My big treat for our first weekend in Croatia was the arrival of my brother Richard, who flew over from London where he is working over the Olympics. He flew into Pula on a Ryanair flight Saturday morning, so Dale and I drove the 2 1/2 hours from Crikveniza to fetch him. As we waited at the arrivals gate, passenger after passenger trundled out. 45 minutes after the plane landed and still no sign of Rich. As elderly women in wheelchairs began to be wheeled out of...

Our journey from Verona to Dale's family home in Croatia required two trains, a bus, and a hire car and took the better part of a day. At 7:30am our taxi driver was ready and waiting to take us to the train station as requested. What we had not expected was that he would arrive early and already have the meter running (up to 5 euros by the time we got in the cab)! Not wanting to risk losing our taxi driver and missing the train, Dale did no more than grumble ab...