We spent a great deal of yesterday tapping on Matt and Mugi’s knowledge of the area for ideas of places to go. One of the places they really recommended was a winery that allowed RV’s to stay on site. We love these agrotourism places and will often go out of our way to stay at them so we decided that we would stop here today.
Matt and Mugi our hosts at Scoturk Camping in Durres. We are going to run into them again in the future.
We said our goodbyes to Matt and Mugi as well as Ashley and Paul, and headed down the road to the winery. It was a short trip and we ended up pulling in to the winery well before noon. They were expecting us as Matt had called ahead. After we got settled in we headed up to the restaurant on site for a Sunday lunch. The food is mostly from the farm that the winery sits on or is locally sourced. We were guided thru our choices by a very knowledgeable and attentive waiter. The meal was excellent and the dishes seemed to be a good representation of local cuisine. After lunch we took a quick walk around the winery before settling in for a nap.
Albacina winery our destination for today, a great agrotourism site.
When we first sat down we were the only customer, but as the day went on the restaurant was very busy with Albanian families having Sunday lunch. We enjoyed watching the coming and going of what was often three generations of a family, and in one case four generations. We have seen these multi-generation meals on weekends throughout the mediterranean countries, it is something we really admire and hope we can emulate one day.
Turkeys and chickens inside the vineyards. We had a delicious plate of chicken legs for lunch, later Ton asked if our chicken had once been out in the vineyard, I only shrugged.
Lunch was so good, we decided to go back up to the restaurant in the evening to try a couple of new Albanian dishes that had seemed interesting at lunch. Once again we really enjoyed the dishes and the preparation. Up to today we had not had great luck with our food in Albania, but Albacina showed us what great food there is in this very interesting country. As we were sitting there the sun set below us to cap off a great relaxing day.
Sunset during our second meal at the winery.
The past couple of nights we have been sleeping in an urban environment with a busy nightlife. Tonight the only noise we heard when we went to sleep were the crickets chirping in the field.
Last night we decided to stay another day and relax with our new friends at the camp ground. We had made some loose plans to go to a restaurant recommended by Matt and Mugi. It turns out that Paul and Ashley had also decided to extend a day for the same reason. So at breakfast we decided we would head to lunch with them.
The view would have been great except for the haze.
To get there required a taxi so with the help of Matt and the coffee shop at the corner we located someone to take us there and back. When we arrived the views of the city were great though unfortunately it was a bit hazy. The restaurant turned out to be huge and doubled as a wedding venue and horse arena. There was a lot going on.
One of the brides and her bridesmaids.
Unfortunately the food was a little underwhelming, and for the first time since we arrived in the Balkans the portions were quite small. We enjoyed talking to Paul and Ashley about their experiences touring in their van. We had been following pretty parallel tracks thru the Balkans and it turns out we had stayed at several of the same sites. They are hikers so they spent more time on trails and national parks than we did, but otherwise we had very similar interests.
A street scene from Durres.
After we returned from our disappointing lunch Ashley announced she was still hungry so we sat down at the coffee shop next to the campground and split a couple of pieces of cheesecake and a pizza. They are headed home on Tuesday from Tirana and have arranged to park in a campground near there. It was interesting to compare their experience in shipping an American registered RV to Europe and touring vs ours of purchasing a European one and using that. There are plusses and minuses to both, but after talking to them we are satisfied with our decision to purchase here.
The night before we had gotten a thorough briefing on the town from Matt and Mugi the owners of the camp site on how to use the transit system and what to see in Durres. Scott and Ashley from Massachusetts volunteered a good restaurant for lunch. This place has a nice feel as all of the campers have abandoned their RV’s and instead cluster around a group of tables under an awning with Matt and Mugi presiding over the place and Mugi feeding everyone tea and snacks. Because of that everyone chats and has fun together, and we have had more interaction with our fellow campers here than at any other place we have stayed in Europe.
Sunset from our campsite Scoturk Camping.
Durres has been a port city since before the Greeks so it has a long history. At various times it has been Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and Venetian. The ride to town was easy, when we tried to hand the driver our 80 Leak he just waved us on the bus. It turns out Albanian busses still have conductors who manually collect the fares, something we have not seen anywhere else in over 20 years.
There were a group of mostly older gentlemen holding an impromptu chess tournament in one of the parks downtown.
The downtown was bustling with people. The shops were mostly local businesses. There is very little left of the older buildings as they were mostly torn down during the communist era. There are a couple of Roman era ruins in the town. The biggest one is a 2nd century amphitheater that was uncovered in the last 60 years. It includes a church that was added when the city was converted to Christianity. There were some interesting mosaics in the church.
Byzantine era mosaics in the church at the amphitheater in Durres.
The main mosques in town are also new as the older Ottoman era mosques were torn down under the communists. While a few of the women wore head coverings the majority of the women were stylishly dressed in copies of the latest Italian fashions. The town had a very secular feel to it.
This building and pier were left over communist era buildings probably built as tourist attractions then, and definitely tourist attractions now. They bore a close resemblance to the buildings we saw in Bari.
The waterfront promenade was very nice but quiet in the shoulder season. We had lunch in an upscale restaurant where we were the only customers and after a little more walking headed back to the campground. When we arrived at the campground Matt, Mugi, Paul and Ashley were sitting around so everyone brought interesting alcohol we had all gathered on our travels and we all sat and talked until after sunset. It was a great end to a good day.
