Dubrovnik
After leaving Croatia we caught a
flight to London and stayed overnight with my old school friend Rachel, and
then caught another flight the following day to Dubrovnik in Croatia – it was
the fastest way of getting from Istanbul to Dubrovnik!
Dubrovnik is a beautiful town on
the coast, and has an old town surrounded by a huge wall. We spent a day there wandering through
the old town and did the walk around the top of the wall, which was pretty
interesting and also felt a little strange that you could see straight into
peoples homes! Our accommodation
was a room in the house of an old Croatian couple (quite common in this
country). The couple were lovely
and it was quite funny to try and speak with them, as they knew a few English
words but we could not speak any Croatian – but it’s amazing how much you can understand
with the odd word, body language and hand gestures!
After a day in Dubrovnik we had
had enough of the tourists and inquired about getting out to one of the
islands, and found there was a boat going the next day.
Korcula
The ferry to Korcula sailed along
the Dalmatian Coast, and the views of the mainland were pretty
spectacular. We arrived in Korcula
Town and then caught a bus to Vela Luka at the other end of the island. The hostel was awesome, with a really
friendly host called Mishael, a kitchen so Abe could make his daily espresso
and we could save some money by cooking, and free Wifi. The town of Vela Luka was also really
nice, small and situated in a cute bay – and nice and peaceful! We spent a couple of nights there,
hired bikes and rode around to some beautiful beaches and swam in the crystal
clear blue water of the Mediterranean – bliss!
Split
Another ferry ride and some
awesome scenery later we arrived in Split on the mainland and stayed a couple
of nights there. The main attraction
is Diocletian’s Palace (a World Heritage site dating from the 3rd
century AD), which is an amazing site.
The interior has little squares and narrow medieval streets which are
really interesting to walk through.
We also decided to visit the
beach, which was definitely an experience! We had images of the nice rocky/pebbly beaches we had been
to on Korcula, but instead found concrete and an area of sand that had
obviously been trucked in, and the occasional broken bottle and other washed up
rubbish… in a word, horrible!! We
now fully understand why Europeans love Australian beaches so much, oh to be
sitting on one of WA’s many pristine white sandy beaches right now!
On Thursday we caught the train
from Split to Zagreb (Croatia’s capital) and then it was on to Budapest to meet
up with Ash (my old school friend from London) & Nick (her husband) and
Georgia (again, we just can’t keep away from each other!).
