POPULAR PLAZA - Tourists and pigeons flock to Piazza San Marco, the heart of Venice. One of the treasures of the piazza is the ornate Basilica San Marco (center of photo), dating from 1071 and constructed to showcase the power of the Venetian Republic and to serve as resting place for St. Mark. CNS Photo by Jerry Farlow. Croatia is a boomerang-shaped country of 4.5 million people that shares the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea with Slovenia, Montenegro and Albania, although Croatia enjoys 90 percent of the coastline. Visitors have the option of traveling along the coast by car on one of the most scenic seascapes in the world, or by sea on a cruise ship or ferry. My wife and I recently took the cruise ship option down the Croatian coast, starting and ending at Venice, sailing south to the southern Croatian city of Dubrovnik, where we turned around and sailed back to Venice. Along the way we stopped at a port in Slovenia (Koper), the Croatian islands of Cres/Losinj as well as Korcula, plus the historic Croatian cities of Sibenik, Zadar, Split and Dubrovnik. VENICE "Tomorrow you start your exploration of the ancient Venetian Republic," our Venetian guide told us as she led our little tour group through the Doges' Palace, which was the seat of government for eight centuries when Venice was one of the great trading empires of the world. Thus began our two-week cruise aboard the v/s Monet, soaking up the storied past and scenic coastline of Croatia. GOING IN A GONDOLA - A must-do activity in Venice is to take a ride on one of the city's famed gondolas. CNS Photo by Jerry Farlow. Although Venice has not been a major maritime player since Napoleon came through these parts and its buildings are in a serious state of disrepair, it still maintains a certain regal elegance unlike any place on earth. On our first day in Venice my wife and I became helplessly lost among the maze of winding walkways that line the canals. "I know we've crossed this bridge before," my wife insisted. She might have been right since there are 400 of them in Venice, but she could have been wrong. We finally got tired of walking through the labyrinth of narrow passageways and had lunch alongside the Grand Canal, watching gondoliers ply their unique trade to Japanese tourists. We then decided for a little Venetian adventure, so we hopped a water ferry, which seemed a common mode of transportation for local Venetians, to let it take us where it may, hopefully not to some remote ferry barn with no return trip. Fortunately, it made 45-minute loops around the Grand Canal, so we just sat back for several round trips, taking in the Renaissance grandeur of Venice until they kicked us off. I guess they have something against tourists using them as all-day sight-seeing conveyances. The Croatian coastline boasts more than 1,000 wooded islands and some of the best-preserved Roman ruins in the world. The historic city of Zadar is no exception. ZADAR MADE OF MASKS - Nowadays, Venetian masks are a famous souvenir for tourists, for sale everywhere in the city. In former times, however, masks were a de rigueur accessory worn by aristocrats during Carnival, allowing the upper crust to enjoy the festivities incognito. CNS Photo by Jerry Farlow. The history of Zadar (population 73,000) goes back to the ninth century B.C., and since that time has belonged to almost every great European empire. The streets and architecture of its historic city go back to Roman days and the reign of Julius Caesar. No doubt Roman engineers would be proud, knowing that today their marble and limestone walkways seem as good as new. However, they might disapprove of how today's kids use the ruins of the former forum as a playground for hide and seek. "It looks like pieces from a Roman coliseum," my wife said, pointing to the foundations of a ninth century church, which appeared to be remnants of Roman columns stacked atop each other like pick-up sticks. "That was not all that uncommon," our guide told us, referring to the fact that people have often confiscated valuable vestiges of the past for utilitarian purposes of the present. SPLIT When the third century Roman Emperor Diocletian became bored with feeding those pesky Christians to the lions, he retired to his modest seven-acre, 220-building palace on the Dalmatian coast of present-day Split to spend his remaining days pursuing his favorite hobby: growing cabbage. Today his magnificent palace complex contains well-preserved Roman ruins and forms the heart of Split (population 180,000), the second-largest city of Croatia. "We are now in what you might call the garbage dump of the palace," our guide joked as she led a small band of tourists on a tour of the place. "The people who lived in the above