Thursday evening, the group had an "orientation" walk for the old town in Dubrovnik scheduled.  When the time to go rolled around, 18 of us decided to just stay out on the patio at the hotel and have our own happy hour.  It had been a long day on the bus and relaxing seemed like the best thing.  And it was.  One of our group had her iPhone so she ordered pizza to be delivered and the "group" came out with at least 9 bottles of wine so it was a happy hour indeed.  :)  Rounds of toasts were made and 8 pizzas were consumed.  The discussion turned kind of serious and after a half hour of that, I went in and got some garbage bags and started cleanup of the bottles, glasses, empty pizza boxes, etc.  That ended the evening, which was okay with everyone.

Friday morning, we rode the city bus to the "old town."  The old town is the walled city from the 1300's, I think it was then that it was built.  Our guide, Roberto, was the most flamboyant animated one we'd had yet, but he does know his stuff. 2000 people still live in old town and he's one of them.  We went past another tour group and he said something to the guide and she turned around and was right back at him.  When we walked away, he said "that was my mother."  We had about an hour and a half tour and then we were free for the rest of the day.  We ate lunch and shopped for awhile but there were three huge cruise ships in the harbor by that time and it was so crowded that we left in early afternoon.  When we first entered the city, over a drawbridge, which was fun, there was a guy in medieval dress selling silver heart medallions and if you bought one, you could have your picture taken with him.  I thought that would be right up our alley and was so disappointed when we left and he wasn't there.  Stella wasn't nearly as enthused about it, but I thought it would be great.  Beverly wouldn't have chimed in but she would have taken the picture.  But it was not to be.  Caught the correct bus but missed our stop so we got off it at the next one which was like a block and a half away and went back to the hotel. 

The walls around the old town have 1,077 steps because they follow the terrain.  I would have been up for walking the walls but it was 90 degrees and bright sunshine so I didn't.  I'm sure the view would have been great, though, but with that heat it wouldn't have been a good idea.  And it was humid.  We had humidity our entire trip.  I kind of liked it actually.  I didn't have to use so much moisturizer as I do here in dry Idaho.

That evening we walked to a restaurant right on the sea and had our "farewell" dinner.  We had our choice of either lamb or fish and I opted for the lamb.  It was excellent.  Mild tasting chops.  Yum. 

Saturday morning, we said goodbye to our tour guide and his assistant since that was the official end of the tour.  They were both great people.  Amir (ah meer) lives in Sarajevo and was taking a bus home that afternoon.  Debbie Jo works in the Rick Steves office in Edmonds, Washington, and was flying home mid-morning.  She had been in Turkey on a tour before ours so she'd be gone a month and was looking forward to getting back home. 

Then 21 of us got on a bus and did a day trip to Montenegro, the country that borders Croatia and Bosnia to the south.  We saw another beautiful part of the area.  There is an enormous bay in Montenegro.  It's surrounded by high mountains and small towns.  We toured yet again another walled city with narrow alleyways and then got on a boat for a ride to see a church that's built on a manmade island in the bay.  We thought it was an orthodox church but the woman who was our guide said it was roman catholic.  Small but beautiful. 

That reminds me, I think I forgot to tell you about visiting a monastery in Bosnia.  It was an Orthodox church there and was very different than the cathedrals we'd been seeing.  The walls were covered with "icons" that are painted on the walls.  No sculptures and statues like in other baroque churches.  And that reminds me that we went to a mosque in Mostar that is open to tourists.  It's the only mosque there that is and it's mainly so that we tourists can see one.  Beautiful stained glass windows in it, a rug hanging on the wall that was more than 100 years old but very plain in other ways. 

Anyway, back to Montenegro.  We had an hour and a half ride on the bay back to where the bus was waiting for us.  It was very relaxing to just ride along and look at the scenery.  We made a stop at a small village and had the local "grappa."  Oh man, did it have a bite to it.  Made me think of Everclear or something equally as strong.  We'd had brandy for tasting at other places on this trip and those seemed really smooth compared to this stuff. 

The bay there is so large and has a narrow passage into it about halfway down the length of it that it has no storms or waves on it.  The water was very clear and we could see fish when we got off at the dock. 

Bosnia is a poor country, it was evident especially in the small town we visited, something like half the people or more that lived there were unemployed.  Montenegro was the only one that we saw garbage in.  Slovenia and Croatia are very clean.  The streets were clean and the countryside was clean. 

Saturday evening we stayed at a different hotel so we had to schlep our bags to it early that morning before we got on the bus for the day trip.  We ate dinner and then packed for our trip home Sunday.  Since our flight left at 6:30 a.m. and the van was coming at 5 a.m. to pick us up, we got up at 3:30 a.m.  That's 7:30 pm Saturday night in Boise.  It was a really long day yesterday but we hit the ground in Boise about 9 pm. 

We all agreed that it was a great trip.  Good group, good weather, good schedule, but it was good to get home, too.