3 The Bronzan Connection

At gate 52 we connected with the Bronzan’s who had taken a later flight. It was good to see them. Dave looked great, rare’n to go in spite of surviving a recent root canal. “Love the hat Dave.” Speaking of roots, David has strong ties to Croatia, half Croatian on his father’s side with multiple trips under his belt. Donna, his wife and my colleague, is also an experienced traveler to the Adriatic. She carries a bright smile that lights up a room and in this case the Croatian Air boarding area. Donna does a great Croatian accent and can spell most Croatian towns. She carried the heavy lifting of planning the flights and the general itinerary. She emailed the group plans and potential excursions whose detail would have put a tour guide to shame. Petey and I feel blessed to be traveling next to their experienced wing.

Croatia Air took us to Zagreb airport where we picked up our Sixt rental car, a silver 4-passenger, diesel fuel, manual transmission, Opel Vectra … zoom, zoom. We quickly named her Opel. Uncertain of my insurance coverage, I opted for the extra $48 “just-in-case-you’re-an-idiot-driver” package that covered all harm that may come to Opel or all harm that I may inflict on others while driving a foreign car on foreign roads. It was 8:30 PM, the setting sun in the distant sky created an orange glow over the mountain range to the west. Outside the terminal we took a deep breath. Croatian air, warm, pleasant, it smelled fresh … we were standing on new ground.