Split Day 1-4

1-4 September 2013

Day 1: Getting there
The bus ride was easy going and I passed the time with a few episodes of Breaking Bad. Once we arrived at the Split bus terminal we walked into the old town and found our hostel, Al's Place, without too much hassle. The door was locked so we rung the door bell but there was no answer. Attempt #2 was sending the owner an SMS while we just enjoyed a beer outside the hostel and after a few minutes we were let in.

Pub crawl
Split seems to have a pretty good party scene or at least they have a few pub crawls. After some research we chose the pub crawl that has a power hour, which means unlimited drinks for about 90 minutes (yeah, I know it's not an hour). At the first stop of the crawl we played a drinking game called flip cup and I learnt pretty quickly that I suck at it. I made it to the third pub where I lost my Belgian friend, ended up in some arm wrestling matches and eventually decided to head home at 3am. It wasn't the best pub crawl I've done but it was still pretty good.

Day 2: Lazy morning
As you'd expect we had a pretty lazy morning. After a while we ventured out to try and get on the hop on/hop off bus that we had a free ticket for (as part of the pub crawl) but the combination of it not coming frequently and us not wanting to wait meant we didn't bother.

Beach
Next mission was to go to the beach. The water around Split has all been turned into a port so we needed (and wanted) to go for a bit of a walk to get to a nice beach. The walk took us up onto a nearby hill, that gave nice views out over the sea and Split, and eventually to a skinny goat track down the side of the mountain and to the beach. The beach itself was really good because it was clean, the water was nice and refreshing and although it was a pebble beach, they were really small pebbles so your feet don't get hacked up like on larger pebbles or sandy like Australian beaches, it's great.

Dinner
We decided to walk back the easy way, that is along the bottom of the mountain. Our hostel had a kitchen so we stopped for supplies and headed back to cook a sausage and pasta mix. It was a really strange feeling because staff don't stay at the hostel over night and the only other 3 guys there were on Hvar for an all-nighter so it was just the two of us alone in the hostel.

Day 3: Omiš
After eating leftovers for breakfast we jumped on a coach to a nearby town called Omiš for a day trip. It was pretty warm so the first job was to go for a swim. The beach we were on was similar to the one yesterday with small pebbles but this was a bigger beach and the clear water (no seaweed) went out further so there was plenty of space to swim around. I also bought a squishy ball so we could throw it at to each other, which almost ended in someone getting hit in the balls.

Fort
The next goal was to climb the mountain behind the town and then the fort on top. The climb took about an hour and even though the path was clearly marked, it was still fairly challenging, and fun, because it was basically made from rocks dumped on the ground. The fort at the top wasn't huge but it was impressive that anyone managed to build it in such an awkward spot plus the views were pretty amazing. After coming down from the fort we finished the day with another swim at the beach.

Bus
We caught a coach to Omiš, so it went straight there without stopping but because it just kicked us out on the side of the road, we didn't know where to catch it back. Instead we caught a local bus back that stopped a lot and cost more than the coach, WTF?!?

Dinner
We bought supplies to make dinner again (gotta make use of that kitchen) and tonight's menu was gnocci, cheapi and some vegetables and although it looked like dog food, it tasted fantastic. The last task of the night was booking tickets to Hvar, a nearby island, for the next day.

Day 4: Froggyland
There were leftovers for breakfast again, so we finished that off before venturing out for one last look around Split. We found a museum called Froggyland, which is a museum containing taxidermied frogs in various situations and poses. It was amazing how much effort went into it and hillarious at the same time.

Killing time
We were catching a catamaran in the afternoon to Hvar but we had to kill time until then so we grabbed some lunch and relaxed in a shady spot in the park, listened to some music and peoplewatched.

