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Published: September 23rd 2007
Life's a bitch
Yep. We had a pretty hard time in Croatia. It was hot, sunny and calm and the water was refreshing and ridiculously clear. What else for a Piscean water baby to do when on a sailboat cruise than spend hours playing, swimming, floating & relaxing in the turquoise sea.Thanks to the clever guy, Ali, at TravelBlog who's just written a TravelBlog application for Facebook, I've been able to link my two accounts so you should get my latest updates on Facebook if you're not already a subscriber to our TravelBlog . If you're resisting Facebook (wise person) you can subscribe to my TravelBlog account by clicking on 'subscribe' near the top right of the page. Then you'll get an email each time I update the blog.
Ok. Well the 76 photos I’ve uploaded might give you some idea of how much we loved Croatia - and of just how many beautiful shots there were. It’s taken me 3 hours to upload the pics - and that doesn’t count the time I took to ‘shortlist’ & resize them from the 465 pictures which maxed out our 1 GB memory card.
It is beautiful. Thank you to Anita Erceg, my erstwhile flatmate in Melbourne who inspired me with all her stories and pics of her beautiful homeland and family’s home in the old town of Korcula. Thanks also to Chris & Liz and Bryn & Jodie for your fabulous photos of your tours of Croatia. Thanks Jen for the
Korcula
Supposed home to Marco Polo and 'hometown' for my friend Anita. We had a lot of fun getting lost in the cute alleys of this medieval town. hot tip of Sail Croatia. I highly recommend this as the best, most relaxing way to see the Islands.
So what’s so great about Croatia? Well for a water baby far from the sea in England, it was my first real chance to frolic in the waters since leaving home. Mix that with thousands of years of history & some of the most beautiful architecture we’ve ever seen & Croatia really is a place worth visiting. And remembering.
23rd August 2007. After a day travelling from Praiano to Napoli, and a very scary landing in tempestuous weather in Rome we finally took our final flight from Rome, arriving in Split just before sunset. A 30 minute bus ride into the centre of the old town where we were greeted by hoards of old women holding up signs saying:
Apartmani
Camere
Rooms
Zimmer
In any language it was obvious they were offering accomodation. We choose one of the clamouring women at random, haggled her down on price & followed her to nearby car. A short drive later and she and her husband proudly showed off their separate and private ‘apartment’ for us. It was stark but scrupulously clean -
with its own kitchen & bathroom and - thank the lord - a fan. It was stinking hot in Split. 39 degrees apparently. We paid them, got instructions back into town, then headed off. It all sounds easy, but you’ve got to understand that they didn’t speak a word of English - and we knew no more Croatian than ‘please’ and ‘Thank you’. So it was all done with hand gestures and a little bit of German (luckily we could all count to 10 in German). Sometimes, when the old man was trying to show he would drive us, earnestly waving his arms around in the air, I had to fight off the giggles.
We wandered round the old town, had a light bite to eat and manage to find our way back to our room with no hassles.
24th August: After a sit down shower (it was built under stairs, so no room to stand) we made our way back into the old town for breakfast & a walking tour of the old town & palace. Veterans of Angkor Wat, Pompeii and the many castles in Great Britain you wouldn’t have thought we’d still be able to
We
Brendon checking out the waterfront esplande (they call it the Riva) at Split. To the Right of the picture you see part of Diocletian's Palace, to the left, the sea. feel in awe of old buildings. Diocletian’s Palace blew our minds. 1700 years old, still very much intact and the centre of a bustling metropolis. Diocletian started building this Palace in the late 290’s AD and finished it in the early 300s AD - shortly before he was the only Emporer of Rome to abdicate. Deserted then reoccupied in the 700s AD you can still see the ancient homes built on top of and inside the Palace Walls. And every single one of them is in use today as a home or a shop. Wow! Then there are the columns and Sphinx. Naughty Diocletian stole these (even then) ancient items and somehow transported them intact to decorate his Peristyle (the centre court of the palace) and his mausoleum. They were over 3,000 years old. We really enjoyed our walking tour, followed it by trying to lose ourselves in the streets, a refreshing lunch of Gazpacho soup & headed off to the nearby beaches.