As usual on these trips we begin to feel a little pressed for time so we made the decision to leave Montenegro and head into Albania. We have been lazy lately driving mostly using tollways for long trips, but today we did not have a choice. The first 50km’s in Montenegro was on a road that had fair asphalt but was not quite wide enough for us to pass a car without slowing down almost to a halt and squeezing by with one set of wheels hugging the edge of the road, as there often was not much room off the road because of walls or ditches. Fortunately for us we met a Luxury Bus from Slovenia about 10km’s into the trip and used him for a “blocker” for the drive, if he could squeeze thru we new we could. Eventually the road widened out to two solid lanes and we could relax a bit.
François at the marina in Bar preparing to leave for Albania.
The border crossing into Albania was simple. Albania is the poorest country in western Europe with a per capita income of only $5300. During the communist era the country was basically isolated from the rest of the world by its communist leadership. When the communist government fell the new non-communist governments had and still have a huge deficit in infrastructure and education to overcome to come up to the standard of the rest of Europe.
Albania is a predominantly Moslem country so the churches have been replaced by Mosques.
Having said that there are signs of progress and the main roads are decent if not particularly fast due to the variety of vehicles using it. Intermixed with the modern cars trying to move along at 90kph were tractors, old soviet era trucks, and the occasional three wheeled contraption made from an old motorcycle with a work platform attached to it, that was only capable of about 15kph. It made for a lot of speeding up and slowing down. The interesting thing about the roads was the number of gas stations. Albania easily wins the gas station per mile density contest over any country we have seen in the world. There is no excuse at all for running out of gas here. I’m sure there is an interesting story behind why there are so many gas stations but a quick google search doesn’t show it.
Nice street scene from Albania.
Eventually we made it to Durres which is an ancient port city that we plan to explore tomorrow. I told Ton that this place had rave reviews on Park4night but only had 4 spots so we had a back up plan tomove on to a back up site further away from town if they were full. When we arrived Greta had us one block off location in a block of beach front hotels and apartments with fairly narrow roads. We were in a good place to get turned around so I told her I was going to go off on foot to find the place and see if they had room for us. Ton decided to come along. We weren’t exactly legally parked but were following the example of the locals. Just as we were walking away a police car drove up and honked his horn at us but then carried on. I found the place tucked up next to the beach, but saw a sign saying full. I told Ton looks like they are full when I heard a Scottish voice asking what we needed. I told him a spot and electricity. He said we can accommodate that.
Albania is a poor country and the infrastructure is fragile. Last night the sewer pump in the area went out and flooded the back of the restaurant across the street. The owners and guests knew how to deal with it, and life went on.
The owners are a Scottish/Turkish couple, the other guests are a Swedish couple whose daughter is competing in a European weight lifting completion, a German couple who don’t speak much English but love Southern Rock and Roll, and surprisingly an American couple traveling in a Winnebago Revel with Massachusetts plates. So the owners were surprised when we turned out to be American also. It seems like an interesting place.
We had a sleep in for the morning, and after a nice breakfast headed into Bar. Bar is interesting as the old town is far inland and the town is now centered on the port and waterfront. Unlike other towns Bar is not on the tourist map, and does not have much of an old town to attract people. The harbor is primarily focused on commercial shipping and while it is well protected it is not scenic. In a coastline of beautiful scenic cities, Bar is definitely blue collar.
We had a good time today watching the workers in the Marina hoisting boats in out of the water.
A lot of the town infrastructure seems to still be from development during the communist era. There are a lot of concrete block apartments, and a couple of communist brutalist buildings that were probably built as attractions, but now seem ungainly and strange. It would be interesting to look back on the opening to see what the intent of these buildings were.
This building has a prominent position in the city. It is concrete block circular building resembling a sombrero. We couldn’t figure what it was built to be originally. Now it has a grocery store and some nondescript shops on the lower floors. The upper floors appear to be empty.
In the afternoon Tito picked us up and took us about 30km down the coast to Ulcinj which is an old fortress built on top of another spectacular harbor. We enjoyed the walk around town and the fort but Tito was disappointed when the museum of the fort was closed because he wanted to walk us thru it.
Looking down the coast from the walls in Ulcinj.
Our next planned stop was a seafood restaurant recommended by our friends Cory and Ovi in Ulcinj, but it was also closed. Tito than said he knew a great restaurant on top of a mountain overlooking Bar, that had both good food and a spectacular view of Bar and the coat line. The drive up was an adventure as most of the time the road was a single track with either walls or a steep drop off on one side. Every time we met another vehicle someone had to give way or back up. I enjoyed the ride mostly because it wasn’t me dealing with the problems. Unfortunately when we arrived at the restaurant it was also closed. In the end we returned to the same restaurant as last night to enjoy another excellent and low cost meal.
Tito and I enjoying our meal and a couple of beers.
Today was about taking care of two bits of business, we needed to see if we could get our Carte Grise from France, and find a place to look at François’ headlights. Tito had arranged to pick us up at 3pm to take us around town so I had the morning to get things figured out.
At first it was a frustrating start as we were having a hard time with the internet which made it tough to call France. We eventually worked the internet out and after a couple of emails and phone calls we learned that our Carte Grise was still being processed but they could provide us with an official document telling the border guards that it was not our fault we had a copy but the French Governments. It seemed just weird and French enough to be true so we are going to proceed with our two new documents.
I also spent the morning trying to figure out what was going on with François’ headlights. I could not get them to work and most of the evidence pointed to a bad switch which would require a part. More research showed that the only Fiat dealer in Montenegro was in Podgorica which is about 80 kilometers from here. There was one mechanics shop in Bar that specialized in Italian Cars and had good reviews so our plan was to take it by tomorrow.
