is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of Italian territory lying between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city. Trieste was one of the oldest parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. In the 19th century, it was the most important port of one of the Great Powers of Europe.

The beautiful port town of Trieste

The flat had belonged to Mick's grandmother and was very nice.

Sylvia shows off her new cape.

 They fixed us some quick Risotto with mushrooms and we shared some macaroon cookies with them.

The Italians love their pasta!

We talked til 3:30, then we were off to wander the streets and see the port.  Enjoy the photos of beautiful Trieste.  We wish we could have stayed longer - such a nice city.

Verdi, a wonderful composer of operas and more, must have been influential in this city.

Of course we've all heard of Stradivarius and the famous violins

Different kinds of pasta in a local shoppe

 We discovered a Roman ruins in the middle of the city.  That's always so interesting!

  Enjoying the ships as we wait for the bus to Croatia.

                               
 Bye bye Italy...we thoroughly enjoyed you.  New adventures await us in some less touristy countries.

 We caught the bus to Zelimir's sailboat which we arrived at about 9 p.m. Sadly, I had dropped my Kodak digital camera in the bus station along the way and it is now “kaput.” Rich was in line buying some tickets when I had dropped it. I was sitting next to a cute little lady from Croatia, who watched me as I tried to get it to work again. She knew how sad I was as I had tears in my eyes. She explained to me in her native language and pointing to my face and my body that it didn't matter. It was only a 'thing' and that I was still there with my health and I was ok. Cheer up – I should be thankful to God. It's amazing how her words, although not in English (except for ok which is universal) did cheer me up and I thought about what she had told me. I truly am lucky to have my health and what does it matter to lose my camera. I could always buy another one. How to explain it to Rich, though! Mmm....

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