Hey there!

When I was planning my Croatian itinerary, I struggled a lot with where to go and how long to spend there. So many things I read said, “You have to go here and here and here and here and there’s not enough time and bla bla blah.” Meh. I probably shouldn’t listen to those things! Haha. I used to just look at pictures of a place and let that help me decide whether to visit or not. It hasn’t steered me wrong before!

So my Croatian itinerary was a bit frantic at times. The day I left Rovinj, I got on a bus to another coastal city, Rijeka, from which I’d catch a flight to Split, one of the better-known Croatian cities.

My bus was at 7am, so it was just me and the street cleaners about. I even got sprayed in the face by one because I had to get around it in a narrow street, haha. Oops!

I had an hour bus layover in the town of Pazin, and was surprised when we got closer and a bunch of kids boarded the bus for school! I don’t think I’ve ever been on a public bus that also acted as a school bus. A girl about nine years old shared my row with me.

In Pazin, I was delighted to find a bread vending machine, called a “24/7 Bread Station.” It was filled with all different kinds of loaves of bread and baguettes. So silly!

I wandered the town a bit, spent some time on a park swing, grabbed a snack, and then boarded my second bus to Rijeka.

This bus had some nice coastal views as we rounded corners along the highway.

I was a little shocked to de-board in Rijeka. It was not the most pleasant. Very busy, very under-construction, and honestly quite smelly! I high-tailed it out of that bus area to try to be rid of the smell!

I quickly found a pretty church.

And then I made my way along the water and up some famous stairs to the fortress and viewpoint.

I debated multiple times whether I should try to drop my backpack somewhere. It weighs about fifteen pounds and digs into my shoulders. The thought of climbing hundreds of steps with it on was not thrilling! I even walked into several hostels to see if they’d let me drop my bags there, but they were all closed. I powered through, since I was only here for a couple of hours. I just told myself to walk really slow and take breaks so as to not become too sweaty.

The fortress and the view at the top were quite nice! Along the way, I questioned turning around multiple times, but I do think it was worth the journey in the end.

I made my way back down the hill and to the water.

Here’s where it became a bit panicked. I checked the time table for the airport shuttle once more, and it was only this time that I realized there was text at the bottom of the page saying you needed to book the shuttle a day in advance, or it wouldn’t show up!!!! I frantically went to a bus ticketing agency, only to learn the shuttle bus left from an entirely different bus station that I’d already passed ten minutes before.

So I hightailed it back to that bus station, only to learn the ticketing agency didn’t sell tickets for that bus. I found the airport bus, empty of a driver, and stood around for ten minutes hoping a driver or another bus might show up, to no avail. Finally, I booked an Uber for €33, compared to the €10 shuttle. Not the best, but I’ve done worse.

I arrived to the airport 1.5 hours before my flight and found it empty save for four employees. I was told I couldn’t even check in until one hour before my flight. Ha! Tiny, tiny airport. I ordered a glass of Gemist wine (some white wine with sparkling water mixed in) and settled down to kill time.

When it was finally time to board, I boarded with just six other people onto a tiny propeller plane, and I was surprised to find others already on it when we boarded! Also, my boarding pass, in place of a seat assignment, just said, “Free.” Turns out we could sit wherever we wanted. Was this a plane or a bus? Who knows!

There was also a huge group of school children waiting in the upper levels of the airport as we boarded and flew away, waving frantically at us. They didn’t seem to be flying anywhere, so I assume they were there for some sort of field trip? Haha, very silly.

Luckily, I got some marvelous views of the islands from the flight! So fun!

The water was so blue and clear that you could easily see through to the underwater features and reefs surrounding the islands. It was really amazing.

I arrived at my Split hostel around 5pm and was immediately struck by the feel of the place. It seemed less like I was staging in a hostel and more like I was staying at a friend-of-a-friend’s place. Translation: it was super cozy and homey, but not very nice or very clean! Haha. The bathroom needed some TLC, and my bedsheets and pillow case were falling apart. Yikes. But there were only two rooms of six people each, plus one private queen room, so it really was very, very cozy.

