Hello Dearest Friends and Family,

We are now firmly on Croatian soil. This comes after a quiet week in the sleepy beachside resort of Polignano A Mare, Italy, about 30 minutes south of Bari by train. This will be a short post, as we did a lot of relaxing and drinking wine, in contrast to the non-stop exploration of earlier destinations.

Polignano is perched on a cliff above the Adriatic, and has been home to humans for a long time. It's a bit gritty for a seaside resort town, as it's neither slick, nor polished. And the food is mostly excellent, and CHEAP! We were regularly drinking an awesome Negromaro (Il Muri) for 3-4 Euros per glass. It was sooooooooo good. And we miss it already. We had dinner at the same restaurant (L'Archibugio) two times in four days (which we never do), because our restaurant options were limited (due to the low season), and the food was amazing.

There is not much to do in Polignano. In the summer, you can lay on the beach, but in the cooler weather which we had (avg. 61F) that was not an option. Also many of their boat tours, etc, were not running. The most exciting man-made thing we saw was a statue dedicated to the man who wrote the famous song, "Volare". (You remember, Dean Martin sang it:) We did find out on our last day that there is a restaurant in the grotto, in the rocks, above a coastal cave that runs under the city. I will post the picture so you can see what we missed. There may have been a bit of a marketing issue, as I'm not sure how we did'nt know that the amazing restaurant existed, or that you could have taken a boat UNDER the restaurant. However, we didn't really miss anything because the restuarant is currently closed for remodeling and expansion into a high-end hotel.

We did hit the one museum of note in Polignano, Pinot Pascali's Museum of Contemporary Art. He was an up and coming artist in the 1960s when he was killed in Rome in a traffic accident. Now his namesake Museum honors him and other contemporary artists by displaying their unique art forms. We saw a short film there entitled, The Girl, which proved to be haunting, as I still hear the music in my ears.

So once we had rested and wined and dined to our satisfaction, we headed out of town on rented bikes to the coastal town of Monopoli. It was a quiet and relatively unremarkable place, but it was good to be on bikes and enjoying the fresh air. Our second excursion out of town was to the caves of Castellana Grotte. Steve has added a video of one of the huge cavern's. Check it out under the VideoTab.

Lastly, we wanted to share about our overnight ferry trip from Bari to Dubrovnik. Wow. Just Wow. The only ferry from Bari to Dubrovnik departs once a week during November, on Thursday night from 10:00 PM until 8:00 AM on Friday arriving in Croatia. We booked a private berth with 2 beds and a small bathroom for the journey. The ship sails every day with a full house in high season but this ship was nearly empty. We boarded about 8:00 PM and had nice service attendant who lead us to our room. We wandered around the ship and found an unique bar, so we ordered a quick drink while admiring the disco ball above the dance floor. The crew was entirely Croatian, rather than Italian. A new, very diffferent language from Italian. The journey was smooth and restful. We awoke at 7:00 AM to see the rugged Dalmation coast outside our cabin window. An amazing sight that motivated us to visit to the deck for multiple photos. Overall, a much easier voyage than we expected.

Our Take: If you visit Polignano a Mare, do it when its warmer. (We now know why most people don't vacation in November. We recommend Polignano a Mare as a May, June, or September destination). When we compare it to Dubrovnik, which we will share about next time, its a much different city. In the end, its really about trade-offs. In Polignano a Mare, we found grit, graffiti, poor marketing, but also cheap prices, great wine and food, whereas in Dubrovnik, we find amazing beauty, no trash, slick customer service, but also 'higher prices and mediocre wine and food.'---Kimberly

Steve says: 'Very good food in Croatia and good white wine. Tremendous beauty and history along the Dalmatian coast.'

Until next time, we bid you "Dovidenja" which is "until we meet again" in Croatian:)

K and S