Motovun

We moved on, seeking a hill-top fortress as an antidote to an uninteresting 19th century seaside resort. On Motovun's slopes is a camper-stop, operated by the local hotel...10 or so sites, the usual facilities and amenities, even a small swimming pool. Not cheap, but comfortable and convenient. With rain predicted the next day, we decided to do the hill town that afternoon, taking the not-free shuttle up the hill.

Motovun, a higher hill town than most

Main street; only street

Wine, brandy, honey, olive oil, the usual

Not the usual: this is truffle country

Sadly, we're not truffles fans; sadly because they're much
cheaper here than en France

Main entrance to town

A view from above, broad valley, irrigation canal, truffle forests

Second gate

Main square, 6;30 PM; completely deserted

Church interior; pretty standard, except

For this wonder; and her partner on the other side of the
door; bikini-clad caryatids?

The Hotel Kastel, which seems to be the main business in Motovun; also owns
the campground below

For a mere 4E each, you can walk the walls; takes about 5 minutes but does
provide some good views

Including this Croatian futbol fan; I have been following the Croats, my
adopted team for 2018, watching their games against Argentina, Denmark,
and Russia, and otherwise following them on-line, including last night's
victory over England; they play France Sunday for the World Cup; I hope
to be watching...

The usual feral dogs; Vicki says they're truffle hounds

Little-known fact: Mario Andretti was born in Motovun (which was then part
of Italy)

Kiddie park sponsored by Porsche

There's truffles in them thar hills

The 4E ticket gets you into the city gallery, too, where I got this nice shot of a
shot

City coat of arms, in the first gate

Truffles

Truffles shoppe

Motovun needs more visitors; we've done our par

Our encampment 

Opatija

Our next goal was the seaside resort of Opatija, mainly for its architecture. The Hapsburgs ruled these lands for only a half-century or so, until the end of WWI, but they made their mark, bringing infrastructure, railroads, building ports (Austria-Hungary was land-locked, so they were really pleased to gain miles of natural harbors on the Adriatic, not really all that far from Vienna), and resorts; and architecture. All this as Art Nouveau was growing.

The mom-and-pop campgrounds are always the best; not for the amenities, but
for the sincerity and charm; the manager here, in an apple and other unidentified 
fruit orchard, told me we were his first American guests; his favorite NBA team 
is the Golden State Warriors--this elicited when I told him one of our daughters lived 
near Frisco--as evening approached, he carried a tray of schnapps to each of the 
several campers on site; powerful stuff, too, and I had to drink Vicki's as well...

The interior of Croatia is war-torn, too; after the depredations of Milosevic's 
Serbian troops and their "ethnic cleansing," the Serbian population of this area
left, leaving perhaps a third of the homes and lands vacant

Mile upon mile of land, tillable, graze-able land, untouched

Homes vacant--perhaps a Croatian family "cleansed" or a Serbian family departed;
"Christian" vs. "Christian"; this has been going on for centuries...

A defunct aircraft museum; or perhaps these are the craft that couldn't get off
in the fighting

Yes, well, moving right along, the road snakes down to the coast...serpentina

Below great limestone cliffs

And finally Opatija and the challenge of finding parking space in a 19th century
resort town

We were sort of underwhelmed by the architecture; traces of Art Nuvo...

The glassy Adriatic

Kiddie beach

Pigeon spa

Plitvice Lakes (And Waterfalls), 2

More of the PlitviceLakes, and, especially the waterfalls...

Things change...a dried-up river bed

The line to catch the boat across the big lake; we were seldom alone, but the
place can get very crowded in high season

Still wondering whether it's an antenna, a cross, or a mast...

Fish everywhere in the clear water, especially congregating near the bottoms
of the falls for the super-oxygenation

So "Jezero" is the word for waterfall, we think, 524 meters above sea level,
3 hectares in...wait, maybe "Jezero" is the word for lake, 524 meters above sea
level, 3 hectares in area, and 18 meters deep

The waters' colors are ever changing

Famous cave; seen in many regionally-produced Westerns

And more waterfalls

"Big Waterfall" the signs said

Indeed

Some of the karst

Walking out of the park...a sink-hole, one of hundreds we've seen the past two
days, in forests, in meadows and pastures...

For the past two weeks I've meant to get a picture of the chain-link fencing that
looms above all the highways and secondary roads throughout Croatia,
Montenegro, and much of Bosnia-Hertzegovina; the fencing is meant to protect
the roads and travelers from rock-fall; there must be a gazillion square feet of
such fencing here, all held down by concrete blocks (limestone dissolves in water...)