Croatia recap

16 June 2009- Last part I swear. But I take full rights on pining on about Croatia in future posts.
Korcula (with the sch sound) is the island birthplace of one certain Marko Polo. That explains the pool game and finding lost people. Marko...Polo. We use this often in dark movie theaters, Costco and the like.
There is quite the debate about his ethnicity, Croat or Venetian. I am going to side with my Croatian family. There is a long history of Polos in the area and his birthplace house is a tower of building which has been there since 1000 AD. Total Croatian. Biased on my part but the Croatian people were so nice and lovely. I think the Chinese would have sent a Venetian back, but a Croat. They are keepers!
We enjoyed walking around, looking for wine bars, I tell you one-track minds we have. We remembered the crew telling us about this interesting place. The best use of medieval building if I ever saw.

That is right. A cocktail bar is perched up on top of one of partial remaining towers of the old city's fortified walls. There was a precarious ladder you had to take to get up there but once there, spectacular. The drink orders were taken by the lone waiter. He wrote them down and sent the order down in a basket along the pulley system they had set up. A few minutes later VOILA, your drinks arrived in the same basket up the side of the tower. Well worth the 8 euros for the cocktails, view and sights of the tower.

We arrived up the tower and encountered another couple from our boat. There were only 23 of us on the boat so this was a rare encounter in such a large place. In a few short minutes though I think we had almost 15 of us from the mb Lopar up on the tower. We had conquered it! I gave the camera to a boat mate and she went nutty taking photos with the official camera. I think she got off 25 frames in about 10 seconds. Good times and thanks for the photo K.

The boat company runs several boats along the same route. Our route mates were the Vapor and Eos boats. In order to save space, they would stack the boats together at port. This meant you had to walk on other boats to get to the actual dock of the harbor. Not a big deal, just watch your step so you don't fall in between the boats. We kept seeing the South African and French contingents who ventured on the other boats. All was about to change when we left Korcula for Hvar.

Hvar was a experience. We pulled in and cruised around the harbor for a good hour. We were waiting for the other boats to dock and start the stacking process.

From up on the hill top fortress, we snapped off a picture of the sight of the harbor. Our Lopar boat was number 9 in the line up. 9 of what would later be 15 boats stacked deep. I thought it was quite funny. Edith the 80 year old wasn't too concerned but it was a long ways to walk to even get your feet on solid ground. Luckily it was the only harbor that was stacked that deep. Hvar was a small harbor to begin with but a cool and popular island. That meant space was at a premium. We made sure we left the boat with everything we would need that night so no long return trips would be required.

Hvar had the best seafood and olives I have ever tasted. We dined on tuna carpaccio, grilled shrimp and mussels boussara. It was still a bit early in the tourist season so they hadn't yet received their shipment of Dingac wine (our favorite Croatian wine to date) so we "made do" with the local stuff. Lots of night pictures were taken. I really wanted to post the nighttime fortress picture but instead you get the square picture. Kind of cool as the shutter held open we ended up with a few ghosts in the picture. The storefront along the right is named ZORA, just like my great-grandmother. More gelato and a long walk along the city wall before we made the 9 boat trek back to Lopar. Bruno (our waiter) was ready for our drink order after such a long journey back through the maze of other boats.

We set off the next morning with our swim spot being the Golden Horn of Brac. If you do a generic tourist search of Croatia, this is the picture you will get. A perfect horn of a pebble beach created by the currents of the Adriatic. Our pictures didn't compare and by the time we arrived, several sunbathers and umbrellas were already ruining the shot. A popular spot and a bit of excitement happened when one of the private sailboats almost drifted into the Vapor. The fast acting crew was on it and I am certain I recognized some of that Croatian swear words between the captains. We quickly set off to return to the Split harbor. Our week was over, sad face.

We bid our crew and mates goodbye the next morning. The captain actually spotted us at a cafe later and bought us a round. We were good examples of America, quiet and easy going.

We had a full day to explore Split, since the snafu with the booking company the week before meant we were sitting on the dock for most of the morning. We made it to the Diocletian Palace. When they say palace, they mean it. 3rd century construction that was astounding. I give you Chad as my scale for the hugeness.

Just amazing detail and so classically Roman, it made your eyes hurt. Sorry for the exposure on the lower picture but you get the point.

And what good would a Roman palace be without any Roman soldiers? Lower left hand corner. Hee hee hee.

So there it was. A grand trip to Croatia. I really enjoyed this type of trip, sleeping, eating, socializing and swimming. Going places where not too many people have seen. Going without the huge crowds (minus Hvar but the food really made up for that) was a bonus as well. Chad thinks the Adriatic coast resembles the Caribbean minus all the poverty. As well as wine instead of rum drinks.

We made some friends on this trip. The couples from London are certain to be around for a visit. One of the Aussies is actually flying back to Sydney from Paris so we shall see him by the end of the month for some dinners, pints and most definitely some wine.

Again my lessons from travelling are do it, do it often and get out there. I was astounded at the number of Aussies found in Croatia. I mean can you get more around the world from Australia than Croatia? And the amount of vacation time. North America is really stupid for its standard 2 weeks off. Several of our boat mates had been on vacation since mid-April. It boggles the mind and I am dealing with the 10 weeks of French vacation time. When they get time off, they use their time off. No return trips to Disneyland or the same old boring destination for them. No sir. Borneo, Budapest, Athens, Samoa, Prague, and the Galapagos islands were future destinations for them. No excuses like "but with kids..." Get your kids out there and experiencing different things, cultures and start them early on being seasoned travelers.

We think we have been places and then we meet people who have seen and done some amazing adventures. I am so jealous and want to emulate them as much as possible.

Next on our docket was supposed to be Iceland. We figured with the economic collapse, it would be cheap. Not so much. Flights are ridiculously priced. Even around Christmas time, the price is high. For Iceland.

I can get us to Norway with plane, train and rental car cheaper than two round trip tickets to Iceland. Got to get to planning. Who needs money? I need to see this amazing world we live in.


Final view of Split from the Marijan point. Of course there was a bar up there as well. It was like the city planner had tapped into my brain and taken my every suggestion....

The quintessential icon from Split. St. John statue. Fini!