Vienna to Dubrovnik

This was the big summer trip — five countries in three weeks, starting in Vienna and ending on the Dalmatian Coast.

The Salzburg day trip was really a Sound of Music pilgrimage. I know every word to most of the songs — my mother, aunts, grandmother, and sister used to sing them constantly. Our tour guide kept rushing us through spots trying to beat the official Sound of Music tour buses.

Bratislava had a surprise: a book in the hotel drawer about Jesus coming back in Minnesota. Budapest was ruin bars and a Danube evening cruise where the Hungarian Parliament glowed gold against the dark water. I spent a few days resisting the urge to say “babada boopy” to every Hungarian waiter within earshot.

Croatia was the beach phase. Zagreb, Zadar, Krka waterfalls, Split — where I was in the background of thousands of tourists’ photos from my Airbnb balcony inside Diocletian’s Palace. Then Hvar by boat, Dubrovnik for Game of Thrones locations, and a night in Neum, Bosnia’s one tiny sliver of coastline.

The lesson from this trip: there’s nothing more important when choosing an Airbnb than the balcony.