I’m composed this while sitting in the Dubrovnik airport waiting to board a flight to Rome. It’s was our first flight since August 3rd! We’ve been easily making our way throughout Italy and Croatia on trains, buses and ferries. We met Mo at the Rome airport, picked up a rental car and drove down to Minori on the Amalfi coast. We are so excited to catch up with Mo and explore a new part of Italy with her!
We passed the three month mark this week which is hard to believe. We’ve seen so much, yet there is even more we have yet to plan and to discover. Over the past three weeks we’ve made our way down the entire coast of Croatia. In total we stayed on two islands and three coastal towns: Rovinj, Cres (island), Split, Mljet (island) and Dubrovnik. We really enjoyed Croatia and wish that we could have explored even more. If I was going to make travel recommendations to someone else - I’d recommend all of the coastal towns and tell you that you definitely should explore some islands - but not the ones we visited. They were both great and gave us what we needed - but I think if you were taking a one or two week trip to Croatia - you’d be better served visiting one of the islands that has nicer beaches and/or more going on.
We haven’t been blogging much because we haven’t been doing much! That’s ok because I guess that’s what we needed at this point of the trip. We haven’t been sitting around doing nothing though…so let’s see...
Split
After Cres we took a ferry to the mainland and then an 8 hour bus ride to Split. It was nice to see so much of the coast and surprisingly good wifi on the bus let us catch up on some Breaking Bad. It’s the one thing we are watching on this trip other than an occasional movie. We just finished Season 4 and are looking forward to seeing what Heisenberg will be getting into in the final two seasons. With only two nights in Split we decided to go with what looked like a more traditional accommodation vs. AirB&B. We didn’t want to deal with coordinating the check-in and check-out process and went with something that had 24 hour check in on booking.com. It turned out to be the accommodation that least matched our expectations. We literally had a room in someone’s apartment. A smokers apartment. She tried to mask that with lavender but it didn’t really work. After I took my first shower there and brought the towel to my face, it smelled like smoke and that is just gross. It was only 40 Euros a night so I’m over it.
We went to the Split movie festival and saw a movie called Homme Less. We enjoyed the documentary which was about an actor/photographer that sleeps on a roof in NYC. His friends and colleagues don’t know that he is homeless and it really made you think about how appearances can certainly mask the reality behind someones facade. It also was another reminder to us of how little you need to be happy. While back in Venice, it was pretty wild to watch a movie based in Boston, and now a movie based in New York. The next day we did a Split 90 minute walking tour which was very good. Our tour guide had a good mix of history, humor and Game of Thrones info. The tour was within the walls of the Diocletian Palace which was built around 300 AD. Diocletian was a self-made emperor and the first to ever voluntarily retire. He built the palace to retire in. It is in amazing condition and I found myself saying to Jake, like I have so many times on this trip, “this is real….not Disneyland!”. The history and architecture we’ve seen in Athens, Istanbul, Italy and Croatia has been astounding.
Some guards on their way to work in the Palace.
A glimpse inside the walls.
Game of Thrones has done a lot of filming within the walls of the Palace - it’s the setting for the city of Meereen. We were also able to experience the Palace (it’s a city people live in) after dark. When we left the film festival, we walked through the Palace and listened to some live music. It was one of those moments when everything in the world feels absolutely perfect and you can’t stop smiling. So in the end, although I didn’t care for our accommodation, I really liked Split!
Mljet
On the island of Mljet we stayed in a tiny town called Polace. Our apartment was #9 Polace. That’s right - no street address - just #9 and the name of the town. When I was coordinating how to find the apartment with the AirB&B hosts I could tell that they were kind of laughing at my desire to understand exactly how to find it. When they said, “There is a row of houses, ours is #9. Just ask anyone…everyone knows everyone here.” Yeah - they weren’t kidding! Despite the small number of houses and the lack of options at the mini market - there was a surprising number of restaurants. The first two nights the town was really empty and we didn’t understand why there were so many. Then more and more sailboats starting to come into the tiny bay and anchor their boats. One night Jake counted 50! One of the dishes Croatia is known for is “peka”. It is veal or lamb (but we also saw octopus and pork options” prepared under a peka - a metal baking dish that’s covered with red-hot coals. You have to order it several hours in advance to allow the meat to gradually cook to tender perfection. With the meat under the bell is also potatoes and vegetables. We went to the same restaurant twice over the course of 4 nights and had the same dish - lamb. I’ve never ordered lamb for myself before - but as it is a dish for two - I went for it. It was incredible. I’m still not a lamb person, but it was so tender, and the vegetables were so tasty - that I absolutely had to have the dish a second time before we left the island.
From our apartment we could walk or bike over to two salt water lakes. Seeing the color of the lake juxtaposed with the green pine trees was pretty special.
One day we rented a scooter and traveled to part of the island where we could hike to Odysseus’ cave. It was fun to jump off the rocks and swim into the cave. There were millions of tiny fish and although it was cool to see with our goggles…it also kind of freaked me out.
While on the island, we spent a lot of time researching Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Our itinerary is starting to take form and we’ve started making some commitments. We are both signed up for a three day meditation retreat outside of Bangkok and I am signed up to get my PADI Open Water Scuba Certification. Jake is already SCUBA certified and I’m excited that we’ll finally get to do this activity together! I’m going to take the course on the island of Koh Lanta where we’ve booked a total of nine nights. My SCUBA class is only 3-4 days but then we’ll get to explore. It looks like Koh Lanta is a good island to use as a base while exploring other islands. I can’t wait!
Dubrovnik
Our final stop in Croatia was Dubrovnik and it was quite a unique little place. Noticeably more expensive than everywhere else we visited in Croatia, it is a completely walled-in city that is in amazing condition. Most of the city was destroyed in an earthquake and fire in 1667 so it isn’t quite as old as some of the other cities we visited - but it’s still pretty old. Dubrovnik was untouched by war until 1991 when it was attacked during the war with Yugoslavia. Fortunately, the damage has been significantly repaired. If you look at the photo below, you’ll probably notice that many of the roofs are much brighter than others. The bright roofs are the ones that were replaced due to the bombing damage.
We did our own walking tour and walked on the wall for the entire length of the wall (~2KM). You have amazing views of the Adriatic up there. Game of Thrones memorabilia is noticeably everywhere throughout the Old Town as it is the setting for Kings Landing. Apparently Kings Landing has been in all but five episodes of Game of Thrones and I often felt like I was walking on the set! Very cool.
Now….time to try and remember that Italian I learned!