Croatian Craziness

I'm still in awe at the awesomeness that was last weekend.  The glorious imperfection that was my awkwardly planned trip came together with amazing people, places and weather - altogether an unbelievable experience.


Zagreb


I caught a 5:45 a.m. train on Wednesday morning, and after a painless flight from Stuttgart airport I arrived in Zagreb, Croatia.  On the airport shuttle into Croatia's capital I met Nathaniel and Michael (female) who had flown in from Anchorage, Alaska.  Their flight had left in the morning, taken them over the north pole, and deposited them in Croatia without seeing the sun drop below the horizon.  I met them after somewhere around their 24th hour of daylight, and our slowly functioning brains seemed to get along quite well.  With them being determined to stay awake until sundown and me being determined to see as much as I could in the 8 hours I had in Zagreb, we made a fine team.

Zagreb is a beautiful city with great culture and beautiful sights, and we took a walking tour from of one of the handy-dandy guidebooks at the tourist information desk - the first half of which I did solo while they freshened up after their travels.

Monument to King Tomislav in front of the Art Pavillion

Triple Gardening in preparation for a movie shoot

Croatian State Archives

Zagreb's First High-Rise

Nikolai Tesla deep in thought - there were monuments to him everywhere

This guy was playing about 20 people at once in chess, barely pausing to look at the board as he moved around the circle

Church Mosaic

The view from the hill

The shortest passenger cable railway in the world: 66 metres

Satisfied with what we had seen, we decided to pop over to one of the most interesting museums I've been in yet:

An example of the meaningful trinkets that filled the small rooms  Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, it was cool to see such an innovative museum

Emotions sufficiently conflicted, we left and walked down to a recommended restaurant for dinner.

Agava

As time went on, the Alaskans were mentally deteriorating (as was I), and so we said goodbye and I started the deceptively long trek back to the bus station.

Michael, Nathaniel, and I

They do street art good and proper

After running around for 45 minutes in the station trying to figure out where and when to get my bus (thank goodness I arrived early), I finally took a seat in the coach at 9 p.m.
Unfortunately, this seat ended up being at the very front of the bus, where there was a nice plexiglass wall between me and the driver.  My knees touched it while sitting upright, and feet didn't fit underneath it.  Discomfort and intermittent sleep was the name of the game until 3am, when my neighbour finally disembarked.  I slept like a rock until shortly before my 7:00 a.m. arrival in Dubrovnik (minus the border crossings, where they checked passports at both sides within 25 minutes of each other).

The glorious bus

Nice views en route

Dubrovnik

After taking the city bus from the bus depot, I walked through the gate shown above into Old Town.  This is the walled, pedestrian-only part of the city - I wasn't exactly sure what to do so I followed the complicated instructions to my hostel.  After winding through narrow alleyways and waiting for it to open up at 8:00, I stepped inside.

"Good morning!  Are you Benjamin?"

"Mornin', that's me"

"Want your welcome shot?"

I stared at her incredulously for a second

"Can I save it for later?"

"Of course!  We have free breakfast too!"

That I didn't save for later.  Hostel guests trickled down as the morning went on, and I ended up talking to Lorraine, Katie and Shawn.  After a while, discussion turned to what we'd be doing that day.  Rough itinerary: Walk the walls, go cliff jumping, and then the girls had to get to their next destination.

We started with the walls.

Shawn, Lorraine and I on the way up

A View Inwards

Shawn, Katie, Lorraine and I

Some of dem cliffs

New Town

Overlooking Old Town and Lokrum Island

Interesting court setup

Another Group Shot

After the 2km wall walk, we went out to the cliffs to check out the cliff jumping.  There was nobody else there, and without knowing where to jump from we decided just to swim instead.

Down to the water

Perfect Temperature

We went back to the hostel for a bit, and I was finally able to check in and freshen up.  I said goodbye to the girls, and decided what was next on the plate.

I bought my pub crawl ticket, and asked how long it would take to walk up the mountain overlooking the city.  I was told an hour and a half, so I figured I could do it in an hour at a good clip.  The girl at the desk was definitely questioning my sanity as I left in the heat of the afternoon.

Already a good chunk of the way up the hill

After a long trek repeatedly crossing the shadow of the gondola cables, I finally reached the top.  I stopped to admire the views, and was promptly distracted by the museum at the top that documented the relatively recent war.  It was very interesting and humbling to see how the city had been annihilated 20 years earlier, and how much has been rebuilt.

