6 July - Vukovar, Croatia

We weren't woken up fortunately and we are now docked at Vukovar in Croatia. After breakfast we boarded a bus for a tour through the town and out in to the countryside. The sights in Vukovar were very confronting and distressing as we saw some of the devastation that was inflicted during the conflict of the 1990s. This is where the war with the Serbs began and the town was besieged for three months with continuous shelling, killing thousands. Ninety percent of the town was ruined and it was very sad to see the bombed out buildings, and walls marked by bullets and shrapnel. Since the war ended, there has been a huge effort to rebuild the town.

Our bus took us on to Osijek and we watched a performance by children in national costume, belonging to the Bizovac Culture and Art Society, founded in 1968 to preserve the costumes and musical culture of the region. Their costumes were beautifully made and elaborately decorated with intricate embroidery. They sang and danced for us and they were very sweet. We then visited the 18^th century fortress nearby, the St Anthony's Church and the town square.

We continued to the village of Bilje for a “home hosted lunch”, a concept I was not familiar with. Through agencies, the cruise boat company books people in private homes to have “guests” from the boat for lunch, so that we can see a local person's home and ask about their lives while being provided with a home-cooked meal. We were divided into groups of about 10 (our group had 11) and we had a lovely lunch provided by a woman named Snježana Bagaric. She told us she and her husband had a “mixed marriage”, she being Orthodox and her husband Catholic. They married three months before the war began and they were holidaying in Germany and didn't return to Croatia until the conflict ended in 1998. In the meantime she had two children. Her husband is a builder and stone mason and she works at home doing the lunches and provided B&B rooms, so she can be home for her children while they are at school. It was a good insight into a local's circumstances.

Our bus returned to the boat again through countryside littered with landmines and ravaged Vukovar streets. Our guide said that on present estimates, the mines won't be cleared until 2040 which is tragic because the land is so fertile and much of it cannot be used because of mines. Accidents are less frequent than they used to be as children are taught from an early age not to play in areas displaying the land mine signs. It is a sad legacy of the terrible war and we saw the signs as we drove along the road.

It was an interesting day but I was greatly affected by seeing the so recent evidence of the terrible war.

We had dinner with two American couples who were very nice and interesting to talk to.