Category: Croatia

Hello, friends! Parents!

It felt strange to be in the air again after travelling by land and sea for so long. Very atypical compared to past travels! From my window seat, I got some nice views of that pretty blue water, plus a strange cloud canyon once we breached the cloud cover.

I was pretty hungry when I landed in Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, but I was SO TIRED of bread and greasy foods. The airport cafe was selling salads and smoothies, and I was soooo happy to get one of each. The salad wasn’t even a good salad. It wasn’t a bad salad, but it was just… Fine. And yet, it was so very appreciated. The smoothie was pretty bomb.

It felt so good to get some fruit and veggies in me!!

After landing, I went straight to my Airbnb to drop off my things. The whole way there, I told myself over and over that I just needed to drop off my bags and get out of the house, but my well-laid plans were futile.

The place was so nice and so big. It was listed as a “studio,” but it was actually a giant one bedroom apartment, with a separate mud room, water closet, bathroom, living room, dining area, and kitchen. It even had French doors to the bedroom! It was giving “The Astrological Guide to a Broken Heart” vibes, if you’ve seen that show on Netflix! It’s Italian. Very posh.

So, yeah. I did not drop off my things and leave. Instead, I looked at flights again. The option to flee directly from Zagreb had disappeared, but there was another reasonably viable option that would allow me to leave after my next destination, with a quick layover in New York. I hmm’d. I hawed. I called my mom. I called my boyfriend. I cried a lot.

Everybody had the same things to say. The confusion. The incredulity.

“If you’re tired, maybe you should just take it easy for a couple days!”

“Maybe you should just take a break from hostels and reset.”

“Don’t you think you’ll regret it once you get home and realize there’s nothing exciting going on here?”

People were also kept attributing my desire to go home to “homesickness,” which is not the case. The real thing I’m feeling is “travel fatigue.” I erred big time when I told my poor boyfriend that he is “not even one percent of the reason I want to come home early.”

I feel bad about having said that, but it’s true! My desire to come home early has nothing to do with missing things at home. It’s all about just… Not wanting to be doing what I’m doing anymore.

And for the record, my poor boyfriend is probably 92% of the reason I’m excited about the idea of going home early. Just not the motivation. Make sense?

There were a few things that I kept coming back to during these days and these conversations:

1. I’m tired, but not in a “need to rest” kind of way.

2. I know myself and I know my body, and it really doesn’t seem like this feeling will go away in a couple of days. I would hate to end up in a beautiful place next week that I’ve been wanting to visit for years and just be feeling this way the whole time. It really feels like if I stay, I will be in a “toughing it out” mindset, which isn’t the most lovely or enjoyable. Not the way I’d like to feel while prancing around Europe.

3. I really felt excited when I looked at those flights to come home. I felt something closer to dread when I got my reminder emails about upcoming hostel reservations.

The big tell-tale sign this was probably the right choice for me was the excitement when I looked at those flights home. I’ve felt that feeling dozens of times – the excitement at the thought of a trip. Once I look at flights and get that feeling, the trip is basically a done-deal. I’ve never felt that when I’ve looked at tickets to go home, but it’s still a very familiar feeling.

So I bought the tickets.

And then I ran out the door because I was late to meet my new friend Laura for dinner!

Laura had already been to Zagreb at the start of her trip, so she was able to give me a mini walking tour of all the closed and scaffolding-covered churches and museums. Lol.

There was a big earthquake in Zagreb in 2020, and the city is hard at work making repairs to lots of these older, historical buildings. Good luck to them! Bad luck for us, haha.

For dinner, we had some vegetarian kebabs and some really yummy green juice.

Laura was all about her “last gelato,” and refused to agree that she could still find gelato in the states, haha. I was SO full after dinner, but I got sucked into the excitement. It was painful, haha.

We wandered a little bit more and I walked Laura back to her hostel, where I also almost stayed! Then I hitched a tram back to my cozy Airbnb. Very glad I did not stay in the hostel, haha.

In the morning, I had another day tour – this time to Plitvice Lakes. I had considered this trip from Split, but it’s a four hour drive from there, so I opted for Krka instead. Krka was so tiny, though, so I was feeling some regret. Luckily it was only three hours from Zagreb, so I scheduled a tour for later in my trip. Peep the bougainvillea on the way to the van pick-up!

