Hello, world travelers and adventure seekers, and welcome once again to Croatia! Today the beans have first found themselves in the village of Sali, which with about 1,000 residents is the largest town on the island of Dugi Otok. Sali got its name from the medieval salt mining that surround the area. Today it's also a good place for American-born frijoles to visit, along with their friend Isabel, who was kind enough to keep them out of traffic.

Next up, the beans visit the town of Zadar, which with 100,000 people is considerably larger, but still manages to hold on to 3,000 years of history. Wow - 3,000 years. Where will the beans be in year 5006? Hopefully well preserved and still traveling, although by that time it'd better be by starship.

Anyway, here the beans overlook Zadar's marketplace, where we're fairly certain there's something new and interesting for sale down there. The beans can't wait to run down and try whatever's cooking, too - although they plan on just eating and enjoying it, and not asking what it is. While it was all delicious, and it may very well have been something that the frijoles are accustomed to, sometimes ignorance is a good thing, right?

After enjoying vast quantities of Mystery Meat, the beans decide to cleanse their little vegetable souls by a visit to this beautiful church. This is the St. Donatus church, which according to tradition was built by none other than Saint Donatus himself, an Irishman who was bishop here for a time in the 9th century. The building is designed in the pre-Romanesque style common at the time, and in the summer they hold musical performances here.

The beans are really glad they had an opportunity to visit this historical landmark, and hope to one day be there for a concert, as they've never heard sounds reverberate off 1,100 year old walls before. Gives you goosebumps just thinking about it, doesn't it? In the meantime, the frijoles will put on their 3 week old iPod and try to use their imagination.

BATW Ambassador Mike was really taken by Zadar, and with views like this, it's not hard to see why. Mike says, "It's hard to decide which one of the towns is nicer: Venice in Italy, Zadar, or Dubrovnik." Well, since the beans haven't been to Venice (yet), we'll have to go with Zadar by default. But still, it's no "gimme" - this is a nice town, and the kind of place where a certain can of well-traveled vegetables can feel right at home.

So here the beans enjoy one last fabulous view of the Croatian countryside from the bow of the boat. After that I suppose you think they simply basked in the remainder of their cruise, right? Wrong. Mike writes: "We feel sorry for this particular can of BB – they ended up as a fantastic Italian style salad at the end of the sailing trip." Now, while our frijoles understand the whole "circle of life" and "survival of the fittest" thing, to know that their brethren were consumed at the end of their journey? Well, their little bean arms just went numb, that's all I can say. Still, it was bound to happen sooner or later. We were just hoping it'd be "later" instead of "sooner".

Despite ending up as a side dish instead of a round-trip tourist, the beans did enjoy their time in Croatia, and sincerely thank Mike, Isabel, Daniel, and Jakob for letting them come along for the journey. The frijoles hope to make it back some day, but next time they'll be sure to hide the can opener first.