The Adventures of Daphne..!

Well, have arrived in Gdansk with a bit of a hiccup on the way. We missed our connection from Munich to Gdansk and had to go via Frankfurt. However, not too horrendous except that we arrived in Gdansk to find that our baggage was still in Munich. It will arrive though tomorrow and in the meantime we have been given a little bag of goodies, including the most gorgeous nightshirt, to tide us over. We'll no doubt survive. The hotel where we are staying is run by a family which includes mum, dad and 4 sons. The son we dealt with was just so friendly and helpful we feel right at home. They even have hot chocolate!

We were a little sad to leave Croatia. It was a lovely country, my favourite city being Dubrovonik. Split, the second largest city was also very nice. We also made friends with a couple from Brazil and will be able to show you a photograph on our return. I may have already said Reuben had a Croatian grandfather as well and he also spoke fairly good English. Tuesday night we spent at the Plievitce National Park hotel, very lovely waking up to the birds singing instead of lots of noisy cars, and spent 3 hrs the next morning touring the park by foot, by boat and by train. It was fantastic! We got back to Zagreb about 4.30 and thought we'd look for the History Museum but by the time we got there it was closed. We sat and had a drink in the square and soaked up the atmosphere for a while before we plodded - and plodded we did - back to the hotel for our last dinner together. Unfortunately, we were sitting with those that couldn't communicate with us very well so it was a fairly quiet affair, unlike the other table where stories in Spanish were being told and there was much hilarity. Hopefully there'll be some English speaking people on our Polish tour which begins on Mon evening. Meanwhile we have 3 days here in Gdansk to explore.

Daphne in Croatia

We received an email today from Daphne. She and her brother John are touring around Croatia where their forebears come from.

What a relief! After using the e-mail at Singapore with no problems I couldn't get into it at Zagreb for some reason or another. Tonight we're in Split which is way down the coast in Croatia - into Dalmatian territory. Last night we were in Opajtia - a very quaint town on the coast and this morning after leaving there we traveled through Reijk which is where our grandfather lived. It was a very busy port and it was easy to see how our grandfather could have hopped on a boat to come to New Zealand. I would loved to have stopped there even for 5 minutes but didn't get the opportunity. We have actually been talking to a couple from Brazil over dinner tonight, Reuben and Beatrice - very nice people. His grandfather and grandmother also came from Croatia and the area we will go through tomorrow. John invited another Brazilian couple to our room for a glass of not very good wine before dinner. Sonia was a paediatrician and her husband an anaesthetist.

Croatia is a very lovely place and so much of it is so so old. Unfortunately, John and I are the only English speaking people on the tour, apart from the tour guide. At Zagreb she arranged for us to have a guide of our own which was really good and we had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Kristina our guide is very nice but she talks to us a lot on the bus and not so much when we get to places. Consequently by the time we get to where we're going we've forgotten what she said a lot of the time.

Tomorrow we're off to Dubrovonich where we'll spend 2 nights and then I think we make our way back to Zagreb and then to Poland. We've been on the bus most of the day today but are spending the morning here in Split before we more off again.

It's all going well and especially now that I know I can reach you all by e-mail again