So this trip goes back almost three years, though it changed completely in the process. We originally planned a two-week tour in China for our 25th anniversary, in June 2020. We worked closely with a agent at A&K who designed a custom itinerary for just the two of us, and we put down a deposit way back in the summer of 2019. The good old days!
We all know what happened to travel plans in the Summer of 2020. Of course, we had to cancel the China trip, and A&K held the deposit towards a future rescheduling of that trip within the next year. Sounds good. We celebrated our anniversary at home with a nice meal - not the same as being in Xi'an with the terracotta warriors, but we still had lots to be thankful for.
As 2020 came to a close and 2021 seemed no better, we negotiated with A&K to give us another 6 months extension to try to schedule China. They were fine with that, but as 2021 progressed, China showed no sign of opening up. So back to the negotiating table - can we perhaps use the funds for another trip? Finally they agreed.
We looked at a few options and Europe seemed the safest bet. We have been wanting to visit Slovenia for years, as Lake Bled looks amazing. And we'd visited a number of other spots in the region virtually. We have an iFit treadmill which allows you to do video workouts in many locations worldwide. Several of the series were based in Croatia and Slovenia, so we had already "walked" through Plitvice Lakes, Split, Stari Most, and a number of other beautiful places. We decided that we'd like to visit in person.
So A&K came up with a custom itinerary for us, 12D/11N, which took in almost everything that we wanted to see.
We started in Ljubljana for 3 nights, including plenty of time in the city and a full-day tour of the Lake Bled region. From there we'd go to Zagreb for 2 nights to see the city and the Highlands of Croatia, including Trakoscan Castle. After Zagreb we had a long drive to Split, but we'd break that up by stopping in Plitvice Lakes for some hiking. While in Split for 3 nights, we'd also visit Krka National Park, and go for some wine tasting (I think A&K know us very well!). Our last stop was Dubrovnik for 3 nights, where we'd also do some wine tasting.
It was a great itinerary! A nice mix of parks, outdoor activity, and a chance to explore some food and wine that might not be familiar to us. The hotels that A&K chose seemed pretty nice. Plus a chance to see Split and Dubrovnik without several thousand cruise ship passengers clogging up the city! Our one visit to Dubrovnik 15 years ago was on a cruise ship, and it was so packed.
Now all that was left was to arrange the air. I looked into some European hubs that might be handy and found direct flights from Paris to Ljubljana (Air France), and Dubrovnik to Paris (Air Croatia). So I broke up our itinerary and bought RT tickets from Albany to Paris, arriving a day before the tour, and leaving several days after the tour. Then I got one-way tickets from Paris-Ljubljana and Dubrovnik-Paris. So we'd have time on either end to relax in Paris. All set?
Of course, Air Croatia canceled the nonstop flight a few weeks before the trip. And even worse, they never notified us or our TA. I only found out by accident when I was on their website checking the luggage allowance, and found that they no longer had our reservation listed! It took some time but I finally found a different itinerary leaving that same afternoon, but out of Tivat (Montenegro), on Air Serbia, with a connection in Belgrade. Not nearly as nice as a non-stop, but what can you do?
We kept a close eye on Covid regulations and it was nice to see that travel was getting easier as the Spring season began. So we were hopeful that we'd be able to do this trip without too much hassle. Now to pack and try to enjoy ourselves!
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