DAYS 50 - 61
Croatia
DAY 50 - Wednesday 30 May
Weather - fine and sunny again.
Mileage 3150 by the end of the day.
The plan there is to skip over Dubrovnik and head up the coast to a tiny village we simply picked off the map called Mali Ston. There we are splashing out a full E30 for a hotel. It is close to a funny border anomaly in this part of the Balkans. Dubrovnik is part of Croatia, but is separated from the main part of Croatia by a small sliver of Bosnia that is 10 miles wide and just cuts Dubrovnik off by reaching down to the coastline. The road from Dubrovnik to Split therefore crosses first one border (EU to the rest of the world) and passes through the town of Neum before crossing back over another border (rest of the world back to the EU). Apparently it is the epitome of a 'hard' border. Hours of delays we have heard. A foretaste of Brexit? I just pray no silly Kosovans try and cross in front of us.
DAY 51
Drive to the island of Hvar
Thursday 31 May
Weather - fine and sunny again.
Mileage 150 - 3300 by the end of the day.
We drive out of Montenegro into Croatia with ease. Just us at the border. The roads are immediately even better again. A bit wider, better surface, amazing curves, great villages, all just one more level up in every way. It is quite a long drive as everyone in Croatia drives well and at about 45-50mph, nothing like the loons in Italy and Greece. Finally we make Mali Ston which turns out to be lovely. We find our E30 room at the end of the village and it is perfect. Like a bed and breakfast (but no breakfast), we do however get a slug of Grandma's evil home made liqueur.
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Sara has spotted some kayaks, so it is a quick late lunch and then off onto yet another lake for a couple of hours looking round the massive oyster and mussel beds where they are farmed off ropes.
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Back for a dinner of - you guessed it - oysters!
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From Mali Ston we drive north to cross the 10 miles of non-EU Bosnia that cuts southern Croatia off. Literally everyone warns us about these two crossings, hours of delay they say. We waited about three minutes at each. No problems at all. We drive to a tiny village of Drvnik which hosts a sweet little car ferry that takes us across to the very eastern tip of the island of Hvar. Big island! It takes 1.5 hours of narrow country road through stunning and uninhabited mountains to reach our first port of call on Hvar. We stay at Senses Hotel for one night (no idea why). Near the port town of Vrboska, a real yachting heaven as the picture above shows. I did say earlier (when all the Vasiliki pics were of me) that Sara would feature heavily once she returned, well below is a rare shot of me in chauffeur mode in R10FFN.
During the drive to Hvar the problems of the hotel for the 'young' weighed heavier and heavier on the Admin & Hotel teams mind. So much so that they decided to cancel that hotel (at the cost of 50 flipping percent of the price) and to book a different hotel for twice as much!!!! Apparently in the small print of the contract I signed before we left the UK (the one that said I had to behave, not argue, not upset anyone, keep my opinions to myself, drive 7,000 miles and never once frighten the passenger) there was also a clause that said I had to pay 50% of the cost of any mistakes, changes or alterations to the itinerary, however caused (unless it was my fault, in which case I pay in full). So we now have a new hotel. Not for the 'young'. No "Wham" or "Pow" written on the walls (I kid you not. In the 'young' hotel they were all over the shop).
Fingers crossed the team like the new hotel or Hvar will bankrupt us, and we were doing so well. Way under budget up until now. I knew it was too good to last.
DAY 52 - 58
Try out half of Hvar's hotels and settle into a week's break.
Thursday 31 May Weather - fine and sunny again. Mileage 50 and then park the car for a week.
Hvar Town is the really big and touristy part of the Island, or so we have been led to believe. Sharon & Theo swear by the Hula-Hula Bar so that is going to be the first port of call. We drive to our (second) hotel booked for this week, The Podstine, very nice beach location, accessed as always by a road slightly narrower than the car, this time including a 100m pitch black tunnel with pedestrians who have to flatten themselves against the wall to avoid their toes being crushed by a totally unsighted driver.
The 'YOUNG' turn up!
The hotel is great, but within minutes there is a clamour outside our window and ten convertible VW's pull up loaded to the gunnels with 'young'. Thank God Sara is down by the beach. I daren't tell her. If I do we will be moving hotels again before you can say knife!
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The whole trip so far has been a child free and 'young' free experience but we are moving from low season to 'shoulder' and here is a quite noticeable change in the number of tourists, and their ages. Kids are starting to join the mix. No bad thing, a bit of a change will be welcome (I think). They will probably fade away again in the Alps and Germany, but Hvar? Not so much....... Moral of the story - TRAVEL IN APRIL AND MAY!!!!! It's truly wonderful, everything is open BUT no kids, cars or tourists.
Seriously, this is the road to our hotel. 100 meters long.