Here’s the catch: remember how I keep talking about this whole “rain” thing that’s been going on?? And honestly, it’s not even that it seems like that much rain – it’s just that any amount of rain during travel is a bit finicky, and a decent amount of it is downright frustrating. Well, turns out my frustration wasn’t misplaced. I received a message from my tour guide the day before the tour notifying me that due to record amounts of rain, the entire park was flooded and mostly closed. Oh, joy! We would only be able to walk around the upper walls of the canyon and look down on the park.

The reason I chose this particular tour was because it touted over five miles of walking/ hiking throughout the park, and that sounded quite lovely. So imagine my disappointment, then, when I learned we would be walking about a mile total, out of the park, instead.

Yeah, not super thrilling. I looked at some feedback online, and enough people said to go for it that I did. In the end, I think it was a decent day, but not worth the $100 for what we got to experience. Bummer.

Our first stop was to the “picturesque” village of Rastoke.

Here’s what it normally looks like:

And here’s what it looked like when we were there:

L.O.L. I thought this waterfall was the most fascinating because it’s normally calm and flat until it reaches the edge. On this day, though, it was bulging upward, as if trying to make more space for itself. There was barely enough width to accommodate the shear volume of water flowing over this edge!

Here’s some more waterfalls and more angles:

Notice the lovely brown color of the churning river, normally that beautiful turquoise color I’ve come to love.

I’m not even sure how some of these little trees are hanging on!

There were ropes strung across the river with numbers and markings that we supposed meant, “If it reaches this height, we’re really in trouble.”

I spent most of my walk with a chummy English boy named Sam. My whole bus was English people and two Kiwis. “Commonwealth and the ex-colony,” as our guide called it. Our guide also told us this was the most rain Croatia had ever recorded in the month of May, and that villages all over the country were flooding and being evacuated. Crazy!

We were told we could do a loop of the town, but when we reached the bridge to bring us across the river, it was about a foot under muddy water. That route turned into an out-and-back pretty quick!

To make up for our lost money spent on admission to the closed park, our guide delivered each of us a bag of goodies, including iced tea, water, a yummy Croatian cheese sandwich, a donut, and some snacks.

I’d told Sam I was “so tired of bread,” so when he opened our lunches and saw what was inside, he apparently thought to himself, “Oh, Lizzy’s gonna love this.” Hahahaha.

After a bit more driving and a lot more chatting with the Scot and Brit next to me, we reached Plitvice.

We started by entering the top of the canyon from the park side and walking across, stopping at length at each viewpoint.

Luckily, this far upstream, the water was still that pretty turquoise color.

Our views were pretty obstructed at times, but we could sometimes make out the path below and see why it was closed: RUSHING water cascaded over parts of the boardwalk, and it seemed as though some real repairs might need to be made before it could be opened again!

There was one path in particular that I would not want to walk on without somehow being harnessed to the railing. It was that crazy.

So yeah, I understand why the park was closed.

After our walk on the first side of the canyon, I stopped in the shop to write a postcard and sip a shot of velebitska degenija, an herbal liqueur the lady behind the counter assured me was “very good.” ‘Twas quite strong!

Then we piled back into the van to exit the park proper and walk the top of the canyon from the other side.

From this side, we actually saw a few people who’d snuck past the barriers and were walking on the paths in protest! It was crazy! I missed one guy walking past that harness-required area, but he was wading through calf-deep water in other parts! Then we saw him stop to dump his shoes out. Cray cray! Our guide said he will most definitely be fined because there is only one way to exit the boardwalks, and there will be park rangers waiting for him there. Oof.

Our guide said the park had literally never been closed for flooding like this. We’re just special. Whomp-whomp.

When we returned to Zagreb, we passed the (closed for construction) National Gallery, and then I was dropped off near my Airbnb next to this funny round building that turned out to be a museum that was actually open.

Say no more!

It was a modern art museum, and it was half under construction (story of this trip), but what was open was really cool, and well worth the five euros!

Only the upstairs was open. The outermost wall had multiple projectors tuned on it, displaying a short claymation film. It was really cool to see multiple scenes at once, rather than only having the option to look at one place, like in a standard movie/ TV scene.

It was some sort of family portrait, and it was a bit…. Strange, for sure. There were some inappropriate scenes, some sad people, some benign scenes of the children playing. The film wrapped with the little girl playing a tune on the fiddle and the whole family rushing to watch. Then the ceiling above the entranceway caved in, lol. Not sure what it means!

The center space held multiple paintings and sculptures.

