I can't bike...I'm too old!

This post is for all my biking buddies, in honor of all the public meetings we've been to in SF to fight for better biking conditions. At these meetings we frequently hear from a few seniors that it would be unfair or unrealistic to remove a lane of traffic, or remove a few parking spaces, or slow traffic down to make cycling safer and eaiser, because old people can't bike. "It's for younger people, I can't ride a bike." A perfectly healthy senior will say.



Well of course you can't, you got into a car 50 years ago and never got out! That is what we want to avoid by making cycling so safe in SF that I will be biking all the years of my life, like these folks in Verazdin. Verazdin is a lovely town in Croatia, a potential UNESCO world heritage site, where the baroque old town is mostly closed to motor vehicles.

Rich and I sat at a cafe and calculated the average age of the cyclists go about their business, it was over 50 so these photos are not unusual. Maybe these folks were only going from the market to home, a kilometer or two, but they were doing it by bike.





Bike on!



And never stop fighting for better biking wherever you live.

Singing Dalmatians on my b day

Sorry, no photos, we haven't been able to upload our photos off the camera. (photos added on Oct 7th) But, I will help you imagine what it looks like here in Hvar. The sea is blue, very very clear, and warm. The town wraps around a harbor and up the hills. There are no cars allowed on most of the streets around the harbor so except for the sounds of the cafes and clubs after dark it is a lovely quiet town. It is a more upscale vacation town then anywhere else we've been in Croatia. Yachts are moored along the waterfront and fancy cafes and bars with new minimalist decor keep watch. It won't be long before P. Diddy is mooring his yacht here.



On on first night in town we saw a poster for a concert, the top vocal group on the Dalmation Coast was performing in the 17th century monastery cloister. I know, visions of singing dalmatian dogs danced in my mind too, but it was a group of three tenors, two baritones, and three bass singers, all male. Two of the bass singers had the deepest bass voices I'd ever heard. They sang unaccompanied for the first half, then with only a guitar. All Dalmatian folk songs.



It was dark and the monastery was lit up, underlighting the bats which flew overhead. The songs were wonderful, even without understanding any of the words we enjoyed them. The group is called a Klappa, we means they are a group of friends who sing for fun together. As one of the bass singers translated for the audience, it is all about wine, friends, and singing. They do it not because they are professionals, but because they love it. I teased Rich on the walk over that they were most likely the Tom Jones of the Dalmatian Coast, the darlings of the Croatian housewives, who would scream and throw panties on the stage. Any panty chucking and I'm out of here, Rich said.

No panties were thrown, the concert was great, and we have spent the rest of our time walking around and swimming. We are staying up the hill a bit in a room with a terrace and a view of the harbor and the islands. Today we catch the ferry to Split.

Catch up to Croatia

We are now in Croatia, on the Island of Korčula.



We went from Montenegro to Dubrovnik (photo above) on the bus, stayed in a nice little apartment close to the beach in the Lapa neighborhood, which was a short bus ride from the old city of Dubrovnik. The rain finally let up our second day in Dubrovnik (we resisted buying an umbrella) and we got to walk the city walls in sunshine and without crowds. We discovered that as long as you get where you want to be before about 9:30 the hoards of bus tourists will not be there yet. The walls around the old city are 2 km long and six meters thick on parts of the land side. We visited the musuem where I was, frankly, disappointed by the dungeon. It is called the dragon dungeon, and was a real active dungeon. I turned to Rich and said, it's not very cold in here. I always thought dungeons were really cold, and damp. It's not very damp either. So, Rich said, you're saying that the dungeon is a disappointment.

Here in Croatia the monetary unit is the Kuna. The exchange rate is about 6 kuna to the dollar. Knowing my off the cuff math skills as most of you probably do, you can imagine how much fun I am having trying to calculate things into dollars. For example, we walked down to the beach from our apartment and decided to sit for a while. You can rent beach chairs and umbrellas which are controlled by the various cafes. Our two beach chairs cost 20 Kuna, which my brain registers as a lot of money. Yeah, not really.

Here's a photo for the cat people, cats in Split.