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Published: April 9th 2010
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LOKRUM ISL. Day 74
Late last night a new girl arrived into my room, from the US. Tanya is from the US but has been living in France. Since it was Easter morning we decided to have breakfast together out on the patio. When we got outside the owner of the hostel came out with some painted Easter eggs for our breakfast. They were very pretty and we were not sure if we were meant to eat them or not. So I asked the hostel man and he said that they eat the painted Easter eggs. After our communal breakfast, my bread and nutella and her fruit, we headed down to the bus station at the port to arrange our tickets to our next destinations and then went on to the old town.
In the old town we were met by the locals attending their Easter mass. Everyone was dressed in the very best Sunday best. Many people were even carrying around baskets that were covered up with embroidered napkins. I was very curious to know what was inside the baskets and kept trying to peek into the baskets and eventually was successful in learning that they have
eggs in their baskets.
Since my ferry to Lokrum Island wasn’t going to be for another hour we decided to sit down at a restaurant along the port for a quick lunch. The view with our meal was really nice and we were able to watch all the locals wander by in their fancy outfits. We finished off lunch and I made my way to the ferry to cross over to Lokrum Island.
Lokrum is an island, just a 10 minute ferry ride from the old city, which is entirely a nature reserve. You are not allowed to stay over night on the island and must leave with the last ferry. There are also many beaches on this island, or what Croatia considered a beach. Here a beach is anything that meets with the sea, so if it happens to be a sheet of rock then that is what they call the beach. The entire beach on the island is these sheets of rock that surround the island. There are many grottos and hidden little places to soak up the sun. There is even a nudist beach. Now before coming to Europe I had expected all beaches to
be clothing free. But throughout my journey I have come to realize that this is only a myth about Europe. There are some nudist beaches but the majority are not. The only place that seemed to embrace the clothing optional philosophy is Germany where they have naked parks! Yes, people leave work at lunch and head down to the park to get naked and lay in the grass. I was not a witness to this as I was in Germany when it was pretty darn cold but apparently it is the norm to spend the day at the park in the nude.
Anyways, I headed for the island looking forward to soaking up some sun and the minute I stepped off the boat the clouds rolled in and covered the entire sky making it impossible to enjoy the rock slab beaches. I did enjoy wandering around the island though. There are loads of peacocks on the island, which happen to be my favourite bird. I didn’t realize that they could fly. I thought they were kind like turkeys and chickens, as in they can sort of jump and fly really low to the ground but not up high. Well
these peacocks were way up in the high trees so I guess they must fly. So I spent my 3 hours on the Island wandering around the different grottos, botanic gardens, old fortress, and anything else I happen to find along the way. And the clouds stayed covering up the sky the entire time. I even attempted a riveting rendition of Mr.Sun and nothing!
Even without the sun I enjoyed my day on the island. I headed back to the mainland and up to the hostel to collect my bags before I hopped on to another night bus. This bus was crazy. The roads are super windy and so as I slept my body would be flung back and forth. Thankfully there was a giant sitting next to me. He was so large that he couldn’t sit correctly in the seat because his legs wouldn’t fit in front of him so he sat with his wall of a back to me and his feet out in the aisle. This giant wall of a back saved me from falling into the aisle every time we went around a bend in the road.
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Mom
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Happy Easter!
I'm smiling grinning ear to ear when you mentioned the peacocks I could see you in my mind the memory of you chasing the the peacocks at the Zoo for just one feather. It must have been amazing seeing so many at once. Croatia is beautiful. What they refer to beaches is like the Nova Scotians - remember how many so called beaches were only rock and stones. Oh and the eggs are so very pretty.. you wouldn't want to eat them.