Sunday in June 1 in Croatia

One week down, one to go. We started in Vukovar, the city in Croatia that Slobodan Milošević started his effort to take over Croatia. We traveled to the small town of Bilje. Bilje Castle, which later became property of the Habsburg family, was built by Prince Eugene of Savoy as a hunting lodge. We heard a lovely concert by a woman named Martina, and sampled some plum brandy, chocolate covered puffed rice and bought some of their favorite spice, Vegeta. From there we went to Osijek where we toured the Citadel and the baroque buildings in the small town. We learned of the flag history, a Jesuit High School and Franciscan monastery.

They new public square is very modern, and was obviously designed poorly. Beautiful tile walkway in a completely barren area. No shade or permanent seating, just great for summer concerts <sarcasm>. The we walked to the old square.

The center of the old square has memorial statue of the plague, and is surrounded by churches. In pre-covid days it was used for the weekend farmers market.

After touring more of the town it was time to head to lunch at a local's establishment. The bus was divided into 3 groups our group ended at a Bed and Breakfast run by a woman and her husband who escaped the Bosnia-Herzegovina war for Germany and finally ended up in Croatia.

We had a chicken and rice soup for the appetizer with fresh vegetables wither from her garden or the local farmers market. There was home made Plum Brandy, and home made cherry water to drink. The main course was chicken meatballs and potatoes with a cabbage salad. Desert was a coconut cake. The we heard the full story of life and what the wars had done to it.

On the way back to the ship we had a wine tasting at KAST winery, a local winery in Ilok.

There were 4 white wines and a red. I still can't taste the "notes" people talk about when discussing wines, but, I now believe that I can tell the difference between wine finished in Oak barrels and those that are not oak flavored.

This was the fewest steps so far on the trip, so I took a little walk through the town of Ilok. I chose not to walk the steps up to the fort.

We could not leave until Novi Sad police and Customs looked at out passports, stamped us out of EU and into Serbia. We finally cast off during dinner and docked a few hours later.