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Published: August 13th 2006
Hvar Town
A hedonistic party town - basically you party by night, sleep in and laze around looking beautiful all afternoon. Someone's gotta do it!Everyone's talking about Croatia. 'It's SO summer 2006', they say. Fabulously clear blue water, lazy days filled with sunshine, seafood, yachts and chilled beers in beautiful walled old towns. Unfortunately, this means that literally everyone is there. On arrival in Dubrovnik I was greeted with two sights that were enough to cause any backpacker to shudder with fear and revulsion. First, a hulking white cruise liner crammed with Yank coffin-dodgers with greenbacks to burn. Then, perhaps worse, a Contiki bus overflowing with leering, drunk-at-lunch Aussie revelers and their hair-straightened, short-skirted eighteen year old hussies. I'd arrived too late, damn it, five or six years too late!
Suffering anti-Contiki/cruise boat blues I convinced myself that real backpackers don't catch buses or book hostels and bravely undertook the vertical cliff hike to the hostel in the midday heat. A concerned girl approached me ready to administer first aid (no doubt alerted by my beetroot face and asthmatic wheeze). 'No beds at the hostel', she said, 'and the guy on the desk is really nasty'. Not deterred, I told her I was going there anyway - the world cup final was on that night and I was determined to find some friends to
Old Town, Dubrovnik
At world cup final kick-off time a thunder storm rolled into Dubrovnik and it bucketed down rain. watch it with. I summonsed my most friendly and appealing look, hard to do when you're face is a beetroot and your t-shirt is drenched with perspiration, and greeted the nasty owner with an enthusiastic 'zdravo'. 'No worries', he said and gave me a bed - admittedly at the time I though it was my lucky day. However, it didn't take long to work out that there was certainly no 'youth' in this hostel. It turned out to be a sterile, YHA property with too many rules and not much fun.
Dubrovnik is overrated - beautiful, but dead boring. No one else will admit it, but walk around the town walls single-file, admire the stunning view, have a swim, have a pivo. Then you'll find that unless you're happy to lie on a pebbled beach in the sun all day - there is nothing left to do. Fortunately, I found some interesting pursuits to keep me amused - like going for a bikini wax, consuming some of the best vanilla slices in the world (great tip Shan) and updating my blog... Dubrovnik was also expensive. Gone are the days when post-war Croatia meant a cheap holiday destination. Costs were
World Cup Final, Dubrovnik
Marian, me and Nicole. For the World Cup final I found myself in Katie O'Connell's, a tiny, atmospheric irish bar jammed with football fans. The night involved much laughter and frivolity! pretty much on par with Australia - which is ridiculously excessive compared to any other Eastern European country I visited. The old town itself was completely overrun with foreign tourists, hardly a Croatian in sight, and I quickly realised most were cashed up holidaying couples from the US, UK and Australia on a romantic getaway. The Croatian restaurant owners were tuned in and every restaurant offered pricey candlelit dinners with set menus.
At world cup final kick-off time a thunder storm rolled into Dubrovnik and it bucketed down rain. Having found no one at the hostel to watch the soccer with, I was back in the old town, standing under an awning to escape the rain, when I heard a cheer. Ducking up a narrow flight of stairs I found myself in Katie O'Connell's, a tiny, atmospheric irish bar jammed with football fans. I'd missed the first five or so minutes of the match, but got myself a beer and settled into watch the game. I quickly made friends with Marian, Dave, Nicola and John - all holidaying from Ireland and the UK and the night continued on with much laughter and frivolity. Who won again? I was lucky
Reunion Dubrovnik
Me and Dean. I was checking email in the local internet cafe and heard a familiar voice - two computers down was Dean, an Aussie guy from my hostel in Lithuania! to make it back to the hostel within curfew.
The following day, I was checking email in the local internet cafe and heard a familiar voice - two computers down was Dean, an Aussie guy from my hostel in Lithuania! We swapped Dubrovnik horror stories (he couldn't wait to get out of the place either) got ourselves a gelato, walked around the town walls and had a few pivos before it was time for him to catch the bus to Zagreb. That night was the opening night of the Dubrovnik summer festival, so I hung around for the fireworks - before getting my stuff together to head to the island of Brac to stay with my friend Amelia Peel and her family.
