Back to Croatia!

4/7 – 15/7

We drove to Igoumenitsa in Greece and caught the overnight ferry to Bari in Italy. We’d had a big chat with a retired British couple about our strategy for the ride, since we hadn’t paid for a cabin. There was an option for “camping aboard” on the open air deck for camper vans, that apparently wasn’t available to our little van. But we managed to borrow the “camping aboard” sign from the Brit’s previous trip, set up the bed and drew the curtains so we could quickly disappear, and snuck into the queue with the other campers when the (incredibly half-arsed) Italian traffic director guy was off having a nap.

Unfortunately, when it came to boarding we were nabbed, and directed down half a dozen ramps to the deepest bowels of the ship where we had to do a 5-point turn to leave the ramp. Undeterred, Mark rolled into the back unseen, while I decided I'd rather not sleep underwater, possibly in a sealed watertight compartment… Possibly a good decision as it turned out, the van had ended up right near the engines, so Mark suffered through a very hot, loud and somewhat stuffy night.

We stayed the next night at a camp site on the beach an hour south of Bari. Our limited experience with Italian camp sites has been pretty disappointing after France and Croatia: limited shade or privacy, pay showers, and not super clean. Hence driving so far from where we actually needed to be, this was the closest one with half decent reviews. Worth it in the end though, they had a beautiful little swimming beach and it was good enough place to rest after a pretty average night’s sleep on the ferry.

We had a good wander around the crooked ancient streets of Bari, and caught our second overnight ferry from Bari to Dubrovnik. Mark took one of our mattress cushions and a blanket aboard and tried to kip on the deck. There were a couple of chilly hours of half-sleep between the last drinkers turning in and the sunrise at 4:30ish, there’s a good reason they can charge so much for the cabins….

Dubrovnik is awesome. We wandered around the old city for hours, watching the world go by. We came across the Buza bar that had been recommended to us by Sarah and Andy. Not knowing it was the same place, we followed the sign for “cold drinks” down a winding alley and through a tunnel under the city walls, emerging into a cluster of sun umbrellas and seats perched on top of the cliff just outside the walls. Just down below the bar a narrow staircase meandered down the cliffs to the water with plenty of turn offs to overhanging ledges for jumping into the impossibly clear Adriatic Sea. Along with an Australian couple, we slowly and very bravely worked our way up to jumping from the rocks that were about 8 metres above the water. We didn’t quite get the bravery up for the 10 metre jump but there were a few that did. 

We should get a waterproof camera...

Our camp site just out of Dubrovnik is perfectly located at the top of a cliff, just a five minute walk down to the bottom gets you to a great little beach, perfect for many swims during the heat of the day.

And then by the time you get back to the top you're hot enough to head back down for another swim.

We spent a couple of nights in Split and explored Diocletian's Palace. Diocletian built the palace as his retirement home in the fourth century, after many successful years as the Roman Emperor. The Palace is amazing preserved because it's been continuously inhabited ever since. As time has passed, people have built in, around and on top of the palace. Like any good Roman Emperor Diocletian collected items from the Empire as decorations. As you wandered the streets there were sphinxes from Egypt that he had shipped to the palace. These are over 3500 years old - at the time they were brought to the palace they were older than the palace is now!

And most buildings were in a variety of styles from various additions over the centuries.

We stopped off at Zadar to hear the famous sea organ - which is powered by the action of the waves. The stronger the waves the louder the eerie noise which came out of the organ was. This also happened to be a really great sunset viewpoint. Ernest Hemingway proclaimed that this was where you see the best sunset in the world.

It was pretty nice.

[M- Unfortunately, having checked that there were some places to sleep with excellent reviews "in a little village half an hour away" I set the phone to navigate to a place matching that description, but chosen by Frances. She had found one place, rejected it because of all the reviews saying they had a bar going hard until the small hours most nights, and then decided the place across the road would be better? Apart from the noise, this was also the hottest night so far, and the most mosquito-filled. I laid awake mostly naked and sweating, killing scores and scores of mozzies as they swarmed in through our ventilation holes, choking on ineffective mosquito-incense fumes, until it was finally cool enough to put a sheet on and sleep around 4AM. We decided that summer this far south in the van was unwise, and started heading north and into the mountains. -M]

The Plitvice lakes came highly recommended by Ian and Leeyan and my parents - with a warning about the huge volume of people that would be there, also enjoying the beautiful national park. We discovered the accuracy of this warning when we arrived bright and early to buy our entrance tickets.

A portion of the queue to buy tickets.

Once we made our way into the park itself we quickly discovered why it was such a popular destination. Within a minute of walking through the entrance gates we were staring straight at a beautiful and enormous waterfall. The day continued in pretty much the same fashion, as we walked on these really great paths around beautiful lakes and waterfalls. In amongst the walking we also got a boat ride across the park.  Our most popular phrase for the day was "Wow - the water is so clear!" (It really puts NZ to shame)

It was basically this around every corner. And tons of fish in the astonishingly clear water.

Mark getting away from the crowds.

All the best spots had people queueing up for photos and clogging the the narrow boardwalk, so we didn't get many good photos, lots of good memories though.

Our day wandering around Plitvice Lakes has been a definite highlight of the whole trip and was a great way to end our time in Croatia - although we did manage to squeeze in one more meal before we left.

Traditional Croatian Meat Fest.