We were up and ready and had eaten breakfast by about 8:30 and checkout was not until 11:00, so I thought we would have just enough time to walk to Lake Bled and get a pletna boat out to the small island in the lake. A pletna boat is unique to Lake Bled – it is powered by a standing rower in the rear of the boat, and there is no rudder – the entire boat is steered and powered by the one man.

It was a beautiful, if slightly cool, morning, so the half-mile walk was quite pleasant. We got to the boat dock and did not see any boatsmen around. Then, a bus pulled up and a group of about thirty Asian tourists got off. On cue, two boatsmen showed up and got the group on board two boats. The second man indicated he had room on his boat, so he let us on, which was very kind of him.

Our boat trip was very quiet for most of the trip, with the exception that the Asian tourists were laughing and chatting some. As we got toward the island, they all wanted to take pictures in the front of the boat, which involved a lot of shifting around, which caused one fairly exciting listing of the boat. That incident settled everyone down.

We got off the boat at the foot of the main stairway to the church on the island. There are ninety-nine steps, and tradition holds that a man should carry his bride up the stairs on his way to get married to prove he is ready for marriage. I told Meredith we would do well to walk up them, but as that is where the tour group went, we took the quiet path to the left of the stairs that led around to the back of the island. It was just a little after 9:00, and it was very quiet. The Olympic rowing center already had rowers on the lake, but they did not make any noise.

We made our way to the back of the island, where we found a smaller staircase, which we took up to the church. Since the tour group was in line to get in, we ducked into the souvenir shop that had a small art gallery on the second floor, which we had all to ourselves. The art was mainly modern religious art from the 1930s-1960s, which I enjoyed very much. They also had a room full of handmade clay dolls, each sporting a folk costume of a country in the European Union.

We headed back outside, and we thought we did not have enough time to tour the church and bell tower (the boats strictly give you forty minutes on the island), so we walked down the main stairs in front of the church. In a nod to our forty-something bodies, I did not carry Meredith up the stairs, but we did hold hands as we walked up them without stopping. That makes us as ready to be wed as we need to be after almost seventeen years of marriage.

We were rowed back to shore at a slightly different place from where we started, and the tourists disembarked. Mer and I were left on board and got a short private trip back to the original docks. On the way, the main town church chimed out its bells for the 10:00 mass, and it rang out over the lake. It was peaceful and beautiful.

We walked back to the tourist farm, where we packed and checked out. We were headed to Motovun, in Croatia, a little over two hours away. We stopped about an hour into the drive at a rest stop to spend our remaining seven euros in change on three candy bars, which we thought was an excellent investment.

Most of the trip to Motovun was along a major highway, but happily the GPS won out again, taking us off the highway in order to take us along the shortest route, which ended up being a winding road followed by a more-or-less one-lane road. I’m glad I can count on some things being consistent, even when we left the mountains behind.

Motovun is a hill town on the Istrian Peninsula, which is very close to Italy, and in fact was part of Italy from the end of WWI to the end of WWII, when it became part of Yugoslavia and then Croatia. The area has a very Italian feel, with lots of vineyards and olive farms.

Being a hill town, the town is (wait for it) on a hill. It is also a walled town, so our guidebook warned us parking was limited. We told the man at the bottom of the hill we were staying at a small B and B just inside the lower wall, and he let us in for free. Then, at the end of the road at the top of the hill, we were waved on again, this time going up a medieval cobblestone street which was about twelve feet wide, in a car, with pedestrians everywhere. More happy nerve-wracking driving. We made it to the lot just outside the wall and parked, but later I moved the car out of the town so I would not have to face the tourist crowds in the morning. Yikes.

Our B and B has a terrace with a spectacular view of the western valley. We grabbed lunch from a restaurant and got it as take-out so we could eat it on the terrace. I had warned Meredith that today was going to be low-key. After lunch, we wandered the walled town and then the road up to the town, including the small cemetery outside the walls. That all only took about an hour, even in strolling mode. We went back to our little terrace so I could plan my next move. I read about a lot of cool-sounding things, but they all sounded tiring. That was my clue we should take a nap, which is what we did. On our trips, I have found that a nap about halfway through the vacation goes a long way to keeping the energy up.

After the nap, we grabbed more food as take-out, and we ate on the terrace and watched the sun go down – spectacular. Once it was quite dark out, we wandered the thirteenth-century walls, which are beautifully lit, and on which we only met two pairs of people on the entire fifteen-minute walk. I did meet a fluffy kitty on a wall, whom I stopped to scratch his head. He was super friendly, and then he walked away a bit and marked his territory, part of which now seemed to include my right hand. Happily, Mer had water and hand sanitizer with her.

So, I guess today was all about letting quiet and beauty seep into our souls, along with a little needed rest. Tomorrow the touring can start again.