Croatian Heat - Dubrovnik-style

 It's nice to be remembering beaches and hot sunshine as I see rain pouring down outside my window. We took a gorgeous ferry ride from Hvar Island to Dubrovnik Croatia, which also happened to be the hottest ferry ride of my life. There wasn't a lot of seating inside, and we wanted to be on the deck anyways, so we carried our packs out to the deck to find somewhere to sit. I insisted on something in the shade since it was already boiling outside and still early in the morning, so we sat along the side of the ferry on the ground with our packs and layered on the sunscreen. It was so intensely hot it wasn't even funny. Cath was loving it but I was dying and wanted it to be over. By the evening we had arrived in Dubrovnik and got a ride from our hostel owners from the ferry terminal to our hostel which ended up actually being about 20 minutes outside the city. It's what you have to do to save some money :).

Boats in a Dubrovnik Harbour

 We didn't have much time to spend in Dubrovnik, so we made the most of the time we had. We went out early the next morning to explore the old city, relax on the beach and swim in the beautiful blue water. It was a scorcher of a day. By 10am I was already feeling fatigued from the heat. We walked around the old city for about an hour and I couldn't take it anymore, I needed to cool down, so we went to the beach. After changing into swimsuits, I ran straight into the water for the ultimate refreshment. It felt so good. We spent about an hour in the water, then ate some lunch while we dried off on the beach, then were ready to explore again.

There's a small island off the coast of Dubrovnik that we took the ferry to. Most people go there to spend time on a different beach, but being who we are, my sister and I had to explore the whole island. We walked around for a while then discovered there's an old fortress at the top, so naturally we hiked up the island to see the fortress and the view from above. You could see all of the old city walls of Dubrovnik, so definitely worth the photo opportunities. We decided to take a different way down so we could get a different view on the way back. As we were walking, a French couple came out of a clearing in the bush, and the wife told her husband she was proud of him in French (Cath translated for me). We found that a little odd but figured they had spotted a shortcut, so we decided to sneak through the bushes as well. Cath made me go in front because she said she was scared. It was a wild bush adventure as we got a little lost and had no idea how to get out, so we just kept walking. As we walked we figured out why the French lady said what she did - it was definitely a rough trek. Catherine told me after we made it back to a path that she spent the whole time thinking of the story of Paul in the Bible on the island of Patmos, which would have been in this general area of the world, and the snake that jumped out a bit him. She had been worried a snake would jump out and bite us. Which is funny because I spent the whole time worrying a peacock would come out and scare me. (We had seen a lot of peacocks on the other side of the island and I have an irrational fear of birds.) I do have to admit though that a snake would have been much more troublesome than a peacock.

The View from the top of the Island

 After our bushwhacking, we found ourselves a little rocky private beach area and went for a dip to cool off. We walked around and swam at various points around the island, then headed back to Dubronik for more exploring.

It was a little expensive, but we felt we had to check out the old city walls, another UNESCO world heritage site. The views from the walls were stunning! We cheated a bit and located an English-speaking tour guide with a group and followed closely behind them to learn a bit about the city and the walls without having to pay.

Travel tidbit of the day: Find tour groups that speak your language and follow at an inconspicuous distance so as not to be found out. This way, you glean a lot of useful information without the added pricetag.

Dubrovnik City Walls

Hibiscus in the Old City

Dubrovnik

Taking a Refreshing break

  

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. The weather was fabulous although the heat was intense, but well worth the trip. So glad we included Croatia on the itinerary. You should go.

We took another ferry the next day to Bari Italy as we continued our journey to Rome.

Saying goodbye to Croatia on the ferry to Italy

Croatian Island Hop

The photos I have don't really do justice to the beauty that is Hvar Island. The weather was a little stormy when we arrived, but it was still quite warm. This island is one of the main party islands in Croatia, actually there's a small island not far from here actually called Party Island, but since our trip was already pretty physically grueling and we were only halfway through it, we decided it probably would be wise not to go too crazy here. Plus we were only here for one night, but we made the most of the full day we spent exploring.

We both really wanted to go swimming in the Adriatic Sea (part of the Mediterranean) so as soon as we dropped our stuff off at our hostel, we geared up in swimsuits and went to the "beach". Our hostel by the way was very cute and had this sort of romantic honey-moon appeal to it. Maybe too romantic to be there with your sister :). Anyways, we went to the beach which was really just big rocks that touched the water with ladders attached to them so you could climb in and out. The water was a little cold, but so salty that I could lay on my back and float no problem.

We got a little cold, so we decided to stop swimming and warm up by hiking to an old castle/fortress at the top of the island. As we were walking, the sun started to come out and it warmed up a lot by the time we made it to the top of the island. We explored the fortress and took some pictures along the way, and then decided we were too hot and sweaty, so we ran back down to go back to the water.

View from the Fortress

We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and lying in the sun. Our hostel had mini kitchens in every room, so we cooked a nice little meal for ourselves, showered/cleaned up, and went out to enjoy some night life. We explored the town a little, looked in shops, and saw a sweet street-side concert of a group of French guys playing African fusion music. It was pretty sweet.

Here's a couple more photos of the island...

The "Beach"

Harbour Sunset

Next stop - Dubrovnik!

"Split"-Second Decision

Our journey continues to hot, sunny beaches for a little rest and relaxation...or so we thought. We woke up in our little guesthouse in Korenica to thunderstorms. As in full torrential rainfall thunderstorms. We were so grateful for the gorgeous weather we had for our hike the day before. We left early in the morning with our Belgian friend to catch a bus to go to Split and our friend was headed to Zadar (on the way to Split). The buses are very inconsistent in Croatia, but oddly more reliable than the train, but they are also quite cheap. Apparently a lot of people choose to travel Croatia by car rental, but you can save a lot of money taking the bus.

Anyways, we found the "bus stop" which was really just a patch of pavement on the side of the road. We had to be there 30 minutes early because you never know what time the bus is going to be there. Finally a bus showed up, but since they're not very well labeled, we had to run up to the driver and ask if he was going to Split. He was, so we hopped on. 

The trip was supposed to be about 4 hours, but ended up taking 6 because our bus broke down in the middle of nowhere. We were well outside the last city, up on a hill with no civilization in sight and the bus just stopped. The announcements over the intercom didn't help us at all either since they spoke no English. So we just had to wait and wonder what was going on. 

The thunderstorms followed us to Split, but it stayed dry for our walk to our hostel. We put our stuff down in our room at the hostel and looked through the information we brought with us on Split to see what we wanted to do there. The Lonely Planet suggested one of the most beautiful trips in Europe that goes by ferry from Split to Hvar Island to Dubrovnik. We hadn't intended on visiting an island, but the owner of the hostel highly recommended it. We were swayed and decided to book a night in Hvar and go there the next morning. We spent the rest of the evening checking out a highly recommended local restaurant - Fife - and exploring the old town in Diocletian's Palace from Roman times with a guy we met from...actually I don't remember where he was from, somewhere in the States. The restaurant had delicious fresh-caught local fish and was delicious. Diocletian's Palace is quite small, so only spending an evening exploring it was enough for us. 

Fresh Fish!

We geared up after only a few hours in Split and got ready to go island-hopping the next day.

Diocletian's Palace