[OnyxCougar]

Day Six (Friday) [Croatian All Saint's Day]

November 1 is All Saint's Day. This is a primarily Catholic, but generally Christian holiday, celebrating, well, all of the Saints. In the 8th century, Pope Gregory IV established the Celebration of All Saints Day on November 1 and the prior evening, to honor the martyrs of the Church. It is a different day than All Souls Day, which is a Roman Catholic holiday on November 2 or 3rd, depending on which day of the week it falls on. All souls day commemorates the faithful departed or those baptized Christians believed to be in purgatory. It purposely follows All Saints' Day in order to shift the focus from those in heaven to those in purgatory. The Church of England abolished All Souls' Day during the Reformation. However, the day has been reestablished in Anglo-Catholic churches.

In all of Catholic Europe, All Saints Day has become a day to visit cemeteries, to light candles and place flowers on family graves. Of course, one also goes to church to say a prayer for loved ones as well as for the Saints. Therefore, November 1st has become a state holiday in many countries with Catholic majorities, like Croatia. The largest cemetary in the country is called Mirogoj (Meer-oh-goy). We did not go to Mirogoj on All Saints Day because we had decided, while we were in the states, that we wanted to go to Hrvoje's family's "summer home" on the Adriatic Sea.

The train was scheduled to depart Zagreb in the evening, switch trains in Knin (k-neen) with an early morning arrival in Zadar (zuh-dar), which is in "North Dalmatian" coast area. Then we were to take a ferry from Zadar across the Zadar channel to the Island of Ugljan (oog-lyan). From Preko, the town we come ashore at, we were going to take a taxi or bus to the little village where the house was, Sutomisicica (Soo-toe-mish-cheet-sa). (The population was 441 in 1991.)