Croatia

Sorry I'm so behind on my blogs. None of the places in Montenegro had internet connection, otherwise the hot days would have been the perfect time to upload. Ok, the reality is, sometimes nap time took precedence to picking out the pictures for the blog. Ashok found a way to reduce the size of my pictures so it takes a lot less time to load the pictures.

We've gone from the Balkans to the Baltics and are now traveling through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. We are liking the cities so far... Internet availability is great here so I should be better with keeping this blog updated.

I've also updated our itinerary for the rest of the month (see the post titled "Our Itinerary & How to Get In Touch).

Here are the posts for our time in Croatia and Montenegro - 5 posts total. Happy reading!

If you can only go to one of Croatia's coastal cities, Dubrovnik is it. The city sits inside fortress walls built on scraggly rocks right by the water, backed up by the mountain.

Dubrovnik's old harbour:

Many of the buildings were destroyed when the Serbs & Yugoslav army bombed it during the war in the early 90's, but it's all been rebuilt with the same style of architecture. The new buildings all have red roofs so you can tell which ones were damaged (and there are lots of them).
Old vs new roofs:

The city was under siege for 2 months during the war. I'm not sure how they survived with food, but there's a fountain that's 400 years old that ended up supplying the city with water the entire time and it's still working. Now every one goes and touches or drinks from it for luck:

It is scorching hot during the day so there's no much to do except to go see some exhibits in nicely air conditioned museums (really missing the mid-day swims now). We went to two – one of Picasso's sketches which was really cool. The other one was at the War Photo Limited where there were photos from the war(s) in the Balkans and an exhibit on Child Soldiers. The photos of the Child Soldiers were from various regions of the world (Middle East, Asia, Africa) and the sad thing is, some are as recent as 2007. In some areas (think it's in Africa), kids are abducted and then given drugs before being sent off to the frontline to fight so they would be fearless, and if they resist they are beaten and tortured. Sometimes all the groups fighting each other are equally brutal so no matter who wins the people are screwed. I know that there are lots of wars going on in the world, but seeing the photos really drive it home. It also makes me realize how lucky we are to live in the US, and be shielded from much of the violence that are going on.

Once the heat got more bearable we walked on the fortress wall around the city. Everyone says it's a must do and I agree. You get a great view of the entire city with the Adriatic in the background, and in the parts that are alongside the water, you can look down and see the water slapping up against the rocks. It's just beautiful!

Dubrovnik rooftops from the wall:

View of main town square in Dobrovnik old town:

Next to the old town is the best beach in Dubrovnik, Bana. It's a pebbly beach but the clear water is so inviting:

In addition to the normal rules of conduct for the beach like no pets on the beach, they also had this as the last one on the list:

It was a good place to end our time in Croatia.

One note about Croatians. People are generally nice and helpful, especially once you get to know them. Our travel agent and the people on the boat were super friendly and explained a lot to us. However, when it comes to business you still have to watch out as what you get is often not what you're told. Our bait and switch incident on the boat was not our only experience. The room in Dubrovnik ended up costing slightly more than what we were told (at least we got to store our luggage there and they did our laundry which was very much needed); the owner of the apartment told us there is wi-fi but once we got there the wi-fi is not working due to some “technical difficulties”, etc, etc.. We also learned that it doesn't pay to be nice or polite and to be firm or they will just take advantage of you. It's marred an otherwise great experience to have to be on our toes all the time.

Here's a map of the islands we went to on this leg of the trip:

As mentioned before, we're on a small boat (14 cabins) for 7 days going between the islands of Croatia. Here's what it looks like:

The coast of Croatia is called Dalmatia collectively but no one on the boat knows why it's called that.... maybe because the coast of Croatia is dotted with 1700+ islands, some of which look like this:

The amazingly blue and clear Adriatic sea is a nice break from visiting cities. The water is on the chilly side for us, but after sitting in the scorching sun for a while it feels so refreshing, especially that first moment when you jump into the water.

The days quickly settled into a routine: breakfast at 8am (they're strict about their meal times - if you miss it you get yelled at!) as the boat pulls out of the marina and heads to another island, then sit on the deck under the sun and enjoy the view of the blue Adriatic and islands that dot the coast. Here's the view from my perspective:

Ashok relaxing on the boat (sitting in the shade because he doesn't need a tan):

Shortly before lunch the boat drops anchor somewhere so there's time for a refreshing swim. More swimming or a nap in the afternoon until about 4pm when the boat heads into town and docks for the night, in time for us to walk around and explore the old town. Yes, life is tough.

Other than 2 Canadian girls and 2 German couples, the rest of the people on our boat are Croatians so we got a good taste of the local culture - one of the things we love about traveling. We found out from the locals that the way to drink white wine in Dalmatia is to mix equal parts water and wine and then add ice. The drink is called Bevanda. Just imagine trying to do that back in the States and the looks you'd get! One sip of the local wine and we knew why it is necessary to add water... it's really strong and not that good so adding water to dilute it makes it easier to drink (tastes even better with sparkling water).

Being here also makes me realize how prudish North Americans are. Not sure if it's all Europe but the women here think nothing of taking their tops off as they lay under the sun. As the week went on and people got more comfortable with each other the number of topless women (all in their 20's) and the times they're topless went up (sorry no pictures). Ashok's definitely enjoying this cruise.

The funny thing is one of the Canadian women swam really far away from the water to take her top off for a little while just so she can say she went topless in Europe. She told us this on our last night as we were sitting on the top deck drinking whiskey. Later that night we ran into the Croatians who insisted that we try the local liquor (a hazelnut drink called Orahovica) and then out to the disco with them. This was, of all places, on the tiny little island of Sipan where it takes about 15 minutes to walk thru the harbor but the best times happen when it's unplanned.

