Croatia, Montenegro, and Bosnia

In Asia we were on the move, spending only one to four nights in each city or town. Tre said our lifestyle was,  "If it's time to take out the trash, it's time to go." When we arrived in Europe, we scheduled some time to slow down and spend some in one place. We planned to work toward finishing home school for 4th quarter and figure out logistics for the next couple of months. Girdwood friends, Rachel and Ariana, met us in Dubrovnik and it was so fun to have some familiar companions outside of our immediate family for a week. After a few days in Dubrovnik, we headed south to Kotor, Montenegro where we had rented an apartment for a whole two weeks. Rachel and Ariana joined us there for the first few days and we had an amazing time exploring the walled city of Kotor and the surrounding mountains. Quillian finished her math program (Tre had finished a few countries ago) and they both got started on final assignments. But the internet was very slow and unreliable and our curiosity drew us into Bosnia-Herzogovina even before our scheduled Kotor stay was complete. Afterward, we returned to Croatia to explore more of the Adriatic Coast. Here are some highlights from our time. 

The walls of Ston, Croatia are one of the longest preserved fortification walls in the world. Today the walls are 5.5km long and you can walk between the towns of Ston and Mali Ston. We spent the a morning walking the walls and imagining where the attackers would be most likely to come from.

This is the pathway leading to the walled city of Korcula, Croatia. 

Quillian has grown up too much over the past few months, but her love of playgrounds is still going strong. These swings were on the seashore right outside of the third largest Roman palace in Croatia. 

In Split, Croatia we sipped hot cocoa in the palace built for Roman Emperor Diocletian in the third century AD. 

Split had a huge green market where we found these still slithering snails for sale. 

I got to spend my 45th birthday with these two and Philip hiking above the Bay of Kotor. 

We tried the Kotor speed boat ride to the Blue Cave. Our boat captain, Chucky, was a twenty something with a love for the dance hall beats. He blasted the beats across the entire bay and right on into the blue cave like he was a Hollywood star and we, his entourage. The passengers on the six other boats in the bay were not thrilled to hear us enter the cave and asked Chucky to turn it down. Chucky was't about to kill his party vibe and was only willing to bring the volume down a click or two while we bobbed around with the other boats in the cave. 

If you look closely here you can see boat captain, Chucky, taking a selfie of himself at our stop at Our Lady of the Rocks in Perast. 

 

Waiting for a boat in the Bay of Kotor

The view from Pestigrad Peak was impressive!

We snuck into the walled city of Kotor through a window in the walls. 

The Kotor city walls

After spending the winter in the southern hemisphere and more than two months in the tropics we were more acclimatized to hot weather than we realized. Sixty degrees and drizzling felt so cold to us without our Girdwood gear and thick blood. 

Looking up at Fort Lovrijenac (the Red Keep in the Game of Thrones TV series) from just outside the city walls of Dubrovnik 

Finding friend outside our apartment in Dubrovnik was super exciting.