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For those of you who watch Game of Thrones you will know of a place called Kings Landing, but in real life it's called Dubrovnik, which was our first stop in Croatia. If you've seen the show then you will have a sense of what Dubrovnik is like but for those of you who haven't it's a completely walled town on the edges of the Adriatic Sea, with sand coloured buildings and polished marble streets. It's something straight out of history, preserved, authentic and so charming, the only downside is that everyone else knows this! Although despite the many tourists it still was an incredible place to be and you could easily lose yourself in the little lanes where every turn provided another 'awe' moment. Spending the morning walking around the town itself and then getting half way around the 2km (1.2 mile) wall, all in the blistering heat, we decided to abandon the town and head to the little tree covered island just off shore called Lokrum. We caught the ferry over to this oasis where our first priority was jumping into the ocean, which Darren did straight away but it took me a few minutes to get my courage up to jump off the rocks, which were only 1.5m high… I know, I know, I'm a whuss! After cooling off in the ocean we headed off to discover the island where we found a ruined monastery, a botanical garden, numerous peacocks and a swimming hole with a cave which we just had to explore. After a few hours on this enchanting and peaceful island we headed back to the bustling Dubrovnik to complete the second leg of our walk around the walls, which had the most amazing views over the whole town and the sea beyond, before heading back to our hostel. I can't talk about Dubrovnik without mentioning the awesome hostel we stayed in, well it wasn't truly the hostel (which actually felt a bit dodgy) it was the people we met. We shared our room with Aussie Boyd, Scottish David and the very talkative Rachel from Philadelphia. We all got on really well and there was just such a good vibe to our room. Our neighbours Ella and Ash were awesome too and the whole group of us (minus Rachel) had one very drunken night together. I can't believe it; here I am in Croatia drinking with a bunch of Aussie's! It was such a good night and we even got a noise complaint, but it was a great night, if a little messy.
Unfortunately for us the next day saw us back on the road with a 3½ hour drive to Split along with Rachel from our room, as she was catching a train from Split later that night. We had to make quite a few stops along the way, sometimes for the scenery, for lunch, or for these amazing fruit stalls that pretty much lined our whole journey but it was in the 7km stretch of coastline that belongs to Bosnia that was the most eventful for Darren. We had to pull over to let him throw up, although I can't say I wasn't feeling a bit queasy myself! Arriving at our hostel Darren headed straight for the room to lie down while me and Rachel headed for the piece of concrete that overlooked the ocean to have a bit of a rest in the sunshine. After a few hours we headed into Split, which is easily my favourite place that we visited in Croatia, I just loved it. It's buzzy, vibrant and a real town. Inside the Roman built Diocletian's Palace is the heart of the city, and the old town, which is full of shops, restaurants and bars all of which have been built up within the exterior walls of the Roman palace, it's a living museum and a mix of styles but it works. We had dinner in this amazing restaurant Darren found on Trip Advisor which Rachel paid for as a thank you to us, which was very sweet. We then got her on her train about 30 seconds before it pulled out of the station… it was a little stressful!
The next day we headed in to explore more of the old town. We signed up for a free walking tour which wasn't great to be honest but the woman was a bit of fun. I didn't really feel that I learnt anything except that Croatians are lazy and don't pick up their dog's poo (she had a bit of a rant to us about that). Oh and she told us a joke that Jesus was Croatian because, like him, they always say they'll be back to sort stuff out… but we're still waiting. Not the best joke in the world but it was probably the highlight of the tour!
So it was onto Zadar which we were going to call into before camping somewhere further up the coast, but about an hour and a half into our trip we realised that we'd left the iphone charger at the hostel. This wouldn't have been the end of the world but it was attached to our only Australian adapter which would mean we wouldn't be able to charge anything else, or even do this blog! To go back or not to go back…..we deliberated for a bit before deciding that we would go back. We were on a toll way so we just got off at the next exit where we were able to do a U-turn and head back, we didn't have to go through any of the toll gates. Unluckily for us though we got the toll ticket from the Split entrance, and as this is where we were exiting we caused a bit of confusion, and were made to pay the highest fair, which was €35! We were gutted; we're living on a budget of about €70 per day, so this is a lot of money for us but we count ourselves lucky that it wasn't any more. Needless to say by the time we did all this it was getting on and we were in no mood to sightsee, so we skipped Zadar and headed straight to our campsite. The next day we were back in the car again (Croatia is a long country!) and it was onto the Istria Peninsula where we camped for a few days and we didn't leave the campsite! We'd had quite a few busy days of driving and sightseeing, so to just chill in the sun and go for a swim was about all either of us could handle, it was bliss.
Clare
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