Sunday, October 20, 2013

Day 5 - Dubrovnik - Half the Fun is Getting there, Right?

After a fabulous few days in Zadar, it was time to say farewell as we were heading to Dubrovnik to spend the last few days (Tuesday - Saturday) of our trip. Our plan was to take the bus from Zadar back to Split where we had rental cars ready for us to drive to Dubrovnik.

For how smooth of a journey it was to get from Split to Zadar, it's amazing how... well, eventful was the journey back to Split. We started off boarding this small mini-bus type of situation... it was a lot smaller than the bus we had taken to arrive in Zadar, but we all got seats so we figured we'd just roll with it... until we realized that the line of people to get on this minibus thing was getting longer and longer... and the space in the minibus was getting more and more cramped - people were literally standing on top of one another (I wish, oh how I wish, I'd snapped a picture of this whole experience). It was all rather disgusting, really, and we were all a bit confused as to WHAT was going on. We all ended up transferring from that minibus nonsense to a regular size bus after some lightbulb went off in whoever was organizing the bus situation's head.

Thinking we were all ready and set, I did what I do best on buses apparently... I passed out. What can I say? I'm perpetually sleepy, I guess. Unfortunately, I was rudely interrupted when our bus ended up stopping about 15 minutes later because we had to transfer buses for some reason. I rolled with it, confused but obedient, nonetheless. Well, another 45 minutes later... we had to transfer buses yet AGAIN! We were all getting a bit annoyed by this point, myself particularly because... well, a girl needs her SLEEP! Hahaha. To this day, I have NO idea what was going on (the whole bus situation was totally fine when we were traveling from Split to Zadar before!), but I was so over this whole "Half the fun is getting there" mantra that kept running through my head during this whole spectacle.

Anyway, we ended up arriving back in Split in one piece and headed right over to the Hertz to grab our rental car and GO! The seven of us split into two cars, so I ended up in a car with Cara and Gillian. The goal was for the two cars to follow one another on the journey to Dubrovnik... which is all fine and good in theory. Until the two cars lose each other before we even leave the city proper of Split!

The girls in the other car were well-prepared and had two sets of printed out directions in the car. Cara, Gillian and I... we had nothing - including no form of digital navigation assistance. So what did we do? Well, imagine that, we did the "old-fashioned" thing and literally just followed road signs that pointed us to Dubrovnik. Imagine that, right?

Well, those signs ended up taking us down this coastal highway that stretched all the way from Split to Dubrovnik so it was a pretty straight shot... and it was quite possibly the most gorgeous road trip of my life. I mean, sure it's the coastal route so you're guaranteed beautiful views of the sun and water... but still. There's something about the Adriatic Sea - the colors, the serenity. Sigh.












Sorry! Got a little carried away! I couldn't determine what pictures were the "best" so... well, I just dumped them all in! :) Hope you enjoyed the slide show! Hahah.

Anyway, after PLENTY of stops along the way (I'm telling you, we could NOT get enough!), we finally ended up in Dubrovnik!




We honestly had just the best time - one of the best road trips ever.


We managed to navigate our way to the apartment that we were staying at in Dubrovnik. The other car had beaten us there by just a bit, so we arrived to a full house. And by "house", I do mean... palatial estate (we'd gotten upgraded by our original hosts). With, naturally, amazing views.






That night was fairly uneventful as we were pretty worn out from our neverending journey from Zadar to Split to Dubrovnik and we wanted to get to sleep early in order to take FULL advantage of Wednesday, our first FULL day in Dubrovnik.

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