Beautiful Croatia Stripped Bare
Croatia's stunning. Whatever your preconceptions, it'll be stunning. Kevin and I had been waiting quite a few months for this, so we were both itching to get there! We took an easy, cheap route in - fly to Bari in Italy for £100 return, and then get a ferry through to Dubrovnik for barely anything at all - just £30 return! Check what time you'll be arriving at all places though. Get into Bari early in the morning and you'll have a day of sitting around till 11pm for the ferry to leave. We happened to arrive on a Sunday no less, so the Italians were in full siesta mode - ALL DAY! There was barely anyone around. Get into Dubrovnik without a hostel or apartment booked, and you'll be waiting till the next ferry at 1pm for a cheap place to stay! We decided we'd move on to the islands but we'd missed the 11am ferry to Hvar by going to the Old Town. Instead, we waited till 1pm and took a bus (100 Kuna which is £10) all the way up the coast to Split (3 hours) - we even had a short drive through Bosnia, so make sure you have your passports with you.
had the most amazing seafood dinner - and it had all been caught within 100m of where we were sat!
We had been told Split wasn't too good, but it was fine for us! We only stayed one night in a Croatian's apartment - 300 Kuna for all 4 of us - but all in one room, with a double bed and two singles. It took 5 minutes to get to one of the only semi-sandy beaches in Croatia where the water was clear - when I say clear, I mean we could see the sand squeezing between our feet when the water was up to our noses! After that, still soaking we paraded into the fancy restaurant in shorts and tatty shirts, sat down, and had the most amazing seafood dinner - and it had all been caught within 100m of where we were sat!
Cheap vodka and drinking on the terrace watching the sun go down enticed us to sleep early and we woke up the next morning, nice and early, to catch the lunch time ferry to Hvar. It transpired that this would be our home for the next 4 days…
Now, you get off the Ferry, every time, and there's this little crowd just drooling to get their hands on you and put you up in their homes - we were adamant not to spend over 100 Kuna and we wanted a kitchen. So this little old lady claims us and we follow her but after 10 minutes of walking up stairs and away from the sea, we decide that we'll go back to the port and go to the place Kevin had stayed at last time. We paid 100 Kuna for this new place and each couple has a double bed, MASSIVE shower, TV (the only English channel was MTV) and bathroom and private kitchen - we also got to have a shared balcony, luxury!
Double beach - one side is families, with a strip of land in between, and the other side is a nudist colony
In Hvar you have so much to do. There's renting a boat which costs 400 Kuna for the day (5 horse power - we named ours the Yellow Slug) and you can go coasting around the edge of Hvar. If you go to the left of the Port, you meet up with a double beach - one side is families, with a strip of land in between, and the other side is a nudist colony. Us girls, being too shy to be completely naked, pretty much forced the guys into mooring the boat in between but still out to sea. The water's just incredible - there aren’t too many fish around, but you can see a shoal of small ones shooting too and fro every now and again. Definitely make use of your boat and go both ways away from the port. You can't go too far to the left as then you get to the side where the island faces open sea and the wind and currents are just too strong for the little thing!
The next day we went up to the Fort. You now have to pay 10 Kuna to get in, and it's got some relics of bygone days. There's a few canons, and a little museum with old wine or vinegar urns, but the main attraction would be the view! You can just see for miles. The path up to it snakes back and forth, and you see old walls from the Romans and the Croatians.
Food in Croatia's mainly seafood, but for a cheap day meal, you can get a can of tuna or salami, cheese, and a massive loaf of bread for around 50 Kuna in total (£5) and you can keep it for the rest of the day. It's basic, but they have really good bread over there!
Korcula (pronounced Korchula) is beautiful. An old fort town, with barracks running around it, it's a bustling little city inside. We stayed at the Happy Backpackers hostel which is run by none other than the SA Big Brother's contestant Zlatko! The city is built on a sort of 'mound' and all the streets lead up to the Church in the middle. You can walk around without a shirt or in a bikini top, but you need to put on coverage whenever you enter shops, restaurants or the church (especially the church!!).
We spent 70 Kuna on a ferry down to Dubrovnik and arrived back where we'd started. We'd been wary about Dubrovnik before, because it hadn't quite gone our way, but this time things went well. We had a great pick of places to stay and finally settled on one guy giving us rooms for 70Kuna per night. The house was pretty good, close to the port, about 10 minutes from the bus stop taking us to the Old City. You must definitely take the Old City Wall walk. It lets you really see the Dubrovnik of a few hundred years ago. There's amazing views out to sea, and you can see the café that sits on the rocks below - definitely make a beeline for this place (if you walk along the inside of the walls, when you see a wooden sign pointing saying COLD DRINKS, go there). It has this cute little café which has a path leading right down to the water - the local kids jump off the ridiculously high rocks, but the less adventurous have a variety of heights to jump from. It's a great place to just hang out for the rest of the day, and you get a beautiful sunset view over the sea…
So our trip drawing to an end, we made our way back to Bari on the ferry - this time we made sure we got some good spots on the ferry indoors, so we didn't freeze our asses off outside. It was sad to say goodbye to Croatia - the sun, the people, the water - but I definitely hope to be back sometime soon.
