The Dalmation coast in one word......stunning!!

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We were going to give the days blog a different heading due to another incident like the infamous 'Vienna debacle' that occured as the day came to an end but our drive up the Dalmation coast was far more impressive so we shall refer to that instead.
We shall come to what is now known as the 'Trogir incident'later.
The day dawned with a stiff breeze blowing so hard that it demolished the rattan roof over our little terrace and the wind didn't subside by the time we rose for breakfast so we had to have our last morning breakfast here inside.Wind is not something we had expected in this little bit of paradise.
The sun is out and is as strong as ever.We have been wearing sandals for the past 4 weeks and in fact we are actually sure where our sneakers are but they must be somewhere in RR.Our feet have got to the point where we have those brown stripes you get when your feet are exposed to the sun continually except where the straps on your sandals are which remain pale.
We did leave NZ with a good Kiwi tan in April and we have added gradually to it especially since we arrived in Europe in early August.
We bade farewell to the man who runs the hotel who has always had a wave and a hello whenever we have seen him as we have come and gone here over the past 4 nights.He doesn't speak a lot of English but has been cheery and friendly.
The main road this morning seems to be quiet on traffic especially buses and as we passed by Dubrovnik we found out why.There were no cruise ships in!!
It has only been one or two times on this adventure that we have driven over the same road twice to get to or from a destination.However we don't have any alternative today in driving back north on route #8 unless we divert on one of the couple of roads that wind over the mountains to B-H and come back out onto the coast at Opuzen.We have experienced enough of B-H and the road over the mountains near where we have been staying looks pretty tortuous so we shall stick with the coast road.
Driving north we are on the right hand or inland side of the road which has an advantage that at least there is less danger of straying off the road crashing down the hillside a couple of hundred metres to the water!! On the other hand the view is not quite as panoramic.
We passed through the town of Neum and in and out of that small piece of B-H that is coastal, again with a wave of the hand by the officers on duty without even checking our passports.
With the small amount of traffic about we reach Opuzen quicker than we travelled the distance the other day and we passed onto the next section of route #8 which is coastal all the way to Split.
At this point we did have the option of taking highway #A1 which heads inland at this point and runs parellel to the road we taking but behind the mountain range that rises up from the coastal road.We cannot imagine that the inland road would offer anything by the way of views that we hope the coastal route will and so we stick with the one on the coast.
Unfortunately,Croatia suffers simiarlary to B-H with a lot of rubbish on the roadside and environmentally we think both countries have a long way to go to tidy up their act.
You really only notice the rubbish when you stop to take in a view and so it was when we stopped for a break at the lakes just north of Ploce.This despite that the pull off area was sealed and there were rubbish bins provided people still just chucked bottles,wrappings etc on the roadside or down a bank.
The scenery down to Dubrovnik was quite outstanding but north of Opuzen it was simply stunning!!!
Every few kilometres we came across another small town located off the main road down the hillside on the edge of the blue Adriatic.All had small beaches where there people swimming generally with some form of netting protecting the swimmers persumably from sharks.
In some of the towns new,modern hotels had been built for the tourist trade but mostly it seemed that tourists were being accommodated in apartments attached to locals homes and it looked like these are in big supply as in one town almost every second building was advertised as such.
The views out from the road to the towns and the sea was stunning but the views upwards towards the towering mountains were also quite awesome.The mountains are so steep that half way up there is little or no vegetation.
It is possible that the best views are seen by travelling north to south simply because you are on the seaward side of the road and because of the lay of the land.
At just south of Mimice we reached a point on the road a couple of hundred metres above the sea where there was a pull off area which gave a panoramic view back south along the coast.Even at the height we were at the mountains still soared significantly higher and were dramatic in their stature.Equally however were the absolutely stunning views back down the coast with several small towns in view off into the distance and to the right of where we were standing was the blue Adriatic sea and the island of Havr covered in lush green bush.All in all just a stunning sight equalled only by that we saw in Santorini for such a wide panorama.
On the road again and we were getting into thicker traffic as we approaced Split.
It was here that the scariest moment of our adventure occured.
We were humming along doing about 70kph and minding our own business with no traffic going our way in front of us.
Then suddenley out of the blue as we rounded a corner there was a 45 seater bus coming towards us on our side of the road and we had nowhere to go with a solid concrete wall on our right hand side!!!
Gretchen applied the brakes and our speed dropped very quickly as the bus kept coming at us.
At what seemed the last moment it pulled back into traffic on its own side of the road and a collision was averted!!Whew!!A big brandy would have gone down well at this moment!!!
It was a quiet trip for the rest of the way into Split and beyond to Trogir where our accommodation was.
After missing the turn off the highway we turned around and found the right road to take us onto the Island of Ciovo where our hotel was located.
Traffic was heavy as we crossed over the short bridge to the island and progress was slow,We were following the instructions we had from Google maps and we seemed to be going in the right direction.
When we thought we had gone too far we came across a map and after a quick look located the street we were looking for just 50 metres back from the map.
Now it was here that things seemed to go wrong and I envisaged another 'Vienna debacle' as the building that had #26 ,which was the number we were looking for,on it was closed up with no one around.
We asked at a house across the road but the only word we could understand from the woman was "Zagreb" and we assumed that the owner didn't live here but in Zagreb which was no good to us if this was indeed the right place.
Every other house in the street was an apartment for rent although many looked closed up for the season and those that didn't thjere wasn't anyone around.
What to do??!! We had cancelled another booking on the island because the one we were searching for was a cheaper deal and in line with the BBA price.Would we go there and say we had changed our minds again and hope they still had room for us.??!!
We decided upon looking up the road a bit further just in case we spied the name of the place we were looking for.
And there it was,Levarda Apartments,at #2b NOT #26!!
Had I read the street number on the internet site incorrectly or just written 2b as 26??Do I need new glasses??No I don't use my glasses when using the laptop!!
Whatever the answer Gretchen is preparing to invoke the 'three strikes and you are out' regime and I only have one chance left!!!!
So from hereon she has to copy everything down from the internet booking sites and I will check her writings so I can continue on this adventure.
So after an hour or so of arriving on the island we had found the apartment only to find that the owner didn't have our booking from Hostelworld.He made a call to his daughter who was in Zagreb for some job interview who looks after the bookings and all was confirmed.
The supermarket was just up the road so we got our supplies in and sat down to a cold and well deserved beer and dined on pork pieces with sweet and sour sauce and good old Uncle Ben's rice.
It had been a day of contrasts with a very enjoyable drive with stunning scenery,a scary moment with a bus on the wrong side of the road,ours!! and then some problems with hotel addresses again!!

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Comments

[KJ]

Is this photoshopped?
The photos are stunning! Am wondering if you've been doing a bit of photoshopping just to convince us it really is that magnificent? Caught up with Angela and Petra for kai last night and reminded them to check out the blog as well so you may end up with more commentators.