Planinski centar Petehovac
It’s morning, fresh and fragrant. I’m lying on a bellevue and observing Delnice from up high. Following an eagle with my eyes, as he flies over a hill that is a ski slope during the winter, and a wonderful meadow in the summer. I raise my nose high up in the air, and the breeze brings me the intoxicating smells of pine forest, flowers from the meadow and… (sniff, sniff)… a roe.
A roe?
A ROE!!!
I get up and start running as fast as my paws will carry me. My ears fly in the wind, and the tail is high as a flag until…
- Mona. Mooonaaa. Mo!
I raise my head, still feeling like I’m in my dream, stretch my paws, tired from all the hunting and sit by the bed, still yawning. They woke me up again, and I was dreaming such a great dream. I wish I could go back to Petehovac.
We’re going for a walk, much earlier then usual (they probably have a lot of work again), so I obediently get out of the apartment, wait for the elevator, get my head in the put-the-leash-on position, sniff around the building (Dudo already had his walk, so did Bo, Vučko from that other street was here too…) I walk around the well known neighborhood, “reading” all the notes left by the known and the unknown dogs as I remember my dream.
In Gorski kotar, right above Delnice, on a hill-top there is a mountain lodge called Petehovac.
Two years ago there was some kind of a deal on this Kolektiva, and my people bought a couple of coupons. They packed all our stuff, put it all in our red racing-car and we were on out way. At the beginning of the journey, I was sitting calmly on the back seat, but as we got further away from Zagreb, the smells were getting more interesting, so I got curious: where are we going?
We pulled over on a parking lot, and as we got out and I held my nose high to catch as many of those new, wonderful smells, I saw a guy come over to me. His ears were cocked, head up high and he waived his tail – Hi, kid, I’m Max and this is my hill. What’s your name?
Mona – I answered, stepped back a bit and took a good look at him. Well, he looks kinda nice. Tall, brown-black long hair, very rich tail. He looks quite a lot like Ben (a german shepperd from my neighborhood), just a bit taller with a thicker fur.
- Mona, huh? – I saw a smile on his mustache, and he winked – What are you, Italian?
Oh, no. Even he knows what my name means in Italian. I’m seriously considering sending a letter to mister Vlado in Perušić, with a list of all the jokes I had to hear about the name he gave me.
- No, I’m from Lika. – I was quite angry, and I was hoping that my people will say that we only stopped here for lunch. Yeah, right. F was getting the stuff from the car, and S was standing in the middle of the parking lot, admiring the view. So, we are staying here, so I’ll have to put up with this cocky punk.
Well, the punk turned out to be a great host. He gave me his bone from the soup that evening (You don’t believe me? See the photo below!), and then we watched over Delnice from the bellevue as he told me all the anecdotes with their guests.
The next morning my people took some deck chairs after having coffee and spent the day on the top of the hill, as Max and I played on the meadow just below.
We went for field trips every day, to Risnjak, Lokve, Golubinjak and over the Japleski Vrh to Zeleni Vir and Vrajži pass, and we came back to Petehovac every evening for a nice bowl of fragrant soup, porcini mushrooms stew and pancakes with home-made jam that the owner, Srećko, made for us fresh.
I don’t even need to tell you how fast the vacation went by, and how sad I looked through the car window at Max who stood on the terrace waving his tail, after we said goodbye to each other
Those were the days…
Ping. The sound of the elevator brings me back to reality. I go into the apartment and straight on to the sunny balcony.
On to my carpet, and back to my dream.
Max and I, running on the grass and playing with a branch…
(PS my people want you to know that they had a great time too, so they bought those coupons again and we’ll be going back to Petehovac at the end of this summer. YAY! I promise a more detailed report with much more photos this time.)
Planinski centar Petehovac
Polane 1A, HR- 51300 Delnice, Croatia
e-mail: petehovac@vip.hr
Tel: +385-51-814-901 | Fax: +385-51-614-001 | Mobile: +385-091-1800-020