And for a driver coming out of the blinding sun - it is as black as pitch inside.
The good news is that our hotel is great (pictured right). Apparently full, but there is nobody here, certainly no one young. Lots of great staff, loads of sheltered spots to lay down and read a book whilst being served with cold beers and smoothies, really luxurious.
FRIDAY 1st June - On Friday night we walk into Hvar town (pictured above) and take a look round. It is LOVELY. You can see why people come here. It is probably the nicest and smartest place we have been so far. Really clean, organised, well laid out, lovely houses, nice people, nice tourists.
SATURDAY - The bad news is that Dan Smith and his 25 strong 'stag party' are due to moor in the harbour on Saturday on their week long jolly around Croatia. So we make secret plans with Andy Smith to meet up with them.
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We do the obvious thing of sitting near Dan and all his mates (including Derek Murphy) and throwing sugar cubes at them until they finally recognise us, sitting a few yards away, totally unexpected and totally out of context. The ensuing hugs turn into beers, turn into dinner, turn into clubbing, turn into us staggering into a taxi home and them falling on board their boat so that they can recover to do the whole thing again for another six days.
The night ends as you would expect. A girl is in the club celebrating her birthday, she gets a cake with sparklers on. Sara immediately insists it his "my birthday too!!!" and duly gets handed a brace of sparklers to shut her up.
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Cue wild and dangerous dancing until they splutter out.
Shortly after we splutter out - into a taxi where my darling has an outrageous attack of the hiccups that sound more like a parrot squawking which deeply unsettled both the driver and me.
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SUNDAY 3rd June. DAY 55
A total chill day for us. Read The Sunday Times on my trusty iPad and then read books all day. Sheer luxury. Dinner in the evening at the famous Hula Hula Bar (where we made what is probably our first 'menu' mistake. We'd got so used to reasonable prices we did not spot that the house wine was £50. Bummer!).
To add to the wine overcharge Sara likes the hotel so much (and at £210 a night I'm not surprised!) that she sneaks off and books us in for yet another night, She even contemplates adding a trial session of scuba diving to her extensive repertoire of dangerous sports (to go with 'lethal drunken sparkler dancer, her latest qualification).
MONDAY 4th June. DAY 56.
Another day of rest, actual holiday, do very little. Well I do very little. Sara on the other hand is chock full of beans. Up at 6.00, walk, gym and book sub aqua lesson, all before breakfast. The lesson starts at 12.00, she is briefed, weighed down with half a ton of kit, and off she toddled, hand in hand with her instructor. I'm still not entirely sure why they held hands like bride and groom, maybe it's a PADI thing in dive training.
Don't miss this SLO-MO video
In the water she goes, under for a few minutes familiarisation and then off..... That is the last I see of her except bubbles for 40 minutes. They swam down to 6.5 meters and covered one hell of a distance. Well done Sara!!!! An amazing dive for the first time. Deep and long.
Another shot of our amazing hotel and of
Sara's dive training area.
It includes a really good shot of Sara,
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She is under the water at the spot marked O.
Use your imagination.
O
Sara
TUESDAY 5th June. DAY 57.
Weather a bit cloudy for a change
Another day of rest, an actual holiday day, do very little is the plan. Maybe visit 'Carpe Diem' the famous beach club on a small island offshore of Hvar Town. Once again - "The best laid plans of mice (Brian) and men (Sara) oft gang aglay".
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The new plan at 0800 was to hire two bikes of the electric persuasion and cycle around the obviously very mountainous Hvar Island. All I can say is that the bikes were amazing. Yet another example of how upmarket this place is. The bike hire shop had about 30 brand new Merida eBIG9 500's, and for those of you who don't know your ebike from your elbow - they are top range ebikes at £2,500 a pop. To say ebikes have come on a lot since we had two 10 years ago is a real understatement. We cycled 25 miles and cycled up to 1,500 feet above sea level. It was bloody hard work on the way up, but completely impossible without the added power of the motor. 10 miles was uphill and then 15 miles back downhill all the way on fabulous winding narrow roads. Excellent fun.
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The picture on the right shows Sara trying to blend in around the lovely restaurants you find in Hvar Town. Below is a landscape shot of just how (with the help of the jolly obliging batteries on the bikes) we climbed the uphill 10 miles, before whizzing down at speeds of up to 40k (25 mph) all the way back to sea level in one fast and furious swoop. The pic below right shows one safety conscious rider - and an old git in a weird hat. Even further below is one exhausted cyclist and a good look at the modern and effective steed she rode. I must get one as soon as I get home. That thing could power up Stede Hill no bother.
WEDNESDAY - DAY 58.
Weather - actually quite hot now.
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We decided to take a rest day after our exertions up the mountains so it was pool, book, beer. Then the news came through that 'the boys were back in town!'. The stag party had grown to 27 and they had commandeered the boat and returned to Hvar.
