We left cold Romania behind and headed for, what I was hoping would be, warmer climates. I'm sorry I ever complained about the heat in Asia! I take it back, I will never complain about warm temperatures again. I promise.
Croatia was one of the places I have been dreaming about. I was determined to see Mongolia, Moke Lake and Croatia on this long, little trip of ours. So, I took the weeks we had along the Dalmatian coast and planned that part of our trip. I pictured warmth. I imagined days spent in the sun, picnics at the beach, morning and afternoon swims, evenings in lovely little apartments.
Well, we landed in Zagreb and spent a night. I had initially planned on taking an early bus the next morning and heading straight to Plitvice Lakes National Park. However, Matt suggested we take a few hours in the morning to wander through town. I'm so glad he did. Zagreb was an amazing little European city.
We got up early (aided by the extra hour we got from the time change between Romania and Croatia) and took the tram (which is essentially free) into the old part of town. We got off at a large square that was just so European. It was perfect.
We explored the streets, visiting an incredibly large cathedral, smaller churches, medieval buildings and views of the entire area.
That blurry church was literally a street church, as in cars drove through where those people are standing! It's blurry because I'm never sure if taking pictures is appropriate or not. But it was so different, I mean there are pews on the corner of the street!
The sun was out, the colors were warm and inviting. It was the perfect start to our time in Croatia. I was pretty confident of my sunny holiday.
Usually a series of pictures of us together ends with a picture of me telling Matt to just smile and look at the camera rather than doing something funny (usually revolving around making me look like a giant compared to him). Poor guy.
After a bit, we headed to the bus station and caught our bus to Plitvice. As we headed towards the mountains, the sun seemed to begin losing its power. Slowly, as we climbed into the mountains, there were patches of snow! The patches grew as we continued until we were immersed in a winter wonderland. Honestly, snow everywhere!
The bus dropped us off at the road to our hotel. (Just a side note here. I like to make sure all employees of the bus are completely aware of where we are going. Locals seem to have a sixth sense (or maybe it's just being local) about having the bus stop at places that are not obvious bus stops so they can get off. I never know when to get off. So, I surround myself with people who can point to my intended destination. It's a survival skill.)
We were the only ones getting off at the lonely, cold road. We walked through piles of snow down to our hotel. We had opted to not stay in the nearest town, but right outside the park entrance instead. So, the area was a bit empty.
I guess that's the thing about traveling in the off-season. It's cold (or incredibly hot, either way, it's simply not ideal weather) but you're the only tourist. Your pictures don't have crowds of people, you don't have to wait in long lines, you don't have tourists around. It's just you and that place you wanted to see.
So, after checking into our rather large, but nearly empty hotel, we headed to the park entrance. There we were informed that only the lower lakes were open, due to winter. I was so disappointed. I had planned our time there so we could enjoy the lower and upper lakes (including sunshine and picnics, obviously). That afternoon, we took a short walk, but waited on going all the way to the lake for the next day, since it seemed we would have plenty of time.
The next morning we started walking towards the upper lake to see how far we could get. A road that the tram would usually use had been cleared of snow, so we kept walking. And no one stopped us.
Unless there were lakes we didn't know about above us, we made it to the upper lakes even though they were closed.
It was actually quite magical. The park had boardwalks along the lakes criss-crossing in front of the waterfalls.
And it was just us!
At the top, we stopped in the middle of a walkway in front of a waterfall for a picnic lunch. And to add more layers, it was quite cold on those lakes. But completely worth it.
Once the walkways started to be submerged in the overflowing lake we turned back and started to return to the lower lakes. As we walked we looked up on a hillside to see deer run away from is, then pause to watch us. The forest, the deer, the snow... It all felt so medieval. I loved it.
Back at the bottom, we took a boat across the lake and hiked in to see the lower series of waterfalls. They were massive and quite stunning.
It ended up being an absolutely perfect visit. The next morning when we woke up to get ready for our bus, the sky was completely clear and the sun was shining. Oh well, we're in the land of the Game of Thrones, so we needed some kind of feeling of "north of the wall". That was it.
Onward we went, heading south and west to the city of Split on the coast. I had found a little apartment for us here and it was tucked into winding stone alleys. Amazing.
Most of our time in Split was sunny. So we walked along the water, climbed the hill overlooking the city and wandered the Old City. The city was once a palace and while it looks like a typical medieval city above ground, below ground the floor plan of the ancient palace is preserved, so we went down to look at that.
It was certainly warmer here. I have pictures of us with far fewer layers than we had been wearing. I think I even walked around with my jacket UNZIPPED! It was lovely and created high expectations for the further south we got.
We really loved Split and probably could have spent more days just living there. I think we saw the major sites, but it's always nice to have a place to just live for a bit.
But, after a couple days, we were on a ferry out to the island of Hvar. Hvar was basically the ultimate of my warm Croatian fantasy. This is where we would go on hikes and end up at secret beaches. This is where we would swim in the ocean and nap on the sand.
We had rented an apartment on the hill overlooking town. There were lots of narrow paths leading down to town and we took a different route each time. The evening we arrived we walked down for dinner. So the catch-22 of traveling during low season is that while there are few other tourists, there are also fewer opened restaurants. The town wasn't quite abandoned, but it was in a sleepy stage. It was starting to wake up as the locals were working on the hotels and restaurants preparing for the summer and all the tourists that come (we saw a picture of an incredible crowded beach and were kind of glad we didn't get that).
A few places were open, though. On our second day the sun was out and we went down to the water and found a cafe. We sat at that cafe and drank coffee for over an hour! What do you do when you can't find a secluded beach for swimming? You find a cafe instead.
