Croatia and Montenegro, May 2017--Going Solo

For several years now, traveling with Ron has not been easy. There were times when he got confused at being in a strange place, especially when he woke up. He had limited energy, so often he fell asleep in the afternoon or was ready for bed right after dinner, while I was still wide awake. Walking excursions, the main attraction on a cruise, proved difficult because he couldn't keep up. It was upsetting that he didn't tell me when he started feeling pain, and then blamed me when he was really hurting. Worst of all was that I didn't know whether he was enjoying himself or not. I sometimes felt guilty because he didn't seem to be getting anything out of the vacation I was looking forward to so much. It was becoming clear that what for me was a much-needed, stimulating adventure was for him an ordeal.


In January of this year I tried an experiment. When I went off to the SCS meeting in Toronto, I called in a caretaking service, Family Home Care, and arranged for a visiting caretaker to drop in for a two-hour shift every other day. I also bought him a FreedomAlert pendant so that he could press a button to call 911 in an emergency. Both measures proved successful. While Ron didn't think he needed the caretaker, he welcomed the company, and he himself was happy to have a means of summoning help in case he was by himself when he fell.


This May, a week after the semester ended, I arranged for a caretaker again to cover my ten-day absence on a Road Scholar small group tour of Croatia and Montenegro by ship. It was a way of winding down from what had been a difficult year. In the fall I had taught CLAS/GWS 362 to a very diverse class including Black, Muslim, Native American, and transgender students. Getting them through post-election panic and depression took tremendous finesse and tact. Consequently I had not given as much time and thought as I usually do to preparing my spring Latin reading course on Martial and Juvenal. I had taught these authors once before, using the same textbooks, and figured the number of lines from Martial's epigrams I assigned and the selections I chose were about right for students at the 4xx/5xx level, but I had miscalculated badly and we fell behind at once. We struggled through the first four weeks reading only about half of what I expected. Then it turned out that they found Juvenal (Juvenal!) much easier than the previous class had, so I wound up preparing extra lectures, PowerPoints, and discussion sessions to fill in the class time after they had finished translating. It didn't help that one of the graduate students was forever nitpicking the translation and taking issue with statements in the commentary. I got through the semester, as I always do, but I knew it wasn't one of my stellar performances and I needed something else to think about.

Since my flight from Phoenix took off at 7:00 a.m., I arrived at the Stagecoach Shuttle at 2:45. The itinerary, from Phoenix to Dulles and then to De Gaulle, followed by a connection to Split, was a demanding one, so I was pretty wiped by the time the program director, Luči, met us at the airport and took us to the Cornaro Hotel. This was a small hotel, and not all its facilities were in operation--supposedly there was a rooftop spa and a downstairs wine bar, both closed. After a get-acquainted meeting, the 23 participants had dinner in the hotel dining room--excellent seafood, as I recall. Then I went out to look around the neighborhood and buy a hat, something I always forget to pack.

It was nice to discover that the hotel was within easy walking distance of Diocletian's Palace, the object of the next day's excursion. Ron and I had visited it during a previous trip to Croatia, but there was a lot we missed. I didn't know, for example, that the statue of John the Baptist in the former Temple of Jupiter was by the Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović, about whom Luči was quite informed--we learned a great deal about him. During the lunch break, which was on our own, I took the time to watch the Emperor Diocletian come out of the palace to address the crowd in passable Latin (he was, after all, Dalmatian by birth, so it wasn't his first language). Touristy, but neat.

The next day we embarked on the ship, which was indeed small. Besides the dining room, which was also used for lectures and other events, there was no fully enclosed space apart from the cabins. There was a seating area in back of the dining room with steps leading down to the main deck cabins, but it was only partially roofed. Forward, on the top deck, there was a lounge area, of course without a swimming pool. Those were the only two common areas in which to hang out. I had brought along a PDF of the ms. I was reviewing for Cambridge UP and had hoped to make considerable progress on it. But working on my computer in public was difficult, as people were always interrupting me, and I had no real desk space in the cabin itself. While our choice of beverages at lunch and dinner included a beer or glass of wine, sitting around with drinks after dinner wasn't an option, as the bar closed as soon as dinner had been served. People generally split up and went to their cabins. I'm afraid I started to feel claustrophobic after a while.

It was encouraging that more than half the people on the tour were women traveling by themselves or as a twosome. Obviously no one saw anything odd in the fact that I had left my husband at home--there were others who had done exactly the same thing. I did hit it off with two women in similar circumstances, so I had people to go around with. It was also nice that many of the solo women were academics. Since Road Scholar attempts to offer learning adventures, we were given a great deal of historical background, dealing chiefly with recent events--Luči recounted her experience of the Balkan War as a student in Kosevo--but also some classical and medieval history as well. Troubled relations with the Venetian Empire came in for a lot of discussion, especially when we arrived in Dubrovnik. 

