Rio got a new camera for Christmas and that gave him a chance to try it out a bit. He gets better photos than his mother (but also has better equipment--I am too lazy to mess with anything other than a small point and shoot) Everything in the next section is his:
The 26th saw retail closed, and many, though not all, attractions. Restaurants and bars and cafes all seemed to be open though--giving us a chance to celebrate Marika's birthday with drinks and cake:
The following day we had a really nice, relaxing afternoon with a wine tasting at a local wine bar and shop. The tasting cost 100HRK (about 14 Euro) per person and included 3 generous pours, some great local cheese and breads, and a friendly, fun bit of local wine history and explanation (really good and informative and yet did not feel at all like a lecture). It also went at a nice, leisurely pace (I am sure you COULD rush it if you wanted to, but why?) and took about two hours total. Another nice value for the money, and a relaxing end to our time in Zagreb.
Before we knew it, it was time to pack up and get ready to head to Split. I woke up on our travel morning to this view out of our rental house window:
Ok, I probably should have been worried about road conditions and delays, but the thing is, I love snow. LOVE it. I was thrilled to see that beautiful white blanket on everything. Besides, we only had a 4 hour drive ahead of us, so even if things were nasty out and we needed much longer than normal, we would be fine. We also have excellent snow tires and two drivers who are good in winter conditions, having grown up in Colorado.
After a bit of loading and shoveling the drive (we didn't have to, the landlords were out doing it but Rio offered to help while Dave readied the car and Marika and i loaded the luggage), we were off. It was slow going, and driving that requires full concentration for the first couple of hours; roads were not being cleared as fast as they would be in a similar storm in Germany.
Fortunately we were past the worst of it, and roads were staying clean by the time we passed a sign advertising a Tesla Memorial Museum at the next exit. How COULD we pass that up?!?! 20 minutes, and a dozen little side streets later, we pulled up to the birth and childhood home, turned museum of Nikola Tesla. Luckily we were in time to be in the last group of visitors for the day. What an awesome surprise attraction for our family of nerds.
We began our visit IN Tesla's home until age 7 (when he moved to the "big city" we had driven through, yeah, not big, hardly a city). No photos were allowed inside, but it contains a number of exhibits on his life, including a timeline and some of the items he built and used for his experiments. It was fun to see and well laid out. We only spent about 15 minutes there as we had limited time and needed to be at the coil by 2:00 for the last demonstration of the day. We could have happily spent thirty or forty minutes had time allowed.
From there we went to the building (modeled after his lab in Colorado) that housed one of Tesla's own coils that he himself worked on. Again no photos were allowed inside. We've seen bigger coils in action at museums in the US, but this one was still pretty good sized and the older look and fact that Tesla himself used it made it feel very impressive.
The last building had this boat that Tesla used to demonstrate remote control for the first time (finally, something I was allowed to take a picture of), a theatre where a 20 minute movie about Tesla (focusing on his childhood, and a bit all over the map really) was shown, and a small gift shop (Marika got an awesome shirt).
I'll pick up on the next post with the views from that afternoon around sunset as we were just dipping into Split at that point.
--Hadley
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