Croatia

Get ready Croatia! Here come the Johnson-Leck's. Get ready blog readers. Here comes a bunch of pictures of waterfalls. Fair warning. 

We had an aggressive agenda for Croatia and decided that the best way to see the country was to rent a

car so we could move at our own pace. We also prioritized national parks which were kind of out in the middle of nowhere. 

We disembarked the ship early in the morning (Jen managed a quick hello to a treasured colleague from SLiCE, Rachel, who had traveled to Croatia to visit her partner, Melissa, who is sailing as a Residence Director on the voyage) and made our way to the Dubrovnik airport to rent a car. 

Immediately after pulling up the rental car the guy who rented us the car said, “Manual is ok,

no?” and Chris said with confidence “Of course!” His first car (more than a few years ago) was a manual transmission so he was pretty sure it would all come back after a few trials. We all loaded up, ready to pull to pull out and…CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK (transmission noises) (horrifying transmission noises). The rental car guy lifted an eyebrow and Chris gave it all the gas, gently released the clutch and off we went! For the record, other than that tiny mishap, Chris fully regained his manual driving skills after a 20+ year break (under some pretty hilly/challenging driving conditions, too! Chris: Seriously hilly and challenging conditions!).

Our destination was Split, the most populous coastal city in Croatia. We opted to take the scenic

drive of the Dalmatian Coast which was absolutely breathtaking. We lucked out with it being winter

because during the summer (when the tourists come in full force) it’s so popular with buses that it turns

into a parking lot and is basically unusable. The coast of Croatia is dotted with a variety of islands and

small peninsulas making for a really dynamic and interesting coastline (not to mention the most amazing place to view a sunset). 

We arrived in early evening looking for our Airbnb which was located in the heart of the old city. The old, walled city. It looks like Diagon Alley. Narrow streets that twist and turn, dead end, and turn into staircases that lead to a whole other part of the city. 

Our Airbnb host was to meet us at the place, but it was almost impossible to find. Meandering through unlabeled, multileveled ancient cobblestone streets, we somehow managed to find the place (which was awesome). 

No joke. We had to walk through the basement of a castle to get to our place. 

After dropping our stuff we explored around the city which contained an amazing church (mostly Catholic in Croatia), some really cool public plazas, a park, statues, and a bunch of signs which told us a little bit about the city.

We sat down at a Mexican restaurant for dinner – a total surprise given our location, and a treat since

Mexican food has been super scarce since we departed in December. The place was managed by an

American from Seattle who moved from the U.S. because he felt like his lifestyle in the U.S. was

dominated by work, worry about expensive cost of living, and not enough leisure time. He informed us

that there are so many tourists in Croatia that he basically only works in the summertime and spends his

free time taking a small boat to islands on the coast exploring with his friends. There were

some good nuggets of wisdom in that conversation. Throughout the whole voyage, one of the takeaways for our kids has been that there are many, many ways to live a life. And maybe leaving the US to island hop and bartend could be a real possible way to live instead of the American 9-5 job with a picket fence.

We made our way on day two to Krka National Park, located just north and east from Split. Krka is

notable for its waterfalls, which were POURING water this time of year. We took a bus into the heart of

the park where visitors are dropped to walk along walkways which weave over and around the

waterfalls and lakes. 

Meandering the paths was a really cool experience. The sound was such that we were tempted to record the water and use it as a white noise machine while sleeping. The rushing is loud, and consistent, and you’re close to it for a long, long time. 

We did warn you about the number of waterfall pictures, right? And we're not even halfway done!

We spent several hours enjoying the walk and the waterfalls/pools before taking the bus back to our car. From there, we drove to the north end of the park which is more off the beaten path, but home to the tallest waterfall in Krka. We hiked down what seemed like a very STEEP trail to be wowed again by some amazing views.

Feeling pretty pooped by this point, we made our way to another gorgeous town on the Dalmatian coast

called Zadar to spend the night. We’ve stayed in some VERY awesome places on this journey and this

spot was noteworthy for a couple of reasons, most importantly it was located on the 5th floor with an

amazing view of the sea from a beautiful patio. The patio contained not one, but TWO SWINGS. The

boys immediately hopped in and began rocking as the adults took in the views and started searching up

the cost of real estate in Zadar on our phones.

That evening, we walked over a small bridge from our Air B and B to a small peninsula jutting into the

sea for some sunset views and the requisite “jumping photo.” We managed to find an amazing Italian

restaurant was great homemade pasta, pizza, and risotto. All went to bed happy, fully, and tired after a

great day of activities.

The morning view from our place. There were several people rowing up and back.

Not getting enough of the amazing Croatian National Parks, we set our sites on another park – Plitvicka

National Park, the oldest and most popular National Park in Croatia. Like Krka, this park is also famous

for waterfalls. 