Sites visited on the various islands were mostly medieval and Early Modern cathedrals and monasteries. On one fairly drizzly day, we hiked in National Park Mljet to a saltwater lake, where we took a boat trip to, guess what, a twelfth-century monastery. Museums were not that interesting, except for the Meštrović Gallery in Split, whose permanent exhibition houses a large collection of the sculptor's works from all periods. We did stop twice for lunch in Dalmatian villages, once at a family farm owned by a priest (he inherited it after his family were casualties of the Balkan War) and once at a well-known vineyard on the road to Montenegro. Dubrovnik was the high point, and walking around the city walls a memorable experience. In the opening episode of this season's Game of Thrones, Cersei and Jamie look out to sea from the battlements of the Red Keep, which are famously the Dubrovnik city walls; it was a thrill to realize that I had been exactly where they were standing.

Montenegro, where we spent the last two days of the tour, reminded me amazingly of an Italian town, with the population taking an evening passeggiata along the main street of Herceg Novi (as opposed to the riva, which was where our hotel was located). I truly loved the Cat Museum in Kotor, which I visited on my own, and wish I had allotted more time to it. There are no actual cats (except for the mascot, asleep in her bed), but plenty of amusing cartoons and cat kitsch, including a wall of four-color pages from the Corriere del Sol illustrating amazing cat stories (e.g. a mother cat receiving a medal from the mayor and the town council of an Italian village for rescuing her five kittens, one by one, from a fire).

The hotel we stayed in was a fairly expensive resort right on the beach. For some reason, one of the assigned rooms was a suite, and they gave it to me--probably because the door of my cabin on the ship was constantly sticking and I had to call crew members down to open it several times. Dinner was, again, at a long reserved table in the hotel dining room, but I had a privileged seat right next to all the events at the farewell dinner and was able to snap a great picture of Luči being presented with a gift of appreciation, and a well-deserved thank you from all of us.

In retrospect, everything about the Croatia trip was fine except for the limited options onboard. The food both on ship and on land was superb, the native Croatian wines I sampled excellent (derived mostly from the Primitivo grape, the ancestor of Zinfandel), and the field trips generally interesting. Too many monasteries, but that was to be expected. The lesson I've learned from this experience is to  travel with Road Scholar, but be selective about where you are going and the type of cruise ship involved--pick larger vessels. Next March I'm booked to go to Jamaica and Cuba aboard an Aegean Odyssey ship, and in July I will be going to Iceland, again with Aegean Odyssey. For all my many trips to Italy and England by myself, cruising alone is a new experience, but I'm learning.

Recollections of Bucharest to Budapest Cruise, May 2016

The summer after our Bordeaux trip, we traveled with Viking again, this time on a cruise up the Danube from Bucharest, Romania, to Budapest, Hungary. Prior to the actual cruise, we spent three days touring Transylvania by land, not because I had any particular desire to visit Count Dracula's reputed or real haunts, but because the trip included an excursion to Constanta, ancient Tomi, and I wanted to see Ovid's place of exile. In Ovidian studies, the commonplace is that Tomi, far from being the desolate barbarian settlement described in the exile poetry, was actually a flourishing Greek seaport located on the Black Sea coast with a very temperate climate. Indeed, Constanta is now a popular beach resort.

So. When we arrived there by bus, rain was imminent. We managed to get in a visit to the derelict Casino on the beach and a local Greek orthodox church with fourth-century BCE ruins outside. I would have liked to look at the ruins, but then the rain started. The party was booked for lunch at a restaurant about a mile away, and the guide decided--since the bus couldn't navigate the narrow streets--that the best course of action would be to walk, pressing close to buildings and diving under awnings. Fifteen people in a narrow file slopping along, all drenched after the first two minutes. The restaurant was on the town square, opposite the archaeological museum, and the famous statue of a pensive Ovid occupies the center of the square. As we passed it, I looked up and muttered "OK, OK, I believe you."

During the rest of our trip, naturally, we mostly enjoyed excellent weather. Highlights of Bucharest included the remains of the Old Court, where Vlad Tepes ruled, and the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum, recreating burgher and peasant life. On the first day after embarking, we went to the Bulgarian villages of Veliko Tarnovo and Arbanasi, where I bought a bagful of Damascus Rose soaps and fragrances as gifts. Belogradchik Fortress in Vidin was the one obligatory military installation--glad to get that over with. The next day, cruising through the Iron Gate in Serbia, we were able to see both the Tabula Traiana, an ancient inscription commemorating the emperor's conquest of Dacia, and the modern statue of his adversary Decebalus. Trajan is popular in these parts, but they have to pay tribute to the local defenders as well.

