Hvar

We were sad to leave Budapest, but Hvar was a great change from the craziness of traveling over the past few weeks. We flew from Budapest to Split, Croatia on Tuesday morning, then took a ferry to the island of Hvar. Walking into the Split airport (with one backpack filled with wine, as well as one obviously marked "fragile" duffel bag, we walked through customs as if we had nothing to declare. Awesome.

As we walked off of the ferry, we were bombarded with people heckling us, asking if we needed a place to stay. Fortunately, we had already booked a room with a lovely Croatian woman named Ivanka Ivanovic (of course). She picked us up at the harbor, and immediately became our Croatian mother, telling us where to go, eat, shop, swim, etc. She also checked up on us throughout our stay. After a day in Hvar, and thanks to her hospitality, we decided we needed to stay longer, skipping Zagreb for another day at the beach.

Hvar is absolutely beautiful. It is a tiny town where life revolves around sitting in the sun during the day and sitting in the main square off the harbor at night. ...not a bad way to live. The square is lined with cafes and I think there are more ice cream places than clothing stores.

In true American fashion, we couldnt let the 4th of July pass by without a celebration. After a day in the sun, we went back to our apartment to cook up a feast of chicken, potato salad, and Apple pie. It was definitely one of the best 4th of Julys either of us has had...though me missed the fireworks from back home.

We spent two days on the beaches in Hvar and on our third day took a water taxi to Palmizana, part of the Devils islands. It was beautifully sunny the entire time, but the "beaches" could use some help. ie. sand. The entire coastline is rock, and the beaches are pebbles, making tanning without a beach chair an uncomfortable experience.

We left Hvar on Saturday morning, took the ferry back to Split, and then embarked on the 8 hour train ride to Ljubljana. This involved a stopover in Zagreb, which proved to be the creepiest train station of the trip...absolutely filled with crazies who were heckling us, randomly singing crazy songs, and just being all kinds of weird. We were pretty thrilled to get on the train to Slovenia! ...and seriously happy that we opted to spend another day on the beach!

next stop: Ljubljana

get excited.

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