Thoughts on Split:

• The old town is fairly small so it's easy to get around
• The town seems fairly clean and safe and relies a lot on tourism
• The beaches are nice and the weather was excellent
• It's expensive for the Bulkans because it's on the coast but it's still cheaper than western Europe
• I enjoyed our hostel and it was good to still be travelling with someone
• I'd go back to Split again, not because there's things I didn't do but simply because it's a cool spot to be

Looking out over Split

Looking out over the sea on the way up to the fort in Omiš

My Belgian mate and I at the fort. There was only one other guy up here the whole time and he managed to photobomb us :(

Looking down at Omiš beach from the fort

Some random dude having a smoke in the old town wall

Me at the entrance to the frog museum

One of the displays in the frog museum

The fort we climbed to in Omiš (taken from a nearby mountain)

Panorama out over the sea from the top of the fort

Panorama out over split from a lookout post on a nearby hill

A semi-submarine! It's a glass bottom boat but more submarine-ish than your regular boat

Zadar Day 1-4

29 August - 1 September 2013

Day 1: Ljubljana to Zadar
It was an early start this morning so I could meet my Aussie mate and head to the train station. We caught a train to Zagreb, Croatia which was both cheap and easy. The tricky part came right at the end when we arrived at a station that we thought might be Zagreb but not many people got off and everyone seemed to be confused. We asked some girls who jumped on the train but they didn't even know what station it was so we took and chance and jumped off and luckily, it was the right one.

Locker
Zagreb was only a stop on the way to Zadar so the first goal was to dump our bags so we could go exploring. We found the lockers in the station and before we could read the help signs, we had a local that was a bit too helpful come over and tell us all about the lockers. After we had our stuff locked up and we noticed he was still hanging around, we decided it would be better to give him some change rather than come back to an empty locker.

Bus ticket
The next goal was to get a bus ticket so we could complete our journey to Zadar. We went for a walk to the bus station and figured out how to buy tickets and even made a stop at the tourist information desk to get some suggestions on what to see in our few hours in Zagreb.

New friends
As we wandered into the centre of town we had two German guys ask to see our map. I don't think it ended up helping but that's not important, what is important is we started talking and realised we were all trying to see the tourist sites so the four of us and the other 2 German friends that appeared all headed off to see the city. We saw some churches, made it to the top of a hill to get a view over the city, walked past the Museum of Broken Relationships and ended up back in the main square. We finished the exploring with a beer from the supermarket (classy) before my mate and I had to take off to catch our bus.

Zadar
We arrived in Zadar in the evening and walked the 15 minutes from the bus station into the busy old town. We found our hostel, dumped our bags and headed out for some beers with a pair of German girls that we met in our room. We went to a few different bars and saw the sea organ that is, surprise surprise, by the sea.

Day 2: Plitvice Lakes
My Aussie mate showed me some photos for this national park and they looked so amazing that I instantly agreed that we had to go see it. The only crappy bit was the lakes are between Zagreb and Zadar so we had to catch a bus back half the distance we travelled yesterday, which cost the same as the previous day's whole trip. It was totally worth it though because this park looks so amazing and this was one point where I hated the fact that my cameras couldn't do the teal colour of the water justice.

We started the park with a bus/train (it looked like a train but drove on the road) to the starting point for the walking trail that does most of the park (the 4-6hr one). It gets a bit congested at the start because everyone jumps off the bus/train thing and starts walking the narrow wooden paths at the same time but once you push past all the people who stop in the middle of the path to take 100 photos at a time, it gets better.

The whole park is super lush and green, with a few waterfalls and lots of lakes, that are both crystal clear and vibrant teal coloured. You'll also see ducks and lots of fish in a variety of sizes. In the middle of the walk you get to take a boat ride on one of the lakes and near the end you can take the trail up onto the surrounding mountains for an even better view of the lakes. We finished the 4-6 hour trail in under 3, then made our own trail by climbing up the side of a mountain and did part of the trail again. We finished the day off with a beer and some fries at the cafe at the end of the trail.

We had a really good walk, saw some amazing views, took some photos to make all of you jealous and generally had an awesome day out. If you're anywhere near this place, you MUST see it!

Dinner
When we got back to the hostel we met everyone in our room; two Swedish guys, an Agentinian guy, a Belgian buy and a Finnish guy. We decided to all go out for dinner but it was a bit difficult because the first few places we tried had either stopped serving food or were full. We eventually found an Italian restaurant, something that there's a lot of on the Croatian coast, and grabbed a table. Dinner for me was a spicy pepper pizza that really was spicy. It was a good chance for us to all get to know each other and after a bit of talking, the Belgian and I established that we'd aready met and he'd actually taken a photo for me in Ljubljana.