When Tito came at 3 I told him about our plan for the lights and he recommended we go by now to make sure he could take us tomorrow. He also said he could explain the problem to them in Serbo-Croat in case they did not speak English. When we arrived weirdly the guy did not speak either Serbo-Croat or English, but only Italian. This did not phase Tito who seamlessly switched to Italian and explained the problem. After some tinkering around it turns out that somehow both low beam light bulbs had burned out simultaneously, so the fix was easy.
What had started as a potentially frustrating and hectic day turned out to be relatively easy. The day ended with Tito taking us to a very good and inexpensive restaurant where we all enjoyed a good meal with some excellent local wine.
We added our 6th country of the trip today. We are now parked in the marina in Bar Montenegro with a nice view of most of the Montenegrin Navy (4 ships). Our second border crossing was not as uneventful as the first, but it is our fault.
We are supposed to be traveling with a document for François called a Carte Grise. Our original Carte Grise went missing during Covid and the location we use for storing François changed so we needed to modify our Societe Civile and after that was complete change the address on the Carte Grise to reflect the new address. For a lot of reasons the documents were not ready when we arrived. We discussed our options with Eurocampingcar and decided to go with copies, it was not ideal but we thought with explanation the copies would work.
Our first stop in Montenegro was Kotor.
The first border crossing in Croatia was a non-event as they did not even look at our passports or vehicle documents. Today in Montenegro we pulled up to a very quiet border crossing and handed the guard our passports, and he asked for the vehicle documents. He typed our passport information in, and then looked at the documents and said: “Montenegro requires original documents”. There was a pause while he looked at me, then he stamped our passports and handed back our documents and our copies and repeated “Montenegro requires original documents.”; but pointed into Montenegro. I asked may we enter, and he replied “Have a good day.” So we are in Montenegro trying to track down our original documents from Eurocampingcar, before we go to Albania.
The border crossing was slightly tense but it was worth it to be rewarded with views like this.
The other issue from yesterday was every time we entered a tunnel Ton would tell me to turn on the headlights as it was very dark, and every time I would look at the dash and the little headlights on icon was shining brightly. When we arrived in Bar for the night we moved into our spot after dark and Ton was right the headlights are not on despite the nicely lit icons, the running lights work, the high beams work, but the low beams don’t. So we will be spending some time trying to iron that out.
We enjoyed today, because tomorrow is going to be a work day and not one for visiting.
In between the drama we visited Kotor. Kotor is on an incredible body of water that looks a lot like a Fjord, but is technically not a Fjord but a flooded river valley. Still it is beautiful and Ton enjoyed the views while I was busy driving a very twisty, but wide road. As we pulled into Kotor it looked very interesting but we knew it was going to be crowded because there was a giant cruise ship looming over the town.
Up close these things are immense. We guessed that this would hold around 4000 people.
Kotor had the most impressive ruins of an immense wall and fort running up a nearly vertical mountainside. It was quite a feat of engineering when they built it. The town walls connect to the mountainside walls. We walked the town walls, and while it is possible to climb to the top, we passed on the opportunity.
Part of the city walls going up to the mountain above the city.
Kotor has a thriving cat population and has latched onto that as a tourist trade opportunity. The cats are cute and act like it is their town and we are lucky we let them use it. Everywhere we have visited in the Balkans the town and campground cats have been well treated. Since we are now cat people thanks to our sons cat Dottie we have enjoyed watching them play and beg for food with a dignity that only a cat can muster, while they are asking for food they make it clear that it is our privilege to feed them.
The town has embraced their cat population as a way to sell merchandise.
Kotor was the first city we have visited in Europe that is primarily Orthodox Christian. We took a look inside to get an impression of the difference in the art and layout of the churches. Our initial impression is that the art work is a little more austere and stylized than in Catholic and Protestant churches.
The altar of the Orthodox church in Kotor, most of the art is from the 1990’s after the fall of the communist government.
We enjoyed Kotor it is less developed as a tourist destination and feels more “authentic”. But it has recently hit a lot of lists as the new hot destination in the Adriatic, so already most of the storefronts are now set up to meet the needs of tourists and not the locals. It feels like a mini-Dubrovnik which is not all bad.
The main square in Kotor.
We are now parked in the Marina in Bar, Montenegro. Our friends Cory and Ovi kept their boat here during Covid and recommended that we stay here, they even introduced us to a friend of theirs who set us up with our own space with electricity. After we arrived Tito met us at the marina and directed us to our spot. As he was on duty for the night we got to spend a couple of hours talking to him.
We thought we were going to go back into Dubrovnik today, but when we woke up we were lazy and decided to hang out at the campground. I did do a photo album of Croatia which is the entry before this, or can be found under Photo Albums.
Today is our fifteenth and most likely last day in Croatia. Two of the visually most spectacular places we have visited in Europe are here. Plitvice National Park and the Dalmation Coast almost spoiled us with their natural beauty as we cruised along. The cities were more modern than many we have visited and the influence of 40 years of communist rule were visible in blocky unattractive architecture outside of the old towns. But the natural beauty and the old towns more than made up for the unspectacular new towns. Please enjoy.
On our second day visiting Dubrovnik we visited several of the museums in town. The highlight was the Regents Palace from the days when Dubrovnik was a seafaring city state. It is not a particularly large palace by European standards and while the artwork was interesting and some of the old furniture and antiques were fun to look at the highlight for us was tucked away in a back corner of the museum and was a collection of photos from the War of Independence as the Croatians call it.
The interior of the rectors palace looking out at the small garden.
