CROATIA!! In a Nutshell

Oh hello there! I typically try to do at least one international adventure each year... well, this year I had no international trips on the horizon until my friend from San Francisco, Cara, contacted me a few months ago about a trip to Croatia. I was immediately on board - I've been wanting to see Croatia for quite some time now! Anyhow, it turns out that one of Cara's friends was organizing this whole extravaganza amongst quite a few of her friends, most of whom weren't really friends with one another.

The other girls in these posts had done a full week of boating around the islands of Croatia before I joined them for a week on land. All in all, I have to say that Croatia hit a soft spot in my heart - the people in this country were among the nicest people I've met before... and, well, that pretty much sold it for me.

In short, I loved, loved, loved this trip and would 100% recommend this destination for any and all - it's, simply put, perfection.

To make this easier on the eyes, I've divided my trip into quite a few blog posts (we did a LOT of stuff in a week, turns out!), so please feel free to pick and choose any / all posts that spark your interest. (If it helps at all, my favorite day was Day 9 :))

So, without further ado, I present to you... Croatia, in a nutshell:

Day 1 - Split

Days 2 thru 4 - Zadar (Plus Surrounding Areas)

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

Day 6 - Dubrovnik, by way of Old Town

Day 7 - Dubrovnik, by way of Kayak, Buza and of course, STEPS!

Day 8 - Dubrovnik, by way of Bosnia-Herzegovinia

Day 9 - Dubrovnik, by way of Hiking, Biking and Kayaking

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.

Days 2 thru 4 - Zadar (Plus Surrounding Areas)

Alright! Days 2-4 (Saturday thru Monday) of this Croatia extravaganza took place in a small town called Zadar. This was actually my favorite town that we visited in Croatia, primarily because it was so tiny - the smaller, the quainter, the better, in my opinion.

We ended up taking a pleasant bus ride through the Croatian countryside (or something like that) to Zadar... unfortunately, I missed the majority of the scenic bus ride since I legitimately PASSED OUT for the couple of hours our journey took. Oh well.

Once we got to Zadar, the host for the apartment we were renting (Ivana) ended up meeting us at the bus station itself, which was great since there was a whole flurry of activity going on (and I was still not fully awake). Anyway, Ivana turned out to be just the sweetest little gem in all the land - SO bubbly and full of all kinds of information. The best kind of host, if you will.

Our apartment turned out to be a multi-apartment cottage which screamed all kinds of things adorable. Check out our very own COBBLESTONE PATHWAY!

After settling in to our new digs, we were ready to start exploring. As we hung out in the little courtyard area, waiting for everyone to be ready, we noticed a small (adorable) grandmotherly Croatian woman beckoning to us from a neighboring apartment. She didn't speak any English, but quite frankly, she was so adorable, so I just eagerly headed on over to see what she wanted.

Boy, am I glad that I did! As if this woman wasn't adorable enough, she had also... MADE THESE WARM AND DELICIOUS MINI DOUGHNUT THINGS (I think it's a traditional Croatian treat) for our group!

We could NOT get enough of these things! They were just so warm and delicious (and I'm not even the biggest doughnut person). Quite frankly, it was more the gesture than anything else that did it for me... I mean, I wish we could've snapped a PICTURE that fully CAPTURED this elderly woman's pure adorableness without being totally creepy.

Oh well, that didn't stop us from shamelessly snapping pictures of other elderly people...

RIGHT?!? Okay, I'm all about the holidays but how creepy / weird is this guy?

Moving on...we continued wandering around the town and taking in the sites - because Zadar is situated right on the water, we had plenty of simply lovely views of the sunsets...

How cool is this HUMONGOUS sundial??

We wandered for a bit more, ended up having dinner at a place called Atrij (delicious, chill and located in a prime spot for people watching!)...

Okay, there was more to dinner than that, but you get the picture (no pun intended ;)).

The next couple of days were filled with outdoorsy touristy things - we were planning to visit Plitvice Lakes and Krka National Park. Both are known for being beautiful, forest-y type places with amazing waterfalls. Both of these activities are pretty popular and touristy, and we ended up going with this tour company called Romeo and Juliet Travel Agency , based on our host, Ivana's, recommendation.

I am going to do all I can to advertise this tour company because we simply had the BEST experience with our tour guide, Ivica. He was simply wonderful - so unbelievably knowledgeable, personable, and funny. Not to mention... he is totally in the know with all things American pop culture so you better believe we had plenty to discuss, given the VMAs that had just taken place (as he references it: "The Shame of Miley Cyrus" hahahah!!!).

In any event, we all piled into this tour minibus/van thing to begin our sojourn to Plitvice Lakes.

En route, Ivica spoke to us about the history of his country, including but not limited to the war which took place in the early '90s. While everything Ivica spoke about was interesting, his personal stories and experiences about the war were what stuck with me the most.

We soon arrived at Plitvice Lakes... and were basically taken aback by its beauty. It's basically a magical forest, if you will.

The trees can't get any greener...

The water can't get any clearer...

And of course, you can't forget those waterfalls...

We also visited a little cave that was located up some steep-ish steps which was nice. I would have to say the steps themselves are probably more exciting than the cave, though.

Okay, so that was Plitvice Lakes. We ended up hitting up Krka Falls the next day as well, per dear Ivica's recommendation. We were actually more impressed with the views and the waterfalls we saw there moreso than at Plitvice!

Okay, this is the problem with blogging about trips months after the fact. I have such a terrible memory that I'm starting to confuse what pictures were from Plitvice Lakes vs. Krka Falls. Oh well, all you need to know is that both places are spectacular. Although, if you are pressed for time, I would recommend Krka Falls over  Plitvice Lakes (if you are purely interested in seeing amazing waterfalls), as it seemed to have the more majestic waterfalls to look at... AND you get to swim in the falls (which we did)! Can't beat that, right?