Trusting your Tour Guide

Nearby Maastricht is Fort Sint Pieter.  The fort was built around 1700 and saw a lot of action, given its very strategic, central location.

Nearby are caves, which are actually mines.  A point if you can guess what was mined here!  Caves as you might think are unusual in the Netherlands, and for some reason, calling your underground labyrinth a cave rather than a mine draws more tourists.  Shrug.

Heading underground with our tourguide.

The mines have a very rich history.  The excavation of the mines started in a haphazard fashion when individual farmers or landowners would mine directly underneath what they owned.  (This is the area you can see to the right on the map below, where the tunnels look completely random.)  Later, the church, which owned more land, undertook a more systematic exploration of the tunnels, where paths met at right angles (the area on the left of the map).  Imagine getting lost in here!    

But the history of these mines gets only more interesting.  During many times over the course of history, the mines were used as places for people to hide and take shelter.  The mines hosted a chapel, bakery, and a hospital during WWII.  They were tons of charcoal drawings, and some of these date from the time of WWII, showing which areas served which purpose.

After the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the Nazis also used these caves.  They had occupied Amsterdam and the famous Rijksmuseum, which hosted hundreds of priceless pieces of art.  Because they also did not want to damage the pieces of art by moving them all back to Germany during the war, the Nazis used these tunnels as a safe storage place, somewhere they could keep the paintings and then move them to Germany at a later time.

This is the door leading into the chamber where many of these paintings were stored.  

Walking into vault.

The paintings were stored on movable wire "walls" that could be slid on tracks, keeping everything safe.  This particular portion of the cave was also climate controlled with an air conditioning system that was state of the art at the time.

You may be wondering what happened to the very famous "Night Watch" by Rembrandt during this time.  If you ever have seen this painting in person - it is huge - nearly 12 feet high and more than 14 feet long.  It was far too large to be stored on these walls, so instead, it was wrapped in oriental carpets and placed in the corner.  It was someone's job every day to turn a crank so that the painting/rug roll was rotated by 90 degrees every day, so that it was not permanently deformed.  After the Netherlands was liberated, the art was restored back to its home in the Rijksmuseum.

Paintings were not the only things on the walls - there was also graffiti, dating back to at least the 1950s...

Through the tunnels.

Our tour guide is briefing us on what we are about to do.  He's going to turn off the lights.  Ok, no big deal, I've been in caves and mines so many times and I've experienced complete darkness so I wasn't worried.  But then he said we are going to walk through the caves without light.  In the pitch blackness.

Let me tell you this - walking in the dark is completely different than just being in the dark.

He had us walk down the tunnel you see behind us with one hand on the wall.  My brain knew that he wouldn't have us walk down a tunnel that had any dropoffs, or pieces of rock hanging from the ceiling, or sharp turns.   But my brain was also causing rising panic.  Ok, I kept my cool.  Still, it was quite an experience, and a lot scarier than I thought it would be.

Into the tunnel, blind.  Notice the painting behind our tour guide.

Bram, our light carrier, checks out some of the paintings.

Chasing Waterfalls

There really are mystical places in this world.

Welcome to Plitvička Jezera, the place with the highest waterfall density in the world (or at least close!) and one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.

Entering the park

Plitvička Jezera is a park with beautiful green and blue lakes and literally thousands of waterfalls. This is the view that first greets us.  Amazing!

The geology of this region is really interesting.  Geologically speaking, the area is young (only about 15,000 years old).  Plitvička Jezera is made up of 16 lakes, all at different levels.

The lakes are formed when carbonic acid, formed naturally from carbon dioxide and rain, slowly dissolves the limestone in the canyon, creating deep lakes.  In this chemical reaction, chalk is formed, which is then deposited in various locations.  Currently, the deep lakes at various levels are separated by high "pillars" of chalk, naturally holding in the lakes on various levels, and creating waterfalls between them.

Cross section of the lakes.
Thanks to: "Plitvice Lakes System" by Raffaello - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plitvice_Lakes_System.png#mediaviewer/File:Plitvice_Lakes_System.png

Because of this dynamic process, the layout of the lakes and waterfalls is constantly changing and is never the same.

The water is also amazingly pure and clear.  

Look!  Fish!

Another neat thing about the park is that most of the paths throughout the park are boardwalks. These boardwalks let you walk right above the lakes and the waterfalls.  Sometimes, the boardwalks are just barely above the waterfalls, causing them to become quite wet!

Boardwalks through the forest.

Boardwalks over the marsh.

And more boardwalks over waterfalls.

The chemical dissolution of the rock also cause the formation of several caves in the area.

This cave is the cave "without a roof or a floor".

It is said that the color of the water is constantly changing, depending on the vegetation in the water. When we were there, the color ranged from a light, foamy turquoise, to a deep dark blue.

Here you can easily see the lake in between the canyon walls.

Walking next to the waterfalls.

How often can you get a selfie with fish?

Croatia is one of the few places in Europe that is still "wild".  We even saw some wildlife in the park.

You can hike in the park, but sometimes, the way is cut off by deep water and steep cliffs.  In that case, you have to resort to taking the boat!

This brought us to a particularly mossy area with a huge waterfall density.

It sort of looks like some mythical place, like Naboo or Rivendell.

Looking back down on the park at the end of the day: here you can see several of the lakes at different levels with waterfalls joining them, and a serpentine boardwalk with one lone tourist finishing his late afternoon hike.

Island Hopping Roman Tourist Style

An essential part of visiting a coastal country is leaving the country behind you as you head out to the water.

Croatia has thousands of little islands spread out along its coastline, tops of a mostly submerged mountain range.  Bram and I hit a boat to see the islands, some of which make up the Kornati Park.

Across the sea from Zadar, many towns dot the islands.

These islands were actually a top tourist destination for Roman tourists.  Imagine being a Roman, making the trip across the Adriatic to your "summer home" on the islands.

Bridging two islands.

The geology was pretty cool.  Check out the upheaval in this island. 

The islands used to be populated by sheep and goat herders.  These herders let their livestock eat these islands bare, so some of these islands, to this day, have little or no vegetation, not even grass.  Sometimes, you could see the ancient ruins of these "sheep pens".  

More interesting geologic upheaval.

It turns out that more and more islands are constantly being born.  This is because Italy is slowly moving towards Croatia at a rate of 4 mm per year, pushing more and more islands above the level of the water. 

On the boat, we enjoy a lunch of freshly caught grilled fish.  Bram, who ordinarily is not the world's biggest fish fan, loved them.

The sea was very clear.  Even from the boat, you could see the bottom of the sea.

We stopped for a snorkeling break... 

... where I encounter some of the wildlife!

It is a commonly known fact among sea gulls that if you follow the tourist boats, you get fed.  The seagulls were SMART.  They knew exactly when to come by - they showed up mid morning, and sure enough, 15 minutes later we were served little sandwiches.  They also followed us all during lunch, when they got some tasty bread handouts.

When the seagulls disappeared, we knew we wouldn't be getting any more free snacks for a while...

Later in the afternoon, we stopped at this quiet island.

But we did see something very interesting here.  We saw a shark!  A point if you can correctly guess what we saw the shark eating:

a. a fish     b. a scuba diver     c. an inner tube     d. a squid     e. a pizza