So Zagreb....

Dear visitor,

as promised an update, where was I? So much happend in between.
Zagreb, I arrived pretty late at the train station after an interesting trip with some Americans, Croatians and a Japanese guy. The dad of one of the Croatians was waiting for us at the station and offered to help us out with the hostel I booked. Well I managed myself in the end. Btw, I can really recommend the Buzz Hostel in Zagreb. It is actually the only one, and much better than the youth hostel there. But anyways. The Croatian guy, Luciano also offered to show us around the next day in Zagreb. So we met at 10 a.m. to have a quick walk through the city. The strikes the most is the incredible amount of bars, pubs, restaurants, and outside seatings in Zagreb. It seems that nobody is working but just having a drink with friends on a terras! Really nice to see that Croatians like to spend their time outside.
Other than the amount of pubs, the city itself is very nice too. It is not as big as Budapest or Prague, but has some interesting views and buildings. Up the hill is a very nice church and the parlamentary building. Actually you can come really close there and for a sec I thought I could spot some hot-shot politician..but in the end it was just a security guard.

Well I walked around for a bit, had some coffee and lunch and decided to stay another day in the hostel. The next day I wanted to leave early to take a bus to Plitvice National Park, a few hours south of Zagreb. The entire site is listed as a UNESCO Natural Heritage and well protected. The park consists of a trillion lakes, waterfalls and exotic flora and fauna! A lot of fishes, the most clear blue water I have ever seen and idyllic pathways throughout the entire park. I walked around there for about 6 hours and took some wonderful photos. I will upload those later since I don't have my cable at the moment, sorry for that.

Anyways, in the afternoon I managed to catch a bus to Zadar, which is a town near the coast, a 3 hours busride again from Plitvice. I was tired of all the walking anyways, so I couldn't care about yet another busride. When I got to Zadar I experienced the first private accommodation, a common way of providing and renting accommodation in Croatia. I walked around for a short while there and ate my first Croatian fish. They are really good at grilling them: the fish is always fresh, cheap and well prepared, I loved it!

The day after I took another bus, this time to Split, because from Split are many ferries to a lot of islands near the coast. I walked around in Split for a few hours waiting for my boat and have to say that Split looks nice too! Just like all the Croatian places I been to, the city had an old town and, small narrow streets. All in all really nice. Still I cannot say much about it, since I had only a few hours. I got to the harbour again to catch my ferry to Hvar. As said in the book, the island promised to be the island with the most sunhours in Croatia or even Europe! Wow, I would love that! And it was, on the boat I met two funny English guys with whom I stuck around for 4 days in the end. We rented two rooms in a private house again, pretty close to the 'centre'. The village is very small, but lively and trendy. Some clubs, bars and pubs and and a lot of young people enjoying party. But also an idyllic harbour where we rented a small boat to go around the island and small islands along the coastline.

And that is when I got to Robinson's bay... geezzz....the bay was only to be reached by boat, there was no road to it. And some laidback dude opened a restaurant there. Imagine the blue lagoon, white beach, clear blue water, some small boats, the best fish ever, relax atmosphere, sunshine, and silence...got that? Well that is what it was!! Amazing! I will show a picture of the dude soon! Well anyways, we floated around in our little boat and finally headed back to the main island.

Btw, sorry for the long story, but I just saw so much, it is hard to tell everything in short!

From Hvar I took another ferry to the next island, Korcula. The English guys joined me again to Korcula, and again we found some accommodation for all of us together. Right in town, a beautiful house, big and with our own kitchen, BBQ and living room. Really nice. Also the lady told us some interesting stories about her life. She was from Kosovo and experienced some hard times there during wartime. But now she was all happy, married and had a young child.
We decided to stay there for two nights, just to chill out and watch some football matches... World Cup fever, it's truely universal!

Korcula itself was less interesting or exciting, but a good place to chill out and relax. Beach, rocks, sun etc. holiday feeling all the way. From Korcula I took a bus to Dubrovnik, and the English guys went to Split to catch a flight home. Lots of people told me Dubrovnik is beautiful and I have to admit right away, it is! The tourist kind of spoil the views and authentic sights of the city, but still, the beauty of so much history and old buildings is astonishing.
The old town was ruined twice, once by an earthquake in 1667 and once by the Yugoslavian army in 1991. Luckily the old city is repaired with help of UNESCO (since the entire old town is listed as a UNESCO world heritage). The city looks just as it was meant to look like when it was originally built! Really amazing. The fortified walls around it, the views at the town, with the sea in the background, islands. You have to see that for yourself. Still I will give you a photo impression soon.

Well I only spent a day in Dubrovnik, in the evening I took a ferry to Bari, Italy. And Italy is where I still am. I will give you an update from there soon!

Chao,

Sofie