My favorite part of this space was the acoustics! I realized everything echoed in this vast arena, so I started walking loudly, slapping my toes on the ground to hear the fun bounce-back. Tehehe. The construction guys underneath were even louder.

When I exited the center space, though, I found such a treat!!! I rounded the corner and found the film sets sitting on the ground!!

If you’ve spent any time with me, you probably know I love tiny things.

Let me tell you – I was in tiny heaven!!!

The scenes were like tiny, artful, intricate dollhouses!! So cool!!

The characters themselves were also on display, and they looked quite lifelike. (With the exception of the animals. The animals were weird, haha.)

So yeah, that was pretty great. It did make my schedule a bit frantic though, because I still needed to buy some detergent and do a load of laundry before a scheduled activity in the evening. I also was distracted by a library momentarily, haha. The library was very old-fashioned, smelled like books, and still had a card catalog. Cute!

It was a close call trying to get that laundry done with a 15 minute wash cycle and then hanging it all to dry. I ran onto the tram and fast-walked to the theater for a dance performance!

The theater was on a list of places to visit in Zagreb, but why visit a theater’s exterior when I can attend a performance?! The performance was called DecaDance, and I was super excited.

In the kerfuffle of arriving last minute, I was a little stunned to see a bunch of people dressed to the nines and spilling out onto a gorgeous balcony on the second floor, drinking and snacking.

When I entered this space, feeling wildly under-dressed, I kicked myself for arriving so late! The waiters were clearly serving free hors d’oeuvres, and there were tables overflowing with pre-poured glasses of wine and champagne! The show was starting in only a few minutes, so I shamelessly grabbed a glass of champagne and downed that sucker as I walked across the room. Lololol.

When I got to my seat, a middle-aged American couple talked to me about how excited they were to get tickets last-minute. I mentioned the free champagne, and the lady said, “Oh, you needed some kind of special ticket to get in there. They wouldn’t let us in there.”

Considering my ticket cost about fifteen dollars, I can almost guarantee I did not have that special ticket. So yeah, definitely nipped a free glass of champagne that was not for me. Bahahahahaha.

In my defense, those glasses were definitely going down the drain otherwise!!

The show was so fun. Interesting to look at, entertaining to watch, often funny, clever, and thought-provoking. Everything I love to see in modern dance! I was so pleased!

The first piece started in a triangle, with the dancers in colorful dancewear. They all did the same upper body movements without moving the blocking at all, because half of them were sitting or standing. They later erupted into movement.

Halfway through the performance, the lights turned on and a man came on stage, speaking into a microphone in Croatian. People started standing. I assumed it was intermission. But then nobody moved!

When he spoke again, people laughed, and a couple sat down. The lady next to me frantically asked what he said, as if I spoke Croatian. She then asked the girl on my other side, who translated, “If you make more than €3000 per month, sit down.” To convert, know that Croatians declare their income per month rather than per year, and after taxes rather than before. So that is the equivalent of about $45-50k annual USD. Not a ton of money, but average salary in Croatia is quite low, and we were sitting in the cheap seats, after all. I assume more people sat down below us.

Another line, more laughter, some more sitting. Then, in English, “If you do not understand Croatian, you may sit down.” Man, I wish I understood Croatian! More and more people sat, and the laughter got more and more hysterical. There was an inappropriate one near the end!

For one of my favorite pieces, all the dancers were wearing tuxedos. They sat on chairs in a semi-circle, and it quickly became clear the song was a repetitive, add-one-thing song, like the Twelve Days of Christmas. For the final move, they always splayed themselves out very dramatically, one by one, around the circle. It made for a very cool effect. The last guy in the circle always threw himself out into the middle of the stage in defeat before crawling back to his chair as the rest of the dancers sang loudly.

They also took most of their clothes off, haha.

There was also a cool piece where all of the dancers walked purposefully across the stage, but as they crossed the center, one dancer would leave them and stay. They spent a few moments improving in the middle of the stage while their own voice played, introducing themselves and explaining one very personal thing about them – something about their family, where they came from, their relationship with their bodies, their relationship with dance. It was very cool.

The applause lasted for about six minutes. They kept lowering and raising the curtain, haha.

I took some fun photos at the end and realized this theater must have been inspired by the Paris Opera House! It’s like a photocopy! But then upon Googling, it seems to have opened first, so not sure!