Some interesting tidbits:

Apparently in Croatia you don't want to park where you're not supposed to. Instead of giving out tickets, here's their version of a tow truck:

The picture is a bit dark but the truck is basically picking up the entire car and moving it. Alternatively, you could avoid getting towed by getting a big car.

As I mentioned before, looking for free wi-fi somehow became a past time. In general you can't tell if there's free wi-fi or not, but in this case it was pretty obvious:

We jumped in but the wireless card on the MAC is too weak so it didn't work for us.

Here's a little info on each of the islands we went to:
Mljet (pronounced Millet): Mljet is a national park with two lakes in the middle of the island, and a small island in the middle of the lake. There's a bridge where the two lakes meet where Orson Welles use to sit on for hours. The current under the bridge carries you from one lake to the other. There are lots of nice hikes but we're not nature people so we probably could have saved the park admission fee and spent the afternoon on the beach along the coast instead.

Hvar (pronounced Hevar): is apparently where the rich and famous visit. There are lots of nice yachts docked in the harbor, and everyone walking around was dressed up in some hip outfit (EVERY woman was wearing some dress or skirt). Ashok and I felt very under-dressed in our shorts and tank tops. There's a nice old town and a fort at the top of the hill to add to the charm. The fort has a great panoramic view of the town.

Makarska: is a coastal town, not an island. After Hvar this seems a lot more casual as you see the normal shorts and t-shirt tourists (we fit in better here). It's pretty but not as much compared to the other islands. Ashok did get some good shots of these kids at swimming practice:

(Ashok is making sure I note that I copied his shot)

Korcula (Korchula): the small old town is at the tip of the island and is one of the most picturesque of all. It's also Marco Polo's birthplace. Here's a view of the sea from the Marco Polo House.

Sipan (Shipan): One of the Elifiti islands, a group of islands near Dubrovnik. It's the smallest village of all the places we stopped at... I think because we were on the non-touristy side of the island so it's still a sleepy town.

This has been a great week and we're going to miss the cool Adriatic and the beautiful scenery. I think we may have to go on a round-the-world's-beaches trip next.... maybe on a one of those yachts we saw this week (yeah right!).

It's a good thing we got our rest in Budapest because we had 2 long days of travel afterwards. Ashok found a cheap flight to Split from Bratislava so despite our previous bad experience we got on the train and headed back there. Something to be said about second chances (or really low expectations) because we actually had a good time. As soon as we got to the old town, we saw a group of Slovakian women dressed in traditional costumes sitting around. It turned out to be quite a scene when Ashok asked to take their picture as a crowd gathered to see the “Photographer from New York” take pictures.

They were so nice and started to take out pictures of their family and gave us their backgrounds. Their ancestors settled in northern Serbia 250 years ago (the queen at the time was giving incentives for people to go there), but they haven't forgotten their roots and still consider themselves Slovaks and were in Bratislava to visit their homeland.

Most of Bratislava is very new and there are lots of construction around. The old part of Bratislava is fairly small and sits on the other side of the Danube. Think pretty old buildings with cobblestoned alleys, but the town is basically a tourist spot as all the store fronts are either cafes, souvenir, or various clothing and craft shops. We hiked up to the palace (most of it is being reconstructed) and were rewarded with a view of the old and the new part of Bratislava. Ideally we would have spent a full day in Bratislava but 3 hours were enough to give us a sense for the place.

After the usual tasks upon arrival in a new country (get money, buy SIM card for our cell phone, figure out how to get to the hotel, etc.), we finally arrived in the town of Split at 10pm. We soon realized why the airfare deal was only good for today - it's the 250 year anniversary celebration of the Diocletian Palace (world heritage site and main tourist attraction of Split). We missed most of the celebration but were still able to catch some of the festive atmosphere, and even saw an outdoor club in front of a really old facade where people were dancing to Latin music. This is when salsa and all those ballroom dances looks so much cooler than regular people dancing. We found out the next day that the old facade is THE Diocletian palace which made it that much cooler.

Here's a view of the waterfront in Split the next morning:

The next day was another long travel day. We woke up really early to have some time to walk around Split before lunch, then on to the bus for a 6 hour ride to Dubrovnik for our cruise. At least it was a very scenic ride since the road hugged the coast. The coast is separated from inland by these scraggly rocky mountains which provide a dramatic backdrop to the blue waters.

AND we accidentally went to Bosnia! How does one “accidentally” go to another country? Well, smack in the middle of the Croatian coast is a small town called Neum that belongs to Bosnia so to get to the southern part of Croatia you have to go through Bosnia. Luckily no additional Visa required for Ashok... we were worried for a minute. Neum is the only access Bosnia has to the coast and it has managed to hold on to this spot throughout time... they REALLY wanted to have their own beach. We were told by Stejpan (our travel agent who decided to go on the same cruise as us... wonder how much he's making off of our trip!) that Croatia is building a bridge so they can bypass the border control. They are also building a highway inland so in the future the trip from Split to Dubrovnik would take less than 2 hours (but no view).

It was nice to finally get to the boat but we couldn't rest just yet. They tried to pull a bait and switch on us and was trying to give us a cabin below deck when we clearly specified a cabin above deck (even confirmed it that morning). We stood our ground, and it was good that Stejpan was there to work it out with the Captain. One thing we have learned is not to be too nice when it comes to travel arrangements otherwise it's easy to get taken advantage of.... I mean we were nice about it, just firm about what we want. I'm sure it helped that we had only paid 30% of the fee. In the end it all worked out and the captain even bought us a beer. Glad the 2 days of travel are finally over!