Croatia

We are on the sunny island of Ugljan now off the Croatian west coast town called Zadar. Except that it is not sunny, in fact it is snowing now so that we cannot even see the small island that just an hour ago used to be some few 100 meters away. Not to mention the city of Zadar or the Croatian mainland mountains in the background.
We travelled last Saturday - a trip that felt almost as long as the whole way from Singapore. The trouble is that now in the winter there are no direct flights to Zadar from anywhere so we had a 5 hour stopover at Munich airport, then 45 min flight and then another 4+ hour stop at Zagreb airport. Munich was not too bad as there is lots to do. Beatrice and Raoul even went ice-skating! They have set up a small Christmas market in the outdoor area between 2 terminals and there is an ice rink. Also my old university friend came to the airport to see us, so we had a good few hours to chat while the kids were playing in the McD playarea. I hadn't seen Anja for 10 years now, so there was a lot of catching up to do. By the time we realized we need to get our connection we were really in a hurry already. I hadn't calculated in the time for passport control etc but of course we were leaving the EU!
Zagreb airport was a different story of course. A bit like Tallinn airport in the early nineties. The main restaurant reminded me of something even older. But it helped to kill the time. And of course we spent some of it on the playground in front of the airport building. Freezing cold and dark! A motorcade with blue lights passed through between the park and the terminal building at some 100 km/h. Don't know what dignitaries it transported but the speed certainly was impressive. The connection was delayed by a good half hour and it was after 9 already and I was worried that we might miss the last ferry from Zadar so I would end up looking for a hotel there at midnight. Luckily we made the ferry and got "home" just before 00.00. That made our total journey time to be 18 hours, 30 minutes!
Kids were excited to see daddy. I hadn't realized how especially the boys had actually missed him.
Robert had Sunday off and it was nice and sunny so we went to the top of the mountain here on the island to see the ruins of an old monastery. Verey exciting to go the last bit up hiking. And so good to see the sun after a week of darkness and grey skyes in Tallinn. The views are really pretty with lots of small islands dotted in the sea, hilly and green. There are millions of olive trees, the rest covered by big pines, palmtrees, oranges, lemons, wine. Beautiful clear water. Many marinas along the coast with most boats anchored for the winter. The island is very laid back, no big hotels, just small guesthouses, mostly people just let a few rooms in their houses for holiday makers. It looks all very meditarrenean and I could easily take it for an Irtalian village if they would change the signs. Of course out of season now and very quiet. Only a few restaurants open but food is good. They still smoke in the restaurants here so not very inviting with kids.
Sunday afternoon we took the ferry over to Zadar to have a wander around the old town. Very prettily located on a peninsula surrounded by a nice promenade. There is a water-organ - something we had never seen before - some holes in the pavement of the promenade and apparently the waves come in underneath and make sounds by pushing air through the holes. That way it produces a melody of the sea.
The other days have shown a more typical Croatian winter weather with wind and rain. So we have mainly stayed indoors and watched movies and played lego and games. A few trips to the playground but usually it is so cold in the wind that I start wanting to go back as soon as we get there. And today it is snowing... but it is the wet kind of slushy snow so no good for anything really. Forgot the cable for the camera so unfortunately cannot download any photos now.