A SCRABBLE Adventure in Croatia

by Ida Shapiro (with additional notes by Rich Baker)

Part of the SCRABBLE group in front of the Roman amphitheater in Rovijn, Croatia

“Croatia, where is that?” a friend asked me.

I could answer that very easily. Croatia is across the Adriatic from Italy, the old Yugoslavia.

“Why are you going there?

SCRABBLE, of course!

Rich Baker and his wife, Liz, have successfully organized SCRABBLE trips to Costa Rica (2), Italy (2), Guatemala, Prague and Budapest, Provence, Norway, Portugal, and Mexico. These tours are wonderful: You not only get to visit amazing places with a congenial group of SCRABBLE-lovers and their families and friends, you also get to play in a fully rated SCRABBLE tournament while you are traveling. I have been on many of these tours — though I believe Bob Linn has joined the most.

Our group met in Zagreb on the 13th of June for the nine-day trip. We were a varied group — 33 in all — with participants from Israel, Washington state, the Washington, D.C. area, California, Texas, New Jersey, and England. The SCRABBLE players were divided into two divisions of 6 and 10. The others were free souls….

After a brief walking tour of Zagreb, we headed to the seaside resort of Opatija, former playground of the Hapsburg royals. We toured the lovely Istria peninsula, which includes the best-preserved Roman amphitheater anywhere and a number of picturesque hilltop towns.

From there we traveled to Biograd, a seaside resort on the Dalmation coast. We went off the tourist route to visit the spectacular waterfalls of Krka National Park and the 3000-year old city of Zadar, which featured a fascinating "sea organ" where the waves from the sea actually play music on a set of organ pipes.

Finally, we drove to Dubrovnik at the southern end of the coast, with a stop in Split, Croatia’s second-largest town, to visit the Roman Emperor Diocletian's huge palace from the third century. We spent our final three days in Dubrovnik.

Along the way, we played 12 games of tournament SCRABBLE, with Division 1 going to Rich Baker over Bob Linn, and Division 2 going to Alice Goodwin over me! Complete details of the tournament can be found at cross-tables.com.

Despite the rigors of the tournament, we had plenty of down time to tour and explore restaurants. In Biograd we descended en masse on the small Bazilika restaurant, totally overwhelming them — till Meg Winch pitched in and helped out the one waitress. Our weather was delightful until we reached Dubrovnik; there the days were nice and in the evenings we had beautiful light shows with thunder and lightning.

In Dubrovnik some of us took a boat trip, and a number of us swam in the Adriatic. We also made a trip to a winery, where we enjoyed the most delicious meal of the whole trip. The tournament awards were presented, and many thank-yous were given for the wonderful trip.

Going on these trips has introduced me to a different side of SCRABBLE. I look forward to the next one — and to meeting again with people who have become “family.”

Ida Shapiro is a semi-retired teacher living in Queens, New York. She loves SCRABBLE, traveling, and bowling.

For more information on Rich Baker’s SCRABBLE trips write to scrabbletours@yahoo.com