With a few hours of daylight left, I walked my way up a hill for a park and a viewpoint. I also got some time in a basket swing. Not too shabby.

The Golden Hour was arriving, which brought a marvelous color to the old stonework of the buildings.

Then I made my way toward Old Town.

Hundreds of animals were flying around and screeching – at first I assume they were bats, but they seemed more like birds. Not sure!

Split has been under control of both the Greeks and the Romans, and it was the Romans who built this huge palace/ fortress that is now Old Town. It was interesting to see how some of it had clearly been restored over various ages, and how some of it had been left to ruins. Other places also looked touched by fire. Very fascinating.

Tired from the day, I settled in for breakfast with a sort of chicken salad rice bowl thing. It was okay.

That night in my hostel, I had my first view of what would be a funny pattern. I had a bottom bunk, which I kept hitting my head on and was impossible to sit up in, so I would bring my phone out to the dining table to do some blogging or planning for the rest of my trip. Before I’d managed to make any progress, someone else would wander out of one of the rooms and start chatting, and soon the whole hostel was seated at the table. This happened every single night. It was very wholesome. Not super conducive to productivity or sleep, though, haha. I was up with them from around eight to eleven just chatting and chatting away.

That first night I mostly chatted with an Australian couple, a boy from California, a boy from Vancouver, BC, and the girl from Manchester who worked there. Lots of them were visiting Montenegro and Bosnia, since they’re very close to Croatia. I’ve never really met people who’ve travelled to those places, so it was interesting to hear about! We also talked about Covid, and I bonded with the West Coast boys.

On day two, I had a day trip booked to Krka National Park. When I’d slept the night before, it seemed to be all girls in my room, so I was a bit shocked to wake up and see a shirtless man in the tiniest pair of red underwear jump down from the bunk across from me. (Luckily they were tiny boxers, not briefs!) I had a good laugh about it later in the day with some Irish girls who had the exact same experience. Hahaha.

Once recovered, I grabbed a hot dog pastry for breakfast and boarded my bus with my swim gear and my rain gear, because it was really hard to tell what the weather wanted to do.

A family of three boarded last and the mom sat next to me. She was clearly American, and I knew if I didn’t want to chat, I didn’t have to, but if I said one thing, I was pretty sure she’d want to be best friends.

I said hello, and that was that! She started calling me her “adopted daughter,” and she continually leaned across to her husband and daughter to tell them all the things “Lizzy said.” Lolol. It was very cute. They were from North Carolina, named Madison, Erick, and Amelia (the 17 year old daughter). Their two eldest hadn’t joined, but the oldest daughter was also named Elizabeth, and she went by Bizzy, which I thought was pretty stinking cool. I loved Madison’s slight southern accent, and she made for good company. Shared her grapes and gum, too! Haha.

We had two hours to spend at the park, but I was surprised to learn it was actually quite small. I’m used to National Parks being vast and endless, filled with hikes and campsites and bodies of water. This park was very organized, with a platformed path winding around and through the lakes and waterfalls. But it was only about a thirty minute walk!

One of my favorite parts was that the frogs were in their mating season, so they were making super loud sounds, and I managed to catch a couple videos of their translucent cheeks pudding out to make the sound.

The park was very gorgeous, but I wish it had been bigger! My favorite views were from above, with the beautiful green waters visible below.

I went very, very slowly so that I could take my time and not end up stuck at the meeting point forever. When I made it there, I grabbed a Nutella crepe and continued to wander a bit more.

Then we had a collective thirty minute wait for a boat, and this took us down the river to the nearby town of Skradin.

The town was inky dinky, but I wandered the dilapidated streets. The town did seem quite out of use in some places. Lots of buildings were just the shells.

After my wander, I made my way up to the old fortress and viewpoint. Every city seems to have one of these!

The bus ride back to Split was nice and scenic.

