Croatia: September 2004 Archives
Hvar Island is reportedly the sunniest spot in Croatia--2724 hours of sunshine per year. That was part of the reason we decided to come here, we were getting a little tired of clouds and rain. Hvar didn't disappoint. Even though it was drizzling a bit when we arrived on the boat (enough so that the guestroom hawkers that met the boat were trying to convince us that it was no weather to camp in and we should therefore stay at their place), the weather today is absolutely beautiful. We feel like we're in Paradise here! Our camp ground is in the tiny village of Milna, about 3 km from Hvar town. We took a crowded bus there yesterday (it was so full that we thought we were going to have to get out and push it up the hill) without knowing whether it was even open. Luckily it is--it's perfect. We have a gorgeous view of the ocean right from our tent. Today we hiked along the rocks by the ocean and through rosemary bushes back to Hvar town to take care of some errands. Tomorrow we plan on spending all day on the beach (hopefully the weather will cooperate). We're not sure of our plans after this. Unfortunately it's not going to work out to meet Michael's brother in Greece or in Turkey, so we'll just have to see.
Sorry there aren't any photos yet--the connection is way too slow here and the other day they wouldn't let us because of security reasons. We'll keep trying though, bye for now!
(The title is named after our favorite bank that we see everywhere around here: Splitska Banka)
(We've added a few different entries so you might want to start with the updated 'Zagreb to Sibenik' entry to read it in oder)
We woke up trying to come to terms with the fact that our ipod was gone ("We won't have as much to carry now", "we could have lost something much more important", "this is a lesson in not becoming attached to material things", etc...) We enjoyed our breakfast by the ocean and then Michael went ahead into town to the internet cafe to change various passwords that he thought might have been stored on the ipod. I went to the bus station to see if maybe they had a lost and found. The two women working there were so friendly and went out of their way to try to communicate with me and help that even though they couldn't find the ipod, I left in good spirits. The internet cafe where I was supposed to meet Michael was closed so not knowing where he was, I decided to stop by the restaurant we had eaten at, just in case the ipod had slipped out of my bag there. I asked a waiter there, and he replied calmy, as if he'd been waiting for me, "Yes, I have it. Wait here". It seemed too good to be true, so I tried not to get my hopes up as I waited. But sure enough, we walked back out with the ipod in his hands! Thank you Ante and thank you Restoron Fontana!
I left relieved and elated, but I still had no idea where Michael was. We had walked by another internet cafe the day before, but finding it through the maze of little alleys was not easy. After passing the same corner (and same group of British folks) about three times, I finally found it, also closed and also no Michael. I left a note saying to meet me in the main square, then walked back to the first internet cafe. There I found a note from Michael (that he'd written 5 minutes earlier) saying that he also was trying to find the second cafe! I wrote back on his note and then sat down in the main square for a cappucino as I tried to figure out the best way to surprise Michael with the good news. He found me a few minutes later, but I didn't even get a chance to use my rehearsed lines because he'd been to the restaurant too and knew that I had the ipod.
Again, this thing is getting too long! Let me sum up the rest of our experiences today: We love love love Trogir and highly reccomend it to everyone! We took a bus to Split (another beautiful but much bigger town), saw more Mestrovic sculptures (I've decided he's my favorite artist), and checked out times for the boat tomorrow to Hvar island, our next stop.
Saturday, September 25th
We awoke to a drizzly, cold and windy morning. Reluctantly, we crawled out of our warm sleeping bags, had a quick breakfast and asked the owner of Camping Krka when the bus to Sibenik would be coming by so we could catch a ride to the medieval island town of Trogir. He told us the bus arrived at 11AM, which left us about an hour and a half to pack up our tent and get our things together.
At 10:45AM we headed for the bus stop and waited until noon and still no bus came. The owner drove us a few kilometers up the road to another bus stop and told us (in Croatian) something to the effect of "Wait here, the bus will be right along. I promise." He could have been more truthful and said "Wait here, in the cold, while you're knocked around by gale-force winds, and then the bus will come. I think."
We were not alone at the new bus stop; there were some locals waiting there too which reassured us that we were in a more promising place. However, we began to doubt our situation as each one, cold and tired of waiting, stuck his thumb out and hitched a ride into town. We consulted our travelbook on the status of hitch-hiking in Croatia and, seeing that it was relatively safe, decided to give it a try. Car after car passed us by without even slowing down to see where it was we wanted to go. We even tried flagging down a school bus but the driver simply shook his head and sped on by as the children stared out the windows at the two frozen Americans with the big backpacks.
Another hour passed and finally our bus arrived. We hopped in, plopped down in our seats and began to de-thaw. The moral of the story as we learned is: check the schedule for your return trip before leaving town so you're not stuck relying on someone else's memory of bus times.
Once back in Sibenik we took the 2PM bus to downtown Trogir and walked 2 kilometers to our next home, Camping Seget. In order to have an uninhibited view over the blue-green waters of Splitski Channel we pitched our tent at the edge of the property. We headed back into Trogir to check out the old town which was named a Unesco World Heritage site back in 1997. The dark, winding alleys and side streets of the 15th century city provided us with hours of fun.
Tired from the days events we decided to treat ourselves to our first sit-down dinner in a restaurant (that we actually paid for ourselves). We chose the Fontana Restaurant because it sits right on the harbour and, according to our guide book, is where local Croatians go when dining out. We had a delicious dinner of salted sardines, mixed salads, grilled calimari and Frute di Mari pizza. We left downtown Trogir and walked the 2km back to our tent and settled in for the night.
Just before we said goodnight I decided I wanted to listen to our iPod for a bit. Megan looked in her hand bag (where it's always been kept) but couldn't find it. We tore apart the tent looking for it to no avail - our iPod was gone. We retraced our steps from that day, looked around our tent with flashlights but found nothing. Exhausted and disappointed, we decided to go to sleep and deal with it in the morning.
