Agenda: Croatia, 1 week.
Dubrovnik (southern Croatia) Saturday-Tuesday
Zadar (middle Croatia) Tuesday night-Saturday morning
Dubrovnik: Day 1...planes and stuff
Plane to Zagreb, catch connection to Dubrovnik. Sit in boring airport for three+hours. Get coffee. (Did I mention the flight was super early?..coffee was necessary) Reflect on how strange it is I'm in Croatia. When we planned this trip we were super ambitious and wanted to do Italy-Greece, and I joked and said 'Lets throw in Croatia too'....and it turned into 'Lets go to Croatia!' I journaled at the airport for a good hour. My entry was seven pages. Get to Dubrovnik to discover we had a sweeeet sobe/apartment. Settle in and pick our bedrooms, and go to buy food to cook later. (We had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room and kitchen and foyer).
Dubrovnik: Day 2-Exploring the City
Hanna, Kevin, and Harry had decided to take the train route to Croatia...so they arrived Day 2 around 7am. They'd traveled for over 24 hours. When they got in we all slept till around noon, and explored the city for the rest of the day. The Old City is the coolest place ever-it's all surrounded by giant castle walls, and there are ancient buildings and beautiful churches, and the whole city is paved with marble-ish tiles...so you almost feel like you're walking down a hallway, except outside...in Croatia. We also walked around the pier and harbor-amazing views of the islands and all the boats. Also, Croatia is ideal for pirates. Not even kidding. We saw a pirate ship...and in most of the Old Town the houses look like they're from the Pirates of the Carribbean ride in Disney. So awesome. We got pizza, because Crotian food is pretty much either seafood or Italian. And Italian is cheaper.
Pics from both days:
Me near the harbor...note the pirate ship...i wasnt kidding
the pier
myself and my friend Blair on the end of the pier
one of the main streets in Old Town
pier again...unbelievable view
Team Croatia! -me, because I took the picture
Dubrovnik: Day 3-Locrum Island
We decided to take the ferry to the nearby Locrum Island...it was absolutely fantastic. For anyone that reads this and has climbed the rocks near the lighthouse on the FPC Maine trip...it was like that...except above clear aqua water with palm trees and 75 degree weather. So basically we hiked around the island all day. Oh, and it was inhabited with wild peacocks. Don't be fooled, they are exceedingly annoying. They make you think they're going to attack you but really you could probably kick them and they'd fall over and not be able to get up because their tails are too big for their bodies. We also came across an old abandoned monastery, with beautiful gardens that are still taken care of today. Oh! and at the top of the island was an old fortress that we climbed on top of...we saw the rest of the island underneath as well as all of Dubrovnik from across the Adriatic sea. It was absolutely amazing. Unfortunately my camera died that day:(Oh, and we ate lunch in an underground cave that we found. And I got the worst sunburn of my life. But I recovered. I am happy to report I can now sleep on my left side again without my skin burning.
Travelling-Day 4-Dubrovnik to Zadar
Not much to write about...we took an 8 hour bus ride from Dubrovnik to Zadar...look that up on Google maps. We pretty much drove along the coast...on cliffs...on a giant bus....terrifying much? But the view was spectacular so that helped.
Zadar-Day 5-Nin
After makin pancakes for breakfast, we decided it was a beach day. So we travelled to Nin Lagoon to get our beach on. It was crazy...in Croatia this weather isn't considered warm enough for beaching right now (high 70s), so noone was at the beach...seriously...noone. We laid out and explored everywhere. There were medicinal muds so that was pretty interesting. And there were spots with tons of crabs and crazy lookin creatures too. Later, one family came and was trying to catch all of the crabs from one of the lagoons. After we were crispy, we went to explore Nin town. It was probably about 10 feet long and 10 feet wide. Not really, but it was pretty small. Later, we got taxis back to Zadar...the plan was to find information about going to Plitvice Falls the next day. (Beautiful world famous waterfalls...but you need to go with a tour group to get there basically). Sparknotes version, none of the tour places were open or had affordable tours. We ended up stopping in a sketchy rent a car place to ask about it there. The woman called her boss who said 'Oh yeah..I can drive them there tomorrow, I'm going too'...The price was awesome so we were ecstatic. Afterwards we got kebobs and ate a picnic near the harbor. Then we went home to make some cookies. Oh, and we realized that Friends was on in English on one channel every night at 10pm till 11. So this became a tradition.
Also, since technology hates me my camera somehow magically deleted all of the pictures it took from this day. If anyone else puts them up, there are some really good jumping pictures ;) I'll post em here if later.
Zadar-Day 6-Plitvice Lakes
So bright and early we got picked up by our driver and sat in a sweet van for 1.5 hours. Croatia driving is crazy...kind of glad I was in the back and couldn't see. Our driver was...shall we say ..a bit aggressive. But hey we got there fast. So we bought our entrance tickets and started to the park. The entire place has boardwalk-ish paths that go right through lakes..so you feel like you're walking on the water. It's absolutely gorgeous. At the biggest waterfall we saw a guy propose to his girlfriend. adorable.
It was really just a great day of hiking around enjoying each other's company. On the way back, our driver played the craziest music...some ABBA...and some techno versions of musical songs...and some other trippy stuff. That night we made pasta for dinner. And watched friends;)
Pics from Plitvice:
Day 7-Kornati Islands
On the first day we got to Zadar, we asked the land lady if she's heard about any tours for these islands...you can only get there with a tour group by boat. It just happened her next door neighbor was in charge of a tour, and he gave us a student discout. So on Friday we got to the boat around 8am, and hopped on. It was pretty much a cruise around Croatia. There were schnapps at 8am (why?....why not?) and breakfast and lunch...(fresh fish...it looked like they had just speared it). Around 2pm we stopped at one of the islands and were allowed to explore for three hours. I got attacked by beetles, but thats another story. After the cruise, we got off in Zadar Old Town and explored there....we got our last seafood dinner (pasta scampi...so good! and the waiters were super nice) and hit up a gelato stand. We also saw a church processional through the city, as it was Good Friday. This is a long blog and I'm getting tired so uh...here are some pictures.
on the island
Zadar!
seafood din
why is gelato so pretty?
Pretty much we woke up at 4:30, hopped in a cab, got to the airport...which didn't open until 6, even though our flight was at 6:50. We went through security to find out that there was only one gate at the airport....sooo uhh, we sat and then got on the cute little plane and we were back in Wien around 930 am.
Easter and stuff
Saturday (day 7...see above) we hit up the Easter markets in town, and bought some hand painted Easter eggs...so pretty! We also got food for Easter the next day.
On Easter Sunday we went to a Catholic mass auf deutsch in Stephansdome....it was beautiful, there was a full orchestra as well as choir, and one of the Cardinals was at the mass. Later, we went back to the apartment and made ham, carrots, broccili, green beans, bread, scalloped potatoes, and cookies for Easter dinner. That night some friends came over and we all ate together. It was so much fun cooking everything...and quite the experiment. But everythig turned out great. I even brought a bottle of wine from the vineyard we visited on the Wachau trip. good stuff.
That is all I can possibly type for now. If you made it through this beast of a post...gold star for you.
I'm off to write a lesson plan, do homework, and cook some din.
-Alyssa
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