Monday 18 December 2017

Travel Diary: Croatia

The final instalment in my travel diary! Once again, I loved writing about and reliving my travels! I hope to do this again soon... I just need to book another holiday! I hope you've enjoyed reading about my travels as much as I've enjoyed writing about them.

Once again, if you didn't catch the others...
Part one
Part two
Part three

Sibenik 01/08/2017
They after Venice we visited Sibenik, Croatia.  Yet again, we had another tour booked, though this is one I'd been pretty keen on booking a while before the actual holiday so I was quite looking forward to it. This one was to Krka national park, which was incredibly scenic, especially with the pretty waterfalls.
After the coach had dropped us off at the site we took  boat ride to the main area. The wait for the boat was just mildly excruciating as the fierce heat reared its head once again. The boat ride was lovely, not just because it was welcome relief from the heat! We were treated to many nice views as we were transported to the main park. Once in the park we were given a chance to have a dip in the lake, though we sadly did not have our swimming cozzies with us so we had to suffer watching others cool of in the water while we struggled to find a place to sit.

Notice all the people taunting us splashing around in the cool water? What I would have given to have been one of them (i.e. not an idea who forgot her swimsuit)
This was followed by a small hike (which is NOT an easy feat in 40 degree heat. The rhyme was totally unintentional but still brilliant if I say so myself). Also, I'm not fit enough for a hike, especially on holiday when I've been stuffing my face. However, our suffering paid off as it meant we could see the waterfalls- a perfect photo op!! After our hike we boarded the coach to be delivered back to the port. Considering how cool it sounded and how excited I was for it I have to say, it was a bit of a let down. It was stunning for sure.... but there was a hike. In 40 degree heat. It certainly made for nice pictures though!
Please excuse the slightly distorted photo. This happened so often, hence the lack of photos. This one's not as bad as most of the other so I thought I'd keep it in as I don't have the patience for another re-upload. Anyway, this is one of the many views from our hike



Dubrovnik 02/08/2017
Can you see little slice of ship in the right hand corner??
Following Sibenik, we stopped off at Dubrovnik, Croatia's capital. Once we again we kicked the day off with breakfast in the cabin (I bet you can sense a theme here haha!), as we'd been doing at pretty much every port of call. I'm writing this quite a while after the actual holiday and I can say I'm sorely missing having a luxurious breakfast delivered to my room, especially in this chilly weather. Why is that not a thing? Anyway, I've strayed. Back to Dubrovnik. This time we (well, technically not my family personally as this was another tour, so it's the tour company really) bucked the trend of taking a coach to our destination. We were, instead, transferred by boat. It was so nice cruising along in the sun, surrounded by serene waves and stunning, vivid scenery. The boat took us to the old town (it probably has a more specific name but that's what I wrote down) where we were given a short (thankfully, it was pretty sweltering round here too) guided tour of the town. I invested most of that time in practising my photography skills. I don't mean to brag, but I think I captured some pretty neat photos, I was very impressed with myself.

A view from the water taxi
This is the photo I'm most proud of. The best one, in my opinion. I'm not actually sure what it is as I was too busy taking the photo 
After the walking tour we had one hour of free time to explore the town by ourselves. I invested this time wisely, making a necessary purchase- (overpriced) sweets. That was pretty much the end of the tour, and we were transported back to the ship via the water taxi (idk what a water taxi is specifically but I thought it sounded a bit more fancy than 'boat'). Before we jumped back on the ship, however, we had one final adventure in Croatia, seeking out a supermarket as we were getting low on the drinks front. Yes, there are drinks available for purchase on board the ship but we are cheap and wanted to save a few quid. So we stocked up on some decently priced booze and soft drinks (I do like me some Coca Cola!) from the local supermarket. I would like to pause at this point and comment on the fact that in Croatia they sell Vodka in a box. It's 3 litres. It was really cheap, around £15 maybe?? I don't know if this is common in other places but I don't think I've seen such a thing in the UK; it amused me greatly. Anyway, drinks purchased, we headed back to the ship happy as clams when tragedy ensued- my father dropped one of the bags he was holding causing the glass bottles in there (yummy cocktails- Cuba Libre and Cosmopolitan) to shatter and spill everywhere. Only one bottle survived. I was sad about the lost bottle for at least half an hour afterwards, until he nipped back out for more beer and also replaced the missing cocktails. So that trip ended on a sad-ish note that was promptly forgotten about as I downed my bottled Cuba Libre.










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