Croatia Part III

Day 7: Hvar
We first started this day with a really long swim - we had 3 hours in the most beautiful bay ever! I'm glad this was our last swim - it was HOT and we were all a bit burnt! AND, JaNae had gotten a lot more comfortable with the water. Each day she would do something a little uncomfortable for her, but this last day she swam on her own!!! Each day she had a death grip on a floaty, but this day, she just had it tied to her back. I tied it to her suit and she swam back and forth like a crazy fish! I'm not going to say she is now 100% comfortable, but this trip helped a LOT!
Anyway, on the way into Hvar we are told this is the glitziest town in all of Croatia. People like Beyonce and JayZ spend time here; wow were we excited! Hvar is TINY though! We dock the boat and see about 6 restaurants, then a couple streets of shops, more restaurants and some street vendors. Yea - took all of 20 minutes to walk around the city! But it was high class and pretty. We had decided this would be the day we would try a couple scooters and scoot around Hvar. So, we each get our own scooter and helmet and make our way up this mountain in hopes of reaching the castle at the top. We take off.....OH....a little shaky....this is our first time! But, we make it up the mountain only to realize we need to climb a ton more stairs to make it to the castle. Eh, we were just fine on the scoots so decided to keep going. We stop (JaNae needed a pee break) and decide to go around again and make our way to the castle. Now, we are half way up this mountain and the roads are met on the side by large drop offs. JaNae takes off and doesn't get the 'gas' right, so the scooter and her take off, fall over and slide towards the edge of the road!! OMG! She is now laying in the middle of the road, scoots on top of her and we are freaking out! Luckily, no cars came and we were able to get back to the parking area. JaNae's toe was bleeding and her legs bruised, but nothing serious - both of course scared beyond belief. With that, we decided just to go back and try to enjoy the rest of the night. Being a bit sore, we pumped JaNae full of pills and had a nice quiet dinner and then went to bed. Hvar was not all we thought it would be!

Day 8: Split
Yes, we'd already been in Split for a day but since we've done everything in the city worth doing, we decided to go white water rafting up in the hills. 6 of us from the boat went and two others from France were at the start to join us as well. We are split into two boats and head off down the river. I'd never been before, but this was REALLY tame! I was looking for a bit of excitement, but it was a bit like canoeing. At one point, we stopped and let the guys (and a few girls) jump off this huge rock! It was scary watching them climb up this rock - our tour guides had to help everyone. But they jumped and lived - it was awesome! We came up to a smaller rock and our guides said it was much easier to get to the top. So three of us girls went up to JUMP! The one girl who'd gone before jumped in like 2 seconds! Next, the other girl decided to go- she took a bit of coaxing, but went. Then, I stepped up and.....OMG....I think I'm going to puke!!!! It seems SO FAR UP1!! So everyone starts yelling for me to jump and I cannot do it! One of the tour guides came up to give me some motivation - told me he would push me if I didn't jump. I honestly wish he would have pushed me...but, I went! It was crazy! But I'm glad I did it!

So, that was that and we were all shattered! It was 5 hours of craziness!
We get back to split, have a quick dinner and meet everyone out at a bar. When we got there, we heard great news that two of our trip mates got engaged!! Congrats Matt and Becky! It was really exciting and they are so cute together!

Final day - we are set to leave the boat by 9am! OUCH early! We all deport the boat in 90+ heat and our flight doesn't leave for another 4 hours! We needed to catch the bus at noon and it was 9am. We take our bags and realize we only have enough energy to sit in the shade and eat :) We met up with Matt and Becky to catch the bus as we were all on the same flight back to London. We get on our flight in Croatia and it's 30 minutes late taking off - of course our connection in Vienna was only 30 minutes. Yup - we are screwed! Matt and Becky were smart enough to run for it and made the flight back to London but we were stuck in Vienna for another 2 hours with a very annoying couple in the same situation as us. So, we finally got rid of them and had a nice meal. On our flight from Vienna to London, we sat next to the nicest guy who gave us some of the best travel tips ever! Thank you Gunter!