Today Dubrovnik is almost Disney like in its appeal as a medieval town brought to life but the vibrant tourist city is a very recent development. In 1991 during the breakup of Yugoslavia after the fall of the communist government, Dubrovnik was under siege for over 100 days, and under artillery fire for over 200 days. The part of Croatia Dubrovnik is located in is a very narrow panhandle along the coast. In some places it is less than 1km wide, and at its widest it is about 25km’s. Today the border is with Bosnia, but in 1991 Bosnia was still controlled by the Serbs, and the Serbs wanted to retain Dubrovnik in greater Serbia. They attacked towards the coast and succeeded in cutting Dubrovnik off from the rest of Croatia for over 100 days, and since the Serbs still controlled the old Yugoslav Navy this included from the sea. The relatively small garrison of Croatian troops managed to hold on to the city despite heavy artillery fire. The siege was lifted after 100 days, but the Serbs remained within artillery range for another 100 days and continued to shell the town periodically. Looking at recent pictures of wartime damage of a city you are actually visiting really drove home the story of the battle. It was a very moving experience for both of us.
The car park outside of the city walls today.The car park outside the city walls in 1991.Looking down on the Stradun, the main street of Dubrovnik today.The Stradun in 1991.The harbor today.The harbor under artillery fire in 1991.
The other story we learned in the Rectors Palace was the story of Saint Blaise who is the patron saint of Dubrovnik. Most Catholic cities have a patron saint, but Saint Blaise is really popular and his image pops up all over the city. We had a good time the rest of the day pointing out images of Blaise to each other as we walked around, including one live fellow who we felt looked like Blaise.
Saint Blaise the patron saint of Dubrovnik, and a very popular fellow.
After the Rectors Palace we enjoyed a stroll along the harbor and a walkway at the base of the fort. One thing you find every where in Europe are incredibly beautiful harbors. The one here had crystal clear green water and the walls enhanced the beauty of the harbor.
This is a swimming hole at the base of the walls of the fort. The water is still comfortable even in mid-October.
As we have been traveling in Dalmatia we have been seeing on restaurant menus a dish called black Risotto that is a specialty of the region. I have been meaning to try it for a few days and today we found a place that specializes in it. The dish is made with the ink from cuttlefish which turns it jet black. I really enjoyed it and another thing from my Dalmatian bucket list is now complete.
The appropriately named Black Risotto. Delicious.
By this point we were ready to head back to the campground which involved a relatively short walk to the bus stop. But as you can tell from the photos, Dubrovnik is built on a pretty steep hillside. While the distance was short the climb was substantial and neither of us were looking forward to it, in the end we made it to the bus stop where we enjoyed a multi-national group of people guessing what time the 2:30 bus would arrive, the answer was 2:47, the Croatians have a Mediterranean sense of time like the Spanish and Italians, it drives the Swiss and Germans crazy.
Like many visitors to Croatia Dubrovnik was high on our places to see. Ton recommended that we try to get there early before the cruise ships drop everyone into town, so we were out waiting for the bus at 9:15 am. The bus ride in was uneventful, but as we were riding I saw them advertising something called the Dubrovnik Pass on the video board on the bus. A quick look saw that a three day pass cost 300 Kuna and included the walk on the wall (240 Kuna by itself) and some other museums, and free bus passes for the three days so for us it was a great value and will probably save us 400 0r 500 Kuna during our visit. We highly recommend it.
The wall with some of the forts and battlements. It is largely original , but some sections have been rebuilt in modern times.
We arrived in town about 9:45 and it was pretty quiet when we got to the wall. The old town in Dubrovnik is completely enclosed by a medieval wall that is quite impressive. It was built by the Venetians to protect from sea raids and to also defend against the Ottomans to the land side. It was only breached once in its history by Napoleon.
Looking from the walls to the new town outside of the city walls.
The seaward side protects two different harbors on either side of the peninsula that Dubrovnik is on. Overall it is quite an engineering feat and pretty fun. Dubrovnik was a minor tourist destination until fairly recently due to being under the communist government of Yugoslavia, and then getting tied up in the resulting civil war that came with the break up of Yugoslavia.
Part of the walls facing the Adriatic sea.
In the last 15 years it is no longer undiscovered, but overwhelmed with tourism. The tourism is a double edged sword as it drives the economy of the region, but also makes living here very tough for the Croatians. The local government has limited the number of cruise ships that can dock on a daily basis and are studying other measures to find the correct balance between tourism and the quality of life for the local people.
Looking across from one side of the wall to the other with the distinctive red tile roofs of the town on display.
The other factor leading to the explosion of tourism is Game of Thrones. When the town was quite a bit sleepier it was the ideal setting for Westeros in Game of Thrones. As the show became more and more popular people came here just to see the site that the show was filmed at.
A beautiful little harbor.
It took us about 2 hours to complete the 2km circuit around the walls. Having completed that we dropped down into a very busy old town. While we were walking around we had seen a steady stream of boats coming in from one of the cruise ships that was anchored out, and while the crowds were not overwhelming it was busier than we like.
The main harbor with one of the cruise ships anchored off shore.
We took in a couple of other sites including the Jesuit Steps which are similar to the Spanish Steps in Rome, and the market. As the crowds built and we have three days to explore we decided to return early tomorrow to continue looking around.
Looking down the Jesuit Steps towards the town market.
As our Dubrovnik Pass now allowed us unlimited rides on the bus system we decided to get out of the tourist part of town and head to the local microbrewery. Dubrovnik Brewing shares its location with a tire shop and was doing good business on a Friday afternoon. The beer was good, and the food truck attached to the brewery was serving a Croatian take on a Pork Burrito which was interesting.
Another shot from the city walls. Dubrovnik is really a beautiful city.
