Monday, March 7th. City Walking Tour. Fun, large man led the group. I took his picture and printed it. “That’s a terrible photo!” says he, bluntly. So I take another. The entire tour needed to cover only a very small section of the city to hit all the key spots, but it was a slow, meandering route. Rode the arguably shortest funicular in the world. Maybe two minutes, bottom to top.

It’s a very clean city, except for an extreme problem with graffiti. Not very imaginative graffiti either. We walked through a very well made tunnel, built as a bomb shelter in WWII. It’s still used as a thoroughfare, which is handy on cold, windy days. Farmer’s market was sparsely attended, being a Monday. Many, many museums. The main church is closed to repair damage from an earthquake. It was originally constructed with substandard stone, which they’re replacing with more sturdy material.

The entire city seems very well organized. Cars, trams, bikes, pedestrians travel in sync with one another. At lunch time there is an army of bicycle deliverymen, all carrying oversized backpacks. I had a good but unusual burger and fries. People walk around munching on sandwiches. This is a city where dressing for success begins with a pair of very stylish shoes.

In the afternoon I visited a wine bar/shop recommended by Damir. I spent over three hours there, tasting and drinking various Croatian wines. Between sips I scanned through a book that described the history and qualities of Croatia’s most popular grape, Plavic Mali. It’s parent is Crljenak Kaštelanski, otherwise known as zinfandel. A key desire for this entire trip was to taste Crljenak Kaštelanski, which I did. Very much like zin. I purchased too many bottles to bring back, so I’ll be sharing some among my travel partners, assuming any of them are healthy enough.

Sadly, the illness that began in Sarajevo is still making it’s way through the group. I’ve been spared so far.