Tomorrow Is Another Day...

Croatia Finale: Zadar & Zagreb

Let's do this!  I'm on a blogging roll!  Croatia: Onward!!!

So, after our magical time in Dubrovnik and the Elafiti Islands, way back in *cough, cough* August... we moved up the coast to Zadar.  We actually stopped for an overnight in Bosnia in Herzogovina, but I will save that and Slovenia for their own post.  We stayed in the lovely Hotel Niko, across the bay from historic Zadar, and took advantage of their amazing in house restaurant every night.  If it ain't broke...  It was a hopping spot, close enough to the old town for easy access, but far enough away that we were dining amongst the locals.

Our first evening in town, we took the bus into the old town to see the main sights.  Zadar has a very Roman feel to it with columns littering the ground and imposing basilicas and towers.  I loved how the detritus from toppled columns had been arranged into a sort of "garden" in front of St. Donatus, a 9th century church.

Juxtaposed with all of that ancientness were two modern public art installations that rely on the environment of Zadar to produce their effects.  The first was the Sea Organ, a series of steps that invite you to sit and enjoy the waves lapping at their base while "a system of polyethylene tubes and a resonating cavity that turns the site into a large musical instrument, played by the wind and the sea." (Wikipedia)  What this produces is a semi-eerie, completely beautiful composition as the waves crash beneath the steps and emit a sound that I can only imagine must be like the songs of mermaids and sirens of seafaring lore.  The second was the Sun Salutation, a sort of flat disco ball that perplexes tourists during the day as it secretly soaks up the sun's energy, then as darkness falls explodes with a frenetic discotheque of light as the brightly colored lights dance and play across the ground.

The next day was spent driving the 2 hours out to Plitvice Lakes National Park for a day of hiking.  The park covers nearly 75,000 acres of land and contains sixteen interconnected lakes formed by travertine barriers which prevent any mud from entering the water, producing the most crystal clear aquamarine water I've seen in my entire life.  I attempted to capture the beauty in photographs, but truly nothing I've seen can compare to some of the scenery we came across that day.  If for no other reason, Plitvice should be one reason to move Croatia to the top of your travel bucket list.

Our last day in Zadar, we awoke to stormy weather which led to the cancellation of the chartered island cruise we had booked.  Much to our surprise, the weather had cleared by mid-morning, so we decided to take advantage and head out to a nearby beach--Nin's Lagoon--for a day of relaxation and floating.  Though I beg to differ with all the locals who claimed the water was "like bath water".  Clearly they have never swum in the Gulf.  Now THAT is bath water!  Mucky, jelly-infested bath water...

Our final stop of the trip was an overnight in Zagreb where our flight would take us back to Frankfurt.  We didn't get there until after dark since we decided to make the trek into Slovenia for the day, but as lovely as it was, it was indeed a fairly generic city, so I didn't feel like I was missing out on too much.  Certainly the most cosmopolitan place we saw on our trip, the nightlife was bustling and the streets were crawling with fashionable young professionals.  We took in the exterior of the Zagreb Cathedral, ate at a hip, tasty pizza place and then crashed at the elegant, comfortable, ridiculously affordable 5 star Hotel Esplanade.

Croatia is 100% in my top 5 favorite countries I've visited.  It is unique, approachable, stunningly beautiful, and incredibly varied in the experiences it can offer.  From beautiful beaches to natural wonders with a fascinating history and background, it really lacks for nothing that a traveler could want.  Hurry up and add it to your travel calendar, because Croatia is just on the verge of being discovered and you can be a total travel hipster and tell everyone you went there before it was cool *wink*!

Kayaking the High Seas

 

We spent our last full day in Dubrovnik on a fantastic adventure, kayaking and cycling around Croatia's gorgeous Elafiti Islands.  There are approximately 1.3 million adventure tour companies to choose from in Dubrovnik, but after spending way too much time in the TripAdvisor review vortex, I decided on the Paddle and Cycle tour with Outdoor Croatia, in part due to the great reviews and largely due the fact that it didn't involve jumping off of any cliffs.  Crazy people...

We met up bright and early with our fellow group members and our tour guides and took the ferry to their offices on Lopud Island.  At that point, everyone was split into our respective groups and we were given the quick and dirty on sea kayaking.  Colby and I had kayaked once before when we went to Hawaii, so we weren't total novices, but Outdoor Croatia used kayaks of a higher level, and there was still plenty for us to learn--including how to don our fancy kayak skirts!

The waters were fairly calm in the morning, so we were able to ease into the technique without too many waves to overcome.  Colby and I were in a double canoe, so I sat in the front and Colby was in the back controlling the rudder.  We set off for the island of Šipan and its harbor town of Šuđurađ, about 3 miles away.

