1973 was the year when Bernie and I made our first European trip together, after he had gone to Switzerland and Austria in ’67, and I had spent 3 years there, as a child in the ’50s, exploring Europe with my parents. (See Part I for photos of those travels.)

So now, in 1973, Bernie and I visited Rome, Venice and the medieval town of Dubrovnik in what was then Yugoslavia.

Hover your cursor over any image on this site to learn more about it.

ITALY

▲ There were only a few tourists at the Roman Colosseum in 1973, when we wandered in off the street. By the time we went back in 1990, it was a bit more crowded. These days, I doubt you can even get in without being part of an escorted tour group.

▲ Bernie “shot me” on the Piazza San Marco in Venice, with St. Mark’s Clocktower in the background. It’s a beautiful remnant of the Renaissance, with a remarkable astronomical clock.

▲ Bernie and I (sitting closest to the camera here) met this other young American couple in Venice and enjoyed spending time with them.

YUGOSLAVIA

▼ I made this high-angle photo of medieval Dubrovnik and the Adriatic Sea after Bernie and I had ridden a cable car to a lookout point on Mount Srd. That cable car is barely visible on the far left side, just above the trees.

Much of Dubrovnik was destroyed in the vicious early-1990s “Yugoslav War.” It was rebuilt later, but we were grateful that we’d been lucky enough to experience the original treasure.

(If you’re interested, you’ll find wonderful photos made from this same viewpoint of the restored Dubrovnik — in a country now called Croatia, not Yugoslavia — on another website.)

▲ Bernie made this pensive image of me gazing across the Adriatic Sea from atop the ancient defensive wall surrounding Dubrovnik.

▶ Here’s my panoramic across-the-water photo of the charming fishing village of Cavtat, near Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia on the Dalmatian Coast. We stayed in Cavtat for several nights, eating, drinking, and schmoozing in German with the locals.

That sweet memory lived on two decades later, through the 1990s, as we watched from afar when a brutal civil war destroyed this lovely area.