Mljet

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On Sunday morning, we got up early and left our camping at 7AM to get to Croatia. We were just in time, with only half an hour waiting at the borders where we could see the lines grow longer and longer. When we passed them, entering Croatia, our estimation was that people entering Montenegro would have to wait 2 hours in the queue to exist Croatia and at least 2 more hours to enter Montenegro... So we were pretty lucky with our half hour of delay. Thanks to this, we made it just in time to the ferry in Prapratno to get to Mljet. On our way we passed but Dubrovnik and it looked lovely but everyone we met told us better not to stop there since the tourists there are excruciating.

Mljet is an island if 98 square km. We arrived there at around 11 AM and found our camping place after some searching. It's not very difficult to find something there, though, because there is only one street crossing the island.
People at the camping were very nice and the Auto-Camp Lovor was wonderful, situated in a wonderful spot below olive trees and giving a beautiful view. It was also situated perfectly for our plans for this day, just in between the national park and the Odysseus cave.
We met a nice couple from Vienna there and they told us they had spent a whole week on the island but it was quite hard to get to some places without a car.
Lonely planet recommends renting a bike but there are many steep mountains on the island and with heat there it's a bad idea to do these routes by bike.

First, we went to the national park where we rented 2 bikes to go around the 2 lakes (+/- 10 km). These lakes are actually salty lakes, but nobody knows how their existence is possible since there is no connection to the sea. The lakes are magnificent, so blue-turquoise and clear you can see the bottom of the lake everywhere. After having missed the free ferry to the island (on a lake on an island! ^_^), We found a beautiful place where we went for a swim. We had an amazing view on the island and we enjoyed being there so much, we didn't want to leave anymore. We called it our paradise!

After some time we had to leave though, because we wanted to go to the Odysseus cave. It was quite a steep hike down to the cave, but it was absolutely worth it! The water there is so blue, I've never seen anything alike in my life! We swam inside the cave, enjoying the clear blue water, mesmerized by the beauty and the stunning colours of this place! That's when our paradise became the whole Mljet Island. :-D

We spent the night at the camping, having a wonderful meal with a good bottle of wine.

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