We have settled into a campground in the small village of Orasac about 12km’s from Dubrovnik which will be our base while we visit the most visited place in Croatia. It has a nice view of the Adriatic and is quite full as their are not many camping locations available near Dubrovnik and several of them have closed for the season.
The beach near our campground. Only about 200 yards away, but 200 feet lower in altitude so it is quite a hike.
Our drive down was easier than it would have been 4 months ago because Croatia opened a new bridge in July. Before the bridge there was no direct route to Dubrovnik that did not involve crossing into Bosnia. As a result of the settlement of the breakup of Yugoslavia Bosnia was given a very small access to the Adriatic. Their Adriatic coast is 12 miles long which is the second shortest national coastline in the world. The problem is that it cut Dubrovnik off from direct access to the rest of Croatia. The border crossings 12 miles apart often added two hours to what should be a 2 hour trip.
Today we followed the coast line most of the way. It was unexpectedly a little overcast but a spectacular drive.
The Croatians have been working on a bridge to by pass the Bosnian coastline since 2007 and finished it this year. It was quite expensive to build as it had to be high enough to allow ocean going vessels to go under it so that the Bosnian port could receive ships. We really appreciated it today.
Ston oysters fresh from the water, reportedly the best oysters in the world.
Yesterday we met an American couple at the restaurant in Milna #1 who told us about the fantastic oysters in Ston. Ton mentioned she had also read about the oysters in Ston and many claimed they were the best in the world. As a son of the Chesapeake Bay I took that as a challenge and told Ton I would be the judge of that.
The oysters waiting for my judgment.
Luckily we had to pass directly thru Ston on the way to Dubrovnik. In addition to having the “best” oysters in the world Ston also had a very valuable salt flat that caused it to be constantly fought over in the middle ages. So to protect the town they built this elaborate 3 plus mile wall around the town and a hill next to the town. It is supposed to be the second longest wall in the world after the Great Wall of China, but that claim like their claim to have the best oysters in the world is disputed.
Part of the Wall of Ston. Possibly the second longest wall in the world at about 3 miles.
To give Ston oysters their due we picked the best restaurant in town and ordered an excellent meal with three oysters on the half shell to test their claim. While the oysters were quite large and tasty I do not accept that they are the best in the world and will put Chesapeake Bay oysters up against them for quality and taste.
The verdict, a very good oyster, but I will take Chesapeake Bay Oysters.
Having said that Ston was an interesting city and the meal was great continuing our streak of not having a bad meal in Croatia.
The harbor in Ston. With a small section of the wall down to the waterfront.
Today was a down day for maintenance. Yesterday was a long day and on the way back to the campsite we decided we deserved a day off from our stressful life as permanent vacationers. The cute building in the top photo is the laundry room for the campground which was the highlight of our day as Ton always feels better when the laundry bag is empty.
Croatia is famous for its off shore islands. Running the length of the country are medium to small islands with very quiet and picturesque towns. There is also one medium sized town that is considered a must see when visiting Croatia. Ton and I have been talking about the best way to get out to some of these islands, some are easily accessible for François using vehicle ferries, but the ferries are not particularly cheap. Other islands are not vehicle friendly as the roads on the islands don’t extend beyond the edge of town and the ferry is pedestrian only. We did not want to pass up the opportunity to see these islands but were unsure about the best way to get it done.
All of our friends told us we had to get to the off shore islands.
Yesterday while walking thru Split we came across a bunch of tour operators offering basically the same five island tour with two offshore cave tours as a bonus. One of the cave tours is the Blue Cave which is part of a Croatian NP and one of the top 5 destinations in the country. The tour operator did warn us that both caves depend on the sea state and could be canceled if the conditions were unfavorable. While we are not opposed to structured tours it is generally not our favorite way to see things. The other thing was the tour required a show up time of 7:40 am at the Split waterfront which for us meant a 6am wakeup to catch a city bus to downtown. But after talking it over we decided it was a good way to get a feel for the off shore islands to see if we wanted to ferry François over.
Early morning coffee in Split before our cruising day.
That is a long way to say we signed up for a boat tour and were up at 6 am to catch a bus downtown. The bus ride was easy and fast and we were downtown by 7 am so we found a bakery to have a pastry and coffee before heading over to our boat for the day.
Our first stop for the day was the green lagoon.
We started our day with a bit of a disappointment as due to a strong on shore wind the Blue Cave was closed for the day which was going to be a highlight. Instead of starting at the Blue Cave we headed for Budikovac Island which is the home of the Green Lagoon. The captain of the boat told us and the other 10 passengers to settle in as it was about 90 minutes out to Budikova. Budikovac island is pretty small though it has been producing grapes for wine for over 1000 years and the wines from there have been famous enjoyed by both Roman emperors and Marshall Tito who was the head of the communist government when Croatia was part of Yugoslavia.
Stinivac beach from the boat, today the only way to reach the beach was by swimming in from the boat so this is our best picture.
Our next stop was Stinivac island which has what is reported to be the best beach in Europe. The beach is reached by entering thru a small cut in the rocks. When the sea is not too rough you can row small boats in from off shore, but not today. The younger members of our boat swam in to get a look. Ton and I had to be content with enjoying the view from the boat.
Swimming in the green cave.
The green cave on Rivnik Island was our next stop, but the captain warned us that it was unlikely that we would be able to go in because of the rough water. However, when we got there he was able to tie the boat off to the mooring, but the guides who usually led the tours were not there as it was unsafe to enter by boat. However, it was safe for swimming so once again the younger customers all jumped in and had a good time while Ton and I stayed in the stomach churning bobbing boat and watched them have fun. The captain came up and apologized to me and said the rest of the trip would be ok.
