Croatia - Zagreb to Dubrovnik

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It was with much anticipation that we entered Croatia, as it is one of Jared's favourite countries and we were looking forward to a bit of time chilling out at the beach, and it did not disappoint

We started our travels in Zagreb, Zagreb is relatively small capital city and although very beautiful and picturesque apart from a main square and a few museums it doesn't set the world on fire. It is mainly used by tourists as a entry point for the coast.

After two nights in Zagreb we headed for the coast. On the way we stopped at Plitvice national park, which we had heard many good things about. Plitvice is an area consisting of many different tiered lakes, and waterfalls. You are able to buy a day pass which entitles you to use the park buses and allows you to walk amongst the bush and over a series of wooden bridges that they have built throughout the park. We had planned to stop here for a couple of hours, however we got distracted by the sheer beauty and ended up spending almost 6 hours here. All in all it was a great stop with only one down fall, we had to fight the crowds as it was a public holiday in Croatia and all the locals had decided Plitivice was the place to be.

From Plitvice we continued onto Zadar, our first beach stop. However with no accommodation booked, it being a national holiday and spending twice as long in Plitivice as we had planned, we encountered some trouble finding accommodation on arrival. After approaching the local tourist office and hostel and being told we had no chance we decided to head to the camping ground. This is when the real fun began. After finding what we thought was the perfect spot we set about putting up our tent in the dark. This would normally be no problem, however there were heavy winds due to a massive thunder and lightning storm fast approaching and the ground had about 1cm of soil before you hit rock. After 1 1/2 hours, some help from a group of Italians who felt sorry for us and 10 bent pegs we finally got the tent up. Luckily it was just before one of the most impressive storms we have had the pleasure of camping in!

The following morning we set off for Split, which is about 1 hour down the coast where we had booked a room in a backpackers right on the beach, for the following two nights and it didn't disappoint. It was a cute little family run place that had the most amazing breakfast and also a kitchen. So we ended up cooking a greek salad, pasta and having a beer over looking the sunset. Life is tough.

After two days of relaxing in Split we headed to one of the our most anticipated places on the trip, Dubrovnik, where we had booked 3 nights in an apartment, complete with balcony over looking the old city.

For those of you who don't know anything about Dubrovnik, it is right at the bottom of Croatia, set on the Dalmatian coast and has one of the most amazing walled cities still left in the world. It also managed to almost completely come through the war unscathed. We did all the usual sights which include walking around the marble streets of the old town with the highlight of being able to walk along the tops of the walls.

Apart from Jared having to spend a day in bed with a bug (because of this we were able to watch the Olympics, including Nick Willis win bronze), we had a great time and it is by far the highlight to date.

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