Travels with Louise-Yugoslavia just in time!
By LOUISE HIGHES

One of my friends who travles the world told me that if I could only get to one country be sure it is Yugoslavia. Luckily, I believed her. Thank you sally Broadbent!

Ginny coley, an old friend in Belleview, Fl. had asked me to please take her on a trip to anywhere so when I realized it was now or never for Jugoslavia ( their spelling) I called Ginny and she said "When do we leave?" as she is close to Orlando, I drove to her hose, slept over and took the shuttle to the airport, then JAT airline from JFK to Belgrade.

I made reservations with grand circle for an extended trip using their airfare and hotels but renting our own car in two cities. This worked perfectly and from Belgrade we flew to Zagreb and to a bus to Lake Bled. This is a veritable fairyland in the Alps of slovenia on a gorgeous big lake with a tiny island complete with a castle. We reserved two rooms in each hotel on this trip and I rented a car in Opatija for a week and another car in Dubrovnik for a month availing ourselves of the lovely bus along the steep coast. All the way down, we counted smashed cars far below on the rocks and were happy to have Bronko our excellent driver. There is only one road scouth in the mountainous land.

Our rooms in the park hotel in Bled were very pretty and the view is spectacular-Bled is tiny and no car was needed. You could walk everywhere or grab a bus ride around the lake, even carriage rides are available.

What a splendid location and you can go there now-Italy and Austria are close, all part of the Alps. On one stroll we saw a Reebok Shoe Factory! Slovenia did not get involved in the war and tourism is alive and well. Best of all they are not in the E.U. as yet, so I believe bargains are still available!

Our lavish dinners and breakfasts were included and the food was excellent. We did not know a lot about the local cuisine but it is a great combination of their own plus Italian and Austrian. We were lucky to be here at Easter and I've never seen more beautiful displays of food, a real celebration all day.

The reason I chose this combination of self drive and grand circle as my attempts at Croatian brought hysterics to anyone who heard them. To make it harder through the mystifying logic of the powers that be, five languages and now three, Slovenian, SerboCroatian and Macedonian most understand Croatian and also try German and Italian. Small children must study English and usually any kid will help you and use them and your phrase book plus your smile.

Of course, Marco our charming guide and Bronko spoke English and some of the hotel staffs. I tried to learn just basic words but with minimal success. Ginny said no way and did not read maps or drive but was one of the best travel mates ever. Happy- said go anywhere and will love it and she did.

We took a bus ride around the lake with Marco to the palace "Grimlice"which had a great gift shop. I coveted a handmade wool coat much like a huge bathrobe with a cool painting on the back, $225I passed.

Money is in "Dinars" and I laughed at Ginny who liked to call it dinners and never changed. With her gorgeous red hair and big grin she was a hit.

The next day she forced me on the local bus to return to the Palace. I told the driver "Stan eechi" and he dropped me off below the Palace!! I walked up the hill-out came the coat. $180!! No commission! Ginny was happy-she didn't want to listen to me moaning about that coat for six weeks.

The next day Bronko drove us over the Alps to Lake Maria Worth-we heard rumblings of war.

We visited Klagenfurt and shopped. As I stepped off the bus an Austrian man kissed me on my cheek saying welcome. How nice! Austria is wonderful.

All of the scenery was stunning- snow in most places so I was glad I could enjoy just looking. We passed a concentration camp, then we saw a beautiful ski resort at Kranjska-Gora, the biggest one in Yugoslavia, in what is called the Julian Alps. There are many ski resorts here with all of the amenities you can dream of . A glorious introduction to this incredible land. How did that shopping bag of Austrian chocolate appear between us! Yum!

The scenery anywhere in the delightful part of the world brings out our cameras often. We'll mine at least as Ginny prefers post cards and we found lots of them. So far I picked up a very few

Croatian words-Da-yes; neh-no; moleem-that's ok; havala-thanks; sladoled-ice cream; dobar-good; kahfoo-coffee; dobar dan-good afternoon; doleeko-how much? That's enough use the book as the language is impossible to learn in a short time but you meed to make a stab at it which makes the people really like yo. Another good thing here is the signs "Please drink our water," it is safe and cold.

We enjoyed the evening walks along the Promenade and we did take the horse drawn carriage around the lake-the castle on the island is brightly lit-there are

boutiques open and restaurants but our hotel's food was so good that we only tried the delish ice cream shops. My try for a pizza had us laughing. I wanted pizza marguarita. The true Italian cheese pizza but the cooks waned to put more ingredients on it-I'm saying neh, neh-mozzarella only-I had a hard time but I won to their chagrin as they thought I was crazy. But a good one.

So tomorrow we are off to Opatija and will pick up our car and explore on our own-lovely wine here is $1.00 a litre and we have all that Austrian chocolate so here we come, excited and happy.