We were gifted with another perfect weather day (uncommon for this time of year) and were able to explore the walkways near the waterfall, some amazing views, and even a short ferry ride across one of the small lakes leading to the waterfalls. The color of the lakes was mesmerizing.

Because it’s considered “winter” here, there were very, very few visitors there (although we could tell from the size of the parking lots, restaurants, hotels, etc. that they were capable of handling LOTS and LOTS of visitors during the high season) so we were able to really enjoy it at our own pace without having to also navigate many other tourists.

Chris was scheduled to be on call the next day, so we hopped into our trusty vehicle for a 4.5 hour drive

back to Dubrovnik. It’s worth noting that the roads in Croatia are really, really nice. About half of the

ride home we spent on a toll road which was super smooth, well maintained, and had an abundance of large, and LONG tunnels under some BIG mountains. We passed through small villages, some farms

with cows and sheep, and many orchards. It was a really scenic drive, particularly as we neared

Dubrovnik and the sun began to set. It reinforced our belief that the best sunsets to be viewed on

Semester at Sea are, in fact, in Croatia.

Dubrovnik is considered the “pearl” of the Mediterranean. Today it’s more commonly known as the set

for the Game of Thrones TV show. We were excited to have the entire day to explore it on foot. We

dropped the rental car in the morning and had the whole day to wander the old city. Like Split, Old

Dubrovnik is a walled city. It looks just like a castle from the outside, but is more than that – it has fully

functioning city inside the protective walls. 

The cool thing about the walls in Dubrovnik is that you can walk on top of them, circling the city– a 1.5 mile jaunt if you do the whole thing. We were treated with amazing views of the city inside, the sea, the port, and nearby Lokram Island (where there is another national park. But the ferry doesn't run in the winter or we would have dragged those kids on some MORE trails!). 

One of the highlights of Dubrovnik  was a fully groomed Pomeranian which slept on a table in a small shop and it’s BFF, a pug who did daily walks circling the commercial part of the city. Jen did her best to camouflage the pug as a “souvenir Croatia pillow” and shove it into her backpack, but nobody fell for it – whomp, whomp. A note for the animal lovers out there: Like Cyprus and Greece, Croatia had a lot of outdoor cats meandering the towns, BUT dogs (on leashes) out numbered them. Perhaps we are sailing into dog territory as we make our way west? We’ll see!

We completed our day in the old town with requisite ice cream cone and quickly hit a nearby shopping area to buy sweatpants for the boys (no surprises here--Wally has grown 3 inches and Guthrie has put holes in everything he owns) before heading back to the ship for the night.

Our last day in Croatia was marked by the very first day of rain that we’ve had on the entire voyage!

While Colorado has weathered an unseasonably cold and miserable winter, we’ve made out like bandits

with warm temperatures in most places, and mild/unseasonably warm temperatures in the Mediterranean. It was all good, though, because we had seen our top outdoor priorities and wanted to

visit a few indoor museums in Old Dubrovnik (and also do something we haven’t done at all up until this point – take a few hours in port to access reliable Wi-Fi to complete a few computer tasks that have

been lingering).

After picking up pastries from our favorite shop the day before, we visited the monastery, the oldest

apothecary in Europe (wow!), a memorial to the men who defended the city in the “Homeland War” in

the early 1990s, an art museum, a couple of interesting churches, and most memorably, the natural

science museum with some really high quality “stuffed animals.” Around lunch time it started to rain a

little harder and we escaped into a casual restaurant for some lunch and Wi-Fi time. We finished our

visit by taking the bus to a grocery store near the ship to load up on snacks – Oreos, pringles, and

gummy snacks being the most coveted items.

Croatia is a place that holds some interesting tensions. It is a stunningly beautiful country – the

coastlines, the walled cities, the mountains, the waterfalls, the national parks, the islands, the sea, the

farms, the wineries, the orchards—it is as pretty as any place we have visited on this voyage. 

It’s not surprising that this Mediterranean gem has quickly moved from an “off the beaten path” European travel destination to a country that is flocked with thousands and thousands of tourists in the summer high season. It’s a very appealing destination for travelers of all different tastes. 

That said, a war ravaged this place 30 years ago – within Chris and Jen’s lifetime. Both of us have clear memories of hearing about the war in Yugoslavia and the ethnic cleansing that happened here in the 90s, although neither of us tracked the details of what was going on very well. 

Our travels took us within a few miles of Sarajevo, a place ravaged by the war, and which was profiled regularly on American news broadcasts in the 90s. The scars of that war linger in the memories of the people and in their history. Every city we visited had information about the impacts of the war – the people lost, the damage to infrastructure and buildings (old and new). That conflict is fresh (relatively speaking). That said, the country seems to be thriving, for the most part completely rebuilt, and from an outsider’s perspective, tolerant and peaceful.

It makes one consider how values such as resilience, hope, and healing have been embedded in the

people here to make the current reality possible. We really appreciated our visit, especially knowing a

little bit about the history that occurred here not long ago.