Blogs from Croatia, Europe - page 143

1,000 years at being the richest port in the Mediterranean, you say?... read more

The flight across Europe gave wonderful views of the fields of France and the majestic Alps followed by the beautiful shoreline of the Adriatic. As we descended towards Croatia, the turquoise ocean water outlining the rugged coast gave us a taste of what we were going to experience for the next 3 weeks. Dubrovnik is pretty amazing to fly into at sunset with the scattered village lights dotting the coastline. Dubrovnik itself (population 47,000 - smaller than Maple Ridge) is truly perched on a steep hillside with houses clinging to the rocky shore. Last year, there were over 100,000 tourists in Dubrovnik just in August so you can see why tourism is Croatia’s main industry. It did seem like most of the 100,000 were there at the same time as we were this year. We forsook ... read more

We finally got to Split and had a couple of good days. I'll let the pictures do the talking. The highlight was taking a trip up the bell tower with the kids and also getting a picture taken with Toni Kukoc again. I can't believe we ran into him and his kids again. Bacvisce beach was very clean compared to when we were there in 1996. We decided to skip the trip to Trogir. Finally got to Brinje today too...good to see the relatives. Ivana is keeping Abbey busy and Ayden has a new friend named Tomo!!!!!... read more

Slovenia has some of the most beautiful scenery i have seen in Europe. the train rides pass through valleys and mountains. and lake Bled and lake Bohinj are only half an hour from each other but complete opposites. In color and temperature, and surroundings. from lake Bled i went on the Croatia, first to Zagreb which was a nice city, then onto Plitvice lakes national park, which is a Unesco world heritage site, which consists of 16 lakes at different levels with waterfalls between them. The views and hikes are incredible. Then moved on to Split, which is very much a port city. with ferries going out to a lot of the islands. and ships coming in from italy and other countries. from split went on to Hvar which is a very touristy island, but also ... read more

23 JULY 2009, THURSDAY Woke up incredibly early, well before my 7:30am alarm so had a shower and got some uni stuff in before people started waking up at around 9am. People slowly had showers and ate breakfast (the hostel people didn’t seem to understand that I didn’t want a cup of tea or coffee though!) I had agreed to do the ‘excursion’ which I was told the day before there were four other people doing it. Fair enough. Then the six Irish guys said they were going to do it and so I thought it would be a good sized group - anyway, turns out those other four people had changed their mind so it just ended up being me and them - nice enough guys but still. We left just after 10am (just after ... read more