Brac is the neighbouring island to Hvar and the third largest island in Croatia. 'Palazzo Peel' - the holiday villa the Peel's were renting for a week, was in the tiny, little fishing village of Sumartin, Brac and had all the mod-cons you could ever dream of. Smack bang in the main street, yet conveniently raised to give a stunning view of Sumartin and it's port, 'Palazzo Peel' came complete with patio area and pool and
"Palazzo Peel", Sumartin
The holiday villa the Peel's were renting for a week was in the tiny, little fishing village of Sumartin, Brac and had all the mod-cons you could ever dream of. Smack bang in the main street, yet conveniently raised to give a stunning view of Sumartin and it's port, 'Palazzo Peel' came complete with patio area and pool and was the best accommodation in town! was the best accommodation in town! Sumartin was a quaint village with stone houses, narrow lanes and flourishing bougainvillea. In a refreshing contrast to Dubrovnik, we were the only English-speaking tourists there. It was also isolated from the rest of Brac due to a particularly inconvenient and infrequent bus system. This enforced isolation gave way to relaxing pursuits like drinking, eating, playing cards and swimming, whilst we watched the the world go by. For me, this was a holiday!
It was also great to be surrounded by familiar faces and news from home. All up there were 7 adults and 2 kids - Peelsie, her boyfriend Paul, her sister Belinda and husband Tim and their children Chelsea and Angus, her brother Julian, cousin Natalie and me. Always something going on and always someone to chat to.
Angela, the contentious rental manager, dropped into 'Palazzo Peel' with alarming frequency (even when we weren't there). However, we soon began to rely on her daily visits to assist with negotiating some of the finer points of Croatian living. Like for example the complex Karlovačko pivo bottle exchange policy. Where not unlike South Australia, you return empty bottles for a refund or
Daily Bocce Match, Selca
A hard fought, evening match was underway and the moment I pulled out my camera - they called out to ask if I could take their picture for the NY Times. www.travelblog.org will have to suffice boys! free pivo. Apparently unwitting tourists were regularly robbed of their entitlement! One day Angela drove Peelsie and I to the nearby town of Selca to take us to the butcher. I can still picture Peelsie in the Selca butcher (where no English is spoken), oinking like a pig and pointing to her ribs to order pork ribs.... or maybe she just pointed to a picture of a pig on the wall?! Hilarious all the same! While in Selca, Peelsie and I were lucky to watch the daily bocce match. A hard fought, evening match was underway and the moment I pulled out my camera - they called out to ask if I could take their picture for the NY Times. www.travelblog.org will have to suffice boys!
The Croatian restaurant and bar food was disappointingly average. It was often salty, oily, pricy and lacking in seafood and flavour. After eating out a couple of nights, we decided to cook our own meals from the fresh produce which was readily available in town. In Sumartin - fish were sold from the boats to the left of our gate (even though they wouldn't sell any to Tim). The greengrocer had a stall
Sumartin
Sumartin was a quaint village with stone houses, narrow lanes and flourishing bougainvillea. opposite our gate, the bakery was 50 metres down the road and the supermarket was next door. Everyone contributed to the cooking effort and we enjoyed fresh fruit and bread (with precious vegemite) for breakfast and sensational BBQs with delicious salads, meat and hand made chips for dinner. We also tried out some of the bars in town and found Sumartin so conveniently small that after Tim and Belinda put the kids to bed, we could take the baby monitor with us to the bar or restaurant down the road.
It didn't take long for me to get bored and I roused the troops to get a plan going for a day trip. The travel agent was notoriously lazy and unhelpful, so Paul and I went down to charm her and book a boat for a day trip to Bol. 'You're from the house with the pool?', she smiled smugly and upped the price a few hundred kuna...!
The next morning we boarded the 'None Anca' with Milan our budgie- smuggler-clad Captain for a daytrip to Bol. We were slightly concerned when he had his first whisky for breakfast at 10am! Our first stop was Milan's private cove
where we swam in the clear water to cool off before heading to Bol. Bol is supposedly the best known windsurfing destination in Croatia, offering a whole host of watersports from its famous beach with the unappealing name of Zlatni Rat (Golden Cape). The beach is supposedly one of the best in Europe and whilst it looks like sand, closer inspection revealed nasty little pebbles that hurt your feet. Our small, but comfortable boat pulled up alongside glamorous yachts and we went ashore to rent a ridiculous yellow paddle boat with a slide for an hour. While aboard we noticed a massive yacht move in, complete with security boat. We know that Bill Gates holidayed here last year, but this yacht had some sort of royal flag on it. Determined to identify the people on board, we furiously paddled closer, until they caught on, upped anchor and moved away!
Later in the week, we did a daytrip to Supetar. Like Bol, Superstar, as I like to call it, was a larger resort town on Brac. The bus ride to get there was tricky, but we made it in one piece and strolled along the palm tree lined promenade to
Milan our Skipper in his budgie smugglers!
We were slightly concerned when he had his first whisky for breakfast at 10am! the beach area. Despite rough conditions (no one else was in the water) - we decided to go for a ride on a speed boat with banana attached. We had an awesome time careering over the waves, until we tipped and I received a sharp elbow in the eye from Paul giving me a mini-shiner just in time for the Canadian wedding. We didn't let this mishap phase us and next had a go on the scrambler, another blow-up, 'hold on for dear life' type contraption. We had a ball!
