BRox Cruisin’ in Croatia: Part 2

Though we did spend a lot of time cruising in Croatia . . . . we also spent a bit of time stopped to wander and look at stuff. Our starting point of Zagreb was set and we decided the ending point would be Dubrovnik. We’d have a week to do that.

A few of the blogs I read when making some decisions made me worried that we wouldn’t have enough time to do this, and we had committed to too big a distance. And then I looked at timing and realized . . . . when you live in Canada driving long distances is kind of what we do. Some of the blogs I was referencing made 3 hours seem like too much driving simply because of where they were from and what they are used to. Considering B-Rod’s commute to work one way used to be 3 hours . . . . I knew we would be fine.

Along the way, there were two national parks we could consider going to. So we set our sights on staying close to one of them our first night, so that the second day we could get there early.

I kept getting the advice, and can now concur, that you want to be EARLY to things . . . . as EARLY as they open and as EARLY as you can get there. Sites in Croatia (or the ones we went to) were so packed with people! We are at the end of high season, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like in the height of summer!

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Plitvice Lakes National Park

This is the largest national park in Croatia, and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

It is STUNNING! The water was so pristine (we found most water everywhere in Croatia so clear) and the colours were AMAZING! We got there when it was quieter with less people, yet also a bit cloudy. By the time we were ready to leave the crowds had appeared, but the sun had also come out making the colours more vibrant! There were different hikes (they called them “programs”) you could take and a boat ride that was included. If we were to go back in time and do it again, we would have skipped the boat and just walked more amongst the trees and along the beautiful clear lake! #lessonslearned

Either way, it was a good few hours of our day that we mostly enjoyed!

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Zadar

From Plitvice, we started driving. Ideally we wanted to do a slight detour off our route and spend the night in Zadar. However, we found that finding a last minute place to stay for the night that was economical (this being the key word) was proving to be a bit difficult. So, we eventually found a place in a little town about an hour down the road from Zadar and settled on wandering in Zadar a bit whenever we got there and continuing on.

We only ended up having a short time in the city. Just enough time to do a short lap and go to the Zadar Sea Organ which from my limited research sounded very cool. The sea organ, created by Nikola Bašić, has “35 pipes of different lengths, diameters, and slopes [that] were placed at the level of the lowest tide” and produce music based on the movement of the waves.

It was soooooooo ✨magical✨ . . . . I could have sat there for HOURS!

Unfortunately we didn’t have time for that, so we eventually continued wandering, had supper and headed on down the road for our rest stop for the night.

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Split

Split is Croatia’s second largest city, has beaches, national parks, and gives easy access to nearby islands. Its old city combined with ruins of a palace within it was also designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

Which . . . . you guessed it . . . . made the old city VERY busy! Because it felt a bit overwhelming, we decided to take a free walking tour in the morning. Our guide was awesome! A history student with a great, dry sense of humour, she gave us a wonderful introduction to the area and a way to not feel so overwhelmed by the crowds.

We wandered outside of the main area, and came across some quieter areas where “real life” was also happening.

And we ended our time in the old time by checking out how it might have used to look back in the day.

Having had enough of the old city, we headed up to check out a lookout and then down the other side to a low key, great beach!

One AWESOME thing about beach culture here is . . . . . . they seem to believe that the sound of the waves is music enough. It is very rare (and from what I understand, frowned upon) to blare music while at the beach. Living in a beach town in Canada where “unce-unce-unce” thumping music is constant on beaches and boats at top volume, it was so refreshing to be at the beach and actually HEAR the beach!

A downside is that smoking culture is also common here, so smelling the beach might not always happen!

On our way out of Split we made a final stop at Klis Fortress. It was surprisingly quiet and really cool to walk around.

Also, if you you are a Game of Thrones watcher or fan, you might start to see some familiar places (from both the old city of Split, Klis Fortress and the upcoming city of Dubrovnik)

We also heard there may be a dragon or two in the area, We saw nothing!

Not everything was a hit. We were excited about checking out an “olive tasting experience” at a place close to Klis Fortress that was included in the price of admission for Klis. We headed over, got ready for the tour and though the oil did taste good, it ended up being one of those tours that is more a sales pitch than anything else. #westillgetdupedintothingslikethat

From there it was time to move on to our final stop, so we took a leisurely and amazingly beautiful drive to the city of Dubrovnik

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Dubrovnik

We got to Dubrovnik a bit later than we meant to. It was early evening and it was a lot different navigating the narrow, winding roads than it had been on the open, quiet streets of the highways. We got a bit lost finding our place and then when we did, our host contributed to overwhelming us a bit more. She was great in that she shared a lot of valuable information with us, but . . . . she shared A LOT of information with us that we couldn’t retain and it wasn’t until later we realized or even remembered some of the valuable bits. On top of that, we still hadn’t eaten and searching for food when you’re overwhelmed and fungry . . . . . not ideal!

The next day we woke up with a wonderful view from our deck and were in a better head space to begin to explore.

Dubrovnik is a stunning city. It’s not for the faint of heart . . . . LOTS of walking up and down and lots of twists and turns to navigate. The old city was also designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 and was the main filming location in Croatia for King’s Landing in Game of Thrones.

It was THE busiest place we visited on our travels in Croatia. It was madness!!!

But, like we did in Split, we took a free walking tour in the morning. Our guide was so enthusiastic and excited about history that we actually took in some interesting information!

We also did a lap around the wall of the city and it was cool to see it from a different angle.

At one point, B-Rod wanted to check out the Foundry Museum. This took us off the wall and we ended up in a lower wall with no other people. This is how we knew we had made a mistake! You were not allowed to leave the wall and the ticket was only good for one entry, but probably being used to useless tourists, we were forgiven and let back on the upper wall to complete our loop.

We returned back to our place at the end of the day tired from the many steps but with a different perspective and opinion of Dubrovnik than we had the night before.

It was a great way to end B-Rod’s time in Croatia.

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But what about the food?

Here’s just a few highlights of some of the eats we enjoyed

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And with that another BRox adventure concludes.

But . . . . . there’s something I found I wanted to do that we just didn’t have time for, so I reluctantly said goodbye to B-Rod and set about figuring out how I was going to make that happen . . . . . stay tuned 😄