We drove to Ljubljana, Slovenia to stay one night in the old city. We walked up four flights of stairs to our cute apartments.
The next day we toured beautiful Slovenia. Kylie, Emi, Zoe and Rosie enjoyed the train ride into the largest cave in Europe-Postonja Cave. During the 1800's this cave received electricity before the capital city. Our favorite castle, Predjama castle, is close by so we went there next. The girls enjoyed listening to the hand-held devices telling about each room in the castle that belonged to the infamous Erasmus Predjama who got on the wrong side of the Austrian rulers. We were so happy to see that our granddaughters liked the old European cities with cobblestone streets, old buildings, outdoor restaurants, different foods etc.
That afternoon we drove to the Croatian coast to stay in Rovinj for 3 nights. Dave and family got to stay in a cute small apartment in the old town that has to pull downstairs leading to a small roof-top patio overlooking the sea. Emi and Kylie had breakfast on the roof the next morning. We were across the street and could talk to the girls from our window. Sometime during the trip we visited the Pula Arena.
On Saturday, we had a relaxing day walking around the cute narrow streets of Rovinj looking in various unique shops selling all kinds of artwork, clothing, etc. We had dinner by the waterfront. Kylie and Perry had squid and Emi had mussels and Jen and I had seafood risotto. The next morning, Zoe and Rosie decided not to climb the 192 rickety steps up the St Euphemia Church. So Rosie, Zoe and I waited on the patio overlooking the sea. Rosie spent the time trying to befriend a seagull
On Monday we drove from Rovinj to Trieste, Italy. We brought Dave and family to the train station where they took a train to Venice for 2 days and then on to tour Florence. In Florence, they loved taking a cooking class learning how to make pizza and gelato. In pairs they each created their own gelato and pizza.
In Trieste, Perry and I caught a flight to Rome for a short stay to visit the Rome Temple. Perry served as a young missionary in Italy for 2 years and before we returned home it was our dream to visit the Rome temple.
We arrived back in Rijeka on Wednesday and on Friday we picked up Dave and family in Trieste. From Trieste we toured Slovenia for 1 1/2 days. We drove over the Vrsić pass, enjoyed Ljubljana and Bled Castle.
Dave and Jen and girls attended church in our Branch. David and Jen both gave talks on how to strengthen families and our granddaughters sang a beautiful primary song. We really appreciated their family participating in our Sunday meeting. It was Zoe's 9th birthday so we sang "Sretan Rodendan a ti" to Zoe. It's tradition to pull the birthday child's ears one time for each year. So we counted to nine as Jen pulled her ears!
Later we invited our missionaries over for dinner and fit twelve people in our tiny apartment. We had birthday cake for Zoe. Poor Emi twisted her ankle walking to the bus on Sunday. (In fact when she arrived home in the US, she had her foot x-rayed and a tiny piece of bone was chipped off. So unfortunately, she is wearing a boot and crutches for 6 weeks.) So on Monday the rest of the family drove 2 hours to tour Plitvice Lakes National Park and Emi and I chilled at our apartment. Emi read a fun historical novel for school and we made a cake using Croatian mixes that we needed to use google translate for. It was a big hit!
