Blogs from Croatia, Europe - page 2

Dear All Greetings from Split! This is another amazing Croatian city, though really quite different to Dubrovnik. Being Croatia's second largest city at 265,000 people, it is a large and busy urban area with sprawling suburbs filled with communist-era residential tower blocks and hulking great port and industrial areas. Dubrovnik, on the other hand, was slow-paced and deeply charming, a quaint and seriously splendid little city with a comparatively diminutive 40,000 residents. Whilst different, Split also packed a punch (almost) as good as Dubrovnik to me, most notably with its unbelievable Diocletian's Palace right in the heart of town, more on that below. I must admit, I was a little disappointed with the way I arrived there though. I had originally planned a fast ferry ride from Dubrovnik to spend three hours on the island of ... read more

I left the hostel in Zadar mid-day yesterday and headed back to the bus station for the 3 hour trip to Trogir. Stela (from the group Host a Sister- what a great group!) was waiting with her daughter to pick me up. We went back to her place, and her daughter helped get my bag to my room. Then we had dinner together, salmon and salad. She has an apartment above her house that she rents during busy season, so I had it to myself- so kind! And there was a bathtub (I only had a shower in the apartment in Vir and in the hostel, and had been wanting to soak my sore body in hot water). I had a great bath and a pretty early bedtime. The next day, my flight wasn't until early ... read more

I arrived in Zadar around 9:30am, and Hayden was waiting for my arrival. He's a traveler from New Zealand that I've been communicating with- we decided we'd team up to explore for a few days: I'm sharing my home exchange apartment in Vir and he's renting out a car for us. We plugged in the directions to the apartment, and off we went. We stopped at a grocery store along the way to pick up a few basics, and then continued on our way to the apartment. Vir is an island connected by a bridge to the mainland, with a cute beach town vibe. Our apartment is just 100 metres or so to the water. It has a lovely covered porch, and little yard with fig trees. We dropped off our things, unpacked groceries, and then ... read more

We spent yesterday afternoon confirming our route to Belgrade. We'll take 4 riding days to get there including a big day of 85kms. Unless we change our minds - again. We asked the lady at our accommodation for some dinner recommendations. She mentioned Bongo Bongo and Romana's and then said she preferred Romana's. So we ambled the 1.3kms to Romana's in the still very hot evening air. When we got there it was closed. There was red tape across the doors which looked a bit weird. I got the translator out, took a picture and read the translation. "Tax Administration". They had been closed down for not paying tax. We were in hysterics (and still hungry). We walked the 1.3kms back to Bongo Bongo and it was closed (because it was Monday). The best we could ... read more

We said our goodbyes to our sailing companions after disembarking in the morning and made our way to Split Airport for our flight to Rome. Little did I know that I would be channelling John McEnroe again. “You can’t be serious? ”Presented our flight details at check-in only to be told that the Vueling flight had departed at 8.40am. All our information in black and white had 3.45pm. The airline official checked our information, saw that we were on the flight manifest, everything was correct except … a big except … the departure time. We had received no email, no sms, no phone call, no smoke signals, that the flight time had changed … changed big time! We had to purchase tickets again … this time with Croatian Airlines leaving at 12.05pm … 854 Euros please ... read more