Lopud Island, Croatia

Most children who grow up with cats, if they have a slightly cruel streak, at some point will probably apply little strips of sticky tape to their pet's ears and paws. A cat that is abused in this manner becomes instantly immobilized with horror, much as you'd react if you found yourself suddenly covered in raw sewage. They won't return to any semblance of themselves until the tape is removed and a formal apology offered.

This is how I feel about sunscreen. There are times during the day that I could tear my own skin off. I mention it only because I want my friends who are now teaching to know that a day spent here...

...is not all calamari and cold beer. We, too, are suffering.

We three (Kim Clayton joined us a few days ago) are now on a small island called Lopud which is just a kilometre or so off the Croatian coast. Lopud is gorgeous, Mediterranean,and car-free. The village of Lopud, cast like a handful of stones along the coast, dots the narrow beach for a few hundred metres. Rough, paving-stone lanes bounded by crumbling stone walls, draped with lemon, pomegranate and fig trees wind into the steep hills behind the village, mostly terminating at tiny, crumbling chapels. Walking through the village, you pass modest, soviet-era hotels, long abandoned and ruined, among which a new breed of young, hip, hoteliers offer clean rooms, wi-fi and fluent English. A walk into the hills takes you to the ancient fortress walls, slumping into heaps of overgrown rock.

As we progress through our year, I have been draughting an increasingly onerous Constitution to govern how we shall go about the business of travelling. The first law on this document is "Always go for a sure thing." There might very well be a nicer, cleaner restaurant somewhere down the street, but often there isn't, and a hungry Bruce is just no fun to be around. Cara tolerates these edicts with equanimity, just as long as it's clear that she has the authority to repeal any law at any time.

Anyway, my most recent addition to this document is "Bruce will no longer take any form of travel that includes the adjective 'night.'" The night train from Paris to Venice should have been romantic. It was, instead, a steamy six-berth compartment stuffed with belching, shirtless, Belgian youth. The night ferry from Italy to Croatia seemed promising, too. Except that there were no cabins and we spent the night in the so-called bar sittting in upright plastic seats. Except that the large Italian woman sitting on top of us began vomiting. Except that the ferry staff, suffering from seasickness themselves, wanted to go to bed and refused to assist anyone to clean up the mess and told us we'd have to live with it until morning.

Cara's tenacity in these situations always astounds me. While I was thinking that my only option for the night would be to stand politely in a corner, occasionally dabbing at my soiled shoes, Cara roused a young attendant from her stupor and demanded that we be allowed to sleep on the couches in the locked restaurant. Not even the surly Italian waiter who opened the doors at five A.M. to start breakfast dared to disturb our righteous sleep.