I have quite a conundrum, do I encourage you all to go visit Croatia or tell you that its horrible so I can have the country all to myself?
We arrived in Zagreb, we hopped off the world’s emptiest train (there was only 1 nun and a businessman on our carriage!) and walked down the world’s longest train platform. Seriously, it took like 10 minutes before we saw any sign of non train life.
I looked around and thought “oh my god, where have I brought us?”. The train station at Zagreb looks very 3rd world, all the buildings are a bit rough, old and forgotten looking.
We walked out and hundreds of people enjoying the sunshine in the plaza and park. We walked to our hostel through streets of people wearing amazing, expensive and top brand clothing…shopping for more amazing, expensive and top brand clothing. Streets full of terraces and cafes, american tourists, backpackers and trams packed to the brim!
We found out hostel, went to reception…which was a chain smoking girl sitting in a lounge room with a laptop surrounded by hungover people. Their internet was down. So they had no idea who had booked rooms over Hostelworld.com. She didn’t know how much we had to pay…we made up a number and that was that. We followed the chain-smoking girl up to our room where we met our roommates: a quiet girl who, if you spoke to her, went pale, and 2 Australian/Italian guys from Ryde. I told Lindsay I wanted a quick nap, and fell asleep for 3 hours!
We woke up and on the suggestion of the guys from Ryde we went to a restaurant that served yummy and cheap food. For about $20 I got a huge pizza and Lindsay a giant veal steak filled with cheese! We then went for hot chocolate with our new friends from Ryde.
The next morning we thought Zagreb was so nice we would like to stay another night. I went and asked chain-smoking girl if we could. She asked me “how many people are staying in the hostel?”. I didn’t know, then she said she didn’t know either…
Then Lindsay and I decided that maybe we would move on instead of waiting to find out how many people were staying in the hostel that night.
We spent the morning having a wander around the city
it was very pretty
After rescuing our bags from death by cigarette smoke we made our way to the bus station. We caught the first bus to Split. The trip was terrible, we were exhausted and the woman in front of my had her seat back so far it was resting on my lap! It was hot and all I wanted to do was thump the woman in front of me.
6 hours later we arrived in Split. We looked out the window and saw looks of excited looking people waiting to greet the bus. I thought to myself “wouldn’t it be nice if there were people waiting for us”
In fact, these people were waiting for us! They all had rooms for rent and they pounce on all the tourists as they get off the bus. They are pretty hardcore too! We already had a place booked so had to shoo everyone away.
Our hostel was called the 3 Turtles. They have only 9 beds, its a duplex and the bottom house has been turned into a hostel.
They really do have 3 Turtles…which are actually tortoises!
We spent our day in Split walking around.
There was a tour we joined which gave us a history of the town. The old part of town used to be a Roman palace, which has been lived in since it was built! As time went by parts of walls were removed, rebuilt and built up on. So what used to be a palace, military barracks, store houses etc within castle walls is now hundreds of little apartments, shops and windy streets. It was a maze of awesome living history.
The original paving stones are still in place:
They have been worn smooth by thousands of years of people walking over them.
This is an old Roman Mausoleum…
…with a round open roof? (is it a roof if there isn’t one?)
Inside was an acapella choir…
…with guitars…so not really that acapella-ish.
We spent the afternoon:
-
looking at amazing bougainvillea plants:
-
peering over ledges:
-
and walking around the maze of dark, cool streets:
All the time looking up, our tour guide had told us, look up and you will see some amazing things:
The wall next to the staircase is the old Roman castle wall!
The clock is part of the old castle walls, which have disappeared from view and are now the walls of shops and houses. One man bought an apartment which has an old roman wall in it with genuine roman mosaic decoration!
We then decided to climb this bell tower to have a look at the view which we were told was amazing.
The first part was alright, the steps were huge but you were in a walkway so all you could see where the very steep steps.
But then it opened out to this:
I went up the first section of stairs and I learnt something very important - I am scared of heights. So while I stayed halfway up the bell tower having a nervous breakdown, Lindsay went all the way up.
And looking at the photos he took,
the view was pretty breathtaking!
we rewarded ourselves by having lunch at a popular fish cafe. We ordered grilled fresh and local fish. They still had their heads and tails on! But I was brave and ate some fish, pretending that they were not watching me saying “why are you eating me?”
We were chatting to a guy at our hostel who said he had been to Hvar the past few days and that is was really nice.
So we thought, ok we will go for 3 nights. Famous last words!
Up next Hvar, where we stayed a little bit longer than 3 nights.