rooms just cut holes in the floor and everything, I mean everything, went through the holes." Fortunately, archeologists know a good thing when they see it, and today the garbage has been meticulously excavated and the place is now peppered with souvenir shops selling, ironically, Christian artifacts. Diocletian's palace complex with its thick walls enclose houses, apartments and small shops and is a pedestrian's delight. We spent a day in the palace complex, strolling through its passageways and on occasion stopping at an outdoor cafe to sit, slurp and people watch. "Did you know that the necktie originated in Croatia?" my wife said as she stopped to look in the window of a small shop. I wasn't aware of that fact, but I had a good idea what she was leading up to. Thirty minutes later we walked out of the shop with a dozen women's scarves. "Scarves are really women's neckties," she argued. KORCULA CITY CENTER - Strolling along the Venetian promenade of Riva degli Schiavoni will bring the visitor to the heart of Venice. CNS Photo by Jerry Farlow. The town of Korcula on the island of the same name looks like something right out of a Disney theme park. The quaintness of the place, the town's cream-colored protective walls and red-tiled roofs appear as if they were designed for the pleasure of tourists. Although Korcula is 100 percent authentic, it claims a tourist connection through its most famous resident, a young man who is arguably the world's most famous traveler. "Now the Venetians will tell you Marco Polo was born in Venice, but do they have proof? No!" our guide Dubravka answered her own rhetorical question. Dubravka was giving us a tour of the town of Korcula, the reputed birthplace of world-famous traveler Marco Polo, whose writings on his travels to China in the 13th century were widely read and stimulated new ideas about the world. "But there are historic documents that say the Polo family lived in this very house so is it reasonable that Marco was born right here," Dubravka continued, pointing at the remains of what was once the Polo home. (It seemed the house was bombed during WWII and has yet to be restored.) She then pointed to the house where she was born just a stone's throw from the Polo house. "Unfortunately, my family sold it several years ago and we moved to the mainland," she said. "If we had kept it, we would be rich," she lamented. DUBROVNIK Few places are as wow-worthy as Dubrovnik, one of the world's great architectural treasures. Its beauty is a rare mix of Gothic, Renaissance and Byzantine structures, reflecting its past as a melding place of many civilizations. As we approached the "Pearl of the Adriatic," our eyes were greeted by a blanket of terra-cotta-roofed houses that climbed the rocky hills. Dubrovnik was a rich independent state until the 19th century, vying with Venice for commercial domination of the region. Its massive walls served as protection for invading armies seeking Dubrovnik's immense wealth. Today, inside its massive walls, Dubrovnik's Old Town remains a visitor's delight. One of our mornings in Dubrovnik, we strolled along the ramparts that border the historic Old Town, looking down on a sea of red-tiled roofs. It was Easter Sunday and we could hear Handel's "Messiah" coming from some distant cathedral. We stopped and looked down on the wide promenade that forms the spine of this 1,300-year-old city, watching tourists from Japan, Europe and America. Despite the 1991-92 siege of Dubrovnik by the Serb-led Yugoslavian Army, which caused damage to 70 percent of the buildings in the historic Old Town, nowadays the casual observer would be hard-pressed to find any remnants of those troubled times. The locals used to complain about the summer crowds, but after the war they complained there weren't any tourists. "I guess Croatia is open for business again," my wife mused. IF YOU GO Ferry schedules along the Croatian coast can be found online at www.visit-croatia.co.uk/travellingaround/ferry.htm. A few cruise companies that offer one-week and two-week cruises along the Croatian coast are listed here. We booked a cruise on the v/s Monet, a ship owned by Elegant Cruises and Tours Inc., partly because it had a good reputation, but mostly because its crew was 100 percent Croatian. A tip: We took our cruise in April before the heat and crowds arrived. The crowds were small to moderate and the temperature was in the 70s during the daytime. Elegant Cruises and Tours: www.elegantcruises.com. Blue Water Holidays: www.cruisingholidays.co.uk/croatia. Katarina Sailing: www.katarina-line.hr. Dalmacija: www.korcula.info/articles/adriatic_cruise.asp. Jerry Farlow is a freelance travel writer. © Copley News Service

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