My last night in Sumartin was a Friday and all the fishing trawlers were back in town. The nightlife was pumping in Sumartin and we think it was someone's birthday at the local pub. There was plenty of barefoot dancing action, a band and other colourful antics going on, but no one would join me on the dancefloor - so we eventually called it a night!
My next stop in Croatia was Split for one night. I negotiated a private room just outside the old town, with a Croatian lady Mirjana and her mangy and potentially rabid dog. Cheap and cheerful, the apartment was in a grey, concrete
Pivos on the Protrusion, Sumartin
Tim, Julian, Belina, Chelsea, me, Nat and Peelsie. apartment block - which screamed 'communism', rather than 'ocean views', so luckily I was only there one night. You don't often hear great things about Split, the way you do about Dubrovnik, but I found that while it was bigger and more commercial, it was still quite picturesque and had a younger, social vibe about it.
Split was the gateway to the Dalmatian islands, I'd come here to get out to Hvar Island - so I called into the local internet cafe to sort out some admin. Trying to type and fending off the advances of the Croatian Romeo who ran the place who was annoyingly calling me 'skip', I heard a girl talking on the phone with an Aussie accent and crying because she had no money as her ATM card wasn't working. I went up and offered to lend her some money and it turned out she was an Eltham girl who looked incredibly familiar. Never worked out how we knew each other though - small world!
Sightseeing in Split centred around the UNESCO listed Diocletian's Palace - a massive open-air museum next to the port. There were also some fantastic clothing and fresh food markets
Split
You don't often hear great things about Split, the way you do about Dubrovnik, but I found that while it was bigger and more commercial, it was still quite picturesque and had a younger, social vibe about it. around town - but mostly I just wandered and did some window shopping. Back at the apartment, after averting an attack from the mangy dog, I met Katelin, a Berkley girl from California and we went out for dinner. She won no points with me though when I awoke in the morning to find she had got up early and left after drinking all the water from my drink bottle during the night.
I was excited to cap off my Croatian journey with a day in Hvar Town. LP describes it as 'the island of choice for a swanky international crowd' - and whilst I'm certainly not swanky, I did fit the bill as international. Hvar town is a hedonistic party town - basically you party by night, sleep in and laze around looking beautiful all afternoon. I spent the day soaking up the atmosphere, wandering the narrow laneways and relaxing on the beach. I even bumped into 'Bobby', an American guy who'd stayed at a few of my hostels in the Baltic states and ended up having an early dinner with him. In the end I couldn't get away quick enough when he started analysing what personality type
New friends Hvar
Lucy, me and Sophie I was - Queen, Warrior, Lover or Magician ... (magician in case you're wondering!). I got away and escaped up to the heights of the Venetian Fortress - a look out with spectacular views down to the town. Here I met Lucy, Sophie and James - some Melbournites who invited me for drinks. It turned out to be a great way to pass my time until midnight when I was catching the overnight ferry to Ancona. Lucy lives near me in Melbourne and used to work for an agency I deal with at Ford, Sophie is a documentary maker who lives in Afghanistan and Jim works in Afghanistan for the UN. It all made for an interesting evening.
When it was time for me to catch the ferry to Italy we said our goodbyes and I went to track down another budget conscious travel with overnight 'deck' tickets. I wasn't quite sure what this involved, but I was imagining a chilly night, clinging to my pack on the outside deck. Two Australian girls who'd supposedly caught their share of overnight ferries said I was in trouble, 'you should have at least reserved a recliner below deck'. I decided they
Overnight ferry to Italy
Thomas, Ash, Sara, me and Steph. We smiled nicely at the guy on the ferry and he ushered us into the carpeted cafe to sleep for the night. Brilliant! were no fun and found Thomas, Steph, Sara and Ash who were also on deck tickets. We smiled nicely at the guy on the ferry and he ushered us into the carpeted cafe to sleep for the night. Brilliant!
Leaving Croatia I was unexpectedly sad. Three year old Chelsea completely summed up my feelings when sitting next to me on Milan's boat, she tapped me on the leg and said 'I don't want to go home'. Neither do I Chelsea, neither do I!
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Marin
non-member comment
melbourne born croat
hi,id just like to say reading this entrie that im some what dissapionted that you didnt have the time to see the island of PAG,some 2 hours from where i live at the moment by ferry.I think it would really be productive to promote the island of Pag to young aussies because in translation Pag is a smaller cheaper Ibiza,yet as fun and crazy as Ibiza. i hope u took some prosut home:)