Croatia Sept 20

Morning dawns bright but humid as we head out to breakfast at a close by restaurant where Maria, one of the ladies who helped with the luggage, works. Not too exciting, eggs (scrambled or omeleted and yogurt) but good. We do some exploring...go in to a couple of churches but they are somewhat bland compared to all the glitz of the Spanish and even the French edifices. We stop for a refreshment because the sun is getting warmer by the minute and head back to he hotel to fetch our bags and drag them through old town to where the taxi will pick us up.

We trudge through old town, the handle on my bag will not extend so mine is a bit of a struggle, but, we make it to the taxi stand. We take the taxi ride up a winding street filled with switchbacks until we arrive at apartments Matilda. Matilda, the owner of the flat we are renting, meets us. Only one small problem, the stairs going up to the flat, the flat is built into a hillside, and ours is at the very top, are the equivalent of six flights. But, there is a porter person to carry the bags up...thank God. Flat is nice with spectacular views.

Our friends, the Clappertons, Andrew and Christine, have flown over from England and have rented a flat downhill from us, are going to meet us and spend a couple of days in Croatia. They are really nice people, we met them in Barcelona in 2013 and they came over to visit Shirley when she and Carroll stayed in France in 2016. They come up the steps and we have a couple of snacks and some light refreshment.

It is, according to Matilda, just a short walk into town. We opt for walking in to town and taking a taxi back. DUH, smart decision, actually no decision. Works great, a boat load of steps but all downhill and takes about 8 minutes. Dinner is at a place called Porto...very nice. We have a wide choice of menu items and some fresh oysters from Ston, and place we are going to visit later, famous for the aforementioned delights. The taxi ride back is great. We attack the steps which are not too bad if you do not have luggage, but are not well lit.

17 floors, 2.3 miles and 6567 steps today. Tomorrow its the hop on, hop off bus and maybe the tram to the nearby mountain top.