We then arrived in Belgrade, starting to feel discombobulated by going through so many countries so quickly and having to learn new currency exchange rates in each one. The big event was a chance to go backstage at the Serbian Opera House and see costumes being sewn. Near Vakovar, Croatia (another day, another currency), we were taken to meet Suzi, a German woman who owns a bakery in an outlying town and served delicious coffee and kuchen as she explained why she had settled there. On the return to the ship, our bus passed numerous abandoned farms and houses, an indication that the Balkan War had affected even the remoter parts of Croatia. Indeed, the effects of the war were a recurring theme in country after country.

The next stop at Kalocsa, Hungary, featured a touristy but still interesting display of Puszta horsemanship, a rider driving four horses cantering abreast while standing on the backs of two. Not sure of any practical applications for that trick. Finally we arrived in Budapest, where the rain caught up with us. Our hotel was right on the central square, close to the Matthias Church, a good thing because the weather remained unpredictable. Lunch on our own in the Central Market Hall was a zoo. We were able to take in one of the major museums in our free time and had a nice sunny morning when we went on our final excursion to the village of Szentendre, an artsy-craftsy place with attractive embroidery and woodwork.

All in all, this tour was a good deal more informative than the previous France cruise and it whetted my appetite to learn more about Eastern Europe, specifically the Balkans. That was the major reason I chose to go on a small-boat tour of Croatia and Montenegro by myself in 2017.

 

Recollections of Viking "Chateaux, Rivers and Wine" Cruise, May 2015

I've been remiss in keeping this blog up-to-date, largely because of my involvement with the University, my volunteer work with the horse rescue group HEART, and my commitment to finishing an annotated bibliography of research on Catullus for the journal Lustrum. The bibliography, which took six years to complete (2010-16) finally went to the publisher last year and was published in January. With that and other deadlines met, I find myself for the first time in ages with extra time available, and I've promised myself that I will complete necessarily brief summaries of our trips to France in 2015 and Eastern Europe in 2016, as well as a much more detailed account of my solo visit to Croatia in May 2017. So here are my impressions of the river cruise around Bordeaux and environs, necessarily fuzzy because it's been two years.

What sticks in the mind two years after a vacation is a good test of whether the trip accomplished its aims and gave value for money. That's a consideration because Viking Tours caters to an upscale market. My rationale for choosing one of their offerings was increased accessibility for Ron, who isn't able to handle stairs on a ship any more. So the accommodations and the food were definitely better than those of Voyages to Antiquity, with its rather cramped cabins and buffet-style meal service. Viking emphasizes the cultural immersion over the educational experience: there were no on-board history lectures, and shore excursions included a truffle hunting excursion and a visit to the Camus distillery to sample cognac and blend your own. We also visited a citadel, the 17th century Fortress of Blaye constructed by Louis XIV. One military site or castle per trip is my limit--I find towering stone walls depressing. The tour included visits to several vineyards, tasting well-known French varietals--Sauternes, Burgundies and Bordeaux, and the wines of Saint-Emilion. We had a banquet at one of the chateaux with accompanying house wines, served in an eighteenth-century hall. Very gracious ambiance. Other than that, most of the on-shore activities involved city walking tours, again a problem for Ron.

Of the shore excursions, the Saint-Emilion visit was the most memorable. The town is charming, but predictably thronged with tourists and expensive. Prices for bottles of vintage wines were out of sight. Still, it was pleasant to explore the streets of the old town and then have a glass of wine in the ruins of the Des Cordeliers convent. I also enjoyed the visit to the Camus distillery, where I blended my own bottle of cognac. After putting it away for the requisite twelve months, we tasted it and it's not bad at all; we still have some left for next Christmas, although the bottle is getting low. While I was sipping cognac, Ron took the truffle-hunting excursion. He was delighted that the dog they used looked a lot like Annie. 

 

At the Blaye citadel, I saw a group of saddled horses tied up and wondered what they were doing there. Their tack, though reminiscent of dressage saddles, had extra equipment attached. Maybe they were going for a trail ride starting from the monument. That would have been more fun than trudging along stone walks.

After the cruise, Ron and I caught the train to Paris, where we spent three days at the charming Hotel Alma. It's centrally located, within walking distance of Les Invalides and Napoleon's Tomb. We took the opportunity to see both, because we hadn't been able to fit them in on previous visits. Faute de mieux, since I didn't want to go back to the Louvre again, we also took in a fascinating exhibition of medieval magic texts and artifacts at the Jewish Museum. That too was a highlight, and one I absolutely hadn't planned for--we were walking past, and there it was.

Grade for this trip: B. Not a whole lot of serendipity except for the museum visit.