After the dirty, crowded & small beaches of Napoli it was a treat to find much larger, cleaner beaches, many with sand, and a sea that was so calm it resembled a giant swimming pool. We
Inside Diocletian's Palace
Built (roughly) between 297 and 304 AD by the Roman Emporer Diocletian before he abdicated in 305 AD, this Palace has lasted amazingly well. Brendon is admiring the view with our tour guide in the great Hall. found ourselves a couple of loungers and slept and swam the afternoon away. At sunset we strolled around the beaches to the highly recommended restaurant Velo Misto. Every part of the meal was divine and I had the most delicious grilled squid - the freshest fish I had the whole time we were in Croatia. Then a stroll home to bed.
25th August saw an early start. We packed our bags, locked up our rooms and dragged our bags 1.5km along the already hot roads to the port. After a quick breakfast where everything on the menu involved eggs we hopped on our bus for a supposed 4 hour journey to Dubrovnik. What followed was hours of driving by some of the most inviting coastline I have ever seen. Along all of it the water was so calm we could have been driving beside a lake. At one stop we were asked (with no warning or notice) to produce our passports. Luckily I had them in my hand bags. Not long after we went through a second check point. That was our visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
After nearly 5 & a half hours in the stinking heat we arrived
Diocletian's Palace
Again in the hall. This was built 1700 years ago! in Dubrovnik. We chose another old lady and again she and her husband drove us from the bus station to their home, high on the hills above Dubrovnik. It had beautiful views but was not the 1km / 10 minute walk to the old town she promised. Good thing we’re fit as the steep ascent back to the home from the city in that heat would have been a killer otherwise. Brendon, was hot, tired & cranky, but I convinced him time was short & a walk would do us good. We wandered down to the spectacular World Heritage old town of Dubrovnik. Wow! Now I see why this is the MUST SEE on everyone’s travel lists. We strolled down the ancient marble streets, polished smooth from countless footsteps. Even with the huge influx of tourists the town was incredible. After an early dinner we took an evening guided tour with the local Ivan. Large, hard looking and bald headed he reminded me of Bull from Sledgehammer. But his appearance was misleading as he was an intelligent and soft spoken guide who was obviously passionate about his hometown. After the tour of key monasteries, cathedrals and so on, the key
Good foundations?
Countless centuries saw people building their homes on top of the palace, digging holes and letting their rubbish & sewerage drop straight into the old halls and rooms of the palace. Probably why it's so well preserved - but a very messy clenaing job. Here you'll se ethatthey haven't cleared the accumulated centuries of mud fully away as they uncovered the sewerage pipes of current homes built ontop. Can you se ethe pipes sticking out on teh top LH side of the photo? thing we learned is that while much of the old city was built form the 1300s onwards, much of what we see now is ‘new’, being rebuilt in the 1700s after a massive earthquake destroyed many of the beautiful buildings. Of course, the siege of the city in 1991 - 92 also destroyed a lot. However the Croatians have wisely repaired walls, roofs and paving stones with material as close to the original as possible. The siege. In our life time. After the tour we spent nearly an hour quizzing Ivan about it. Apparently most of the city either hid in one of two of the giant fortresses in town - for months on end - or were running for safety in the surrounding hills. He did the latter and said that they had to keep moving to find food and water (from local wells). It just blows my mind what these people went through in our lifetime. How much war and hurt has gone on here, in Rwanda, Sudan, Biafra, Afghanistan, Iran etc in our lifetimes that gets just about no coverage or attention? And how can we do this to our friends and neighbours? However, some good things
Nice big bathroom
we got great cheap, easy accomodation, even our own kitchen, but you can see that the bathroom is definately a 'one person at a time' job - and you need to sit down in the shower. can come from this. My boss was in Dubrovnik shortly before we visited it and was chatting to a local who had lived inside the fortress for months. While boring, with nothing to do but sit and wait, he said it was the first time he got to spend quality time with his family and really got to know them.
