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Croatia (20 - 30 September 2007)

Croatia, formally part of Yugoslavia, is in the south of central Europe, sitting on the other side of the Adriatic Sea east of Italy. It's a bloody weird shape for a country - kind of like a bunged boomerang - thanks to a long history of war in the region. The most recent was all that shit in the early 1990s, around the time Croatia told Yugoslavia to shove it and declared its independence (as did a few other countries around that time, eventually leading to the complete dissolution of Yugoslavia). I have vague memories of hearing about those wars on the news at the time, and taking completely no notice (as you wouldn't at ten years old). Tourism has only started to return to Croatia in recent years, and I saw no real obvious signs of those times during our ten days here.

As for this trip, Mo planned the bulk of it including destinations, accommodation (mostly camping), transport and so forth, and we were to meet up with a bunch of mates on the later in the trip. However, most of those plans ended up changing due to circumstance (mostly unreliable ferry times) - all part of the fun! :)

My hop to Croatia involved an overnight sleep in London's Gatwick Airport next to this whale so I could get the first flight out in the morning at 6am.		I picked a nice tropical-looking spot upstairs, and dozed off to the automated security messages over the PA about unattended bags and children being prohibited from riding on luggage trolleys.

After a short two-hour flight from London I was there! Check out the colour of the sea along the coastline!
I flew into the city of Split and met up with Mo in town (who had been gallivanting around Germany with friends for the week prior).
We had an hour's wander to find food for the six-hour coach ride to our first stop.

Split is the second-largest city in Croatia, and although the city centre is pretty nice, the outskirts are far from it. Our final night of the trip was spent here, but other than that we didn't get a chance to have a decent look around.		Big seafood market - smelly!		Hehehe!

Our first stop was Plitvice Lakes National Park, and the fucking long six-hour coach ride to get there went past little islands and marinas...
Some pretty nice coastal properties, each with their own boats of various sizes out front...
And into the huge mountain ranges that the region is renowned for (which made for a nice winding ride in the coach!).
The coach dumped us right at the entrance to the national park which (unbeknown to us at the time) was 10kms from the camp site with no real way of getting there, and all the hotels in the area were fully booked hahaha! It was looking as though we'd be pitching the tent in the middle of nowhere for the night until one of the hotel receptionists called her mate with this vacant apartment just 2kms up the road - perfect! Slightly more expensive than camping but bloody nice and a bloody good location (much better than the camp site as it turns out) so that all worked out for the best!		Croatia does a bloody good pizza, and these were just the first of many we stuffed in our faces during the trip! :)

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