The water was pretty and just active enough to test your sea legs if you were not swimming in it.
Our next stop was a small port town called Milna on Hvar Island for lunch. The ride over was just long enough for our stomachs to settle down so we could enjoy our lunch. The lunch was quite good and reasonably priced, we have not had a bad meal yet in Croatia.
It was rush hour in Hvar while we were there.
After lunch we headed over to the highlight of the day. Hvar is another of a seemingly endless string of beautiful small port towns and one of the most visited places in Croatia. At one time it was the center of the Dalmatian tourist industry and while it is still extremely popular people are starting to spread out and explore other parts of Dalmatia.
The harbor in Hvar with the 15th century fort overlooking the town.
We enjoyed exploring for a couple of hours. The hills are pretty steep so we made up for our time sitting on the boat by climbing up and down the medieval allies around town. It is a charming town with nice restaurants and coffee shops every few feet.
Not my best side.
Our last stop of the day was the port of Milna on the island of Milna. If you were reading carefully you will remember we had lunch in Milna, just not this Milna. For a small country Croatia has a lot of towns with the same name. Ton and I had a circular conversation earlier in the trip about Novigrad, she was talking about one Novigrad and I was talking about another. It turns out there are 5 Novigrads. We were discussing a good campground with a friend of ours in the town of Zedar, but confusion reigned when I told him it looked nice and was only 20km’s north of Split. He said no it was 20km’s north of Dubrovnik. We were both right and both are nice campgrounds. In the islands off shore there are 6 Milna’s according to our captain.
Milna #2 was a larger version of Milna #1 and quite pretty.
We pulled into Milna #2 for an evening drink or gelato. Ton and I opted for the Gelato and a walk along the waterfront. It was a pretty town and the sun was setting as we went around. We enjoyed the walk quite a lot.
The sun setting over Milna #2.
The last 45 minutes back to Split were pretty rough as the seas had been building all day. It was just rough enough to be interesting, but not so rough as to be scary so we enjoyed the ride.
We forgot to take a picture of our boat. You can see a little bit of it in the lower left of the picture.
We are planning to spend a few days around Split using it as a base to explore some of the off shore islands as well as the city itself. Today we headed down to the city center to check it out and scout the best options to get to the off shore islands.
Split is a major port city and a ferry terminal for cross Adriatic ferries to and from Italy, as well as to the Croatian islands.
Split is an old town going back thousands of years. Today it is a sprawling modern city of 160,000 people. A lot of the apartment blocks go back to the communist era and to put it nicely are not very pretty. I think the term for the architecture from this period is Brutalist and that is an apt description.
This is a pretty Hapsburg era building though we never did figure out what it was being used for. We think a hotel.
Our first stop as often happens is the city market. There was nothing particularly remarkable about this market. It was the usual mixture of meat and vegetables with a few local artisans showing their goods. Ton found a pair of pretty fingerless gloves to replace the ones that have gone missing at home at one of the artisans shops.
This lady probably has a lot of interesting stories to tell.
Splits old town is pretty compact and can be covered in a couple of hours of walking. Split is known for two things its Cathedral and Diocletian’s Palace.
The bell tower of the Cathedral.
The Cathedral and the Palace are kind of mixed together as the mausoleum of the palace was converted to a Christian Church in the third century and the cathedral grew up around it.
Ton liked the juxtaposition of the diminutive pious looking nun with the very tall modern woman on her cell phone. You can also see the juxtaposition of the Roman Palace and the Catholic Cathedral in this picture.
Diocletian was a Roman emperor in the third century who was born in this area. He gets mixed reviews as he left the remains of this beautiful palace for us all to share which is a plus. The minus it was built by Christian slaves in 10 years at great cost to the slaves who Diocletian was trying to get to renounce Christianity because he believed he was a child of Jupiter.
The golden gate to Diocletian’s palace.
History is always complicated in the Balkans.
Part of the Cathedral showing how the Roman palace was transformed to a Christian Cathedral.
After walking around for a while we decided to head over to the waterfront for a lunch. Ton was deciding which meal to order when she asked the waiter the difference between two local fish, he replied they are like brother and sister, so she asked which one was the sister? This cracked the Croatian guy up at the next table, and caused our waiter to blush a little. We ended up with another excellent meal that had us skipping dinner later in the day.
Tons meal of fresh fish with mixed vegetables. This one is the sister.
We took one more pass thru the old town, cathedral, and palace. We noticed that another cruise ship had put into town so we decided to head on back to the campground.
After our great day yesterday in Piltvice NP it was time to take advantage of a low traffic Sunday to move 280 kilometers south to Split. It is the center of the Dalmatian Coast and also the second largest city in Croatia.
The drive was uneventful and we arrived at a large waterfront campground about 1pm. Sundays are pretty quiet in Croatia like much of Europe so we spent the afternoon being lazy and catching up with friends at home.
These folks were having an impromptu kayak race with the guy on the paddleboard recording the event for posterity.
The campground is in the middle of a suburb of Split with a short waterfront promenade. The highlight of our day was a sunset walk to one end of the promenade and then back to François for dinner. Some days are just meant to be quiet.
Plitvice Lakes National Park is one of the most visited places in Croatia and like a lot of National Parks in the US it is so popular that the Croatian Park Service has had to put restrictions on the number of visitors per day. When we checked into the campground yesterday the owner told us that we picked a good time to visit as the Park Service was offering a discount this week.
Ton really liked the fall colors in this picture.
