{"id":858,"date":"2011-07-02T06:58:13","date_gmt":"2011-07-02T13:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/?p=858"},"modified":"2011-07-02T07:48:03","modified_gmt":"2011-07-02T14:48:03","slug":"vicarious-travel-suggestions-croatia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/?p=858","title":{"rendered":"Vicarious Travel – Croatia"},"content":{"rendered":"

A friend’s daughter is traveling in Europe – now in Italy, next stop – Croatia. I thought about that beautiful place where I lived from 1992-1996 as a UN staff member and with pleasure, imagined myself a 20-something with a back-pack. Here’s what I would do:<\/p>\n

Travel via often overlooked city of Trieste \u00a0for a last taste of Italy \u00a0(James Joyce is just one of the many writers and artists who spent time here.) \"\"<\/a> Or maybe, stop in Slovenia — I hear the\u00a0main city, Ljubljana is now full of hip, young people hanging at the outdoor cafes. Cross over into Croatia and explore Istria – this sweet bit of coast with Pula at the tip of it, has an abundance of rocky beaches \"\"<\/a>and tourist-ready spots – very Italian influenced as once-upon a time, it was part of Italy. Then, high-tail it to the Dalmatian Coast – in my opinion, one of the most beautiful stretches in the world. Maybe\u00a0ferry-hop (from Rijeka?) through the islands all the way down to stunning Dubrovnik – an incredible stone city in a fortress – right on the sea. \u00a0Perhaps a stop in Split, worth checking out for Diocletian’s Palace and Mestrovic museum. Or pause at any of the charming fishing villages to eat great seafood (Risotta – black with squid ink) swim – dive off rocks for a swim in the clearest water you’ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

The Adriatic Sea is the most amazing mix of blues, emerald greens lapping up against the largely-undeveloped, dramatic landscape of Croatia. \u00a0\"\"<\/a>The food may not knock your socks off and last I remember, the people were not the jolliest, but the country is gorgeous.<\/p>\n

If it’s possible to leave the beautiful coast, travel inland to Plitvice National Park. \"\"<\/a>Pass through bucolic, gorgeous countryside, full of rocks, fields and flashes from another time – scenes of ancient women in black herding goats, horse drawn wagons overflowing with hay. Plitivice is a great place to hike — trails lead through lush forest and open up at regular intervals onto lakes and waterfalls that seem to be a moving weave of rainbows.\"\"<\/a> This park – in fact – much of the country was closed to tourists when I was there so we went (wary of landmines) we would only see the odd soldier or other UN folk. Still, I imagine that even now there are not too many tourists.<\/p>\n

From Plitvice, go to Zagreb – a charming and cosmopolitan city with trams, lots of art museums, great Austo-Hungarian architecture and plenty of busy squares with cafes to sit and people watch. Start with a cup of two of the dark, silty coffee then switch over to the good local beer and breathe deeply and savor it all.<\/p>\n

That’s what I would do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend’s daughter is traveling in Europe – now in Italy, next stop – Croatia. I thought about that beautiful place where I lived from 1992-1996 as a UN staff member and with pleasure, imagined myself a 20-something with a back-pack. Here’s what I would do: Travel via often overlooked city of Trieste \u00a0for a … Continue reading Vicarious Travel – Croatia<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,23,18],"class_list":["post-858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-travel","tag-united-nations","tag-war"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPzTS-dQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=858"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":879,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions\/879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/triciatierneyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}