Murter, Murter, Where in the Heck is Murter?

The gale that kicked up at bedtime last night raged unabated throughout the night. The rain pounded the roof tiles and beat against the window of my bedroom accompanied by howling winds that made it feel like the house was going to lift off its foundation and carry us away.

Ever positive that she alone controls the weather, Aneta assured us that we would have a fine day for visiting the island of Murter, north and west of Skrodin. So we loaded up the car with our supplies, wrapped ourselves tightly in layers of warm, water repellant, clothing and headed out. The GPS directed us out of town along a country road and we blindly followed the directions. After many twists and turns and ever narrowing lanes we began driving on a dirt road. Not gravel, mind you, dirt! This continued for quite some time until we were finally redirected onto a newly blacktopped lane that eventually fed us onto a main highway. Phew! We thought. We sailed along heading west toward the island when we were suddenly confronted with a sign indicating that the road was closed. Another car pulled around us and we thought, "oh boy, a local who can let us know if this is a real road closure." Wrong. The driver turned his car around at the barricade and headed back the way he had come. We, on the other hand, had a brief discussion and decided that the other lane of traffic was open and we should drive around the barricade and see if the road was really closed up ahead. So we did. And it was. However, a nice man working in his yard saw us turning around to go back and came over and spoke to Aneta. He told her there was another way to get through and gave her directions. We struck off over a dirt path, up a hill, down a hill, through what looked like a major road construction work site full of heavy equipment and finally popped out on a paved highway with signs that said "Murter"! Aneta and I congratulated ourselves on being such adventurous girls and then Aneta leaned over and said, "I think that guy from the black car is following us." Sure enough, the fellow who had turned back at the barricade had rerouted himself to our tail lights and followed us all the way through the questionable detour. He stayed on our tail all the way to Murter!

Murter is a seaport town and charming. It looked like many small sea coast towns along the Oregon Coast; wet with rain, windy, peeling paint on wooden boats, etc. We found a bakery and purchased our habitual morning sweet breads to eat as we walked. We explored the marina and the pier and then headed to an outdoor coffee bar/cafe for a hot drink. Inside would have been more comfortable from the weather but they still allow smoking in cafe's in this country and outside was the only place for us to be to get away from a cloud of blue smoke.

Fot: Handsome man for whom Linda's heart pounded harder, Linda

We shared the outside covered area with two men. One man was older and had been blinded in one eye. His face was fairly badly disfigured. The other man was probably in his 40's and so drop dead good looking I could barely take my eyes off him. He was dark, had a beautiful square jaw with a deep dimpled cleft in his chin, black eyes and hair and chiseled features. I mentioned my fascination to Aneta and she wrinkled up her face to indicate she didn't quite agree! Then she said, "It is good thing we don't share same taste in men." Anyway I surreptitiously took a photo of the restaurant that just happened to include this Greek God. I'll look at him and appreciate his beauty on my own time.

Fot: It is a little bit raining weather, Alicja

The muffler on the car is broken. It concerns Aneta who doesn't like the content roar as she is driving. I tell her it sounds like a Porche and she doesn't buy it.

Fot: Betina's narrow street, Aneta

Aneta asks around for somewhere she can get the muffler fixed and someone tells her there is and AutoService in Betina. We finish our coffee and head back to the car for the trek to Betina. Before we leave the parking lot, however, Aneta and her mother are drawn to an open air market featuring fresh fruits and vegetables. We select some grapes, pick up a couple of tomatoes and some cucumbers for the ubiquitous Polish breakfast. The girl in the store sees Aneta under the car trying to wrest the broken tailpipe from its moorings when the girl from the store runs out and hails down a car with a coupke of men in it. They stop and jump out to hep Aneta. They are successful where she has failed in getting the broken part off the end of the muffler. They also tell her about the repair place in Betina so we load up and head out. Aneta finds the place easily from the directions she has been given and the man in charge tells us to come back in a hour and a half and he will have someone available to fix our problem. So we decide to walk around Betina in the wind and rain and try to enjoy the scenery over the choppy sea. The wind surfers are out in force and para-sailers also, taking advantage of the wind. We walk the length of "the most romantic city on Murter" - according to the girl from the bakery we visited earlier. We climb a long hill up to the church only to find it locked up tighter than a drum. We descend to the narrow cobbled street again and make our way out to the end of marina/pier where the wind has whipped up into a regular gale. We hurriedly seek refuge among the buildings along the narrow street as we try to find a restaurant where we can get in out of the rain and wind. We are already completely back to the main square before that happens, everything else having closed for the season with big "See you next summer!" signs on their doors. We eliminate the coffee bar on the far side of the square because it looks closed and opt for a decent looking place to our right on the corner. We enter and I am quite pleasantly surprised,thinking the restaurant looks very nice. I comment so to Aneta who again wrinkles up her nose and tells me "it is very Communistic."

"Really?" I say, "What's Communistic about it?"

"The red colors everywhere, the style of the furniture. It's Communistic style," she announces with assured disgust. Aneta doesn't like anything that smacks of the Communist influence anywhere in the world, it seems. I think the doer is sort of post modern and very nicely done at that. It is interesting how different eyes see the world. Our meal was very good and we ate with relish. As soon as we were finished Aneta jumped up and ran to take the car to the repair shop. When she returned she announced that it would be another hour and a half before we could get the car. The three "A's" decided to take a walk in the other direction from the restaurant toward the north end of the marina. I asked the waitress if they had wireless Internet and she said, "No,but they have across the street." I went over to the Polo Bar and ordered a coke, which I neither wanted or needed, and sat down at the table closet to the door so I might have a chance to keep breathing and looked at my email for the first time in a week. The room was filled with gawking men smoking cigarettes and filling the room with a constant blanket of smoke. I nearly choked to death in the place but I managed to identify a few important emails that needed a response and dashed off a couple. Email is almost my only lifeline in this place and a week without being able to check for messages was quite disturbing to me. I hate being so "wired" to this modern world but it is the only way I can keep up with my children and grandchildren, who have forgotten what a phone is.

Eventually Alicja and Ania showed up to sit with me and we immediately moved to the cold, wet tables outside because it simply would not have been civil to subject the baby to that horrible atmosphere. We huddled under an umbrella waiting for Aneta to return with the repaired car. Finally she came whizzing around the corner and stopped. We bolted for the car and jumped in as fast as we could.

The car sounded very different, I must admit. I asked Aneta how much it cost to get it fixed, as I was prepared to pitch in my third of the cost. It was about 75zl -or $25! Can you imagine getting anyone to work on your car for an hour and a half in the US for $25? I thought not.

We headed back to Skrodin for our last night in the comfort of Anna's lovely apartment but we violated the GPS instructions and headed on the highway toward Sibenik and then doubled back to Skrodin to avoid the muddy non-road we came over on the inbound journey. It took the GPS guy a while to get over the fact that we weren't going to turn around at the first available opportunity but he finally figured it out about the time we turned off the highway toward Skrodin.

We had a very late, light supper at around 8:30 pm after Aneta got the baby settled down and asleep for the night. We enjoy a nice visit around the kitchen table before heading off to bed. I really hated to think about leaving this place as the bed is the most comfortable I have slept on since I left the US.

That's all for this round folks. Happy reading!
Linda