26th of August & time for us to tackle the famous walls. But first a relaxing breakfast under grapevines on the terrace of the villa we were staying in. We now appreciated the location of this home high up in the hills when we got to enjoy the vista below - right down to the sparkling water.
No more avoiding it, down to the heat and the walls.
For those who want a light read skip this paragraph. For those who want the detail, here it, detail courtesy of a tourist site: No visitor to Dubrovnik can fail to be impressed by the walls that surround the oldest part of the city. Begun in the 13th century and made even more formidable in the 14th and 15th centuries as the threat from the Ottomans increased, they rise
The oldest manmade things I've ever touched
The Sphinx & columns in this photo - surrounding the peristyle in the centre of Diocletian's Palace - were stolen by D from the Pharoahs. They are man made and 3,000 years old!!! to a height of 25 metres and more, with numerous bastions and towers along their length. 6 metres on the landward side (the main threat to the city was considered to be from the Turks who would come from the east, the Ottoman Empire boundaries were only a couple of kilometres over the mountains), 3 metres thick on the seaward side and over 1940 metres long (but the walk is 3km if you count the stairs up and down), they are considered by many to be the finest city walls anywhere in the world. The biggest tower is the Minceta Tower at the highest point of the city. The Bokar Tower was built in 1453 to protect the Pile Gate and the little port that lay in the bay below. Fortress Lovrijenac is not part of the walls but protects the western end of the city from its position on a high rocky crag. Two more fortress towers - St John and St Luke - protect the seaward corners and in between there are numerous squared forts and round bastions. The protection they offered the city was such that these walls were never breached - the terrible months of the
Emporer's Mausoleum
Diocletian hated, tortured & persecuted Christians. So it is not surprising that they got their revenge - by destroying his marble coffin and turning his mausoleum into a cathedral. They claim it's the world's oldest cathedral. Very cool anyway. bombardment of the city by Serbian forces and the damage that wrought seem very far away now and the restored walls seem as impregnable as they ever were once more. The high road to the south offers particularly good views though there are very few stopping places. Taking a boat ride also offers excellent close-up views of the walls and several of the towers and bastions.
Well we met some people who took three hours on the walls, but in 38 - 40 degree heat we battled around it in 2 hours. The views of the sea & the old town were stunning. Those of people living their everyday life in the town were amazing. Seeing underwear hanging up on clotheslines, tiny school grounds and locals watching the tourists from their windows brought home that this Disneyland town was home to many people. Some homes opened up right on the city walls. Locals took advantage of this by selling exorbitantly priced cool drinks, postcards & other tourist memorabilia. I was chatting to one lady who was selling cool drinks from her living room. She told me her house was 200m2 over 3 stories and she said she had just
Where's Wally? Uh, I mean Brendon?
With the sacking of nearby Salona (another UNESCO World Heritage town) in the 7th Century people fled to the safety of the deserted Palace (the paranoid Diocletian starved himself to death - possibly an early example of OCD). They began turning it into a town. At 215x180 metres the area sheltered by the Palace walls is not massive. So the result of everyone cramming inside are these narrow streets and tiny rooms. The smallest place we saw was a medieval apartment (still lived in today) occupying a total of 15 square feet! put it on the market for €4 million. Was I interested? Ahh, no thanks.
We passed lots of hot, sweltering tourists on the way round, and it was only the stunning views that kept us up on the walls drinking in stunning view after stunning view. By the end we were both ready for a cold drink and some respite from the sun. We found it in a lovely little alleyway where we quenched our thirst with fruit smoothies and rye bread sandwiches. What a lovely respite from the white bread & meat dominant meals of the last little while. Off to our rooms to pick up our bags & take a lift form our host down to the port and to our boat. We checked in and were thrilled to find we had scored a cabin on the top floor with a double bed. We spent the afternoon meeting the crew:
Ivar the Captain
Ivan the First Mate
Mario the chef
And Nevena - the waitress with a smile that lit up the boat.
