Congrats to our Winner!

The World Cup is over, which means this round of Beth's blog trivia has also come to a close.  Bram was the one who guessed the winner of the World Cup (Germany) - so congrats to him!  No one guessed the cumulative points scored, which was 1, so those points go unclaimed.  Final points for this round of the blog game are:

Dad: 1
Jessa: 2
Bram: 11
Ginny: 12
Sjaak: 9

Shasta: 5

Mom: 10
Alex: 1

Congrats to Ginny who came in 1st, Bram who came in 2nd, and Mom who came in 3rd.  Thanks for playing!

The slate is once again wiped clean. :-)  

Notes from the Sea

The first town we visited and stayed in was the quiet seaside town of Zadar.   The town of Zadar is old.  Really old.  In fact, Zadar has been occupied for at least the 4th millennium BC.  A point if you can guess the meaning of the name Zadar according to the ancient Byzantines, which illustrated how old this city really was, even back then.

Zadar is a quiet lovely town.  At its center is the St. Donatus church, built in the 9th century.

Inside St. Donatus church.

The church was built from older bricks.  Some still have inscriptions or carvings, and most of these used to be below the ground level of the church.  One of these used to be part of a temple to Juno.

Nearby the Pillar of Shame stands, where criminals were chained during the Middle Ages and taunted as a punishment.

Across the square is the Cathedral of Anastasia. 

Another ancient church, now in ruins, is shaped like a key.

But the nicest thing about Zadar is that it is surrounded by the ocean.

On the sea is the neatest "sculpture" I've ever seen.  Or heard.  The "Sea Organ" - it's made up of several pipes embedded in steps that lead down to the sea.  As the waves come in, they push water through the tubes, causing various musical notes.  It's totally awesome.

Nearby is the "Greeting to the Sun", another "sculpture".  During the day, photovoltaic cells take energy.   As the sun goes down, the Greeting to the Sun lights up in a show that is supposed to be simultaneous with the waves coming in.  It didn't work perfectly when we were there, but it was still pretty neat to see.

As we stepped away, we realized that the large circle was representative of the sun, while smaller circles denoted the planets!  Cool!

On the Edge, Men

Bram and I were lucky enough to enjoy a marvelous vacation to Croatia this summer.  Croatia is a stunningly beautiful country, with lots of opportunities to visit the bit of Europe that is still wild and untamed.  One of the National Parks we visited was Paklenica, known for its steep rock formations. 

Near the entrance to the park Paklenica

 Paklenica is a narrow gorge with amazingly steep cliffs on either side. 

This gorge is world-renowned in the climbing community, and thousands of climbers come to scale the cliffs.  

Readying the ropes

High above, many climbers could be spotted scaling the cliffs.  

The routes all have very clever names.

 

For a point, what was a route name that we saw?  

a. Mrs. Robinson 

b. Up, up, & up 

c. Break a leg 

d. Mojito in training

e. Too fast too furious

Some of the routes took climbers high above the canyon floor.

The canyon also is known for its series of beautiful waterfalls.  It makes the hike truly stunning.

Meeting the locals.

Traversing the water.

 

Croatia is also a very religious country.  You can even see evidence of this while hiking.

Beautiful panorama.

Beautiful closeup.