The place I wanted to go for dinner wasn’t serving food anymore, so I settled for a random ramen bar. Big mistake! Not good!

Oh well. You win some; you lose some.

In case you are curious, I’ve cut Sicily, Trieste, and London off my itinerary. After my next stop, I’ll go to New York for a few days and then fly home about ten days early. Very excited! Hopefully I’ll return to Sicily a different time.

Stay tuned for the last stop!

Najbolje želje,

-Lizzy-wa

Personal update – I’m tired. And I kind of want to go home. 😬 I’m about halfway through my trip and I’ve already done so much! I can’t believe I still have at least this much more time and activity before I go home. Strongly considering coming home early. 😅 Never thought I’d feel like this. I’m just not as spry as I used to be!! Six weeks is a long time!!

I believe these feelings have been brewing for a while, but the uncertainty and stress of the past few days hasn’t helped. Most of this unsettlement has been caused by the weather. My whole trip has been very touch-and-go weather-wise. The forecast keeps saying rain, rain, rain, and then usually there isn’t actually as much rain as predicted, but it makes it really hard to plan around. And then when the rain does come, it puts a (literal) damper on things.

In the past, I’ve mostly travelled to really big cities that are filled with museums and lots to do and see indoors, so the rain doesn’t get in the way too much. For this trip, though, I’m visiting mostly smaller cities and places where the outdoors are a big draw. Hence, the rain is a lot more disruptive.

The morning I left Split, I grabbed a tuna wrap (it was meh) and headed for the ferry. I was a little worried because when I woke up and stumbled out of my room at 10:30, the Canadian boy, Will, taking a ferry at the same time, was already locked and loaded, headed out the door. I later chatted with him about it and he said he was even “running behind” at that time! Jeez!

I high tailed it to the ferry, booked my ticket for cheaper than it would have been online (boo-yah!), and boarded the ferry. There were some really nice views, but I was pretty much smack in the middle of the boat, so not much window access.

When I arrived at the island of Hvar, the weather was overcast but not rainy, thank goodness. The water was this gorgeous, gorgeous turquoise-blue, so, so clear, and the view from my hostel balcony was delightful.

After checking in and settling down, thankful to have a bottom bunk that I could actually sit up in, I headed back to the port and the old town to explore.

I had some of the best ice cream of my life from a little stand on the port – “peanut” flavor, with a layer of the softest, creamiest peanut butter on top of the ice cream bin that got swirled in when it was scooped. SO yummy!

The old town was very cute and very small, with lots of restaurants but not a ton of shops.

I decided to walk up away from the city into the hills so that I could get a view from the fortress.

It was slow-going because it was hot! I took several breaks on these nice cozy lounge benches interspersed throughout the trail, and near the top, I sat for a while to enjoy a snack and listen to a guitar player who was busking nearby.

The fortress itself cost €10 to enter, and many people struggled to decide whether it was worth that price to access the toilets, myself included! As an English lady put it, “They aren’t daft, are they?”

I bit the bullet and paid the entrance fee in the hopes of another nice viewpoint. Mission accomplished!

I was also super fascinated by the prison. Not sure I’ve ever seen a medieval prison this in-tact, and you could even go inside the cells. Not a bad view, but what a horrible place to live, otherwise! So tiny.

Stalagmites were formed near the cell doors where there were holes in the ceiling. That part was pretty cool. I think there were six tiny cells in all. I wonder who had to spend time here and why.

After the fortress, I spent a lot of time debating hiking up to the second fortress, built by Napoleon. I was already so hot and tired! And I would get hungry soon. But I decided to do it in the end, and it was definitely worth it.

This trail really was a hike, albeit a short one. I had to walk along a road without sidewalks to access it, so that was the sketchiest part. It was also a little sketchy that I was in a dress with a long skirt, but I managed! I didn’t see a single soul on my way up.

When I got to the top, a van appeared and unloaded to people to take pictures. Lol. Didn’t realize you could just drive up there!

It was amazing to see the surrounding islands and the town down below. So beautiful! I rewarded myself with this tasty hazelnut chocolate milk I’d been saving. Basically Nutella milk! Yum.

I did see two pairs of people on my way down, probably heading up for sunset, but I didn’t want to wait around for that!

For dinner, I went to a place called Fig that was also in Split. I’d had some fully-loaded fruit pancakes there. This time, I had a fig and ricotta flatbread. Yum, yum, yum. I followed dinner with some golden-hour wanderings.

