[ is this the morning we awoke to this ...?]
Decided to take a road trip to Trogir, a lovely island off the coast and a short distance north of us. We had looked up people named "Pavkovic," which at the time we thought was our original family name, and found a hotel owner in Trogir.
We got to Trogir and immediately got terribly lost walking around outside the old town area. Finally made it back into the old walled portion of the town, which was quite nice.
We stopped at an information center and met Ana, who was U.S. educated but had returned to Croatia to live. We were wanting to know how to fine Villa Lavandula, where the Pavkovics lived. She walked us down to a travel agency owned by the Pavkovics. The young man working there told us how to get to the Villa (it was a drive outside of Trogir) and promised to call and tell them we would be stopping by. In the meantime we asked Ana if she could suggest someplace for us to eat genuine Croatian food. She made us a list of dishes to try, and a list of restaurants on the island.
We walked around the down and down to the harbor. We climbed the St. Mark's Tower. Inside there were stalactites and little alcoves with pigeons. The view from the top was mostly of the harbor and was very beautiful. We offered to take pictures for people in the tower, and they returned the favor.
We walked back through town looking for one of the places Ana had suggested, and came upon "Alka." We were welcomed warmly, and accompanied to a lovely quiet garden setting. We placed our order with our waiter: mineral water, black risotto (risotto flavored and colored with squid ink, with chunks of squid), Salad Alka (sheep and cow cheese aromatic with rosemary, cucumbers, tomatoes, red bell peppers, lettuce, onions,) and pasticade with gnocchi (beef marinated in vinegar.) We asked our very attentive waiter to choose a white wine from Istria for us. He tried to talk us out of the black risotto - we think he was worried it would gross us out. He don't know us vewy well, do he? Our waiter was very nice and helpful, but he kept calling us "lady" and it reminded us of Jerry Lewis. Everything was wonderful, and we loved the black risotto. For dessert we had creme caramel. Our waiter said, "it's an aphrodisiac," and he was a little shocked when we said, "You better watch out!" Then our waiter, Theresa, made us have a Port-like liqueur.
We had now had a full bottle of wine and two after-dinner drinks between us and we were pretty tanked up. We walked over to the info office to thank Ana. When she saw us coming she said, "What did I do wrong?" Suzanne made her bend down (she was quite tall) and kissed her on the forehead ala Barry and Ira in "City Slickers." Ana said, very sternly, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN DRINKING??" We said, right where you told us to! (Another Theresa, always making us do stuff.) We told her what a great experience we had at Alka.
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Dancing 'round Stonehenge a la Spinal Tap. That was some good wine.
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