..and meeting the rest of our companions for the week ahead. There were 10 cabins - so 20 of us tourists in total.
Dumbledore? Merlin?
No it's Grgur Ninski. Cool statue though. There was a surprising number of antipodeans. Our soon-to-be friends were:
o Hema & April, two Malaysian girls working in Finance in London
o Deon & Lisa, two Sth Africans also working in London, both also in Finance
o Deon’s parents Colleen & Rudy, she’s a Dr specialising in Virology (23 years of study!), he is, funnily enough in finance
o Brett & Lindi, the final of six Sth Africans on our boat. They both work in Sun City.
o James & Jodie, two Aussies, at the start of 3 months of travel on their way home from London
o Sally & Belinda, the other two Aussies, both of who had lived in London & were back for friends’ weddings - oh and a bit of fun with some boys
o Laura & Scott, two Americans. From San Francisco he was (again) in Finance & she was a sleep researcher - with some entertaining stories.
o Mark & Kay, a lovely older couple from Birkenhead. They knew people I went to primary school with - what a small world.
o Simon & Helen, two South Islanders living in Wellington, she was a tax advisor in Treasury, he was, you guessed
Juxtaposition of the anceint & the modern
WIth the Palace in the background you see the cars, trucks & boats of the port of Split - and mountains forming a fabulous backdrop. it, in Finance!
Everyone was different but we all got on and had a fabulous time with everyone. You couldn’t have asked for a nicer group of people.
We lazed the afternoon away on the sun deck, hoping that this was a good indication of what was to come. Time to relax at last!
26th August : 8am and the breakfast bell went off. We set sail from Gruz Harbour, Dubrovnik during breakfast, and after a morning relaxing & sunbathing on the deck we stopped at Lumbarda a pretty, secluded, bay on the island of Korcula, for our first swim. Yee hah! We all swam the 100 / 200m to shore where Simon promptly stood on a sea urchin. As he jumped up he put his hand on another one. Ouch! The spines in his hands and foot were a warning to everyone else - as was the hour his wife Helen spent digging them out with a needle. After that I swam out in the deep, clear water. My preference anyway. It was so transparent you could see the 20 odd metres to the ocean floor - and it was pleasing to note there were
relaxing
Brendon chilling out at one of the beaches beside Split old town. no scary sharks or anything remotely threatening. In fact, on the whole trip all we saw were sea urchins & cucumbers and some mullet. The ocean was bare. Dead. Over-fished there after centuries of feeding the populace was just nothing left. Quite sad really.
Over the next week we swam and swam, lazed on lilos, jumped off the boat, dived off the boat, had ‘bomb’ competitions off the boat, tried climbing up the anchor rope onto the boat (I did it!) and had lilo surfing competitions. I haven’t had so much fun in the water since Daniela & I swam away the summer days with the neighbourhood boys.
After our first of daily four course lunches (bravo Mario) we set ashore in Korcula for an afternoon exploring the medieval town. We all regrouped at the cocktail bar on top of a tower wall for sunset cocktails, had dinner outside on the waterfront & wandered back to a Latin bar. We had an evening of cheesy music, some entertaining dancing by Laura and discovered extra long straws. Brett tried his luck out on the way home, by dipping his straw into drinks of people we passed on the way
home. Luckily he avoided any agro. Just. Back home to giggles & fun on the deck before another night sleeping with the breeze wafting in the open cabin door.