We made it back to London and so did our luggage - Matt and Becky had to go back to Heathrow the next night to get their luggage :( I guess it finally paid off to be patient!

All in all, we've been told that Croatia is prettier than the Greek Islands and will take their words for it! The coast of Croatia is amazing and beautiful! The water was amazing and the cities were very neat. It's worth a trip, but no more than two days in any city!! :)

Croatia Part II (by Beth)

So, JaNae wanted me to blog on the last half of our holiday; only she did 3 of the 8 days! So, it looks like I'm doing most of the work here.....just keeping points ;-)

Day 4: Dubrovnik

So, we get to port after another lovely breakfast (not really - food wasn't that great) and wonderful swim. The port was quite a ways from the heart of Dubrovnik! We all set out to get on a bus to take us to the 'old city', only about half of us make it onto the bus though because it was so packed! Luckily, we made it. The walk to the old city was all uphill and about 1.5 miles; not bad, but it was HOT out. Dubrovnik was such a lovely city! We got a tour around the city from one of the locals - her English was pretty good and she made really funny jokes! At the end of the tour, we went to the 'Hole in the Wall' bar. We literally walked up some stairs and walked into a short doorway in a huge brick wall! We turned a corner and next thing we know, there is a bar built into the rocks and people are jumping off cliffs and rocks into the ocean! Pretty cool, huh?!?!

Next, we have a walk around the city - literally! The old city is surrounded by a huge wall; there are only two ways into the city. So of course we have to walk it to take in the views. Holy cow - we've never climbed so many stairs in such a short amount of time before. Whoever said that London is a natural stairmaster had NEVER been to Dubrovnik! It was amazing though! Then we went to the 'bucket bar' - yes, drinks in buckets! Yummy! The dancing was good, but yes, again we were old and left around midnight. Oh right, but that 1.5 mile walk back to the boat.....that was long, cold and got lost a couple times. Phew - glad that night was over!

Day 5: Mljet

Okay, this wasn't the smallest town we went to (that would have been Trstenik) but it was tiny! Thankfully, there was a HUGE national park there. Everyone in the boat decided to go to the park and have some exercise time! Some people went biking and others (us) went on a canoe; yes, JaNae and I in a canoe. The only thing I can say about that is, if you love your partner NEVER get into a canoe together! We didn't work our oars correctly or in sync.....but we made it! It is an experience we will never forget, but won't ever need to do again. Back to the boat and time for dinner! After a not-so lovely meal, we took a walk along the port (yes, it only took an hour because we walked at 0.00001 MPH. There were restaurants and private yachts all along the harbor, but each restaurant had fish tanks. They will filled with exotic fish and lobster that had been caught that day! We were a bit upset that we didn't know about this before having a crappy dinner somewhere else! We would have eaten TONS of lobster. Anyway, having nothing else to do on this island, we turned in. Some of the others on the boat though decided to drink on the beach a bit longer (yes, those in their early 20s). I guess the locals aren't too keen on loud noise, so yes...they called the cops! Don't worry, no body went to jail but we did hear a LOT of screaming and people running :)

Day 6: Korcula

I think this is my favourite city that we visited. It could have been that our tour guide was the same age and looked EXACTLY like my Grandma or that the city streets were built to resemble fish bones or that the lobster was amazing and cheap!!!! We had another tour around the city and saw some amazing, old buildings, had a free glass of wine, then took a lovely walk around the port. We walked for a bit, but only made it a tiny way along the coast. We decided we were going to have a very nice dinner in this city; so we found a place where the lobster was reasonably priced and we tried to order some dinner. Of course, the lobster they had were already spoken for! UGh! But, they recommended another restaurant not too far away. We went on our way and were the only people in this recommended restaurant. Before we even decided to eat there, one of the waiters brought us a free drink :) And, the other guy brought us out the lobster and told us how much each one cost (yea - way super cheap!!!) so we sat down and had our meal. Two plates of shrimp, two lobster, two before dinner drinks, two deserts, and two more free whiskeys later we were DONE! It was amazing and so cheap! Next we make our way to one of the bars to meet up with the rest of the group. Of course it was fun - everyone on our boat was lovely!