Old wartime trenches

After gaining a new respect for the beauty of Dubrovnik, I stepped back outside to snap some pictures:

Dubrovnik Old Town

One of the more modern harbours

Croatian coastline

Lokrum Island

Mountain ranges out the back

The unused-by-me gondola

The path up, and down

I checked the price for going down the mountain, and I would have had to pay the full two-way price.  I decided to walk.

When I got back to the hostel, a few of the guys were sitting around talking.  The conversation drifted to cliff jumping, and next thing we know we're overlooking the water far below.  We jumped for a while, enjoying the warm water until the sun drifted behind the walls.  Unfortunately I didn't have a camera along, but it was time to make a quick dinner and head out for the pub crawl.

The bars got progressively more lively as we hopped from venue to venue, but we couldn't help but notice that the 25 of us were often the only ones in the bars.

Some of the crew

Eventually, we headed out to Revelin, which was some gigantic club in the fortress walls.  It was an entertaining time, complete with our Lawyer friend from Sao Paolo buying bottle service of Jager and Red Bull.

The Lawyer

$$$

Exhausted from such a long day, I decided to leave at 2:30 and try to get some rest for the next day.

The street was dry - it looks polished at night

Since I forgot my keys in my locker in the hostel, an hour and a half of that rest was spent asleep on the stairs outside the hostel waiting for a fellow guest to come by.

That kind of sucked.

I woke up at 9:30, packed my bag and stashed it in the corner.  After breakfast, I took a day trip out to Lokrum Island just off the coast.  My four hours out there were spent as follows:

I'd heard there were peacocks here, but I didn't realize how many

Ruins of an old monastery

Cliffs and crystal clear water 

Old habits die hard - a view from the highest point on the island

Turning around - dubrovnik and yesterday's climb

More coastline

The island surf

Gorgeous place to lie out on the rocks for a while

Momma and her babies

This guy was here to send me home

Pooped out once again, I got my bag from the hostel, had a delicious seafood dinner in the harbour, and caught the 6:00 p.m. night bus that would take me to my next destination.  It was 28 degrees when I got on the bus.

Concrete jungle somewhere on the drive

Last views of the coast

Plitvice Lakes

Arriving in an almost non-existent Croatian town at 3 a.m. is probably not a good idea.  At least I had planned ahead and had a place to sleep, unlike the Americans I met on the bus.  They thought it arrived at 6 a.m., and were grateful, if not too pleased, when I enlightened them.

Due to a miscommunication over the phone with the friendly lady at the Guesthouse, I ended up knocking on the wrong door.  Nobody answered. I was too tired to care.

I slept here:

The bench with the backrest did not make a comfortable bed

Around 4:45 a.m.,  the wind picked up and things started getting chilly.  I also needed to roll over, but there was no space on the bench.  I decided to relocate.
After scouting out a possibly abandoned fitness centre, I found a nice cement slab with a thin layer of moss to bed down for the rest of the morning.

Head on the backpack, body on the moss.  It's how I do.  

It was nicely out of view from any nearby path, and I had a great hour of hobo-esque sleep.

When I eventually made my way back to Vila Vuk (my guesthouse), the host was sitting on the balcony and offered me a cup of coffee, which I gladly accepted.  I got changed, dropped by bag off, and started towards the park.  I'll let the pictures do [most of] the talking:

Early morning = first boat

Constantly evolving waterfalls

Yes, the water was actually that colour

Suddenly, tourists

And that colour.  

The big waterfalls

Early afternoon, I met an Austrian guy named Mario while snapping some pictures at the top of a cliff.  We quickly ventured past the red tape leading into a long-closed section of the park..

Just a cool waterspout

Top of the big waterfall

Some massive cliff overlooking the valley

Side view of the big guy

Mo falls

Mario snapping the money shot

Taking the path less travelled

Away from the crowds

Look!  A cave!

Yeah, why not

Mario fortunately had a headlamp in his bag

Long-closed tour routes

Awesome

After an hour or so of trekking around, we see light!

More nice waterfalls

Obligatory shot

Quick refresher

Looking down on the ants below before leaving

We said goodbye, and I got back to Vila Vuk after 9 hours of fast-paced walking and adventuring.  After a quick dinner, I was asleep before 8 p.m.

Sunday was taken up by 12 hours of travel and reminiscing about those amazing few days on my elmo-coloured bus on the way back to Zagreb.

Elmo front and centre

That was a trip that will stick with me for the rest of life.  I came without knowing what to expect, and was totally blown away.

Highly recommended.  Obviously.

.