Day Trip from Orebic to Mljet, Croatia
Today was perfect sunny weather. Danka and I bought a tour ticket to the southernmost large island in Croatia, which holds a national park surrounding two saltwater lakes. We caught a boat across one of them to a 12th-century monastery on an island in a lake on an island in the sea. Then a picnic in the wind and rocks, but I got a few swimming sessions in as well. I was skinnydipping in the smaller lake when I found a huge mussel. It was over 18 inches long -- one half a meter. I put in back. We watched a few other sunbathers and managed to catch both our boats on time and get a hike around the smaller lake in as well. Beautiful day.
The guide introduced us to the monastery with some stories about the island. He said that is was where St. Paul was shipwrecked in 59 AD. He said there was a cave elsewhere on the island where Odysseus spent seven years in a cave with Calypso. He said the Loch Ness Monster was in the lake -- okay, I made up the last one. But someone needs to introduce him to the Malta tourism promotion agencies who have been making money for years claiming the first two happened on Malta. And I think St. Paul's shipwreck is pretty well-documented to have occurred on Malta. Maybe the Odysseus thing is open to interpretation (and of course, may be more myth than fact). And in fact, it makes more sense to me that Odysseus would be here in the Adriatic than almost to Tunisia. I need some help in getting my mythology straightened out! (Harlemovka, you should be the expert!!!)
The guide introduced us to the monastery with some stories about the island. He said that is was where St. Paul was shipwrecked in 59 AD. He said there was a cave elsewhere on the island where Odysseus spent seven years in a cave with Calypso. He said the Loch Ness Monster was in the lake -- okay, I made up the last one. But someone needs to introduce him to the Malta tourism promotion agencies who have been making money for years claiming the first two happened on Malta. And I think St. Paul's shipwreck is pretty well-documented to have occurred on Malta. Maybe the Odysseus thing is open to interpretation (and of course, may be more myth than fact). And in fact, it makes more sense to me that Odysseus would be here in the Adriatic than almost to Tunisia. I need some help in getting my mythology straightened out! (Harlemovka, you should be the expert!!!)