The boat captain's plan of mooring in a national park with no bar did not sit well with them, oddly. The new plan sat well with us and we rejoined the boys for another night of food, wines and dancing.
Dan dressed for the occasion (right), and then again (below). That was definitely a very dressy stag week. Great sport our Dan, or is that he couldn't argue with 26 big blokes deciding what he wore each night????
We came from here
O
This what one cool £2,500 ebike looks like
This what one hot cyclist looks like
THURSDAY 7th June. DAY 59.
Weather now really humid!!!!! I hate humid
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Sara has still to paddleboard so that is the slated entertainment for the day. Off we toddle about midday in 100% humidity, me pouring sweat. We board our boards in a choppy windy bay with water taxis, ferries, speedboats, swimmers, yachts et al, all making waves, swells, wakes and chops and we fell off, and off again, and so I sat it out, while Sara fell off, and off, then we went in early. Nice walk back in again in the evening (me pouring with sweat) to 'Black Pepper' and excellent restaurant Sara found on good old TripAdvisor. Really top quality food, everything local, knowledgeable staff, ultra interesting menu and a great wine selection. Including the only wine I have seen with a totally white label. All white with just a tiny little embossed section 1cm square. It won the award for the best label in a wine label competition. bet the others were pissed off! From there we walked home the 1.5k with sweat filling my boots to overflowing.
I HATE HUMIDITY!!!!!!!
How is that for a photo? Looks like a pro took it. Shame about the slag model.
FRIDAY 8th June. DAY 60.
Back in the car - Starting mileage 3,150.
See a bit more of Croatia as Lake Bled is too far in one go..
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Weather is still bloody humid but I'll be fine, all day in the car, aircon on. No problem.
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The plan is.......... To visit two more of Croatia's famous sites that both happen to be on the way to Slovenia. First we have to navigate our way off this island and back to Split by car ferry Then the first site is a quick 2 hours north and is the waterfalls at Krka national Park. Do that and onwards for another 2 hours to Zrmanja Gorge where there is a promise of Rafting! We've not done rafting yet. Once all that is done we will tackle the 5 hours north to Lake Bled in Slovenia.
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What actually happened is that Admin & Hotels found out the hotels round lake Bled double in price on Saturday and that as they had found a lovely self catering apartment in a tiny village for just £35 a night then two nights in Obrovac was the new plan.
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No problem, I was cool with that (as I had the aircon down to 16 degrees, I was actually cold with that).
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We duly reached the Krka national park to see the waterfalls, we parked up, I expected to walk a short distance to a railing and look at the falls and retreat to my aircon (and it was HUMID!!!!) only to hear that the falls were 1k down a path into a valley, but the good news was there were buses back. The valley in question was a jungle. The falls in question were massive and spread over a wide area. This was WATERFALLS - R - US. There were thousands of the bloody things, big ones, small ones, wide ones, long ones, bloody everywhere they were, all accessed by a 2k long boardwalk. So steaming humid day, in a valley of hot water, which was itself in a jungle, on a day where I wanted just an aircon environment. It right took the edge of the beauty, but beautiful it was.
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Bloody waterfalls everywhere, I kid you not. There were thousands. Its just a massive waterfall catalogue from which you choose your favourite shape and size.
SATURDAY 9th June. DAY 61.
Back in the car - mileage now 3,350.
Yet more Croatia as Lake Bled is not only too far but too expensive on Saturdays.
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Thank goodness for the massive thunderstorm last night. It cooled it down and washed the car!
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Today we take in the Zrmanja Gorge where we had hoped to raft, but they don't raft in June, they kayak, and we have kayaked our little hearts out elsewhere on this trip, so bollocks to that!
We head on another 40 miles to visit the coastal town of Zadar, Sara had found a Telegraph article that apprised it the skys as better than Dubrovnik. Well that is as maybe, but we have been spoiled rotten by lovely Hvar, which is amazing, so once again, bollocks to that.
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We drive through miles and miles of what is basically desert, no trees, no houses. We visit villages where half the houses are deserted (Muslims forced out of Croatia in the war but who still own the houses), we see lovely lakes and tumbling streams by sticking to the back roads. We reverse out of several back roads as they become 'back tracks', and we generally see lots of northern Croatia, all good.
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Now we are ready for a long haul tomorrow north to Slovenia. 4.5 hours on the road. Aircon on. Roof up. Having the roof up is actually quite unusual, it is normally down the whole time with us both wearing big floppy hats to keep some of the sun off our 'mad dogs and Englishmen out in the midday sun' act as we drive with sun roasting our noodles for hours at a time. Why is that we are only starting to see sense as we drive north into cooler climes???
