On Thursday, we flew from Munich to Zagreb. We dropped off our bags at the hostel, walked toward downtown, and stopped at a park with a gazebo stage set up for live music later. We stopped at one of the food stands by the gazebo and got Indonesian food. It felt so nice to be in sunny weather after Munich! After lunch, we walked downtown and went inside the Zagreb Cathedral. Next, we went to the Dolac Market, where they had all kinds of flowers and fresh produce. We walked uphill to the more quaint Old Town and saw the Lotrczak Tower and a couple of churches. It was really quiet and peaceful in this part of town.
We walked back down through a park with walking trails and wandered downtown. We went to a couple other parks including the botanical gardens. We went back to Old Town to have dinner outside at a cute authentic restaurant. I tried the local white wine and had a chicken dish with potato, red pepper, zucchini, and onion.
After relaxing at the restaurant, we went back to the park and listened to a live singer. He was Croatian, but he sang popular English songs.
The next morning, we took a bus to Plitvice Lakes National Park. We got off the bus and cut through the park to get to our hotel. We dropped off our backpacks and went to the market to get some lunch food, then walked to the park entrance. We took a bus up to a high point at one end of the park and had lunch at a picnic table under the sun. We walked downhill on the paths winding in between waterfalls and through the woods.
Toward the bottom, there was a long line to take the ferry across the lake. We finally got on a ferry to the other side and then continued hiking. We got to see a double rainbow above one of the areas with a bunch of waterfalls and we went to a big waterfall where we could feel the mist.
We tried to continue on the path and started walking up some stairs, but I wasn’t sure it was the right way, so Maddie asked a woman if she knew if this was path H. She tried to speak English to us, but I heard her say “alors,” so I asked again in French. She said she wasn’t sure which path this was, but that we should get a good view from the top, so we went up. We took pictures from the top and then walked down and continued on the trail.
We took a bus back to the entrance, walked to the village, and checked in at our hotel. We walked across the street to a pizza place. We scarfed down our food and went back to the hotel to rest.
We ate a nice buffet breakfast outside at the hotel. Some of the jams and pastries looked homemade.
We walked to the bus stop where we talked to a couple from India who had just gotten married and a retired woman from Nevada. We talked about our trips and suggested places for each other to travel to. On the bus to Split, we drove through the mountains and stopped in a couple of coastal cities along the way. We had an hour and a half in Split, so we bought chicken wrap sandwiches and walked to the harbor to sit on a bench and eat. We walked around the town to see the pretty old buildings and Diocletian’s Palace, which was essentially the remains of an old fortress that now surrounds businesses and restaurants. We walked along the boardwalk and got on our bus.
We passed through Bosnia and Herzegovina, so the border police had to come on our bus and check all our passports. We were supposed to arrive in Dubrovnik by 7:30pm but didn’t get there until 8:20. Thankfully, we were driving through mountains and overlooking lakes and the sea, so we had nice scenery to enjoy during our long travel day. We got dropped off at the main bus station in Dubrovnik, which was about a 45-minute walk from our hostel. I thought it said online when I booked the bus that we would be dropped off about five minutes away from the hostel. There were a couple other people on the bus who were also confused about it and we realized they were staying at the same hostel as us. The lady at the information desk was not very helpful, but we were able to find a bus stop and got on a bus that took us over to where we were supposed to be dropped off. The guy was from Arizona and the girl was from Quebec. We walked through the old city walls to get to Old Town and walked up a bunch of stairs to our hostel.
The woman at the desk checked us in and told Maddie and I that we were actually staying at a separate building on the other side of Old Town. A guy from the hostel walked us to the other building. He told us where to go for dinner, so we went straight there after dropping off our bags. We both got black risotto with cuttlefish, which is supposed to be a good authentic dish here. It didn’t look appetizing, but it tasted great! After dinner, we met a group of people from the hostel at an Irish pub and then went with them to a club inside an old stone building. A lot of the places in Old Town felt like we were inside a castle.
On Sunday, we walked around Old Town for a while, walking in some churches and walking along the outer edge to see the water. We stopped and sat on some rocks where people go cliff jumping.
We met up with some people from the hostel and walked around with them and got gelato. Later, Maddie and I walked to Saint Jacob’s Beach. It started to rain, but they had a tiki hut where we took shelter.
After the rain settled down, we walked back and got food. We split an eggplant appetizer, vegetable risotto, and a cheese platter. We went back to the hostel and had wine with a bunch of people including the two we met from the bus. Everyone was telling each other about their travels. We sat outside on the terrace with a group of them. We met people from Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and Finland. We went out with some of them to a couple of Irish pubs. They had live music at the first pub and at the second one, they played classic hits. All of us Americans sang along obnoxiously to Sweet Caroline.
On Monday, we walked around to different art galleries and souvenir shops. We went back to the cliff jumping spot and met up with a group from the hostel. Maddie and some other people jumped off the cliff that was probably about 30 to 50 feet high. The spot was right by a restaurant, so everyone at the restaurant was leaning over the railing watching everyone jump and cheering them on. We went back to the hostel so they could dry off and then we all talked in the kitchen again because it was starting to rain. Maddie and I got wine, salami, and Croatian cheese and brought it back to the kitchen. The rain stopped around 4pm, so Maddie and I decided to try to walk west of Old Town to a different beach. We stopped at a park overlooking the water on the way.
Just before we got to the beach, it started pouring and we saw lightning, so we decided to go back to Old Town. We picked up salads for dinner and brought them to the kitchen. That night, we lay down in our beds and then we both looked at each other, realizing that neither of us was tired yet because we got used to staying up late. We didn’t know where to go without disturbing people who were trying to sleep, so we ended up walking outside in our pajamas. It felt surreal because who wears pajamas and walks around a quiet city that is normally packed with tourists? After laughing at how ridiculous it was, we wandered back to the hostel and sat on the steps inside. We talked to some people coming into the hostel until we felt tired enough to go to bed.
The Voyage Journal 