So after our adventures through Bulgaria and Romania and Hungary and Slovakia, Wendi and I spent two weeks in Prague with our visiting families. My mom and her friends were insane – but so fun! They had the best time…drinking, shopping, seeing the sights, shopping, drinking, eating. You get the point. I had planned on doing some cultural day trips with them but we really never left Old Town Prague. They were just having so much fun drinking and shopping! Wendi’s family was more cultural than my crew, but also so incredibly nice and fun. As broke as we are, and with as much travel we still plan on doing, it was nice to have all of our meals paid for J
Wendi and I decided to visit Croatia, which (we found) is kind of like an undiscovered Italy! We flew from Prague to Zagreb, Croatia, to start our trip. Immediately we fell in love with the country since there was a beautiful park surrounding the airport and super friendly people to help us figure out how to get into the city. When we arrived at our hostel, however, we were a little skeptical to stay there. The only hostel in Zagreb is a former refugee shelter from the war in the Balkans, and although the war ended in 1995, they haven’t done much to “spruce up” the building. It could have still been housing refugees based on the people we saw there! The first night I was convinced that Wendi had died because there was so much noise in the hall and people trying to kick our door in and she didn’t wake up. So I decided she was in the bed across the room, dead. Not very rational in the light of day, but seriously, at that moment, I was terrified! But besides the hostel, we spent a really nice two days walking around and visiting plazas and cafes and parks and gardens, and even the “nicest cemetery in Europe” (according to the guidebook!).
From Zagreb we took a train to Slovenia, the most prosperous of the former-Yugoslavia countries. This means it’s the most expensive. We couldn’t find a place to stay in Bled, this gorgeous Alpine town surrounding a lake with a church on an island in the middle of it. We spent two hours walking around the lake in the dark with our heavy backpacks, knocking on every door that looked like a pension door. We ended up finding a nice private room in someone’s home. We planned to hike around the lake the following day until we realized that it was about 30 degrees out during the day (there was snow in the mountains) and we had no coats! We thought “We are traveling south of Prague, so the weather will be nice” but clearly this was not applicable in the Alps! We spent a total of two days in Bled and then another day in Ljubljana, which is a cute city with cafes lining the river. It was fun.
Then back to Croatia we went, and we took an overnight train to Split, which is a coastal town about halfway down to the southernmost tip of the country (Croatia is a really long, skinny country). From Split we took a bus to Dubrovnik, which is as south as you can go. I got completely carsick as the bus wound along the hilly coast. It was not so fun. We spent three days in Dubrovnik, which is a beautiful town surrounded by ancient city walls, right on the ocean. The only downside was staying at the hostel run by a psychotic man named Mr. Music but I won’t even go into that.
So Croatia has hundreds of islands, but only about 70 are inhabited. We decided to visit Korcula Island first. It was a short bus and ferry ride from Dubrovnik and we got there the night before Easter. Which was a total stroke of luck since the island is famous for its Easter processions where the entire population of the island (1000 people, perhaps?) wanders through the city with crosses and candles. It was really incredible to witness. We had planned to go to Hvar Island the following day, but since no one told us about daylight savings time (I am always the last to know), we missed our ferry. It worked out in the end through since we had another half-day to kick around on Hvar. It was a gorgeous day – by far the nicest Easter weather I have ever experienced. We actually got sunburned on the top deck of the ferry to Hvar. Hvar is supposedly the most beautiful of the islands, and we saw crystal blue water, amazing sunsets, and narrow cobblestone streets. So yes, I would tend to agree with that assessment!
From Hvar Island we went to Split and Trogir, which are two indescribable towns. Hopefully my pictures do them justice. Both are seaside and full of amazing architecture.
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