Croatia: Park Benches and Fun Facts...Part 15

It is a gorgeous fall day here in Ogulin. The tempurature is just like home...in the 70s. After meeting Darko for coffee, Mom and I stopped in the lovely park here in the middle of town and spent some time chatting in the sun. There are park benches all throughout the park and the main street of Ogulin. You can grab a gelato or a pastry and easily find a bench nearby to enjoy the weather and chat with a friend. The nights are cooling nicely here and the days are beautiful. Fall is my favorite time of year. Here's a link to photos of the beautiful city park http://www.panoramio.com/photo/45558336  and some photos of Ogulin and the surrounding area. The small hotel that is next to a stone castle is Hotel Frankopan where we are staying.

http://www.photocroatia.com/GALLERY/list.php?exhibition=58

Underneath the city are a huge systems of caves. The mouth of one such cave can be seen at one of the lookout points to the large ravine across from our hotel. There is a bit of information about Ogulin on this site on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogulin

NOW FOR SOMETHING TRULY UNIQUE...

One fun fact that I had forgotten to share from our tour of Zagreb last week is the Museum of Broken Relationships. We passed by it at night, so did not get to go in. Apparently anyone can set up an exhibit from pictures or personal items of their ex (girl/boyfriend or spouse). I wish we could have gone in to see what this was all about. We could see some of the exhibits from the window. There was also a little caffee bar inside. I guess you could set up your exhibit, then go drown your sorrows all in the same place. (Caffe bars here also always serve beer...though you could drown your sorrows in caffeine just as well.) I found this link online. Check it out. http://new.brokenships.com/en

Off to lunch now and perhaps a drive out to Josipidol to talk to the priest at the church where my grandmother was batized. My mother has still not been able to locate her grandparents burial sites. It is possible that they may not be found, especially if there wasn't a large headstone marking them or if they were not cared for over the years. We are hoping to make contact with Father Peter there to see what the church records show. We've been trying to piece together family names as well as birth and death years. Not easy to do when there are only a few people who know that information...and they only speak Croatian. Also, many records are referenced with the original addresses and house numbers may have been changed over the years. We have also discovered that there are repetitions in some of the first names...so who she thought was an aunt, may turn out to be a cousin...or both because they had the same first and last name. This is especially true for the men. Putting this geneology together will likely require several more years of work, but Mom now has so much more information as well as many photos.

She regrets that her own mother, who is from this area, never spoke to her of the family in Croatia. Her mother had a stroke when she (my mother) was only 15 and was unable to speak after that. She died a few years later. So for over 50 years much of this family history was a complete mystery. Though some of the pieces may never come together, we now have contact with our relatives here and are greatly blessed to know them.

Doviđenja!

Bernadette