After that sunny afternoon, I started getting excited about potential walks around the island. However, the next and our last, day was dreary and rainy all day. We stayed in and watched tv and cooked pasta.
The island was still beautiful. I would come back here, maybe at the end of summer, when it's still warm, but maybe not as crowded as the middle of summer. Someday I will swim on the Dalmatian Coast!
We took an early ferry back to Split, then a long bus ride to Dubrovnik. Along the way we stopped and our passports were collected (putting Matt on high alert, I'm very fortunate to be traveling with someone far more responsible than myself). They were returned and then a few kilometers later collected again.
We were a bit confused until we looked at the map and saw that Croatia is divided in two by Herzegovina and Bosnia. So, we added another country (or two?) to our list!
So, we returned to Croatia (with our passports) and arrived in King's Landing. And by King's Landing I do mean Dubrovnik. (I looked it up and this is where they film parts of Game of Thrones, so when we saw a camera crew we were pretty excited, alas there were no sightings of characters.)
It is the poster child of Croatia. Every bus has the picture of orange-tiled Dubrovnik jutting out into the bright blue harbor. It was amazing.
We had another apartment (with an incredibly comfortable couch and living room (we pretended it was our real house :) on the hill above town. The view was magnificent.
We had two full days and spent the first day just wandering the Old Town. I think we are both a little over paying entrance fees, so we opted out of some things (like walking along the wall surrounding the city) and just walked the free streets of the neighborhood. These medieval cities are pretty spectacular.
The second day was stormy. It rained all morning and we could watch the choppy waves rolling on the ocean. In the afternoon it stopped raining, so we hiked up to the fortress on top of the hill, almost directly above our apartment.
We watched the next half of the storm overtake Dubrovnik, but being out in the elements was worth it. The view was even more incredible than ours and the fortress have a glimpse of the complex history. It is bizarre that it was not just for protection in medieval times, but as recently as the 1990s, Dubrovnik had had to defend itself. I only have a faint knowledge of these countries in Eastern history and their recent history. It is unbelievable to think people near my age have memories of it though.
After that we walked back to town in the rain to have a gyro. Basically since Turkey, that's our go to meal. If we find a place with meat on a spit, we're there. And of it's less than 3 euros, we're probably there more than once.
The next day we took the bus to Montenegro, where, once again our passports were collected and returned. The bus skirted this incredible bay. Even though the opening was quite narrow (definitely narrow enough for a bridge) to get to the other side you had to circle the whole bay. The bay was surrounded by tall mountains and villages right along the water. Stunning.
At the other side of the bay sat the charming town of Kotor. It is a little medieval town surrounded by water and mountains. Right above it is a fortress.
On our first day, we hiked up to the fortress and looked out over the old city. Matt declared it his favorite European city (I think the strenuous climb up was part of the charm for him, but I can't complain, it was strenuous enough to require a short-sleeved shirt! Oh the heat!).
The next day we took a hike up the other side to Vrmac Ridge where you could look over both bays.
We also found old bunkers at the top which were interesting. We wandered the trails a bit before walking back down.
Kotor was a pretty amazing little town. I think we could go back there someday. We also had a lovely host who brought us baked treats in the evening and took very good care of us. That always makes a place lovely.
Before we left Montenegro, we had a couple nights in Budva. It was apparent that Budva was more if a resort town and probably more lively in the summer time. Honestly, the old town was small and rather unremarkable. I could have done without Budva.
We left Budva and had an 11 hour bus ride to Belgrade. I decided we should do this bus during the day, as I had read that the road was beautiful and I was not interested in an overnight bus. Either way 11 hours on a bus verges on miserable. But the views were nice. As we entered Belgrade the first few towns we drove through surrounded mosques, but as we continued further into the country they were replaced with churches. This area of the world is a meeting point of Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy creating even more variety in the cultural identification of the people there.
We had only one night in Belgrade, but found ourselves quite impressed with it. It probably did to hurt that we had an amazing shower in our room. Showers have become one if the things I judge about potential accommodations. Beyond our bathroom, though, the city was lovely. There was a nice park and a walking area full of shops (as in shops that I recognize like H&M; I love walking through H&M). We even found Burrito Madre- reminiscent of Chipotle. Obviously we ate lunch there, but the food was reminiscent of any gyro stand.
Our main goal in Belgrade was the Nikola Tesla museum. A Serbian genius who was a hundred years ahead of his time. Matt has been talking about this museum for awhile. It was quite interesting. We watched a video to learn about his life. They had some fun demonstrations with electricity and a collection of his letters and photos. It was a well-done museum. Matt was pretty gleeful and attempted to do his own mini experiments during the demonstrations. I think he may be a genius too. I loved learning about his mother who apparently made various inventions to make housework easier. They were only used by her and never patented, but obviously his tinkering mother was an inspiration to Tesla. I admire tinkerers.
That night we got on an overnight train to Greece. We had to wake up in Macedonia for passport control (again they were collected, perhaps more nerve wracking than when they are collected on a more contained bus).
We were suppose to take the train all the way to Thessaloniki, but an accident on the Greek railroad prevented that and just before the Greek border we were transferred to a bus.
Now, we are officially in European Union and Schengen area, where we have 90 days on our visa, which means we officially have 89 days left on our trip! That exclamation is representative of both excitement and disbelief. June 30 will be here before we know it!
So, we start in Greece. It has to be warmer in Greece, right? I'm ever hopeful of truly coming upon spring and officially leaving winter behind.
Wild flowers should be a pretty good sign of spring, wouldn't you agree? I'm calling it, it's spring.
I just realized I'm writing this as I sit in the middle of a storm on a Greek Island. A story for another day...
