I will begin with our guide, Mariam. She embodied the best of RS’ guides - extremely knowledgeable, a fun personality and a true passion & excitement for sharing each of the locations with us! One of her fun bus activities each day was sharing an exciting treat - some type of candy she ate as a child and usually a fun story to go with it. I told her as we were parting that last evening that I was going to have my husband continue that candy tradition with me when I returned home - LOL!
Our RS travel forum is so helpful, and I especially want to mention & thank “Carol now retired”. Thank you so much for suggesting the Postojna Cave/ Predjama Castle tour! Arrive at least one full day ahead of the RS tour to go on this tremendous half-day morning tour! When the minivan headed towards the cave, one of the couples in the minivan was also in the Adriatic tour! We enjoyed being together and actually ended our RS tour sharing a taxi to the Dubrovnik airport. : )
Carol (or possibly someone else on the forum) suggested bringing some mosquito repellent. I bought the Skin-So-Soft Avon mosquito repellent individual towelettes through Amazon, and I used them at Plitvice Lakes National Park, Hvar & Korcula Islands, and Dubrovnik. And they work! I had a few hovering, but they didn’t land on me. One towelette was sufficient, and my towelettes were popular with another lady who also tends to attract mosquitoes.
Those who said, “Bring the swimsuit!” were right! I have special memories now of swimming in the beautiful Adriatic at Korcula! I also began my second day in Korcula having a long session of water aerobics in the pool next to our hotel (our hotel’s pool was closed both days for maintenance). A small group of our us also had an informal pool party at our hotel in Dubrovnik our last late afternoon as people returned from the sweltering heat in the old center!
Health: our group had one case of Covid during our time at Motovun. We had been enjoying a jovial group dynamic the day before. This dampered everyone’s mood into a very quiet bus ride the day the news was shared. Fortunately, we never had another case. One couple always wore KN95 masks on the bus. After the news, several of us wore one the rest of our bus rides, although it was still stated as an option. (I also always ate lunches & non-group dinners outdoors per my norm since 2020.)
Food: this was my fourth RS tour, and Mariam did a stellar job of selecting group meals & interesting locations! She also gave the group a lot of excellent restaurant recommendations during each of our city orientation tours. Edit: I forgot to mention gelato! Many of our forum know it’s an important topic to me. ; ) There’s ARoma gelato shops in Pula, Split, Hvar & Dubrovnik - consistently great. Vigo won out over Romantika in Ljubljana. Surprisingly, more expensive than Italy’s best!
Language: we were surprised how well everyone spoke English! It was the easiest I’ve experienced outside of England. We began with a greeting in their languages, and it seemed to be appreciated. I asked the young lady who took our Ljubljana breakfast order how to pronounce a new word each morning (I was there four mornings), to try to say the right pronunciation. Then I would use it the next morning, and she’d smile.
Rick Steves Guidebook: some people brought the entire guidebook; others didn’t bring the book. During my preparation for packing & weighing everything, I read the whole book and then sliced & eliminated unneeded sections for the tour. I went through a couple of reduction iterations as I continued to weigh everything with my kitchen scale. It was looking pretty anemic by packing day! I also brought the RS small folder binders he sells and used it to just have a few pages in my purse at all times. Honestly, I didn’t refer to the pages I brought during the tour except for my pre-tour days in Ljubljana & the handy maps for each location.