A vacation from our vacation...Rab Island, Croatia

Day 15– September 16, 2006 – Rab Island, Croatia

The view from our room in Rab

On the other Rick Steves’ tour I have been on, they incorporated what they call a “vacation from your vacation” stop. It’s usually a 2 night stop in a place that’s laid back and relaxing. This tour was no different and Rab Island was our “vacation from our vacation” destination on this trip.

CL and I “slept in” and didn’t get up until 7am, I know, that’s early for some, but it worked for us because we could have an unhurried breakfast and set out for adventure when we wanted. Around 9:30am we stopped at the ATM to load up on Croatian money since we would be coming back into Croatia for the second portion of the trip, “a la” Marcy style. Then we walked along the harbor and up into one of the several bell towers that are in Rab Town and traipsing through the old winding streets. Since it was still fairly early there were very few people out and about. The picture to the right is of 2 of the bell towers of Rab.

Later in the morning we walked along the main shopping street, which were mostly lots of little touristy shops. We bought some postcards and of course we had to have some gelato…the chocolate was delicious. We also walked through the park that runs along the water and have several pathways within the park. During our walk we found a cute little art gallery and although I was not looking to purchase anything in particular, I found a small oil painting of a pretty scene of Rab. What I liked about this painting, aside from thinking it was very pretty, was that it was done by a local artist and his wife ran the gallery. How could I pass that up!

Early in the afternoon CL and I went to the grocery store to get some provisions for the Happy Hour we were having tonight. That was a comical event. We had purchased some cookies at a bakery that we intended to bring since we had the reputation on the tour for sniffing out the best local bakeries. So we wanted to bring a sweet dessert wine to go with the cookies. Well, neither of can read or speak Croatian so we stood in front of the shelves lined with wine bottles trying to figure out which one to buy…what a dilemma! We didn’t want to get the wrong kind of wine! Looking back now, there probably is never the wrong kind of wine to buy, someone in the group would have drunk it! But instead we purchased a huge bottle of pivo (beer) and even though beer does not go with cookies either, somewhere along the line the bottle got emptied!

After the grocery store, wine shopping, pivo buying excursion, we went back to the hotel. I just wanted to chill out and sit by the pool and read my book. Of course the minute we sat down in the deck chairs it started to rain. We trekked back to the hotel room to lay on the bed and read and promptly fell asleep!

We woke up about 4:30pm, just in time to freshen up and head downstairs to happy hour. Since it was still raining our outdoor happy hour got moved inside, but that didn’t stop us from having a good time.

We had fun eating and drinking in a laid back setting. And several tour members brought their “most useless” item they brought on the trip. Some of the things were pretty funny!

At about 8pm we had dinner at a local place, which I didn’t catch the name of but I had the most delicious grilled sea bass. The restaurant was filled with locals and because while we were having dinner it started to rain, actually it started coming down in buckets; we stuck around, had another liter of wine and waited out the rain. It was almost 12:30am by the time we got back, but one of the best meals I have had! It was a perfect way to end a great stay in Rab.