Well, my sister and I spent the last 2 weeks of Sept in Croatia. We arrived in Zadar by overnight ferry from Ancona, IT (having arrived in Ancona after a 19 hr trip from Patras, GR). We hooked up with the maternal relatives I met 3 years ago...my sister meeting them for the first time, took her to my grandpa's village of Tribanj; met the extended cousins, way up in the Velebits (just as challenging to climb up there as the first time). Had homemade ham, bread, grapes right off the vine. After a few days in Zadar we took the intercity bus down the coast to Dubrovnik and spent some time there. The coastal route is beautiful. Stayed out at Lapad Bay, did the whole wall walk (took 3.5 hours - in the sun - lots of ups and downs - steps), spent several days exploring Dubrovnik, then another intercity bus to Zagreb, where we spent 6 days. In Zagreb two days were devoted to exploring (on foot) the city and the Dolac market, etc. One rainy day was spent in museums. We saw the Botanical gardens, went to Miragoj cemetery (utterly fabulously breathtaking sculpture everywhere you turn). We spent 1 day driving into the countryside in a rental car, seeing Kumrovec (the ethnographic village/museum), visited the Brdovec old cemetery and the Laduc cemetery (lots of relatives both places), and met some paternal relatives. We spent an entire day hiking in Plitvice Nat'l Park. The only real disappointment was that my dad's 85 year old cousin who had written to us this summer died 6 days before we got to Zagreb. We did meet other paternal relatives; but it was a shock to be crawling through the cemetery and suddenly see her grave. Croatia is beautiful. In the area near Knin there is still much visible war damage ...many homes have been abandoned. One or 2 small towns we passed were completely devastated. Karlovac also has unrepaired damage. We saw some houses on the coast south of Split with damage and a few inside the walls of Dubrovnik, but it looks like most of Dubrovnik has been repaired. Much of the damage I saw 3 years ago near Zadar has been fixed. People were wonderful, warm and friendly. Food was great...we had goulash, cevacipi, sarma, and walnut rolls, lots of other local dishes. Also pizza. we tried all the beers and liked Karlovacko the best! Our 2-3 dozen words of Croatian got us through ok. And of course I always had my little dictionary with me for ready reference (especially for the menus). We had spent the 2 prior weeks in Greece, mostly on the islands (which is where we were when the Sept. 11 attacks happened), but that's a whole OTHER trip report. All in all, a very good vacation!