Croatia

Croatia. Croatia. Sail Croatia? Maybe I’ll do that? A boat. New friends. Drunk for a week. Prices are cheaper in May, compared to July. Prices are reaaaaally cheap compared to July. No, you know what, I’m going to do it on my own, no tour, no guide. Mainland Croatia.

And that’s what I did. From Bled I booked my seat with FlixBus, and arrived late at Zagreb bus terminal one night, thankfully my hostel was a ten minute walk away. I wore odd socks, liked the hostel on Facebook, and had booked direct to ensure a 10% discount, but the Wifi took forever to connect and the volunteer on reception wanted proof of that Facebook like! Eventually I was checked in (with my saving of $1.55…), and after a decent night’s sleep I was ecstatic (on my own, no one else was awake) to find Vegemite in the cupboard.

My Zagreb highlight was the Museum of Broken Relationships, a collection of significant or sometimes insignificant artifacts from random relationships all over the world. An ex-girlfriends dress, break up letters and memories of divorced parents. It was just something different.
The free walking tour in Zagreb was pretty disappointing, or maybe I was just exhausted from the 45min walk into town from the hostel. It’s just not a very pretty city in my opinion. But on the walking tour I recognised a guy from the bus the night before, another guy who was on my walking tour in Ljubljana, another girl from my hostel I’d met the night before, and a girl from Melbourne. After the tour we were starving and headed to a wine and cheese bar, ordering huge platters of cheese, bread and cold meats. We headed to someone else’s hostel nearby (randomly bumping into Rachel and Rachel who I’d met briefly in Bled), and lounged around the pool all afternoon. It was a nice day, but still I didn’t feel particularly in love or even like with Zagreb, and I looked up the bus timetable to go to Plitvice Lakes National Park early the next day. As it turns out, a girl staying in my room was also going the next day, and offered to take me in her car.

I’d never heard of Plitvice until someone mentioned it to me a few days prior to my Croatian arrival, and the photos online looked unreal. In real life, Plitvice is unbelievably out of this world. It’s a collection of lakes joined by beautiful waterfalls; the water is jaw-droppingly turquoise. This place is the stuff of dreams, imagination and fantasy illustration..in fact, not sure if this truth or myth but I heard some of the Avatar background scenes were shot here….
There are a variety of paths to follow, and Karina and I followed H, a decent four or five hours worth, including a boat trip and shuttle bus.

After a long day of walking handrail-less boardwalks, Karina dropped me to my hostel in nearby Korenica. At check-in, I was told about a 2.5hr sunset hike, leaving in less than half an hour! A group of about ten headed off, following the markers on trees and rocks, but at some point we must have missed a marker.. and ended up walking an extra hour through woodlands and rocky outcrops.

When we finally made it, the view was beautiful, but we had to scramble to make it back down before it got dark! Falling Lakes Hostel was so nice, I decided to stay an extra night and took some much needed research and movie time.

From Korenica, I took a bus to Zadar, the two hour bus costing about €10 from memory. I really, really liked Zadar, a small coastal city from which you can visit several islands including Ugljan, Dugi Otok and Pag. I read that Pag Island was famous for it’s sheep milk cheese, Paški Sir, unique due to Pag’s microclimate and salty vegetation. The bus from Zadar was a bit over an hour (the island is connected to the mainland by a bridge!) and at the Tourist Information I asked about the cheese factory tour. I was told the tour is only for groups, not individuals. Damn! I could join a group going at 4:30pm, but I didn’t plan on staying so long, so I politely declined and ordered the cheese along with a cows milk and goats milk cheese with a local rosé at Trapula Wine and Cheese Bar, which was lovely. You could actually take the bus to different parts of the island, but when I was there it only ran three times a day, so a car would have been better for me that day. Finding out the bus wasn’t until 6:30pm, I waited out the afternoon at a little, empty pebbly beach, however due to some very unhelpful bus drivers, I ended up missing that bus. The only bus. I had to hitchhike back to Zadar, which was at first terrifying and stressful, but it was actually a really good experience. Two friendly German guys heading to Zadar airport picked me up, offered me a beer and as their friends’ flight was delayed, they dropped me right to my hostel. Phew!

Back in Zadar I climbed the Bell Tower, for a beautiful view of the red terracotta roofed city by the sea. I ate gelato and sat listening to the sounds of the Sea Organ, a really unique installation, right beside the Salute to the Sea solar installation. Unfortunately I missed out on seeing this one at night, where the energy from the day’s sunlight creates a light show on a huge, circular solar panel on the ground.

Time to go to Krka National Park, similar to Plitvice but you can swim under the falls! Well, in season you can. Starting June 1st. I visited 31st May, and even though the ticket collector said no swimming, and so did the signs, everyone was in! It was fairly busy when I was there, but I can’t imagine how many people would be there now! I stayed overnight in Sibenik for a shorter bus ride, both to Krka and then to Split the next day.

Split is a big port city, and similarly to Zadar it has access to a variety of nearby islands, including Hvar, Brac and Vis. I made it to Brac, and caught the bus to Bol in search of Vlatni Rat or The Golden Horn Beach. Originally I planned to hike a mountain to see the beach from above, but it was a hot day, nearly lunchtime already so I wandered around to the beach and thankfully, unlike the other beaches I’d visited in Croatia, the pebbles were soft and small and didn’t hurt my feet. The water was clear and very deep, and I immediately felt relaxed and refreshed. I snacked on spinach and cheese burek, a typically Balkan stuffed pastry that is so so good, and read on my kindle, Miss Ex-Yugoslavia. I highly recommend this hilarious, autobiographical account from Serbian-Australian Sofija Stefanovic; it’s a really interesting read.

Dubrovnik was my last stop in Croatia and I wasn’t going to visit because I knew it would be super busy, very touristy, and very expensive. I don’t watch Game of Thrones, and I couldn’t see how it would be that different to be worth it, but I spent a day and a half there and I’m glad for it. Actually, I kind of needed to stop there, because I had to collect my raincoat. I’d left it in Karina’s car, and she left it in Dubrovnik for me on her way to Bosnia. I retrieved it from her backpackers, run by a sweet old couple who gave me cold juice when I arrived, then made me coffee and we sat and talked for three quarters of an hour before I walked back to my hostel. Perfectly, it rained on the walk back to my hostel and I didn’t mind, pulling my raincoat over my head and my backpack, making it “home” safe and dry.

I joined a kayak tour really last minute, my arms nearly dropped off after three hours of kayaking, but the tour provided lunch (yes even catering to a vegetarian last minute!) and snorkel masks for our half hour stopover in a little secluded cove. Such a great way to learn about Dubrovnik; the guide was really knowledgeable and every now and then we’d stop, all hold on to one another kayaks to keep the group together while listening to some history.

So. There you go. Definitely visit Croatia; and I definitely recommend May, for cheaper prices, decent temperatures, and less tourists!