We both woke up before 7am in anticipation of going into the park and I told Ton about the discount. While I was making our coffee Ton went on line and said to get the special price you had to buy the tickets on line. While the water was boiling I took a look on line and saw we could not buy tickets on line the day of the visit, but there was a place to see how many walk up tickets were available per hour of the day. I panicked a bit as between 8 and 10 am there were only a handful of walkups available, but before 8 am there were hundreds. We are located about 10 minutes from the park gate and when I made that announcement it was 7:20. We set a record for making François road ready and rolled into the park at 7:50.
One of the hundreds of waterfalls at the park.
We got our tickets for the day, then took a few minutes back at François to get our breath. Initially when we entered the crowds were pretty light. But as the day went on the crowds built quite a bit, so were glad we had rushed over early.
In a lot of the places the water was a beautiful clear green color.
The park was extremely well designed to give you a great walking experience. There were wonderful raised walkways over water, wetlands and woods. The Croatian National Park Service deserves kudos for the well thought out design of the trail system. It seems to strike the right balance between protecting the fragile ecosystem and allowing people to interact with the natural environment.
The combination of fall colors with the water and the white cliffs was fantastic today.
In general the walks were pretty easy, but there was some elevation change, and at one point we got on a little more strenuous trail that most people avoided, but it was worth it.
Another small waterfall among the hundreds in the park.
During our 5 hour hike thru the park I was impressed with the striking beauty of the place. I was also very impressed with how well the visitors behaved. There was no straying off of trails or boardwalks. People worked well together to enjoy the experience and share in taking in the beauty of the place.
Another series of waterfalls. There were many types of waterfalls and water features thru out the park. Also the diversity in the settings of the falls from wooded landscapes to long drops, to short cascades was very impressive.
We have visited many National Parks in the US and a few overseas and this one is really quite special. I think we caught it a good time of the year as the fall colors are at there peak which really adds to the natural beauty. We really recommend it to anyone. It is by itself almost worth a trip to Croatia.
Another type of waterfall.
Ton usually sends me five or 10 pictures to pick from for the blog. Today she sent me 71, this place was that special. We will be working on a photo album devoted to the park later in the trip.
We have moved from the coast up into the mountains near Plitvice National Park. I told Ton I was feeling lazy so I allowed Greta to use toll roads for the trip. The toll roads in Croatia are very nice, but quite expensive. We liked the mannequin flaggers they use here in construction zones if you are wondering about the picture today. I knew the last 60km’s or so were going to be on single lane roads, what I didn’t know was that Greta was going to use a short cut that sent us on a one and a half lane mountain road for 40 km’s. So much for our easy drive.
This area was extensively fought over during the break up of Yugoslavia. The mountains where we are at were a mixture of Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians. Over simplifying things terribly, they all speak the same language (Serbo-Croat), but are of different religions. This region was very heavily contested between the three different groups, and unfortunately a fair amount of ethnic cleansing took place. As we were driving on our unexpected back mountain road we saw plenty of evidence of the fighting from the 90’s, including one house pockmarked with small arms, and another house that had its roof caved in by an artillery round, as well as well maintained graves of soldiers who died fighting in the area. Many of the houses were abandoned on this road as a result of the cleansing. Also, on this road we saw for the first time soldiers from the Croatian army driving vehicles. When we arrived at the campground I realized that our route today had taken us within a couple of miles of the Bosnian border.
A nice table at our cute campground near the national park.
We arrived at our campground around 1:30 and decided to take the rest of the day off. We did polish off a very nice bottle of Croatian wine.
We are wrapping up our very short visit to Istria today as once again the calender is getting away from us. We visited two cities today, one really caught our fancy and the other missed catching our fancy but was interesting .
Ton liked this store front in the old town of Rovinj.
Rovinj is advertised as the most picturesque town in Istria, and the advertisements were correct. When we first arrived and parked François we were overlooking a working harbor with the fishing fleet just coming into port to off load their catch into trucks. The process was interesting and we enjoyed watching the crews working to pack the fish into ice and load them on the trucks. Also, occasionally a local would walk up to one of the fishermen and buy a couple of fish or a kilo of sardines literally off the boat.
The fishing fleet just in to offload. The seagulls were out in force looking for spillage.
From the commercial docks we could see the old town, but it was not the picturesque views Ton remembered from her research. As we got closer to the old town it was interesting to see the construction where some of the houses actually acted as a kind of sea wall for the town.
When the ocean is angry it must be very interesting to be living in one of these houses.
The town clearly had character. We were climbing up to the church that sits at the top of the hill that the old town is built on, when we both noticed how worn the paving stones were in the narrow alleys. A lot of people had walked these streets over the centuries.
The paving stones in the roads were rubbed shiny from all of the feet that had crossed the town over hundreds of years.
It was a good climb to the top where the church dominated the town. The church itself was not overly impressive, but we did like the image at the top of the tower of a sailor steering a ship. This is clearly a town dedicated to the sea and the old town was until the late 1700’s an island. In the 1700’s they filled the small canal that separated it from the mainland.
The church tower with a sailor on top dominates both the commercial harbor and the leisure harbor in Rovinj.
On the descent from the church Ton was telling me that what we had seen did not quite match the pictures she had seen when researching Rovinj. Just then we emerged onto a square on the other side of town where a beautiful waterfront and leisure harbor opened up in front of us. Ton laughed and said these are the pictures I remember, and then went off to take her own.
This is the view Ton remembered from her research.
Rovinj is a beautiful and picturesque place. We debated having lunch here but decided to instead head on to Pula as the day was getting away from us.
One last shot from the old town in Rovinj.
