CROOOOOOOOATIA
Ha ha, I’m writing this the day after Croatia lost it’s chances in the world cup so please excuse me if at any stage I sound slightly arrogant (and don’t mention any off sides), and also if I trash Italy for any reason… GO AUSTRALIA!
Ok, moving on from football… damn Croatians and their football fanaticism!! Everywhere we went there were stores absolutely covered in those red and white checks and maybe a little bit of Brazil for any tourists who happened to wonder on by… This got to such a state that Eirin and I decided to get revenge and ask at every store (especially those with only red and white) if they had any Australian t-shirts. We made a video of one such endeavour and we will be happy to show anyone should they wish to rub it in to any people who were going for Croatia.
Anyway, in Croatia we visited Pula, Split, Dubrovnik and the Islands of Hvar and Korcula. We also had small stops in Zagreb and Split, but we didn’t stay there overnight.
The first thing that hit us, almost literally when we finally arrived in Pula and got out and about was the rockiness of the beaches. We had read all about how great the beaches in Croatia were so we were pretty excited to be working on our tans. However we found that we were misled!! In fact all the people contributing to the lonely planet’s thorn trees (where we get all our free travel information on the net) must indeed be British or Scottish and think anywhere where it’s actually warm enough to lie on a beach is great. Never mind if that beach is in fact filled with boulders! And by boulders I mean stones that are about 30cms around. Not pleasant. So we made up our minds to only listen to Australians in regard to what makes a good beach… from our research we’ve basically come to the conclusion that good beaches only exist in Australia, Pacific Islands and Thailand. Call us snobs.
Our accommodation in Croatia was solely what we’d termed ‘old ladies’ accommodation. I.e. we arrive at the bus station old ladies fight with each other for our attention and show us maps of their place and we go with them on dodgy night-time car rides with people we don’t know to their house and pay up to $25 for a room. It’s great! It was through our old lady in Split that we discovered the magic of Dubrovnik… Nickola…
Some may say that the old walled city of Dubrovnik is the best thing on the Adriatic. However we found the kindness of the man Nickola, and his sister in law to really won our vote. Basically you pay $25 each a night (a bit expensive in hostel/old lady terms) to stay, but you get a private bathroom and nice big kitchen to use. PLUS Nickola will drive you anywhere, anytime… it’s so great! Nickola can we go to the old town please? The beach? The bus station? The port? Can you pick us up? Really great stuff, and to top it off they give you a bottle of wine upon departure… we stayed twice to get two… he he… no, but seriously it was cool and we really liked it, it was our home in Croatia.
It was from this base that we travelled to the Islands of Hvar and Korcula. We left our suitcases at our new home and were only travelling with our hand luggage. FREEEEEEEEEEEE we felt sooooooo frrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
Unfortunately with the exception of one day we had really shitty island weather. So our Island holiday (5 nights) basically consisted of sleeping in, eating pasta and chatting with other wacky travelling in the old ladies (or old men’s – crazy Luka!) houses. ‘Twas good and as the time went by and we travelled back to Dubrovnik we realised that the time had come…
It was time for Eirin and I to part again...sad! I was headed to Istanbul to sort out my visa for Syria and then move on to Damascus for my course, and Eirin was set for some serious intensive travel with Wes around Europe.
Us in Dubrovnik!
Ok, moving on from football… damn Croatians and their football fanaticism!! Everywhere we went there were stores absolutely covered in those red and white checks and maybe a little bit of Brazil for any tourists who happened to wonder on by… This got to such a state that Eirin and I decided to get revenge and ask at every store (especially those with only red and white) if they had any Australian t-shirts. We made a video of one such endeavour and we will be happy to show anyone should they wish to rub it in to any people who were going for Croatia.
Anyway, in Croatia we visited Pula, Split, Dubrovnik and the Islands of Hvar and Korcula. We also had small stops in Zagreb and Split, but we didn’t stay there overnight.
The first thing that hit us, almost literally when we finally arrived in Pula and got out and about was the rockiness of the beaches. We had read all about how great the beaches in Croatia were so we were pretty excited to be working on our tans. However we found that we were misled!! In fact all the people contributing to the lonely planet’s thorn trees (where we get all our free travel information on the net) must indeed be British or Scottish and think anywhere where it’s actually warm enough to lie on a beach is great. Never mind if that beach is in fact filled with boulders! And by boulders I mean stones that are about 30cms around. Not pleasant. So we made up our minds to only listen to Australians in regard to what makes a good beach… from our research we’ve basically come to the conclusion that good beaches only exist in Australia, Pacific Islands and Thailand. Call us snobs.
Our accommodation in Croatia was solely what we’d termed ‘old ladies’ accommodation. I.e. we arrive at the bus station old ladies fight with each other for our attention and show us maps of their place and we go with them on dodgy night-time car rides with people we don’t know to their house and pay up to $25 for a room. It’s great! It was through our old lady in Split that we discovered the magic of Dubrovnik… Nickola…
Some may say that the old walled city of Dubrovnik is the best thing on the Adriatic. However we found the kindness of the man Nickola, and his sister in law to really won our vote. Basically you pay $25 each a night (a bit expensive in hostel/old lady terms) to stay, but you get a private bathroom and nice big kitchen to use. PLUS Nickola will drive you anywhere, anytime… it’s so great! Nickola can we go to the old town please? The beach? The bus station? The port? Can you pick us up? Really great stuff, and to top it off they give you a bottle of wine upon departure… we stayed twice to get two… he he… no, but seriously it was cool and we really liked it, it was our home in Croatia.
It was from this base that we travelled to the Islands of Hvar and Korcula. We left our suitcases at our new home and were only travelling with our hand luggage. FREEEEEEEEEEEE we felt sooooooo frrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
Unfortunately with the exception of one day we had really shitty island weather. So our Island holiday (5 nights) basically consisted of sleeping in, eating pasta and chatting with other wacky travelling in the old ladies (or old men’s – crazy Luka!) houses. ‘Twas good and as the time went by and we travelled back to Dubrovnik we realised that the time had come…
It was time for Eirin and I to part again...sad! I was headed to Istanbul to sort out my visa for Syria and then move on to Damascus for my course, and Eirin was set for some serious intensive travel with Wes around Europe.
Us in Dubrovnik!
posted by Ingrid @ 4:03 AM
1 Comments:
At 11:13 AM,
Anonymous said…
GO the Aussies!! Yeah we definatly have the best beaches and hawaii's nice too.
Keep bloggin', thanks for the plug!
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