I explored the Split Old Town a bit more and found this one really cool ceiling that I loved!

But my real goal of visiting Old Town was to climb the bell tower in the central cathedral. I sure do love me a good bell tower.

I saw this very cool cylindrical building from the bell tower and was pleased to accidentally find it from the ground level also! Not sure of its purpose!

For dinner, I had the smallest pour of wine ever (Malvazija, a Croatian wine) with some risotto. The risotto had swiss chard, balsamic bubbles, lemon, and radish. It was really tasty, but I think the rice could have been cooked just a liiiiittle longer. The balsamic bubbles were fun, though!

After dinner, I had another chatty, unproductive night at my hostel. I started by getting to know the half-naked man from my hostel that morning, Pete, a British guy who was actually very sweet. He talked me, the Canadian (Will) and a new Dutch girl (Michelle) into playing several rounds of black jack. And I won! By a lot!

When most of the crew headed out to enjoy the night life, I stayed back chatting with the two Irish girls. One of them had Gaelic as her first language! Very cool. We chatted about fun travels, gave each other suggestions, and had a lovely evening together.

In the morning, my first stop was breakfast – fully-loaded pancakes with a fresh fruit smoothie.

The smoothie was awesome. I would have preferred all those yummy toppings to be on some French toast or a waffle, but the pancakes were fine! I wrote some postcards while I waited for my food and then made another good dent in my next book.

I honestly felt like I’d done all there was to do in Split by this point. I wish I’d tried to book this boat tour I wanted to do, but the weather said it would rain! Not sure if I’ll ever get to do the tour because the weather has been so finicky.

I decided, on the recommendation of Pete, to take a bus to the nearby beach town of Stobreč. It was sprinkling when my bus dropped me off, and it was a ghost town!!

I wandered down to the beach and decided to plop myself under a giant umbrella to read for at least an hour.

I probably would have stayed longer except that the only other person on the beach was a bulldozer driver who was meticulously spreading sand around the beach. He got closer and closer to me until he was less than ten feet away, and I had to keep turning around to look at him to make sure he saw me and didn’t intend to run me over. Like helloooooo!! I’m right here, dude!

I finally got the hint and just decided to walk the beach some more, haha.

There were some campgrounds around the corner that were positively filled with little motorhomes, trailers, and vans of all sorts! None of those giant bus-sized RVs we see in the States. No, sir! Just cute little things. Sean would have had a hey-day to look at all of them.

After more reading on a different beach, and when I was starving enough to find food, I walked up to the nearby restaurant. I waited for a long time to get someone’s attention, and then I ordered some fish soup and Istrian gnocchi with rum punch as my beverage.

It was all very tasty! The punch tasted a bit like cough syrup on my first sip, but it was much better after adding the lemon wedge. The soup was surprisingly filling and tasty despite being mostly broth. And the gnocchi was heavy and yummy, filled with truffle oil and prosciutto.

I decided to get the soup because our Krka tour guide the day before had told us that it is bizarre for Croatians to have a meal without first having soup. Gotta try it their way once!

The sun and clouds were playing tag after my meal on the beach again as I wandered toward the town center. There was also a scary stairway to nowhere that I realized was a diving platform! The water didn’t look deep enough for diving! But maybe I just couldn’t tell with the waves. Scary!

I visited the church in town and then sat on a bench to relax for a while and enjoy the water views, but it started to rain after a while.

I decided my time in Stobreč was coming to a close, and I found a gorgeous double rainbow as I ran and caught my bus back to Split!

That evening in the hostel, we played several drinking games. I’m not super into drinking games, so I drank hot water with honey in it for the first round, lol. Once it seemed less scary, though, I finally made myself a mixed drink and played along. I even taught the group one. It was a lot of fun! Several hours went by before the whole of the group went out for the night around eleven and I headed to bed.

Thanks for a fun stay, Split! Loved the social vibe of the hostel, and I’ve finally gotten most of the night-coughs out of my system. Thank goodness!

Najbolje želje,

-Lizzy-wa