This really was one of my favorite days in a while! So fulfilling, adventurous, and unexpected. Very satisfying.

—

The following day, I was supposed to do a full-day boat tour of some other islands and caves that people have been raving about. Unfortunately, due to the wind, that tour was cancelled. Whomp-whomp.

Faced with an unexpected day on this island, I decided to walk down to the beach. It was super pretty, though not warm or calm enough for swimming, and all of the cafes were mostly abandoned or closed entirely.

After reaching the first beach, I just kept on walking along the coastal trail. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I just checked AllTrails, and it looks like it was about 8 miles total! No wonder I was so tired. Unplanned hikes are always the most exhausting, because, yet again, I didn’t have proper snacks and got quite hungry toward the end. I’m still obsessed with the color of the water, though.

I was also really, really hoping to catch a bus back to Hvar town when I reached the town of Milna, but there didn’t seem to be one, and I couldn’t even figure out how to get to the town. With a big old sigh of resignation, I turned around and hightailed it back the way I’d come. I was a bit cranky, tired, and hungry by this time, haha. Also very hot!

I’ve been getting tired of eating the same food all the time. The places I’ve visited in Croatia are all known for their seafood, and every restaurant seems to offer the same five dishes. Yummy, but tiring. Then for breakfast and lunch, I’ve just been having pastries, and I’m so tired of bread!! I just wanted simple food today, so I went to the grocery store in the morning for cereal and milk, and for dinner, I got some pasta sauce and gnocchi.

The cereal was 10/10 what I wanted and needed. The pasta was 4/10. I should have gotten regular pasta instead of gnocchi, and I should have gotten my sauce at the bigger grocery store where they had more options. Instead, I was stuck with this roasted red pepper and eggplant sauce that was just not doing it for me, and the gnocchi was not as cozy as regular pasta.

I ended up giving up on the pasta and having another helping of cereal for dinner, haha. Don’t worry though! I pawned my leftover pasta onto so girls who were hungry and hanging out in the kitchen. They agreed it was weird.

The highlight of the meal was this ice cream bar. I thought it would be vanilla coated in chocolate, but it was actually both vanilla and chocolate ice cream coated by both white and milk chocolate. And the coating was soft, not hard. Very interesting and very tasty!

After dinner, I wandered down to the harbor, where I got rained on a bit, and then wandered back to my hostel to just have a super, super lazy evening planning out future days of my trip and catching up on the blog.

Most of the rest of the hostel attempted a sunset hike up to the Napoleon Fortress, but it was so cloudy that they didn’t get a real sunset. Also, they were not prepared for it to be a real hike, so many of them struggled on the way up. Also, it started POURING on them once they reached the top. Poor things. Then they had to walk down in the dark and the rain, slipping and falling all over the hillside. What a mess, haha. My roommates looked pretty miserable when they returned, but they admitted it was still nice and fun.

There were five girls in my room plus the Canadian boy from Split. So strange that people really seemed to follow the same itinerary on this trip. I kept having people follow me from city to city, or people were heading places I’d just come from. That’s what you get by travelling locally, I guess! In the past, I’ve mostly travelled by air, from one place to somewhere else far away.

The Canadian boy didn’t come back after the hike, and all of us girls were taking ferries off the island the next day, so we all just stayed in and chatted for several hours. It was so nice and cozy! There was an American girl (who did the same study abroad program I did in Copenhagen!), an Australian girl, and two British girls. Very cute.

What was not cute was being woken up in the morning by all the girls as they rummaged around the room for an hour and a half when I’d decided to sleep in and take a later ferry. Ugh.

What was even less fun was finally getting out of bed just to learn my ferry had been cancelled, and that the earlier one hadn’t been. CURSES!!

Seriously I was kicking myself for that one so much, especially since I didn’t even get to sleep in. Ughhhhh. Most of the girls had to panic themselves across the island to a different port with bigger ferries since their boats had also been cancelled. What a mess.

Faced with yet another day on Hvar that I wasn’t planning on, I joined a Dutchman for coffee who had been scheduled for my same cancelled ferry. He’d been there four nights already, so he wanted off the island even more than I did.

For lunch, I recommended we go back to Fig yet again so that I could try this “Mexican pulled pork” I’d been curious about but never hungry enough to try before. It was super tasty, but it was also super messy.

We even crashed the table of another hostel guest, a girl from Atlanta who had been travelling and working in hostels in Portugal and Switzerland for a few months. So neat! She said the snow was icy at her home mountain in Switzerland, though. Hmmmm.

