I'll admit, the further North we moved along the Croatian coast, the more topless our travels became. We had been on the road for one month by the time we arrived in Split and we had mixed feelings about the experience.
It went a little something like this.
1 month before: Woohoo we've booked a four month holiday! Oh shit we've booked a four month holiday!
The day we leave: Yay we're going on holiday!
Two weeks in: I'm still stressed, this was a mistake.
Three weeks in: This is great, I'm so relaxed.
One month in: I'm ok to go home now.
One month onwards: I'm so glad we stayed!
From Dubrovnik's old town we watched the cool blue bays shift into little fishing villages. The jostling rumble of the bus, now a welcome friend. A Bosnian passport officer climbed the steps, she filled the walkway; her short, unstyled hair one flick away from the ceiling. There was something about her masculine features and stern face that made me think she probably carried peoples cars to the side of the road if they had the wrong colour passport. We handed over our passports, and let out a breath as we tucked them back into our bags. The bus jostled and rumbled again, continuing through the Croatian boarder check only 10 minutes later.
Split was the super-sized holiday version of our home town. A brilliant cafe/bakery at the end of our street, 5Ltr bottles of wine at the super market for 25 kuna ($5AUD) and a stones throw from the beach. We spent our days removing tan lines, writing blogs and playing chess atop the sea cliffs.
Towards the end of our stay, I booked a day trip to Krka national park. After an hour long bus trip and 30 min boat ride, we arrived at the cascading waterfalls. We whiled away our afternoon as we were swept down the rapids, fed the fish and cooled off under the falls. At Krka (the smaller and less touristy version of Plitvice) there's tons of places to jump swim and get swept away. Half the fun is slipping on the rocks and laughing with the other (just as wobbly) tourists.
We were still a little traumatised from our new friend, Tom, losing his GoPro in Dubrovnik, so with a little convincing, Josh lowered our DSLR down from the bridge and over the rapids, wrist strap tightly secured.
By the end of the week, we were exhausted. We did a small walk into the old town, bought the first bikini that has EVER fit me well (Calzedonia), and napped under the mild mediterranean sun.
Now fully embracing the mood of the med,
Tate x
Traveller Tips:
- Krka and Skradin is the same thing.
- You can get a return bus trip to Krka for around 204.4Kuna ($43AUD). This price doesn't include the ferry to the falls, so make sure you've accounted for that too. The bus trip one way is about 1 hour, and you'll probably want to stay at Krka for about 4 hours. Take snacks, but if you forget, there is a cafe before the swimming area as well as one along the walk. I can't remember the site I used to book, but this one looks pretty similar.
- There is a short circular walk at Krka, the boardwalk is beautiful, and there are literally hundreds of fish because fishing here is illegal, they're able to grow to their full size and multiply ;)
- There is only one bus station/stop in split, the walk between there and the Marjan Forest Park is lovely. We stayed closer to the park, and it was a 5 minute walk into the old town, 5 minute walk to the beach, and 10 minute walk to the bus station.
- Everyone here speaks English, but if you learn "hvala" (pronounced vah-lah) meaning "thank you", you'll get a lot of happy Croatians :)