croatia

I went to Croatia for the long weekend and loved it. We went to Split, which is a pretty built up city but it was still great, with palm trees, an old city build out of all white marble, and outdoor cafes on every corner.

To get to Croatia, I had to take a 4 hour bus to Ancona, which is on the east side of Italy and take an overnight ferry to Croatia, and then a 2 hour bus to Split.

Despite all the traveling, the day after we got to Split, two friends and I opted for another 4-hour busride to the Plitvice Lakes, which I had posted

a picture of in a previous post. It was an amazing thing to see: sixteen lakes in the middle of nowhere in Croatia all made up of waterfalls. Unfortunately, we didn't get to stay all day like we all wanted to due to the strange bus schedule since it was Easter weekend. The other problem was that it was hard to take pictures because the pathway was so small with no guardrails, winding through the lakes, and it was crowded. Because of that, my pictures didn't turn out as planned but I still got a bunch of the waterfalls. The picture of me at the waterfall was the smallest one there, but the entrance to the park and I was so excited to see a waterfall I needed a picture anyway.

In order to get to the lakes, we woke up bright and early (5 am) to catch a bus to the lakes. Turns out the schedule was different from the day before and a bus didn't leave until 8:30 so we walked around the city while the sun rose and found this great outdoor market at 6:30 am. My friend Elissa and I were so excited that we bought a loaf of ciabatta as it was coming out of the oven (which was outdoors as well) and some fresh cheese from a vendor...and ate it for all 3 meals.

We had some traveling troubles, where our bus never showed up and we waited around for a couple hours at a bus stop and eventually caught a bus to a different city, transferred busses, and finally got back to Split.

We spent the next day wandering around Split looking at the sites, climbing its famous belltower, getting a free lesson on its history from a very nice and well-spoken tour guide, and searching endlessly for an open restaurant on Easter.

All in all, it was a nice and relaxing trip.