27th Aug - A whole lot more swimming before we arrived at Hvar. It was yet another beautiful and ancient town. The photos we took as we strolled up the hill to the city fortress were some of the best of the trip. Hvar is the party island of Croatia and party we did. After a late dinner we visited bar after bar, waiting for it things to start happening. The famous Carpe Diem was quiet and the nearly as famous Veneranda bar only took off just before 3am! Hema turned out to love music even more than me and quickly earned the name ‘Energy Bunny’ as she and I boogied the night away while everyone else warmed up. As the Veneranda started filling up and ‘taking off’ we spotted Nevena & Ivar burning up the dance floor with her sister & a whole lot of friends. I thought Hema was the energy bunny, these guys made us feel old! (turns out he is 17 & she is 19). After
The Clocktower
Beatiful old town of Dubrovnik. Here's the famous clock tower at sunset a lot of boogieing most of us headed home. Dragging Hema with us we left just two people (no names here ;-) ) chatting to their prospective dates. Walking home at about 4.30 in the morning we were horrified to see locals using a high pressure hose to wash the streets clean - hosing all the cans, cigarette buts and general debris of the day straight into the harbour. Guys if you don’t look after it you are going to LOSE your biggest attractions!
28th Aug
The final person made it in at 7.30am - just in time before the boat set off, and in time to see Ivar escorting Nevena’s sister off the boat. Nice. A fun night. Only two of us didn’t make it to breakfast (some had not yet been to bed though) and most of us promptly went for a post breakfast nap.
After Hvar we visited, Trstenik, quiet yet scenic. The most exciting (read disturbing) thing was finding a hypodermic needle between my feet on the beach. Apparently there’s a real problem with these washing up on the beach from tourist boats. Not nice. Especially as the beach was full of kids.
City Walls
Exploring the 3 km of walls around the old town of Dubrovnik. 29th August:
I started the day with a jog up the hill, taking in the sparkling water. Most of the team were up and about well before 7am. I met Brendon on the beach on the way back - he’d just been for a morning dip.
After our first stormy seas of the trip (where we saw dolphins swimming by our bow) we spent the day in the beautiful national park of Mljet. Waiting for a ferry to an island in the middle of one of the lakes in Mljet I was surprised to run across Kasia. Friends with Paloma and fellow visitor to Valencia, Kasia is Polish, grew up in SA, then NZ, and is currently living in London. She had come to Croatia on an impromptu weekend with her ex boyfriend. Small world! I went cycling in the afternoon along the beautiful lake front. Wow.
30th August
Brendon & I went for an early morning walk then jog along the lake front, and back to the boat before an early departure. We sailed through the beautiful Elafati Islands - reminiscent of Milford Sound only warmer - and swam ashore on our daily pre-lunch swim to a
Spot the difference
Most of the rooftops you see in Dubrovnik look brand new & shiny. You see very few old looking ones (like the ones in the foreground here) as they were all destroying by shelling during the 2001 / 02 seige of the city. A Scary reminder. deserted hotel. The inhabitants had found it too expensive to generate fresh water & power so after building the hotel left the shell. It was quite eerie and sad. A beautiful bay, this is a real gem just crying for someone to make the most of it. After lunch we sailed to our final destination, Sipan. Once again beautiful we took a lovely wander along the waterfront and up the hill behind the town. Magic.
1st September
Our last full day on the boat saw us sail (well, really motor) back to Dubrovnik. We had a team dinner at the lovely Arsenal (this was where they used to repair the boats from the port) then started off at the chic Gigli, before the strong winds drove us inside to the down and dirty Fuego. After some extra large cocktails and a night of hilarity on the dance floor (I’ve nothing against drag queens except when they dance up behind me & rub against me) we cruised home to the port and our final sleep on the Dalmatinka.
2nd September
The morning was spent saying goodbye to the fabulous group & we caught our bus to the airport &
Can you read this?
If you look closely you can see the Latin inscription on this wall - and the date 1597. It was inscribed by a priest asking local boys to not play their ball sport (an early form of soccer) outside the monastery. Things haven't really changed much have they! back to a cold, grey London.
Monday morning, crowds of people & tube strikes. How depressing!
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