Radovljica, Slovenia

On our way back to Austria at the end of our paragliding trip, we spent the night in Radovljica, a small town of no particular significance. We had the option of staying in the larger city of Ljubljana, but I'm glad we stopped where we did since I enjoy small towns more than big cities. It still amazes me how these towns have existed for a thousand years or more. They've grown, of course, but they still resemble the ancient towns in outline.



In the morning before we left Shelley and I wandered around town and down to the river.





Much of what we saw of Slovenia was forested hills.



Interesting mix of old and new artwork on the walls.





See all 11 photos as a slideshow or overview

Split, Croatia

During our travels in Slovenia and Croatia in search of decent paragliding conditions, we stopped for a few hours in Split, Croatia to check out the Diocletian's Palace. "Palace" is a bit misleading since it's more like a small walled town that included a palace. Game of Thrones fans will be interested to hear that this was the location for filming the fourth season. Dubrovnik (which some of our group also visited) even had Game of Thrones tours to show you the various locations used for filming.

The view from the top was worth paying to climb the highest tower.





Bougainvillea is one of my favorites and this was a huge one. (I wonder if the Romans had Bougainvillea?)



Not sure who this guy was.



When I first saw this sphinx I wondered what it was doing here. Apparently the palace was decorated with numerous 3500 year old granite sphinxes that were taken from the site of the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III. Only a few remain.



I love all the small stone passageways in these old towns.



But there were modern shops and restaurants and even homes within the palace complex, which was a little incongruous. But who wouldn't want to buy their lingerie in an ancient palace?



See all 13 photos as a slideshow or overview

Makarska, Croatia

We spent a few days in Makarska, a pretty little seaside town in Croatia, and enjoyed wandering the harbor and the trails around town. We only managed to get one paragliding flight due to the weather, but it's a great location and we'd love to come back here and fly some more.



Some kids had caught a bag full of crabs and were taking them home for supper.



The trail south of town.







Fish (sardines?) being sold straight off the boat:



This cat was taking advantage of the bread that someone had put out to feed the pigeons:



And, of course, reflections in the harbor:



The last day we tried to fly late in the afternoon, but the clouds were covering the normal launch and our attempt to find an alternate launch didn't work out. Interesting light through the clouds though.



See all 38 photos as a slideshow or overview

Paragliding Makarska, Croatia

I had another amazing flight today, this time at Makarska, Croatia. Conditions were not ideal and we weren't sure we'd be able to fly, but we made it into the air. It's quite a long drive up the mountain, into a national park, and then about a 20 minute hike to the launch.



From launch you could look down to the town. The LZ (landing zone) on the beach looked pretty tiny from up here!



The launch was rocky but otherwise pretty good.



Nick went first to check out the conditions and then flew straight down to the LZ to talk people through their landings.



Most people just headed down, but I managed to stay up on the ridge, scratching for bits and pieces of lift. After about 40 minutes I got up above the ridge and level with the clouds and took a cruise along the face. At the end of the face I started to get sucked up into a bigger cloud so I headed for the beach. This is an amazing site, you are 4000 feet above the Mediterranean sea, flying beside 1000 foot cliffs. It was quite warm on the ground and I didn't wear my heavier gloves, a choice I sorely regretted as I lost the feeling in all but my forefingers and thumbs, which were luckily all I needed to fly! Thankfully I recorded this flight on video. (My memory card filled up after an hour, but I got all but the final descent.)

Here's a two minute clip about 40 minutes into the flight to give you a taste of what it was like:



And the Doarama 3D visualization to get an idea of the overall flight:



And Shelley's video of landing at the beach:



We're hoping the weather will cooperate to get another flight here tomorrow.