Pula is an old city and was the center of the Roman government for this area. It contains a few very well preserved Roman buildings and we were looking forward to seeing them. What we didn’t expect was that Pula was a big bustling industrial port. We had really enjoyed the small scale of the towns in Istria so suddenly finding ourselves in a busy city was a little bit of a shock.
A view to the busy industrial harbor. The ship in the center of the picture appears to be an old cruise liner that is being broken down for scrap.
After a little adventure getting lost, for once I will concede that Gretas directions were correct, I just didn’t follow them. We headed over to the Roman amphitheater following Googles walking direction. Google told us it was about 1km mostly flat. Ton and I laughed about that the whole way as we were either going up or down pretty sizable hills and we debated where the person who characterized the walk as flat had grown up.
A Roman arch in Pula. This section was actually pretty flat.
Google then lead us to a dead end and we had to improvise our way to the amphitheater which involved climbing some pretty good hills and stairs. We finally got near the amphitheater but found a fairly modern fort in our way and decided to give up as it was closed for repairs. From the fort we could see the Roman Colosseum in the distance, checking with Google it told us it was a little over a kilometer away. For some reason we both thought it was closed for maintenance so we decided to pass on the walk.
The Roman Colosseum in the distance. It is the sixth largest one in existence and the only one with all of its walls intact. It is still used for concerts.
We walked down to the old town and found the last Roman ruin which was a Forum. After a few photos we both realized we were hungry and decided to call it a day.
The Roman Forum in Pula.
Pula is the kind of town that we usually enjoy. It is a little rough around the edges, but has a lot of interesting sites. But today we did not connect with it. I think we had adjusted to the smaller towns we had been in and the size put us off a bit. Also, we were a bit hungry having skipped lunch. I think if we had more time we might return because it turns out we were both wrong and the Colosseum is not closed for maintenance and would probably be very interesting to tour.
Today we set out to explore Northern Istria. Ton had picked out a couple of towns she wanted to check out, and she told me that we were going to look for a wine tasting room to drop into if we saw one.
It was a perfect day to be out exploring. About 70 degrees and a great sky. This picture is from our first stop of the day Vrsar.
Just south of us is the small town of Vrsar which Ton said had a pretty harbor We were there in about 10 minutes and the parking lot I chose was supposed to be paid, but the barriers had been removed for off season so it was free. This lot allows overnight parking so we lamented the lost opportunity of a couple of free nights, but decided we deserved the luxury we were living in our resort campground.
In addition to being a working harbor there were quite a few 30 to 40 foot sailboats and motor yachts, as well as one 100 ft. luxury yacht.
We followed the promenade around the harbor which was a mixture of fishing, tour, and private boats. Ton was in heaven as the sky and sea were both beautiful and with no wind to speak of the sea was reflecting the clouds.
The promenade in Vrsar had a lot of nice statues. It always impresses us how much art is displayed in small towns in Europe.
We finished with Vrsar and headed for Umag which was close to the Slovenian border. We followed a winding seaside highway for the 40km’s to Umag. About 7% of the population of Istria is Italian so the town names were listed in both Croatian and Italian. Near the town of Novigrad (Cittanova in Italian) Ton spotted a sign for a winery so we turned in. The wide road turned into a one lane track and just as I was about to turn around we found the winery.
Ghira winery produces wines in terra cotta amphora as well as traditionally. The last time we saw wine produced like this was in Portugal.
I wasn’t sure if they were open so I was turning François around when Ton hopped out and told me she was going to take some pictures. Just as I got François pointing in the right direction I heard a shout from her to grab my wallet as the winery was open for tasting.
I’m petting the winery dog who I had decided to call Lady because it reminded me of a dog I had when I was a kid. It turns out when I checked the anatomy, Lady was very much a boy, good thing he didn’t speak English.
We tasted 3 whites and a red and they were all delicious. The conversation was limited as the person poring only spoke Croatian and German, but we settled on a white that is an Istrian grape, but were not sure the name of the grape. All we know is that the wine is delicious.
A street scene from the old town in Umag, which is about 3 alleys near the water. The rest of the town was communist era concrete blocks.
Ton picked Umag because the guide book she was looking at said it was off the tourist route. She wanted to see what a working port town looked like. Umag was not very touristy though they were trying. Most of the boats in the harbor were fishing boats. There was a small waterfront promenade with a couple of restaurants, and an old town of three roads about 100 yards long.
The harbor in Umag, a little more working class than the other harbors in this area.
Near the end of one of the alleys we saw a sign for a sea food restaurant and followed it to a waterfront restaurant tucked away out of site. As we walked up we decided that it was going to be our lunch. As we approached one of the staff gave us a wave and asked if we were hungry. When we said yes, he paused and asked if we were Americans. When we replied affirmatively he surprised us by asking what in the world we were doing in Umag! He said that they hardly ever see Americans here. He was an interesting fellow and asked us a lot of questions about home, and also our impression of Croatia. He told us he was hoping to immigrate and if he had a choice it would be the US. He was not happy about the conversion from the Kuna to the Euro coming up in January as he was convinced costs were going to go up, and his real wages were going to go down. It was an interesting perspective we had not thought of because having everyone on one currency makes our life much easier.
The interior of the restaurant we had lunch in.
Once we got off of politics, our server took Ton inside the restaurant to survey the fish on offer. When she returned we ordered the Umag platter which consisted of two fish, octopus, shrimp, and mussels. It was wonderful and served for two meals as neither of us was hungry for dinner when we returned to the campground.
The Umag platter.
We accomplished all of our targets for the day and even found the wine tasting that Ton had added as a bonus challenge. The last thing we accomplished was getting a load of washing done when we returned for the evening. All in all a very productive day for us.
