I squirmed gleefully, just as I did as a youngster, and thought "This is what life and family are all about". We were all humbled and blessed to be experiencing it. Just as we were preparing to find a hotel for the night, her husband, Ivo, produced a key and indicated that we were to stay in the village.
It took us a while to register that he intended for us to sleep in the very same house where generations of our family members had called home.
It turned out Ivo's parents had cared for my great grandmother after her husband died and her children had migrated to Australia. Then when she passed on, his family inherited the property. It lay abandoned for more than four decades until Ivo and a small army of family and friends lovingly rebuilt it from the ruins and transformed it into a holiday villa.
We followed him out, expressing disbelief at the turn of events. The cottage was made of stone and stood between a church and a pub rather fitting for our family we thought. Situated on a hill, in the heart of a quaint but crumbling rural community, it was framed with pieces of the original home's facade, and finished off with traditional wooden green shutters.
The painstaking effort and attention to detail that must have gone into restoring such an authentic residence has even been acknowledged by the Croatian Government, which has declared it a culturally protected monument. It was a surreal feeling stepping inside the wrought iron gates and entering the grounds where my grandfather, great grandparents and scores of other family members had woken, worked and spent their days. Pouring glasses of red, we toasted those men and women as we surveyed the flawless renovation, and soaked up the ambience of a piece of living history.
When we turned to Ivo to offer to pay for our accommodation, the man shook his head solemnly, and with his hand on his heart, said in slow, sure English: "No. You my family. The next morning I woke early, determined to see the sun rise over the village like my ancestors might have done. Outside the door I encountered a donkey of all things, which made me laugh out loud at the different world I'd found myself in.
Making my way up a rocky track, wild hares bounded in front of me, while sheep grazed in small fields. On the main road I passed a man walking his goat, as a tractor rolled lazily into the settlement. It wasn't hard to imagine my grandfather and his siblings running amok on this land or helping their parents tend the crops, since many parts remain undeveloped and appear to have been largely untouched for decades.
Behind an old church was a modest cemetery, and that is where we encountered a remarkable twist of fate. We went there hoping to find the graves of my great grandparents, but while we recognised many of the surnames we couldn't find a single Dragun.
One other family was wandering through the burial ground and as they approached we noticed they were speaking with Australian accents. Striking up a conversation, we discovered they were also on holiday and had come here to visit the graves of their ancestors. One of the group, a grandfather from Sydney, asked who we were looking for, and when we replied he let out a gasp. I knew the Draguns very well," he exclaimed. He then motioned for us to follow him to a far corner of the cemetery where a large, unmarked tomb lay.
We stood in silence and tried to fathom how, in a small graveyard, in the middle of an island, on the other side of the world, we managed to cross paths with an Aussie who would lead us to our roots. Like most of the men from our family, the former islander was a stonemason, and he took us on a tour of the cemetery, pointing out tombstones that our relatives had carved by hand and which are now regarded as significant historical relics. He also painted a clearer picture of what life was like in Croatia during the last century when so many people decided to flee.
As we headed back to the villa, we were greeted by the next door neighbours who also turned out to be cousins. They welcomed us into their home and invited us to breakfast the next morning. But there was to be none of that toast or cereal business.
We were treated to a lavish, continental spread. After polishing off thick strips of prosciutto, along with olives, cheese and plump, burgundy cherries, we didn't think we could fit in another thing. That was until our hosts unveiled the sweetest dish of all: a pot of homemade fig jam, made from fruit plucked from a tree which my great grandmother planted years ago.
More remnants of our family history popped up inside this cousin's house, which has been similarly restored to the villa. Antique furniture, dating back to the s, formed gleaming showpieces throughout the home, while out the back was the original concrete base of our family's wine barrel, where, after much squishing and squelching by the kids, grape juice would have been poured in to ferment, to their father's special recipe.
Fine limestone carvings, also sculpted by our ancestors, adorned the walls, and on a door frame we were shown an early etching my grandfather is believed to have done while learning the family trade.
There's definitely something about retracing the steps of your ancestors and putting your shoes on the land where they once left their mark that leaves you with a higher insight into their lives. Learning about their struggles and triumphs can also be a good way of staying grounded in this modern world. One story really hit home for my partner and me. We're pretty chuffed that we had managed to endure a long distance relationship for eight months. Well another set of great grandparents put us to shame.
They were apart for 12 years while he worked on a new rail network in Australia, raising enough money to bring his young bride and their newborn daughter out here. There certainly wasn't the internet or mobile phones to keep them in touch.
All she had was a handful of letters, which she had to rely on a neighbour to read to her because she was illiterate. As we made our way to the plane that would take us home, I experienced a sudden sadness.
We had only been in Croatia a week, but in that time we'd covered decades of ground and, from that moment on, I decided this would be an affair to be treasured and continued. To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout. Read Today's Paper Tributes. News Don't miss out on the headlines from News. Join the conversation.
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