Day 3: Boat trip
My Aussie mate was leaving today but lukily the Belgian guy invited me to go on a boat trip today so I took him up on the offer. Breakfast was served on the boat and consisted of chocolate wafers, biscuits, a ham and cheese sandwich and, because we're in Croatia, a shot of fire water... FOR BREAKFAST!

We spent the morning cruising out through and around the islands of Kornati National Park. One interesting thing we saw was a decent sized cliff that rises from the sea, which they said was the tallest out of something (that I can't remember), but I can't find it on Google now I'm writing this so they were possibly lying about how special it was.

Lunch was served just before we arrived at the first island we were to explore. It consisted of a fish, a steak and some cabbage. It wasn't fancy but it was still nice. My Belgian friend and I met an English couple on the boat and once we docked at the island, the four of us went for a walk to the top of the huge cliff then down to the (fairly salty) lake where we had a swim.

Time to get back on the boat where we started to head towards the second island and home. The stop on the second island was fairly quick, only long enough to get an icecream and go for a short walk to see the local church.

We arrived back in Zadar at about 6pm, so it was a full day out on the boat. We got to know the English couple pretty well, had a few drinks, saw lots of cool islands and rock formations and it was generally a fun day. Seeing all the islands out into the distance is great because we don't get that in Australia and it reminded me of Thailand a lot, the only other place I've seen something similar.

Dinner
A big bunch of us at the hostel all pitched in for supplies and cooked a huge pot of pasta. It easily fed the 8 people we had plus still had leftovers and all for the cheap price of about $2 Australian. It tasted pretty great too.

Sun disc
After dinner we grabbed some beers and went for a walk to the sun disc. The disc is actually part of a display of the whole solar system where each planet (and the Sun) are represented by solar discs in the ground. At night they all glow but the Sun is the most impressive because it's so large and actually has a light show of sorts.

Day 4: Last day
I felt like I'd seen all of what Zadar had to offer so it was time to head onto the next spot. My Belgian friend was going the same way so we booked a hostel (I actually booked twice, whoops) and booked some bus tickets. I went for one last walk around the old town, enjoyed a fantastic chevapi sandwich and found a Zadar patch for my collection before we jumped on the bus.

Thoughts about Zadar:

• It was great to be travelling with a friend
• The old town is small but nice
• It's not too expensive, the weather was great and the beaches are ok
• There's a few things to do and it's close-ish to Plitvice Lakes
• I was only in Zagreb for a few hours but I feel like I've seen it and I'm glad we stayed in Zadar instead
• The Old Town Hostel that we stayed in was quite nice and definitely in a great spot
• I met quite a few great people so I have good memories
• It's clean (they clean the streets every night) and feels safe although fairly touristy

A church with a mosaic roof in Zagreb

A cool stencil in Zagreb

Some golden tower in Zagreb

The restaurant that we stopped at on the bus trip had a bear out the back. He didn't seem happy :(

A panorama of the hills behind the restaurant we stopped at

The view from the bus on the way into Zadar

Plitvice Lakes

Plitvice Lakes, this doesn't even do the colour of the water justice

Plitvice Lakes, my Aussie mate taking a photo

Plitvice Lakes

The big waterfall at Plitvice Lakes

The water at Plitvice Lakes is so clear

A smaller waterfall

It's so green!

Some dedicated photographer with his tripod in the water

We climbed a hill to get good photos

Heading out of the bay on a cruise

A funny looking island

The trucks of the island

The tall sea cliffs in the Kornati national park

The first island we stopped at on the boat ride. You can just see the lake in the middle of the island too.

The English couple we met on the cruise and my Belgian mate

My Aussie mate and I at the big waterfall in Plitvice Lakes

The awesome chevapi sandwich

The group sitting on the Sun disc for a chat

Panorama of the Sun disc during the day

The Sun disc gets fairly popular at sunset

Ljubljana Day 1-3

26 - 28 August 2013

Day 1: Getting there
So this post starts with me still in Venice and sitting in the bus with about 50 minutes until it leaves. With about 10 minute before we were meant to leave the driver makes us all get out and jump into another unmarked van (sounds dodgy hey?) and says that this guy will drive us. The new driver turned out to be absolutely terrible and couldn't drive smoothly to save his life, or even the rest of our lives. He couldn't even drive in a straight line without twitching every now and then *sigh*.

