So I am on a train to Budapest. And I am feeling quite sophisticated because this train has compartments, which is fun. My six seat compartment is half full, so, it is me and two girls. By the resemblance between them, I think they are probably sisters.
So in a couple hours I will be out of Croatia, so now is as good a time as any, to do some reflection and documentation. In the past week, or so, I've been to Split, Brac Island, Plitvice Lakes and Zagreb.
The Croatian leg of my trip started in Split. I flew in from Berlin. It is pretty easy to get to the center, you take a Croatian Airlines shuttle bus, it costs about 30 Kuna (~4.1 Euro), or 5 Euro and is about an hour. It drops you where the train, bus and ferry terminal is, which is a pretty central area of Split.
The hostel I was staying at was just a small walk along the beach and up a hill a bit. "Beach Hostel Split." It was a really nice hostel, only 22 beds, so it was small, and there was one lady that was in charge of everything and lives there who was really helpful.
I walked around the area, and saw the beach, which looked quite crowded. For dinner, me and a Dutch girl Renske, went on a search for some vegetarian fast food. Which proved to be pretty hard to find, as most of the fast food places served Doners and a local type of meat kebab. We found a place that made us some tortillas with "no-meat." It was really good though, with lotso' veggies inside. The lady that made them for us was this hilarious Croatian woman, who we couldn't quite figure out what she was doing for the longest time.
Split is a pretty touristy city, so when I went out with a couple people for a beer, there were tourists everywhere. Most of the bars are within the Diocletian Palace, which is SUPER cool. It's an old Roman palace, and it really feels like you are back in time, because there are tons of shops and bars and things in the palace walls. It was also really cool, if at night, you go a couple streets over from the bars, it's empty, which is much nicer then when it is filled with tourists during the day. If you felt like dancing, there are clubs by the water, which is like a 5 minute walk from the hostel, so that was pretty cool, all top 40 music of course, for tourists.
In the Palace
In the Palace
Market
In the Palace
**Train update: We now have a new guest in our compartment, he is reading a book about Iraq(war), so I am guessing he is American. He also has no obvious accent and is reading in English: American or Canadian is my guess. There is also a faint smell of burning.
The next day I went to Supetar on Brac island with a pretty big group from the hostel. There were a lot of Canadians actually. A couple from Toronto and Vagabond from New Market. There were 3 American French Girls (two of which went to Mcgill) and then there was a Kiwi and an Aussie to make up the rest of the group. To get to Supetar we took a Car Ferry (Read: Really big boat) for about 45 min/1 hr, which cost 66 Kuna (~12 dollars) return. Supetar is the biggest town on Brac Island, but I was mostly interested in the beach. The beach was pebbles (and a wee bit rough on the feet) but the water was nice and warm. It was also a lot less crowded then the beach in Split, which was nice.
Ferry to Supetar
On the Ferry to Supetar
Supetar
"beach"
Beach nearest my Hostel
The next day I returned to Brac Island, this time going to Bol, which is an hour bus from Supetar. It's 50 Kuna return for the bus. I thought the taxi drivers were quite sneaky, they kept saying 50 kuna "same price as the bus" but really it's double the price of the bus because it's not a return. The bus ride was really nice, because it is hilly, and you get some really nice views of the sea. Bol was pretty small, but it was a cute town. The thing to go and see is the "golden cape" with is a section of beach that extends into the sea. It is a pebble beach (but the pebbles aren't so rough). The cape is a natural formation, which makes it pretty cool, I guess. However, it is about a 1 km walk outside of town. So I spend most of my afternoon there, and even spent 19 Kuna (almost 4 dollars) on a big water bottle so I didn't need to walk back into town or get dehydrated. I was sorta disappointed they didn't have any public water there. The beach itself was really nice, on one side of the V there were the biggest waves I've seen in Croatia (which isn't saying much at all) and then the other it was calmer. Another cool thing is that it got deep quite fast, which was nice, and different from the beach in Spilt or Supetar. I was also really excited because the place I was staying had a full kitchen, so I was super excited and made some rice and boiled eggs.
Bol
Bol
The next day I saw some more of Split, and ran some errands, buying my bus ticket to Plitvice for the next day, exchanging some more money and sending some mail. Walking around Split was cool, because I was staying at a different hostel, on the other side of the Palace, so it was a different perspective. I also hiked/walked up a small mountain/hill where there was a pretty nice view of the city. I also found a spa that had the "dr.fish" treatment, and debated doing it, but alas I decided against it. I think that, I saw Spilt in a pretty lazy way, and if I had been there one or two days less it would of still been okay, but we live and learn next time I'll know :)
In the Palace
View from the hill top
Looks beautiful!
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