Blogs from Croatia, Europe - page 146

There isn't much to write about the month of July spent living and camping on the island of Brač because we didn't do much! Our campground was located in the city of Bol and we were right on the beach. The campground was situated in the back of the Dominican Monastery. We swam almost everyday, went to the Bol library and checked out books, we sat on our favorite benches over looking one beach and read tons of books, grilled all of our meals like baked potatoes and grilled cheese on the communal grill in our campground, saw two movies at the outdoor movie theatre, enjoyed an occasional Croatian beer on the beach, went grocery shopping at the Konzum and Kerum, bought fresh bread from our favorite Pekara and made friends with other campers from Slovenia, ... read more

I woke up for breakfast this morning and headed up to the 6th deck and finally got to get my first glimpse of Croatia. It is so stunning. We are surrounded by mountains, islands, and beautiful blue water. I had signed up for a trip through Semester at Sea to have a tour of Old Town Dubrovnik’s city walls. Dubrovnik is a cute little city and is located at the southernmost part of Croatia. The Old Town is actually enclosed in walls like a fortress and is mainly a tourist hotspot, but lots of people do live there (but not for cheap!). During the War for Independence that took place in here in the early 90’s, the city was destroyed by bombs, but it has been completely restored via government funding. There were still some buildings ... read more

Throughout the last few weeks I have been given the opportunity to engage with many croatians, and now that I am safely out of the country I feel I can finally right about it. I am not writing about all croatians, I am however writing about the majority of croatians that I have encountered. These croatians i am speaking about have come across as incredibly angry and bitter people who do not want to have any of us tourists in their country yet desperately need us to be there for them to earn a living (they arent just bitter towards tourists, they also dont hold back on each other). Im not angry, frustrated or annoyed about their attitude, actually, I think it is quite amusing and funny. Their behaviour has actually given me many, many good ... read more

After leaving Sarajevo we headed up to Zagreb for a few days. We’re trying to make it a bit closer towards the top of Eastern Europe (i.e. Hungary & Poland), before our InterRail tickets run out, which sadly means we'll have to give the Croatian coast a miss this time. The train was an older train. Air-con came in the form of opening the window in the carriage and then opening the window in the carriage hallway, and trying to create a wind tunnel though the train!! I learned that trick on the previous train by watching this old guy! However, this only works when the train is moving, and as we would spend SO MUCH time stopped at stations this knowledge seemed pointless. I share it though with anyone who may find it useful. The ... read more

Check-in; Pretty funny, actually. Our little Istok is the tiniest boat on the Adriatic, so people are a bit weary of it as it is. Add to that the fact that we were docked at a broken-down, under-construction part of the port and the pax had to walk across gravel and pipes and glass shards to get there... the closer they came to the boat, the more you could see them start to rue the day they opted for the low-budget option! Two girls took one look at the Istok and immediately ran to the Ika and upgraded. Thankfully, the rest of the group were as chilled-out as you can get, didn't mind showering outside on the deck (because the bathrooms are too small to stand in!) and we had a terrific week. Day 1; Mljet ... read more