Croatia - where to begin… This was one of the places we were most looking forward to visiting and while it was beautiful and we had a great time, Al and I both agreed that it was pretty touristy, even in the “off season” and sort of underwhelming. Compared to some of the other places we visited, history, walking tours, museums, etc. weren’t the main focus of our time. We gathered much of our cultural knowledge by talking to some Croatian locals. We also took advantage of the sun and beach and spent more of our time relaxing. I also caught a bad cold so I was out of commission for a couple days, so we were grateful we had extra time here. Al took wonderful care of me though so I recovered quickly and our Airbnb was super homey and comfortable.
We started our Croatia tour by staying in the capital of Zagreb for 2 nights. Our train was late leaving Ljubljana (first time this happened) but after being in Croatia for longer, looking back this wasn’t surprising. We sat in a train car with a nice Croatian girl so we spent some time talking to her and asking her questions. She was studying to be a dentist and was dating a Slovenian guy. We asked her if she would stay in Croatia after school and she said she would probably go to Slovenia because they have higher standards there (it’s also easy for EU citizens to work in other EU countries). We didn’t quite understand what she meant at the time but now we do.
When we got to Zagreb it was raining which it did for our entire time there. Supposedly, in the week prior to us arriving, Croatia was hit with more rain in that time span than in the last 200 years, great timing for us! But we had our umbrellas so it was ok. We stayed in a hostel close to the train station in a four bed ensuite (means it has a private bathroom). The first night we walked into the main part of time and grabbed some food at a restaurant called Nokturno. This turned to be one of the highlights of our time in Zagreb as we went back there for dinner the second night! We had grilled chicken, boiled potatoes and veggies, so simple, but so good. We also learned that Croatia doesn’t necessarily have a “native” food or dish since it has been influenced by so many other cuisines. Throughout different parts of history, Croatia was part of Italian, Greek, Austrian, and French territory. Needless to say, there was a lot of Italian influence here since it was part of the Roman empire for a while.
The next day we woke up early and rented a car for the day so we could drive to Plitvice Lakes National Park. Our reservation said to pick up our car at the train station, but it turned out we had to call the company when we got there for someone to pick us up and take us back to their office (convenient if you just trained in but not in our case). The whole process took over an hour until we actually got on the road. It was around two hours to Plitvice but the drive was pretty and easy. We noticed lots of stands on the side of the road with people selling potatoes and mushrooms. We also saw quite a few people picking mushrooms in fields, which we found to be funny, but supposedly it isn’t out of the ordinary here. There are several planned routes you can follow in touring Plitvice since it is so big. We decided on the 4-6 hour loop but ended up completing it in around 3.5 hours since we moved quickly. The park itself was beautiful and well preserved. The lakes were so colorful and waterfalls were surreal. The only negative was the amount of people. In order to walk through the park you walk on these narrow wooden plank walkways which was difficult with lots of people. We found ourselves waiting in line to walk. If we were to go back, we would go first thing in the morning instead of middle of the day to avoid more of the crowds. It was sort of an amusement park for nature, which is nice that everyone can come enjoy the beauty but the crowds ruin some of the beauty at the same time. We’re still glad we went though! After a long day, we were lucky enough to have the hostel room to ourselves as no one checked into the other two beds.
We checked out of our hostel early the next morning and headed to the train station to catch our planned six hour train to Split, a city on the coast in southern Croatia. When we got to the station, the signs said we would be taking a bus instead of a train. Due to the large amounts of rain, most trains weren’t running due to flooding. So we got on a bus with four other people and headed south (not joking, there was only five passengers on the whole bus). Our bus driver didn’t speak much English and kept stopping at train stations along the way to see if trains were running as if to hand us off. Luckily, a guy on the bus sitting behind us spoke Croatian and kept us updated on everything going on or else we would’ve had no idea. After about three hours we stopped at a deserted, run down train station for an hour or so. Supposedly another bus was coming to pick us up and take us the rest of the way since some of the roads were blocked. Finally we merged with another bus full of people and continued on. We figured we would be there in a couple hours, but didn’t arrive for six more hours totaling our day at ten hours on a bus. The bus took the worse route possible opting for side roads (that a bus had no business driving on) instead of the highway. It also made several stops to drop off a single person at a time. At first the whole experience was comical, but after seven or eight hours we were just tired and frustrated. On the bright side they didn’t check our tickets so we basically got a free ride and didn’t have to use one of our Eurail travel days. I guess it was worth it then? When we finally arrived in Split, our Airbnb host picked us up from the bus station which was nice and Al cooked a delicious Spaghetti Bolognese.
We spent seven nights in Split, the longest we’ve stayed in one place on our trip. We also hit our one month mark of being abroad which was a bittersweet realization. It is going by SO fast! But at the same time, we’ve seen and done so much that it feels like it has been longer. There wasn’t a whole lot to do in Split itself, but we enjoyed walking around the town and through Majan park. It felt very “Italy” like with cobblestone streets and tons of gelato shops and Italian restaurants. Al got his hair cut and even made it on the barbershop’s Instagram page which was funny (@frapportivintagebarbers1938 if you want to check him out). We spent a while talking to the barber and his son and learned that most Croatian’s eat at home with their families at night and that food is very expensive here when you take into account annual wages. We told the barber and his son about our long bus ride here and they weren’t surprised as they acknowledged that things don’t run as smoothly as expected in Croatia. When talking about politics they said “if you ever want to ruin something, just put four Croatians in the government”. We found this type of attitude from locals common among people we met. Our internet in our Airbnb was spotty and when we mentioned it to our hosts, they said “it’s probably just Croatia.” Ha!
Our favorite day in Split was when we took a one hour ferry to the island of Hvar. We arrived around 8:30 AM and the town was very much still asleep. We walked around 30 minutes or so to a beach away from the main part of town which was pretty empty at this point. We splurged and rented lounge chairs and spent around 5 hours relaxing and swimming here. The water was unreal and probably the prettiest and clearest water I’ve ever swam in. Afterwards, we walked up to the fortress and just explored the town of Hvar a bit. We took the ferry back around 7:30PM, long day on the island but it was definitely worth it! If we were to come back here, Al and I agreed that we would do more trips to other islands.
All in all, we saw some really beautiful things here in Croatia! We definitely enjoyed the sunshine and Mediterranean warmth.
Off to Salzburg for a night and then Munich for Oktoberfest!