Today was a free day. Four of us – David and Elizabeth Torrey and us – had decided to take a long walk in the morning before hitting the beach. At dinner the night before, we tried to pick a destination. One thought was to get driven to the Franciscan Monastery in Zaostrog, about 5 miles away, and after visiting, walk back and swim along the way. The monastery, inhabited and enlarged since 1468, has a restful garden, rooms for guests, and a museum with art, and cultural and historical artifacts. As it turned out, Braco's and Mirena's cousin is a priest there. Braco drove us to meet his cousin at 10:00 AM and the five of us got the grand tour, just fascinating. And then we were treated to lunch before leaving to walk back (Braco thought we were a little crazy).

Breakfast before we left.

Monastery hidden beyond some modern buildings.

Fra. Nikola and Braco (first cousins)

Father Nikola showed us a footprint of the original building and the expansion to its current size. We walked around a bit, went into the chapel, where a group of Czech kids were preparing a concert for the evening.

Pretty old.

Courtyard.

Arches.

We visited the art gallery, with a display of paintings from the 18^th century, furniture, musical instruments, displays of traditional dress, sculpture by Meštrović, and modern paintings by Mladen Veža, who died just a few years ago. A large painting from the 18th century of the Last Supper had a Dalmatian dog in it! We saw an incunabula (a printed book) printed in 1501, one of the earliest printed books. We moved into a cellar area, with olive oil vessels, a huge olive oil vat, a loom, sewing machines, antique kitchen and eating utensils, and a large fireplace.

Incunabula.

Furniture and musical instruments.

Was there really a Dalmatian dog at the Last Supper?

One of the costume displays.

A Meštrović sculpture.

We moved on to the library with its 30,000 books – including Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 in the modern section – an ironic inclusion. There were 2 floors plus archive rooms.

He continued to show us around – we looked at various rooms, the sacristy, upstairs in the chapel where the choir sits, the bell tower stairs (we did not open the trap door to the bell itself), the gardens, private prayer room for the head priest, etc. We even saw two cannonballs wedged into the walls, fired in 1806 by the Russians in the French-Russian conflict for control of Dalmatia.

The chapel (with the round window) is part of the original footprint.

Looking out on the garden from the head priest’s private balcony.

About to thank our host, we thought we were going to head out, but instead were treated to a small lunch of cheese, tomatoes, bread, and wine. Very Franciscan.

We said our goodbyes and headed out for the five-mile walk back to Gradac along the coastline path. We stopped in the shade a number of times and swam here and there. David jumped off a large rock into deep water while Larry filmed him with David's Go Pro camera.

Samberging™. Okay, we admit it was posed (and not very comfortable).

Cooling off in the sea.

We arrived back around 3:15 PM, bought beer, showered, and sat down with David and Elizabeth for snacks and beer before heading back to the room to relax and take a nap.

Eventually all of us ended at beach-side open-air Malo More again. We sat with David and Elizabeth, ordered sea bass and tomatoes, ate, and eventually all congregated at one end of the restaurant.

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