Did you ever find yourself in a place that was totally unfamiliar to you? Did you ever try your best to ask other people to help you find your way to no avail? Did you ever feel like you were going to miss a deadline to get a boat back to the mainland while on a foreign island with no place to stay? This happened to us while visiting Mljet in the Adriatic Sea off the coast of the Dalmatian region of Croatia. Here's what happened.
My wife, Lisa, and I had just toured Dubrovnik, Croatia for a few days. It was now time to see some of the beautiful coastal areas as we made our way towards Italy. We hopped a ride on the Jadrolinja Ferry for a ninety minute ride to the island of Mljet where according to legend, Odysseus, the Greek king featured in Homer's epic poem the Odyssey, lived for seven years.
We landed in Pomena on the western end of the island in order to spend some time walking through Millet National Park. The starting point was at the Benedictine Monastery where we went inside the Church of St. Mary. The Benedictines were the feudal lords of the island in the 12th century.
From there Lisa and I started to walk through the National Park which started out being a lot of fun. There are two salt water lakes, Veliko Jezero and Malo Jezero that appeared to have well marked walking paths.
I was having a good time taking landscape photographs of the interesting terrain. After doing this for a while we decided that it was time to head back to the ferry. Unfortunately, we apparently made a wrong turn and were walking in the wrong direction. When nothing looked familiar, we decided to stop anyone we saw and ask directions. The problem we encountered was that no one spoke English! The most information I ever got was someone pointing to part of the island and saying, "15 minutes." We would follow the directions and would end up in an entirely new place which was nowhere near our destination.
At this point we were worried. My camera bag was starting to feel very heavy on my back. We had been told that the ferry would leave at 4:20 PM and time was ticking away. We picked up the pace, and lo and behold, we arrived at a port called Sobra. This was the wrong port located on the eastern side of the island!
The one thing that Sobra had was a tourist information office. We found someone who spoke English, explained our predicament and found a driver that we paid to take us back to the ferry in Pomena. We arrived at 4:15 with five minutes to spare.
I liked photographing the National Park on the island of Mljet off the coast of Croatia. However, the next time I go I will bring a map!