After lunch, Maikel the Dutchman and I walked around the island in the opposite direction from where I’d gone the day before. Here’s the map:

Green was my 8 mile coast hike, and red was the paved trail we did on this day. Not too shabby.

There were also some park shenanigans.

We were thrilled to find that the five o’clock ferry was not cancelled, so we could leave the island after all. We went to our hostel to grab our bags and then back to the port to wait. Some of the hostel workers had eaten half my remaining bag of cereal, though! Lol. I’ll manage.

I wanted to hit up that awesome ice cream place to try a dark chocolate-lavender flavor they had, but they weren’t offering this flavor today! Dangit! I settled for pistachio and was quite pleased. Also, if I’d known the cone was free, I would have gotten one the other day, too. Oh, well.

The leftovers from my messy lunch made a huge, orange, greasy mess in my bag, and my white visor was the worst victim. Maikel insisted multiple times that I throw both it and the leftovers away. Not on my watch.

Because only one ferry per day travelled to Maikel’s intended island, he decided to follow me to Korčula.

I was bummed I didn’t get a full day here. We landed around 6:30 after a very bumpy ferry. Thank goodness I thought to take a nausea pill, but it was not very fun. That might be the first time I’ve ever felt seasickness. The boat was mostly locals, though, and they seemed entirely unphased.

Korčula is kind of like Rovinj in that the old town is on a tiny, adorable peninsula. I loved it right away! It was raining when we landed, but I had a great view from my hotel room. I was also so, so excited to have my own room, my own bathroom, my own wardrobe, my own mini fridge, a view, and no bunk bed. Like, seriously, so excited.

After some rest, we walked into the city and I was tickled to find a bunch of little art shops open late. I spent way too much money on trinkets and paintings. Not even sure where they will go!

For dinner, we found a super cozy spot and each had a risotto with wine. (He got truffle risotto and I had vegetable risotto.) This was maybe my most tasty meal of the whole trip so far. So creamy, with so much flavor. I can almost taste it now!

A little decaf coffee after dinner, and then it was time for bed.

I woke up at six in the morning without my alarm and strongly debated getting up for a walk, but then it started raining. Maikel and I met at the agreed upon 7am to walk around as much as we could before our 10am ferry.

We started our walk through town and then along the coast.

I still can’t get over how clear and green the water is here.

Our path then wound up into the hills for a great view of the town. Practically a post card!

It started raining on our way down, and Maikel and I were both cranky for different reasons. He had been hoping for (and expecting) sun and warmth on this trip, so he literally only packed t-shirts. He bought a linen pullover, but that didn’t help much with the rain. He went back to the hotel to dry off.

I went into town with the hopes of climbing the bell tower. I was told it would open at 9, but I stood around in the rain until I finally had to call it at 9:25. Not pleased!

I grabbed a really yummy chocolate croissant, which made me feel a tiny bit better.

I only packed tennis shoes on this trip, but I have these latex shoe covers that do wonders at keeping the water out. I just slip them on when it’s wet and take them off when it’s dry. SOMEHOW a bunch of water snuck into my left one and the whole ball of my foot and toes were soaked. Again, not pleased!

When I got back to my room, I took everything off and apart and attempted to blow dry my shoe and sock. Time went by fast, though, so I realized my ferry was coming in only fifteen minutes. In my rush to put everything back on, I ripped right through the left shoe cover, like a popped balloon. I was so unhappy!!!

I speed-walked to the ferry station, my left foot getting more and more wet, and stood crankily under cover as the ferry arrived.

Now let me tell you, this was a crazy ferry. Thank goodness we didn’t do the one at noon, because it would have probably been cancelled, as the wind was picking up throughout the day.

It became immediately clear that this ferry would be rocky like the first, so I took a nausea pill and had no issues this time. The other passengers (almost none of them locals) were not so lucky. That two hour ferry ride probably felt like an absolute eternity to them.

So much puking!!! Everywhere!!! Then poor souls! There was simply too much puking for too long to do it in the bathroom. Practically the entire center section of the boat was holding onto their little paper bags for dear life. A man walked around with a blue bucket periodically to collect the bags and hand out new ones, and let me tell you, his bucket filled up multiple times.