Once we dragged our kayaks onto the shore, we gathered our bikes and set off for a pedaling tour of the island's olive groves, vineyards, crumbling villas and a moldering village church which offered a sweeping view over the island from the roof.  From there, we continued on to the other side of the island where we stopped for the best fish we have eaten, quite possibly ever.

After lunch, we had another short ride to a secluded beach where we had some time to swim and bake on the rocks--or in Colby's case, hide under a blanket to protect his alabaster skin!  I made fun of him, but poor guy actually ended up with sunburned EYES, so I felt kind of bad about that later when he all he could do was lay in bed in the dark with his eyes closed...

We wrapped up the cycling portion of our tour with one of the biggest hills I've ever had to bike up, before climbing back into our kayaks for a much rockier trip back across the water.  We had a little bit of time to explore Lopud before we boarded the next ferry and once we were back in Dubrovnik, our fantastic tour guide was kind enough to drive us back to our hotel.

And sadly, that was the end to our time in Dubrovnik--what ended up being my favorite part of Croatia, closely followed by Plitvice Lakes National Park which came just a few days later.

Dubrovnik Old Town

 

After my sister and I returned from our ladies and babies trip to Provence in August, we had a week of recovery time before Colby and I saddled her with our children and bolted to another country.  We spent 9 magical days traveling through Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH) with a quick hop across the border into Slovenia.  We flew into Dubrovnik, where we rented a car, then spent a few days, then drove over to Mostar, BIH, and back into Croatia with stops in Zadar and Zagreb, as well as Ptuj, Slovenia, flying out of Zagreb at the end of the trip.

Croatia was a little slice of heaven.  If you're looking for grand architecture and towering cathedrals, it's not the place to go, but for 100% natural beauty and fascinating history it can't get much better.  The country is still recovering from the War of Independence that was fought from 1991 to 1995, but the places that we visited felt completely safe and you'd have to look awfully hard to find many scars from the war.

 

The fact that we had an amazing time is not to say that we did not have our share of... hiccups along the way.  From the start, I was more than a little disgruntled to find that my luggage had never even made it onto the airplane out of Frankfurt, so I landed in Dubrovnik with nothing but my carry on.  We fly so infrequently, I've gotten quite lazy about preparing for luggage mishaps, but through some miracle, the morning that we left, I moved one extra set of clothes from my big suitcase to my carry on.  So, our first day in Dubrovnik started with a trip to a local supermarket to stock up on toiletries in case my bag never caught up with us, but happily, when we returned to our hotel that evening, my bag had joined us.

And speaking of our hotel--I'm ready to move into the Royal Princess full time.  I was a huge dummy, and didn't take any pictures of the room, but it was a pristine, beautifully decorated 164 ft² one bedroom apartment with a kitchenette and a furnished balcony overlooking the ocean.  We ate at the hotel the first evening, and it ended up being one of the best meals of the trip, and the included breakfast was delicious, classy, and extensive.  The resort is a little outside of the downtown, but that was a bonus to us since that meant it was quiet and right on one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline.  We just had to walk a few minutes to catch a bus and then it was a 10 minute ride to the gates of town.

Our first order of business was to explore the Old Town with the help of Uncle Rick.  He gave us a great self-guided tour through the sights along the main road, and then a peek into the winding, narrow alleys connected by steep, crumbling stone steps.  This was definitely the part of Croatia that was flooded with the most tourists, and still, we heard very little in the way of American accents.  I think it's just recently beginning to be discovered by Americans, thanks in large parts to the ships that dock there on Med cruises.

Next up was a stop at Cafe Buza for drinks and watching insane study abroad students leaping from rocks 30 or 40 feet into the ocean, then onto our Croatian food tour.  Our guide confessed that because Croatia itself is such a new country, Croatian food is something that is still being developed and explored by its chefs.  However, there is a heavy Mediterranean influence in the south, along with Russian and German influences due to geographic proximity as well as the bleed over of culture from their long occupations in Croatia.  But in Dubrovnik, the focus was most heavily on seafood, pasta and pizza.

We decided to walk off our food tour treats with a ramble around the old town walls, which we agreed upon as our favorite part of the day.  It was perfect timing for a stroll as the tours from the cruise ship were mostly gone and the sun was setting in a stunning display of colors and light.  The walls that seem to rise up straight from the ocean were constructed between the 12th and 17th centuries and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

Our last stop of the day was at a glowing, bustling restaurant just off the boat docks for drinks and dinner before we made our way back to the hotel.  We were done with the Old Town, but not quite done with the southern coast of Croatia as we rested up for our kayak and biking tour out to the Elafiti Islands bright and early the next morning!