Croatia: The Dalmation of my Eye

Croatia began in exhaustion. After taking an overnight bus from Barcelona to Avignon, we decided to go back to Apt for the day, to relax, repack and do some laundry. It was so nice to go back “home” after a bustling place like Barcelona – a place where we felt like we could take a breath. Then we were off to Marseille. Our plan was to sleep in the airport, as our flight left at 6am the next morning, and there was no easy way to get there otherwise. After arriving at the airport though, we realized exactly how tired we were… and how sketchy the airport might be to sleep in. So we called the Ibis budget hotel to ask about pricing for a room with a free shuttle to the airport. Their answer: 30 euro a night for each of us. Not too bad! We got to sleep in a nice bed for the night and had a provided shuttle at 5am the next morning. 

After getting checked in, I couldn’t help but finding myself a little nervous. It has been quite awhile since my last flight (January to be exact) and you should know by now that I struggle from a little bit of flight anxiety. Nevertheless, we boarded and once we had a smooth take off, I let myself drift off to sleep. At 8:00am, we landed smoothly in Zadar, and I realized flying is not always so bad! While catching the shuttle to the bus station, we met some Canadians who are studying in Aix. They were going to do a cruise through SailCroatia, which island hops the coastline. When you view Croatia’s coast from any vantage point (from the air, car, boat, etc), you can easily see why it is called the Dalmation Coast: little islands pop out one by one along the green-blue water of the Adriatic Sea, creating spots within the beautiful scenery. 

Once we reached the station, we easily bought tickets to Dubrovnik and boarded the bus for our 9 hour journey. It was a long trip, but thankfully there was stunning views of the coast the entire way. Since Zadar is fairly far north and Dubrovnik is far south, after this bus ride I was happy – I felt like I adequately saw the country’s coastline, top to bottom. Plus, the free wifi on buses in Croatia makes any long ride more bearable. 

When we finally reached the fortified city of Dubrovnik, we took a city bus to the entrance of Old Town, Pile Gate. From there we began to follow the directions to our hostel, when a young man came up to us saying “Ladies!” As per usual when this happens, Alie and I ignored him and continued to try to find our way, turning down a back alley. Much to our surprise the man had followed us, still yelling “Ladies, Ladies!” At the moment where I was just about to start to run or try to find help, he said “You must be Rebecca?” It was the hostel owner! He then explained that we were the last guests to arrive so he had been waiting for us at the bus stop. Feeling a little embarrassed that I had assumed he was asking us for money, I sheepishly followed him to our upgraded room – a private apartment all to ourselves*! Since we were there in low-season, we got a beautiful room with a terrace overlooking Fort Lovrijenac and we were 100 meters away from where they film Game of Thrones. Not a bad deal, right? After a long day of travel, we went to bed early, hoping for a full day of sight-seeing the next day. 

However, the weather did not agree with us. We woke up the next morning to the sound of rain hitting the window pane. Nevertheless, we were determined to not let it get us down. So off we went, into the old town, with umbrella and rain jacket in tow. We had to stop and get breakfast first – a delicious apple strudel from a nearby bakery. This was when we saw the crowds and crowds of student tour groups… immediately warning us of what was to come. We pushed our way through the gates into Old Town, and headed our way up to the walls. The biggest thing to do in Dubrovnik is to walk the walls that surround the old part of the city. These fortifications make for fantastic views of the city and sea. Our walk on the walls was a little stressful, with tour groups constantly pushing past us, the wind catching my umbrella a few times, and cold water spritzing on us the entire way. Even with all of these downfalls, to be able to walk on the walls was the experience of a lifetime. When we got to the highest point of the walls, I turned around to take a picture of the city and an instant downpour occurred, with strong winds soaking everyone to the bone. Alie and I decided this was our cue to leave and we made our way to the exit. As you can imagine, everyone else had the same idea that we did, leading to a three hundred person pileup on the walls. After a half an hour of waiting, we made it down from the walls and after another half an hour of waiting, we made it through the gates out of Old Town and back to our apartment. When we finally arrived in our room, saying we were soaked head to toe would be an understatement. We changed clothes, hung up the wet ones, and took a much needed nap, after a morning that had seemed to go so horribly wrong. 

The last clear picture of Old Town, before the heavens opened on us.

We woke up in the late afternoon and noticed the rain had stopped! With new warm clothes on, we headed outside to explore more of Old Town. We were greeted with not only sunshine but no tour groups to be seen! The city was just as quaint and beautiful as I always imagined it to be. We spent the next bit of time doing some shopping down the main street of Old Town, Stradun Street. With the craziness of earlier, we realized that we forgot to eat lunch! So an obligatory stop for ice cream was needed.

Stradun

Ice cream for lunch?? I think so!

We had planned to take a walking tour of the city that evening, but somehow we got distracted and I looked at my watch 6:30, realizing we missed it. We decided to just wander some of the back streets ourselves, and see some of the sights pointed out on the map. A must was to go see Onoforio’s fountain. It is said that if you touch the heads of the fountain, you will have good luck! Of course, we had to do this. After, we just wandered the back streets, with the sounds of the music festival adding a soundtrack to our tour. The narrow back alleys of this petite town are what make it so charming, it was nice to be able just to wander and absorb what you think about its beauty.

Being a super tourist

For dinner that night, we took advice from our hostel owner and went to Taj Mahal, a Bosnian restaurant. We were really wanting to try some local cuisine and this place sure didn’t disappoint! We got the cevapi, which were a type of sausage in a pita roll. We accompanied it with a nice merlot and for dessert, I tried the tulumba, fried pastry doused in orange syrup with a candied orange peel on the side. Croatia is known for their orange trees – just walk through any city and you can smell the wonderful orange blossoms.

Cevapi! YUM.

Tulumba

After dinner, we headed back to Stradun street and had a nice evening stroll. The music festival was in full swing again, after a little hiatus in the afternoon, so we stopped and listened to a group for a bit. As we walked back to the hostel, with the yellow hued street lamps shining on the still damp cream street tiles, while Hallelujah was being played in the background, I couldn’t have felt more at peace with a place.

         

The next morning, we woke up early and headed off to be one of the first ones on the Dubrovnik cable car. Again, both of us are quite scared of heights, so you might imagine the squeals of anxiety as we watched the small car attached to a very thin wire go higher and higher into the sky. Once our knees stopped shaking, we stepped on the observation deck. In that moment, we realized that conquering our fear was worth it – the top of the hill provided stunning views of the “jewel of the Adriatic”.

After descending, we grabbed our bags and headed off to the bus station, where we took a four hour bus to Split. I found myself wishing that we had more time in such a wonderful city, but promised myself that I will be back. As we drove away from Dubrovnik, the skies began to clear, offering beautiful warm sunny weather when we arrived in Split. I didn’t know much about Split before I arrived there, and I am ashamed to say that I still don’t know very much about it. We arrived late afternoon, dropped our bags at the hostel (where we were again upgraded to a private apartment – thank you low season!) and had a stroll by the harbour. From so much traveling, all we really wanted to do was sit by the water and soak up some sun, so that’s exactly what we did. The next morning we took a bus to Zadar, a  plane to Marseille and a bus to Nice – leaving Croatia in our distant memory. Although, we always knew that Croatia had made an impact us, as we kept finding the little Croatian kuna pieces everywhere (even though we thought we had successfully spent all of them). I find this country to be extremely underrated, and it has easily become one of my favorite places I’ve been. Until next time, Croatia!

*Not exactly all to ourselves – we shared the flat with Ivena, a kind middle aged woman who kept insisting on calling us “dahling”.