I put on my headphones super super loud, pressing them into my ears, and kept my eyes closed in an attempt not to see or hear any of the action. Goodness gracious. This ride was definitely more rocky than the first one, so it must have been some combination the nausea pill and luck that I felt totally fine the whole time. It was scary, though! Like an uncontrolled roller coaster. I almost grabbed the arm of the nice Singaporean boy in my row multiple times, lol.

I was so glad to be off that boat, but I’m sure not as glad as about eighty other people on that ship. Poor, poor things. I felt so guilty that I didn’t offer my nausea pulls to the ones nearby, but it just seemed sketchy because they were prescription pills in a Ziploc, lol. It didn’t seem right to share, but I really wish the boat sold Dramamine. I mean, come on!

Staying on land for the foreseeable future! More to come.

Najbolje želje,

-Lizzy-wa

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

My bus to Rovinj was NOT fun. First off, I wasn’t able to find the kind of thing I wanted for breakfast, so all I had was this strange pastry that was filled with “cheese.” I thought this meant “cream cheese,” but it was actually the same slightly sour cheese that was in the huge doughy cake thing I’d had the day before. Not a fan! I could only eat a few bites before deciding I’d save it only in case I got super hungry.

I also was trying to find a post office before leaving Slovenia, and I was unsuccessful, so that meant I’d have to buy some Croatian stamps and lose out on the dollars I’d already spent on the Slovenian stamps.

When I boarded the bus, there weren’t any obviously empty seats. Lots of empty seats with stuff on them. I tried sticking my stuff overhead so I could wait until the others re-boarded and I could figure out an empty seat, but then I had an awkward altercation with some girls who thought I was stealing their seat. Ugh.

Finally a nice lady offered me her window seat. Huzzah! She probably regretted it, though, since I was coughing something fierce the whole ride! Basically, if a cough drop wasn’t in my mouth, I had to cough. My solution was to eat basically half my box of cough drops, and I’m surprised I didn’t get a canker sore from all the sugar. I am so tired of that lemon flavor!

It was a 3.5 hour ride. A long bus ride. I’m not a huge fan of long bus rides. Luckily, I didn’t have to use the bus toilet the whole time, and my leftover chocolate cookie held me over hunger-wise.

I overheard a poor boy in front of me say he had been on the bus since Germany and was continuing on after I got off, almost 24 hours in total on the bus. No thanks!!! We did get a couple nice views of the ocean through the opposite side windows.

The worst part was right after I finished writing my Ljubljana blog. We were driving through winding roads, and it was so, so warm. I had tried to figure out how to open the air vent above me with no success, and suddenly it was too much. I felt myself overheating, and I tried to take deep breaths, but it truly felt like I was going to puke!!!

I was panicking a bit, trying to calm myself down and trying to decide whether I should go kneel in the bus toilet. Ugh. I’ve done that in an airplane and I am 100% sure it would be even worse in a jostling bus!!!

Well, I must not have been the only one struggling, because suddenly, the air came on for everybody all at once, and the German boy in front of me told everybody how to control the vents. I cooled down and calmed down and was able to get a hold of myself without ever having actually thrown up. Thank goodness!!!

I was so relieved to make it to my destination.

I felt a little silly with my planning because my bus passed right through Trieste, an Italian town I will reach later in my trip via plane. I did it that way because otherwise getting back to London was going to be super expensive, but it did feel like a waste to not just get off the bus when we stopped there.

Once we were in Rovinj, though, I decided that my itinerary was probably best for me given the circumstances. Trieste is a bigger city, and it seemed overwhelming even just at the bus area. Rovinj, on the other hand, is super tiny, and I think I needed that to be able to slow down and recover.

I was also so thankful I had booked my own studio apartment for my stay here so I could cough with abandon all night long! And sleep well! And relax!

My host, Petra, was so sweet and let me check in an hour early. She also gave me a whole list of suggestions and the run-down of the area.

After decompressing for an hour, her first suggestion I followed was to visit a place called Tunaholic for lunch!

This “burger” was so good!! And it wasn’t packed with shredded tuna – it was fresh slabs of grilled tuna, and the sauce and toppings made it all so delicious.

One thing I loved about this place right away was all the art. So many little shops with hand-painted and hand-made trinkets. The only bad thing is that I bought a bunch of them, hahaha.

I walked around the Old Town, built on a little peninsula, with buildings butting right up to the water. There were a bunch of little peek-a-boo views of the ocean down little paths between houses and shops.