Still alive
So we did make it, in one piece, eventually. The first task was to find out where I was and free McDonalds WiFi assisted with that, then I walked in the rain to find a hostel. I found the spot I had marked on my map but the hostel there had a different name but because it still looked nice, I booked in anyway.

Exploring
I met a girl from London in my room and together we went to see some sights; the dragon bridge, the castle, a city park and finally ended up at a bar with a really funny bar tender, where we stayed for a few beers and a kebab.

Day 2: Walking tour
The walking tour company that I normally go with doesn't have tour this far east but thankfully other companies do so that's where we (my London friend and I) headed this morning. The guide, Neja, was really good and we saw lots of the main sights including:

• The dragon bridge, also joked about as the mother-in-law bridge. Also, apparently the dragons will wag their tails whenever a virgin crosses the bridge...we didn't see them wag their tails.
• The markets where we tried sour turnip and sour kraut
• A area with shoes and goon sacks hanging from the power lines
• The library
• A theatre (I can't find what it's called but it looked cool)

We finished up with a great story about the history of Yugoslavia and Slovenia, which made me curious to hear the different point of view of each of the former Yugoslavian members as I travel the Bulkans.

Sunshine
After the tour finished my Londoner friend and I decided to make good use of the sunshine by sitting outside a pub and soaking up as much sun as we could. Once the time came for her to leave to catch a ride our of Slovenia I decided to go for a walk around.

Hot Horse
I found myself at a burger shop that the tour guide mentioned named Hot Horse. This place, as the name suggests, serves horse meat in various different forms and I was keen to give it a go. I ordered a sandwich type thing and although the meat was fairly chewy and tough, it still tasted fine which may have been helped by the 5 sauces they poured on it; ketchup, mustard, mayo, Tobasco and cheese sauce.

Metelkovo
This area is apparently an ex-Yugoslavian army barracks that was taken over by squatting students and turned into a street art heaven. It reminds me a lot of Kreuzberg, Berlin and has so much art crammed into a small space that you'll find yourself moving slowly and spending quite a long time in the area.

Quiet evening
It was starting to rain (no surprise) so I headed back to the hostel to hide out for a bit before venturing out again to get dinner; a nutritious and delicious kebab with super spicy sauce. On the way home I also ran into a guy who I met on the walking tour during the day and, separately, an Aussie guy I met in Venice who I was planning to meet the next day. What a small place Ljubljana is.

Day 3: Catch up day
Today was a bit of a lazy day but I can make it sound more productive by saying I did some blogging, researched where to go next and ventured out to get some lunch. I also ran into my Aussie mate again; Ljubljana is REALLY small!

Dinner
This time I caught up with my Aussie mate on purpose and we headed to a Slovenian restaurant to try some of the local food. We tried to order two different dishes to share but we ended up with two fairly similar goulashes although they were both quite nice so it wasn't all bad.

Thoughts on Ljubljana

• The name is really hard to say just by reading. It's pronounced loob-yoo-ana
• It rains a lot, apparently more than London
• It's a very clean and modern feeling city
• I feel like I've ticked all the touristy stuff off here but I'd definitely stop here if I was coming past (I have a mate here now that I can see too)

A kangaroo water fountain. Not really sure why they chose a kangaroo

The shoes thrown over the power lines

The dragon bridge

Be careful on the castle!

Goon sacks on the power lines

Some dead fish sculptures on one of the bridges and of course, the padlock fad has been here

Some interesting street art in the Metelkovo area

More street art in the Metelkovo area

More street art in the Metelkovo area

More street art in the Metelkovo area

More street art in the Metelkovo area

Some strange signs in the Metelkovo area

More street art in the Metelkovo area

My horse sandwich

A strange thingo in the castle

Brass street sculptures. They're actually tiny faces, not horse shit

A panorama from the castle

The church had a picture of jesus dressed as Superman

The Hot Horse menu

I appreciate it when people are straight to the point

Some dragon sculptures

Ornate concrete poles

The theatre thing