A WEDDING INVITATION
You are cordially- and enthusiastically- invited to John and Desiree’s wedding next summer, to be celebrated on the beautiful island of Mljet in the Adriatic Sea, off the coast of Croatia.
At least, that’s the plan. We’re gonna do our best to pull this off. John and Desiree will take care of the first part (the actually getting married part; always an insane and courageous act) and Mary and I will work on the second part.
So this information is two-fold: first to announce John and Desiree’s engagement (on a Blog? How post modern!), and second to get an idea of how many folks might be interested in coming.
The date: This is gonna be hard to nail down, but it will have to be nailed down within the next couple of months. It'll definitely be Summer of 2005. Late June is my preference: great weather, reasonable prices. Things get more expensive in July, and even more expensive in August (when the entire continent of Europe is on vacation). But then some folks reminded me that all the world seems to graduate at the end of June, making traipsing off to the Adriatic somewhat problematic.
The place: The Island of MLJET is situated in the southern part of Croatia, west of Dubrovnik. According to the Croatian tourist board (disinterested parties, eh?) it is “the most beautiful island in the Adriatic.” A large portion of the island is a a National Park, which prevents overdevelopment. The Park features two deep bays which are called lakes due to their very narrow passages to the open sea (Veliko and Malo jezero/ the Great Lake and the Small Lake), and lush and diversified Mediterranean vegetation. Trust me, it’s beautiful.
Croatia’s natural environment remains wonderfully pristine, with clear water, and little development. Italy, its neighbor on the other side of the Adriatic, has a coastline that has become, according to one Croatian we met (of course unbiased) “one long tourist strip mall.” Unfortunately, the reason for this state of affairs is directly related to the terrible war: with tourism and other coastal industries crippled during the war, the coast did not suffer the environmental degradations of overdevelopment. I have a hunch they’re going to make up for lost time, so now is the time to go. Thousands of tourists have been thinking the same thing. Tourism more than doubled last year, and is expected to increase at that fevered pace next year. Most of the tourists we met were either Brits (see Transportation, below) and Germans. All said that this was the hot place to go right now. Ah, Mary and I just do so live on the cutting edge, don’t we?
Transportation: I just checked on Travelocity and round trip flights to Dubrovnik are about $450 from NYC. You go from here to London, ($300) and then a straight flight down ($112). Those cheap round trip tickets from London to Dubrovnik are a big reason why we met so many Brits down there; incredible price. Mary and I paid $100 for the plane fare from Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, to Dubrovnik, one tenth of the distance from London to Dubrovnik. Who knows how long these great prices will last. But they’ve lasted for a couple of years now, so the odds are fairly good. From Dubrovnik you catch a ferry for the ride to Mljet (about thirty miles offshore). You can bring a car on the ferry, but you’d be better off simply renting a car on the island ($30/day, including gas).
Accomodations: The village of Soline, where the wedding dinner and party may happen, has four apartments and we think seven rooms with private baths. Here's the family's website, see if you can figure it out.
Approximately 3 miles from Soline is the only hotel on the island, the Odisej. Mljet, according to legend, was where Odysseus (Odisej) spent his seven years trapped by the beautiful Kalypso, and crying in an ocean cave every day for his lost Penelope (or so I’ve read). We were very pleased with the hotel. We paid $120/per night for a double which included private bath and balcony and, most important (for my lean wallet), two full all-you-can-eat buffet meals each day. The dining room overlooks the harbor where, every day, there were different cruise-yachts parked.
So why Mljet? And why Soline, in particular? And why the monastery?
Soline: It all started with lunch. Easily one of the best we’d ever eaten. Everything (fish, cheeses, salads, wine..) was home grown or caught offshore. And prepared spectacularly. In our after-lunch glow, Mary suddenly decided this would be a perfect spot for John and Desiree’s wedding dinner. The Srensen family, who run this little home restaurant, have built a nice gazebo-like structure over a series of tables that could probably hold forty or more. Mary went to talk with the matriarch/cook, Ms Srensen, who thought a wedding sounded just fine. Soline is a very small village; few hundred people at most, at the height of the season. So I figured we should simply rent the whole village. I'm diligently looking into it now.
The Monastery: On an island within the largest lake (ah, an island on a lake on an island on the Adriatic), is a 12th century Benedictine Monastery. It unfortunately was trashed during the war (we could never find out by what side; people don’t like to talk about it), and needs extensive renovations, but the grounds are stunning. We were immediately attracted to a stone causeway stretching out over the waters. It seemed a natural. A perfect place for a walk down an aisle. We have absolutely no idea if it’s possible to get formal permission to use it, and we’ll be working on that, but hey, people are allowed there. We would just be a big group of people, two in good clothes, who happened to wander by...
And lately, John has mentioned an interest in a marriage on one of the cliff tops.
Mljet (other bits and pieces):
In the lakes the water temperature was perfect, we could nap while floating on our backs, and enjoy our wine in the most beautiful of waters.
Like all the Adriatic Islands, there are few sand beaches. Mostly rock (bring cheap rock slippers). But the rocks are perfect for lying on, for sunbathing, for picnicking.
One day, we rented a mini and drove down the spine of the island to hunt down the one sand beach, planning to make a day of it. One nice thing about hard-to-reach places is that when you do get there, you have it all to yourselves. Magnificent beach in a magnificent little cove. All for us.
And the snorkeling.... And the drives along the cliffs with the villages clinging to the sides and and and
All in all:
COME!!!!!
The thought of John and Desiree getting married on the island where I and Mary- 25 years after our own wedding- finally had the honeymoon we could only dream about back then, is something hard to put into words.
E-mail your thoughts/recommendations/questions/rsvp's: kvanatta2000@yahoo.com
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