The cobblestones on the streets were also super, super smooth and slippery. I slid a few times. I can’t imagine how slick it would be in the rain!

When I made my way to the cathedral, I was thrilled to find there was a bell tower I could climb!

Now, I have climbed lots of towers, and several of them have been very old and sketchy, but this one was SUPER sketchy. The steps were worn, crooked wooden slats. Sometimes I’d put my foot down and it would want to slide right off, so I had to position it super carefully. It didn’t help that I had my hands fun with my hat and water bottle!

The view was worth the climb though, as usual.

It also showed me just how tiny Rovinj really is. Look out one window and you can basically see the whole town!

After my bell tower climb, I explored a little more of Old Town, bought some more trinkets, and then went back to my apartment for another rest. I was just so tired of coughing all the time. I even had to step away from a lady in the middle of buying something so I could have a cough attack before popping another life-saving cough drop in my mouth. Awkward.

I honestly might have stayed in bed the rest of the night if I hadn’t checked my email and found out that my all-day tour of Istria (the larger peninsula Rovinj is located on) was cancelled for the next day. I was so upset, so I decided to run outside and catch the sunset to try to lift my spirits.

Mission accomplished! I brought some hot chocolate, too, and got several compliments on my mug, haha.

I decided, once again, that it was probably for the best for me to take it slow for another day. It would also be nice to have more time to explore Rovinj since I’d been so lazy on Day One. Taking it in stride!

I slept in nice and good the next day, and my first goal was to get breakfast at a place Petra had recommended. It had a view of the water, and I was relieved to see a sign saying they served breakfast until noon. (It was after ten when I arrived.)

I sat at my own table right as a young man sat at his own table near me. We each ordered drinks, and I thought I heard an American accent, so I took the plunge and asked if he’d like to eat together.

Turns out he was Czech, haha. Not sure how I misheard that accent. His name was Ivo, and he was in Rovinj on a business trip for BMW, driving fancy clients around the beautiful countryside. Uh…. Not a bad gig!!!

The breakfast wasn’t bad either!

It was actually so much food, haha. And yes, that was all for me. Ivo ordered eggs Benedict, which he got with a small side basket of bread. I got yogurt with muesli, fresh fruit, a basket of bread and croissants, honey, jam, butter, and fresh orange juice. (It was a meal.) Go big or go home!

After I bid Ivo adieu, I hightailed it to a pharmacy to stock up on decongestant, cough “pastilles” and more tissue. Not sure why it took me so long to buy some drugs.

Okay, okay, don’t judge, but after that, I went back to my room to decompress again. Hahahah. The perils of having my own space! Hostels really force you to get out and about because there isn’t necessarily a nice place to be lazy all day. This Airbnb? It was a very nice place to be lazy.

I made a mistake for lunch and went back to Tunaholic. I’m not saying it wasn’t good the first time. It was great! That’s why I went back! But two was just too much. I got a shrimp sandwich this time.

Then I followed another Petra Suggestion and walked along the water toward the south end of the city, home of a large city park and green space. The heat was way too much for me, but I trudged along and was able to enjoy the views.

I felt MUCH better when the sun went down a bit and I could take my over shirt off without worrying about sunburn. So much less suffocating! Plus, there was shade by the time I reached the park.

I was planning to walk a lot of the park, but I’d passed some boat tours on my way and decided I wanted to do that instead. I wandered into the park a little bit, then I came back out to the water and dipped my feet in. It felt so good!

I was shocked when I was standing calf-deep in the water and realized two plate-sized jelly fish were just two feet from me!!! Once I saw them, I realized there were lots more just like them! I couldn’t believe people were full-on swimming with that many jelly fish in the water!

On my way back to the boat dock, I stopped for some mango ice cream. Not as good as mango gelato or sorbet, but pretty tasty.

Then I boarded my boat for the tour! It was supposed to be a sunset dolphin tour, but it ended half an hour before sunset, and we didn’t see any dolphins, hahaha. That’s okay, though. I was mostly in it to get a tour of the surrounding islands and to see Rovinj from the sea. Check and check!

It was golden hour when we returned to land. So pretty….

I walked through Old Town until I found some nice rocks to perch on in front of the cathedral, and then I enjoyed the real sunset!

The rocks were very cool, too.

I wandered back to my place in the twilight and thanked myself again for picking such a perfect place to recover from my cold, even though it was unintentional. Here’s to continued recovery!

Najbolje želje,

-Lizzy-wa