Croatia 10/12/03
Croatia has just been wonderful. Where to even begin??? Okay... here I go. Zagreb- the
capital. I'm embarrassed to say that I had never even heard of this city before I planned this
trip. It definitely has a Vienna feeling to it, with a main square that reminded me of Puerto
del Sol in Madrid. Had a couple of great meals here. This city looks to be on the up and up.
Then we left for Dubrovnik on Croatia Airlines. Lets just say that they don't care who you
are (they don't have any desire to see any i.d.)... but they do care if you try to pack batteries
in your check-in baggage! They, I guess, x-rayed it right away and were yelling out for me to
come back to the ticket agent so that they could give me my bag back to take out the
batteries. I had to carry them on with me. Whatever floats their boat, right? Anyway, our 50
minute flight turned into a 3+ hour flight. There were thunderstorms in Dubrovnik so
weflew over the city for an hour. At first it was boring. Then they started flying a bit lower
which was fun because there was turbulence and it felt like a roller coaster. Then the
turbulence got REALLY bad and when my stomach got left in the air, I was starting to
wonder if we were going to make it. I was actually thinking of Alicia's parents who only
knew she was coming to "Europe" with me-- not actually Croatia (she neglected telling
them this piece of information to eliminate any worry on their part). Well, we were
apparently running low on fuel so we had to fly to Split to refuel. Someone then got off the
plane. If only it could have been that easy. I guess they have a policy that if one person gets
off and takes their luggage, then everybody needs to re-identify their bags. So then they had
to take all of our baggage off. We then had to get off of the plane to identify our baggage.
And yada yada yada....we finally got to Dubrovnik. Oh! One thing I found interesting about
Croatia Airlines-- they speak English on the planes. They make all announcements in
Croatian, then in English. Wasn't expecting that! I'll spare you a lot of the amazing details
of this wonderful city. But I will tell you how amazingly beautiful the views are when you're
walking on top of the city walls. The bright royal blue colored water against the old white
buildings with orange rooftops (80% of them are newly orange rooftops due to the war.
80% of the buildings were shelled when the war took place in the early 90s). We took a
private boat ride in the Adriatic that went around a nearby island. Very beautiful. Our next
journey took place on a bus so that we could go to the island of Korcula. We ended up in
Orebic and ended up getting a room in somebody's house (as we did in Dubrovnik). We
then took a ferry over to Korcula. Adorable town! Its within walls and medieval. Not tons to
do but its great to look at. Then the next day we hung out in Orebic. Did a little picnic at a
beach in Orebic. Swam in the Adriatic and did the topless thing. Stopped at people's houses
to wine taste since the Peljesac Peninsula is known for their wines-- this is where Mike
Grgic has a winery since hes from here. If this name doesn't ring a bell, he is the 'Grgich' in
Grgich Hills winery in Napa. We picked up a liter of wine at one house for our picnic. This
'wine tasting' experience took place in the basement of a home of a woman with no teeth.
And how do they bottle it, you ask? In our choice of any cleaned out, empty plastic soda
bottles! At another house where we wine tasted, we literally did it right in her kitchen. She
used glasses from her cabinet. So different from the California/Italy/France way. It was
then time to think about heading over to Korcula to catch our bus for Split. While waiting
for the ferry, this guy started talking to us. To make a long story short, he asked if we
wanted him to give us a ride to Split in the morning since he was already going there and
then we would just stay at his place that night (en route to Split). I said "Sure!". So we had
to stop off at his villa first. Right on the sea! We had some wine and just watched how calm
and peaceful everything was. Then I asked if we could go to the Grgic (how it's spelled in
Croatian) winery since it was literally impossible for me to check out while we were there
Believe me, I tried! There were no cars to rent, etc. Zvanko (our new Croatian friend) said
we would go. Yay for Zvanko! So, even though the winery was closed, he had them open it
for us and they even gave us a tour. Then we tasted. Then I mentioned something about the
snotty little guy who waited on us at the Grgich Hills winery in Napa to Zvanko. He then
took it upon himself to tell the people at the winery about my experience. That's what you
get when you're rude to Jen Nathan! But I digress. Zvanko then took us to a wonderful
restaurant for dinner. Ordered us all sorts of things. It was just wonderful. It was in a town
called Mali Ston. Then we were on our way to Zvanko's. On the way, guess where we drove
through? The whole coast of Bosnia. Yep, kids. You heard me right! So Zvanko got our
passports stamped for us. The coast there was just beautiful looking. I guess a lot of
Croatians vacation there because its cheaper. The next day we got to Split in the morning.
Split has a resemblance to Nice with the promenade. The entire Old Town is situated in
what was Diocletian's Palace. The outer walls still remain. The ruins are quite awesome
within the walls. We took a ferry to Hvar. What a beautiful town. It is known for lavender,
which unfortunately was now out of season. Boo for me. We walked up to the castle for an
amazing view (truth be told, we walked to the top of every city to check out the views so I'll
spare you with those details from this point on...). We left from Split that night for a 7 hour
bus ride to the Plitvice Lakes. We got into the resort of the Plitvice Lakes around 2am.
Stayed at a great hotel (which was even more great since we were deprived of hotels for 3
nights in a row) and got a great breakfast. We went on our hike the next morning. We took
boat rides on the lakes as well as saw many waterfalls, which its known for. We won't talk
about the bats that I also saw when Alicia pointed them out to me when we were roaming
around in a cave-like thing. We went back to Zagreb a bit later so that we could catch our
train to Budapest the next day. We walked around Zagreb for a while and ended our time in
Croatia and a fabulous restaurant that had my favorite new Croatian dish on the menu--
risotto with cuttlefish in cuttlefish ink. Simply delicious! That and some wine was a perfect
way to end our Croatian adventure.