It was close, but we made it to the train on time. We switched trains in Salzburg and then enjoyed our 7 hour ride to Zagreb in a compartment all to ourselves. We caught up on sleep, read up on Croatia, and found out that almost half of the songs on our ipod had mysteriously disappeared. Random songs are simply gone! It was disappointing especially after spending a lot of time at Henni’s adding more songs and albums, but we’re over it and ready to be surprised each time we listen to an album.
We arrived in Zagreb around 4:30 and hopped on a tram to the Children’s Theater where Roman works as the general manager (Roman is a family friend of Emily, Michael’s colleague at Envision. She gave us his information when she found out we were going to Zagreb. We contacted him with the idea of simply meeting for coffee, but he immediately invited us to stay with his family.) He showed us around the Theater and then we drove to his appartment. He, his wife Daniella, and three children Dora, Karlo and Fran welcomed us warmly into their home, and Karlo even let us have his room—thank you Karlo! After a bite to eat, Roman gave us an initial tour of Zagreb by night—including our first delicious (and big) Croatian ice cream!
The next morning we met Roman at the theater and got a peak at their current show—Peter Pan. We then met the art director Nina, her son Ivan, and Gordon (aka Kinderinno, but more on that later). Ivan and Gordon took us on another tour of the city. We got to hear the daily canon sound at noon, ride the Uspinjača to the upper part of the city, see the beautiful National Theater, the cathedral, and the market. We also tasted the local street vendor specialty—Kukuruz (grilled corn). We highly reccommend it! We also had time to talk and joke. We found out that Gordon is currently working at Roman’s theater as “Kinderinno”, the Kinder Egg mascot (the theater gets money from the Ferrarro company and therefore has to advertise in that way). He told us all about the daily abuse he gets from school kids who see him as a huge punching bag.
After a tasty lunch prepared by Daniella and a short walk around Jarun lake right by their apartment, Roman took us to Kumrovec, the birthplace of Tito. The entire village has been transformed into a recreation of a 19th century village—kind of like Sturbridge Village in Mass. The only big difference is that Kumrovec is not all commercialized and touristy. We were just about the only ones there, didn’t pay anything, and they weren’t selling souvenirs.
This morning we hurried to the Theater once again, this time to catch Gordon as Kinderinno. He told us afterward that we experienced the friendliest group of kids—no serious injuries this time.
Oops, out of time again. We have to catch the night train down to the coast (Sibenik). We’ll have to catch up from there! Thank you Roman, Daniella, Nina, Ivan and Gordon—our time here in Zagreb was made very special because of you!
Update 9/23-9/25
Let me pick up where I left off... Seeing that giant Kinder Egg was like a dream come true and it took me back to my semester in Siena when Charlotte and I would eat at least one a day and ended up with a huge collection of toys (we even had big plans to make a game out of them, but that never did end up happening).
We sat in the theater cafe with Gordon for a while after that, Nina showed up and we arranged to meet her later at the Museum of Modern Art. We went into the city with Gordon and visited the Mestrovic studio. Ivan Mestrovic (1883-1962) was a famous Croatian sculptor who ended up emigrating to the US and became a professor at the University of Notre Dame. We were all mesmorized by his work (so much so that we went to see more of his work today in Split)and the house itself was beautiful too.
We stopped at a Cafe for a bit after that (it's one of our favorite things to do here in Croatia--I love the comfy wicker chairs!) The museum that we wanted to see with Nina was closed, so instead she drove us up to Mirogoj, a beautiful cemetary built by architect Herman Bolle. It's surrounded by an arcade and looks more like a fortress from the outside. A lot of famous Croatians are buried there, including the first president, Franjo Tudman. Nina's grandparents are also burried there, we got to visit their grave and hear stories about them.
On our way back down Nina explained an anti-European Union billboard that we passed. Croatia is moving toward joining the EU, but a lot of people are against it. The billboard was basically saying that if Croatia joins the EU, people will face terrorism and won't be able to buy tradional meats anymore (because the small local producers won't be able to meet the strict EU standards). I can't remember the name of the meat (can you help us Nina?) but we got to try it at the special restaurant that Nina took us to (which doesn't even have a sign outside, only locals know about it). There we drank honey schnapps and sampled meats and cheeses while Nina entertained us with funny stories about her one-and-only vacation to the coast with her husband. (You're a great storyteller Nina, we keep talking about it!)
Then it was back to "our family" for dinner, packing, and a little Croatian 'Who wants to be a Millionaire' (it's not a very good deal for them though, since you divide by six to get dollars). Roman and Daniella then gave US gifts (I guess it wasn't enough for them to house and feed us for 2 days!). Thank you for the chocolates--I love the blue ones and Michael favors the cherry so it works out well! Daniella also packed us enough sandwiches to last for the whole next day.
We ended up having to switch onto a bus about 1 hour into our ride because of construction on the tracks (apparently the rail company bought fancy new trains that they can't use yet because the tracks are too old!) We arrived in Sibenik early in the morning, wandered around town, sat at a cafe on the water, and then got on a bus to Krka national park. Unfortunately we got off at the wrong stop and ended up having to walk almost 5km to the campground. We set up our tent (for the first time this trip!) then headed to the park (this time via a short cut we learned from the owners).
Now I feel like I'm rambling so I'll try to make it short. The park was beautiful. From the dry, almost desert-like land above, you go down into this lush green valley. There's a wooden walkway that leads you over the river and waterfall after waterfall. At the bottom are the big falls and then an area of calm water where I jumped in for a swim. The weather started to turn dark and cold so we caught the boat and bus back to the campground. We stayed warm and cozy in our tent as it stormed all night outside.
