Croatia

We jumped on the train at Budapest ready for a 15 hour trek to the coast of croatia via Zagreb, the capital city. Having got to the station really early, we were momentarily over-the-moon that we found great seats in a cabin all to ourselves. As the train started moving, 2 brit girls and 2 canadian girls decided to ruin our fun and asked nicely if they could sit with us. Of course we were delighted that we would now have to sit upright for the remaining 15 hours so about an hour or 2 in, we left for greener pastuers and would you know it, we found another empty cabin. At the border at about 7 that evening, just before bed time, we were told that our cabin didn't go to croatia and were promptly kicked back into cattle class. The conductors did however seem very interested in our Zimbabwean passports which were checked about 4 or 5 times at all hours of the night. The trip in general was possibly my worst in living memory and Jen and I must have changed cabins about 4 times and eventually settled for the corridor outside the toilets...

Anyway, Croatia was amazing...definitely one of my highlights with the miles and miles of beautiful cliffs dropping into bright blue seas...the clearest water I think I've seen. We arrived in Split at dawn with no accommodation booked and craving bed so were very happy when a random lady came up to us just outside the train station and said 'you need bed'...of course we took it. We stayed in a lovely house with this lady and her family (and a couple other backpackers) and she walked us through the beautiful old town and gave us a mini tour before arriving. We stayed about a minute outside of the the old palace and centre of town. Fantastic location.

As we only stayed one night in Split we didn't do much except walk the lovely beach paths (there were a few...mainly pebbled) and explore the ancient old city with white marbled floors. As we were making our way to the bus station to catch our 4 hour trip to Dubrovnik we bumped into some familiar faces...what are the chances! Ian Roberts and Tammy just happened to be doing some shopping in the area so was great to catch up with them and have someone speak our native tongue back at us...well almost. We did however learn that the 4 hour trip to Dubrovnik was actually an 8 hour hall so weren't that excited to be leaving.

The trip wasnt all that...I panicked when we first got on and Jen had moved some big Croatian man's bag off our seats and he started shouting at us in some foriegn language in front of everyone. I panicked again when we went through the Bosnian border...was quite sure we had got onto the wrong bus but apparently the only road South went through Bosnia. Bless.

Dubrovnik was fantastic too...very very beautiful with so much history and stunning views off the cliffs over the bright blue waters. We got lost finding our accommodation so asked a Croatian man for directions and he proceeded in taking a 15 minute detour with us to the front steps of our house and he was more than happy to help...we found the Croation people to be so pleasant and helpful...much more than the others.

We walked around the beautiful old city that afternoon which was really cool and then found out all about day trips to the islands which we were keen to do the following day. Our trip to the island Mljet was definately one of our highlights. We were almost first in the queue that morning and caught a speedy ferry across to the island which is said to be the most beautiful and greenest of the Croatian islands and contained a number of stunning lakes...the island itself was a national park. We got there and decided to hire scooters but were dissapointed to find that they were all out so had to settle again for mountain bikes. We cycled all around the lakes (up a couple of killer hills...I was extremely proud of Jen!) to the sea and back again, stopping every couple of kilometers for a dip in the warm water. It was really beautiful...we left with some mean sun burn but well worth it. Our last day back in Dubrovnik we decided to make a beach day and basically did nothing until our 9 hour ferry trip across to Italy left at 11pm that night on the massive Marco Polo Jadrolinja ferry.