Croatia

 We were up early this morning for our "face check" before being allowed to cross the border into Croatia. We were dropped off at a small town called Batina.  The plan was that we would do a full day bus tour while the ship sailed on down river, and we would meet up with the ship at the end of the day in Vukovar.

 

 We began our excursion with a trip to the Battle of Batina monument.  This is one of the few WWII monuments to survive in Croatia.  Most of the Communist built monuments have been destroyed as the usually included an image of a star (the star represesnted Communism).  However, during the war  for Croatian independence the Yugoslav National Army used a star as their symbol.  So the Croatians destroyed anything with a star on it.   The monument at Batina only survived because it was in an occupied area.

After this we took a tour across wine country stopping at a crafts museum for lunch.  The museum specialized in forgotten crafts such as how to make mud bricks, which we could have a go at. After that there was a very tasty (and filling) 3 course lunch.

In the afternoon we visited the Vucedol Archeological Museum.  The Vucedol people lived in the area 3000 years ago and had many skills that were advanced for that period.  They arranged the bodies of their dead to represent star constellations when they buried them:

 

Late in the afternoon we arrived in the town of Vukovar which was the scene of an 87 day siege during the Croatian war of independence.  The Yugoslav National Army shelled the town until there was virtually nothing left.  When the city finally surrendered atrocities were committed.  Today few pre-war structures exist and the city is much reduced in size and obviously still recovering.   Becky and I did manage to find a nice ice cream parlour to visit though.

Finally we made our way back to the ship for the evening's entertainment, which was a local Croatian Folk group.   They did a very impressive rendition of that famous Croatian Folk song: Blue Suede Shoes;  complete with Elvis impersonation.   Becky and I decided to skip the evening meal in the dining room as lunch had just been too filling.  

We will be leaving Croatia tonight and sailing on into Bulgaria.  Tomorrow we have a tour of Belgrade.