Ahhhh, Back Swimming in my Favorite Sea

Our long journey was finally over.  We did our best to show up at Zvonka's parent's house unannounced, as a surprise...  One more series of busses and walking wouldn't hurt us, even though they could have picked us up.  They're the nicest, most generous friends.  I'd meant to spend a week with them, but we sort of got carried away traveling and only had a day.  I felt so bad, she'd converted her dad's workroom into a guest room for me to stay in, with a comfortable bed and nicely decorated, but I would only sleep there two nights.

Even after 4 days of continuous travel back across eastern Europe, we still had to drag the computer out onto the porch and go through the travel pictures, late into the night, drinking homemade red wine and lighting mosquito coils to ward off the unwanted guests attracted to the light of the monitor. ..  In the morning we drove up to Murter Island for breakfast (next entry), then headed immediately into the water.

Sovlje is a tiny village, it can't be more than 60-70 people, at the head of a tiny bay, north of Vodice.  It's a wonderful place squeezed between the beach and the steep limestone mountains that border the coast.  It's pretty much just a cluster of houses, but there's a small town, Tribunj, about 10 minutes walk away with a grocery store and post office and such.  There's a horrible beach by the tiny harbor that's sort of a sidewalk by the water with 50 German tourists laying on it.  We always swim at a secret beach reached by a little trail through the limestone rock and pines, across a point.  The shore is huge, cracked, limestone blocks where you can find little flat spots and hollows to lay in, and the water is swimming pool clear and bright.   The bottom is white limestone too, so it's nearly surface bright 20 feet underwater.  Clothing isn't real popular there so I always kind of stand out as the only American, wearing big board shorts instead of the traditional local... nothing.

The next 24 hours until the bus came were spent swimming and being stuffed full of wonderful Croatian foods by Zvonka's mom - stuffed peppers, sliced potatoes and eggs in sour cream, all of my favorites.  There serious about beer too, it comes in 6-packs of 2 liter bottles (12 liters at a time!) for just a few dollars.  It's actually not bad beer either "Deep Pivo" it's called.  The homemade wine is strong, so I was shown again the proper techniques of diluting with ice water or mixing it with Coke (it's actually pretty good, I hate to admit...)  There's a better description of Sovlje from 2007 here .

The bus finally came the next afternoon, we said our good-byes, and headed back to Zagreb.