by Amanda Castleman

After a breakup, some women binge on chocolate. Others buy shoes. I went to the Balkans: substituting wander for lust.

Oh yes, I was in Feisty Femme mode, all right. Forget heartbreak. Bring on the beer and borscht!

Every Thelma needs a Louise. But my options were limited: how many friends can dash to Eastern Europe at a month’s notice?

Enter Edward, an Alaskan-based travel writer also recovering from romantic sorrows. He is a good man, that rare thing, so hard to find. And I deceived him shamelessly.

“Come to Croatia,” I pleaded. “Balkan women are all babes. And you know Continental beaches … no bathing suits!”

Sex sells: it’s true. Edward flew halfway around the world to chaperone me through former Yugoslavia. We laughed a lot and chawed miles of grapefruit gum on this impromptu road trip. We sampled wormwood liqueur, we ate cabbage-beet-pickle salads in truck stops, we gawked at Russian fighter-pilot memorials. One night we even were the sole guests in a castle.

(The castle was a mediocre one, to be honest. But how often can I play princess, sipping white wine and nettle soup in a private palace?)

Edward and I bought goat-cheese along the roadside, bartered for honey that tasted of wildfires. We picked poppies on the horrible, hustling island of Hvar. We switchbacked through the mist, lost on Mount Medvednica, 23-km from the country’s capital, Zagreb.

We dined at the Regent Esplanade, the nation’s grande dame that had hosted all the adventurers and war correspondents and travelers of more exotic eras before drip-n-dry polyester. Then we crashed at Croatia’s first minimalist-design mecca, the genius-themed Arcotel Allegra.

Aside from the pinched portrait of Virginia Wolf on the duvet, however, broads were in short supply. Not good.

(CONTINUE...)