Blogs from Dalmatia, Croatia, Europe - page 64

Well, sunday confirmed it - sick. I guess it was inevitable. You can't keep up this kind of pace and share rooms with that many dirty backpackers without something eventually catching up to you. On my train to Zagreb I started feeling a swelling in my throat and then got off into the unsavory Croatian humidity and spent the next two hours searching for my hostel. (I think Croatia officially wins the award for worst direction givers, as I had a similarily hard time finding my place in Split). Got to the hostel and...closed. Shit! Backtracked to an HI Hostel and went straight to bed. It was about two in the morning at that point. Woke up in the morning and felt like death. I was skeduled to go to the Plitvice Lakes the next day, ... read more

When I last checked in, we were halfway through our time in Montenegro; as it’s now the night before we leave, and I imagine most of you have heard next to nothing from the kids, another blog post is probably overdue. Day 4: As many of you read, much of the first three days of the trip were spent in training. While that shouldn’t be surprising (it is a training trip, after all), since we at Agoura want your kids to be well-rounded and cultured as well as dynamite water polo players, Kevin and I gave the kids Friday afternoon off and we all went on a “boat excursion” (Milos’s words) that he and Dusty arranged for us. We justified this by giving the kids a killer of a morning dry-land workout (even going so far ... read more

Armed with our map of Korcula bay, carefully drawn and explained by the artist know as Simon, we boarded the morning Catamaran among the customary hordes, bound for our next Island destination. An hour later we approached a beautiful walled city from the Sea, it resembled a perfect miniature of its bigger brother on the mainland, Dubrovnik. Disembarking we fought our way politely through the room touts, which reminded me of “Slow Boats to China” – where Gavin Young is constantly assailed by mature women at every port soliciting their spare bedroom to supplement their small widow’s income. Not feeling inclined to accept the invitations of these more modern incarnations of Young’s port hosts, we headed off, fully loaded, to follow Simons map the supposed twenty minutes to the campsite on the other side of the ... read more

I am stood at the top of the hill, underneath the great cross overlooking the city, re-built last year after it was destroyed in this regions gruesome war. From where we are we have a panoramic view of the famous medieval walled city below. Thankfully we did not have to walk all the way up here in the blazing August sun, or take an extortionate, tourist fleecing cable car either. As a surprise, our guesthouse host, Ante, drove us up here in his car, giving us a brief history of his homeland in the process. As a host, he was proving pretty perfect. After waking at 1.30am to ensure a prompt landing in Croatia’s most southerly city we arrived on the verge of delirium with tiredness. Ante, our accommodation owner, met us at the bus station ... read more

This morning we broke the trend of getting up an going for a swim - we left the boat at 8.30 and went for a hike up to an old fortress. It took us about 45 mins to get up there, and it had an amazing view at the top so we got our snap on as per usual and took lots of pics. We struggled a bit after having done not much exercise for awhile and realised just how unfit we are!! Too much lying in the sun and holidaying! On the way down we got slightly lost and ended up on residential property and it took us twice as long as it had on the way up. I had thought our sense of direction was getting better but apparently not! After we got back ... read more