Clueless about Croatia?

 Last August my boyfriend and I spontaneously decided to go to Croatia for 12 days. We agreed before going to skip fancy hotels and simply travel, staying at each destination for around 2 nights. Choosing places to visit was effortless, all that was needed was google maps and a book on Croatia. Mapping out our journey was fairly easy. We packed light, with only hand luggage to carry around. Our flights were booked through sky scanner and our accommodation through hostel bookers and hostel world.



Where to go and where to stay


Since we chose to fly to Zadar, which is almost smack bang in the middle of the country (and the cheapest on Skyscanner; if you don't know about Skyscanner then you need to check it out - http://www.skyscanner.net), we had to make the decision whether we were going to travel North or South, since doing both would take too long. We chose to travel South, with the exception of one place; Plitvice lakes, which was slightly North and in land (around 2/3 hours) from Zadar, but it looked too good to miss out on. If you do decide to visit Plitvice lakes (which I do highly recommend as the waterfalls are very impressive), you should know that you can't swim here, you can however go swimming in Krka lakes, which is further south, but also worth a trip (I'll make a post comparing these soon). Both do student discount so make sure to take your student card if you're a student as you get almost 50% off your tickets. As we went at the end of August/beginning of September, surprisingly it was very cold at Plitvice during this time, so I'd definitely recommend going earlier in the Summer or taking warm clothes and waterproofs if you decide to go late August or onwards. I wouldn't recommend staying in Jezerce, as it was quite a walk from the lakes (through a forest) and from the shop in Mukinje. After choosing our destinations, we booked our first 4 nights of accommodation on hostel bookers. I'd never stayed in a hostel before so this idea did frighten me a little, but almost every 'hostel' in Croatia are apartments, and private double rooms with en-suites are not scarce. Hostel bookers also have the e-mail addresses of the owners, so it is worth e-mailing them if theres limited availability, as Croatian hospitality is second to none, and they will always arrange a room for you. I'd definitely recommend staying at 'Apartments Mira' which is in Bibinje (pronounced Bibin-yeah - a 10 minute drive from Zadar). Mira's husband (couldn't speak English) fetched us from the airport for free, and on arrival Mira gave us croissants, coffee and homegrown handpicked figs (also for free). She was the sweetest, hardworking lady who tried her very best to learn and speak English. She gave us bikes (yes you got it - for free!) which we used to explore Bibinje and cycle into Zadar (around 20 mins, but mostly flat and easy and plenty of places to lock your bike up and walk around the city). Everything in Bibinje was so cheap in comparison with Zadar, so staying here then cycling into Zadar rather than staying there was ideal. Definitely visit the big diving boards in Zadar and the old town. I'd also recommend staying in Skradin (whilst visiting Krka lakes). We stayed in Vila Marija, which was absolutely beautiful and above a restaurant which served yummy food. Funnily enough, vila Marija was the nicest yet cheapest place we stayed (we even had a balcony!). The boats came regularly to transport you to Krka lakes, which was such a pretty sight. I'd also recommend visiting Trogir (an old UNESCO protected town) and Supetar which is on an island called Brac, which you can get a boat to from Split. Split was very expensive in comparison to the rest of the places we stayed, but a very modern city, where cocktail bars and designer shops could be found within the old ruins. We stayed in apartments Zuvan where we extended our stay by an extra night because we had such good sleep in the huge double bed. There was an awesome forest on the coast of Split which Mr.Zuvan recommended we visited. It was lovely to walk through and to find a spot to sunbathe then go snorkelling. All the locals used this forest like a jogging/cycling place. We didn't venture to the most famous Croatian town, Dubrovnik, since it was so far South and so busy during the peak season.





Plitvice lakes.



Exploring Bibinje & Zadar on the bikes Mira gave us.




What/where to eat/drink


Definitely have a Karlovacko (the beer of Croatia, which they consistently served lovely and cold). Alcohol in general was cheaper than soft drinks. If you do stay in Bibinje, the restaurant opposite Mira's apartment (pizza lasagne restaurant) did yummy food for so cheap. The first night we had a pizza, carbonara, a beer and a glass of wine for 100kuna (£10.80). There are little bakeries everywhere called "Pekarna's" which did awesome pastries, donuts, strudels, bread etc. Definitely give a cheese strudel a go! Try a fig if a local offers you one as they are so fresh and homegrown. In every supermarket there's a bakery, meat and cheese section, so making packed lunches for our travels was ideal and super cheap. If you're a fan of olives, they do grow some yummy ones here. Croatian pizzas are amazing, so you have to try at least one (Harry had one everyday..). The local coffee is very strong, so bare this in mind if you're not a regular coffee drinker. If you decide to visit Zadar, get a calzone!!!





Harry eating his yummy calzone in the old town of Zadar.











Traveling


Buses were so regular from almost everywhere. The only place we struggled with transportation was Skradin as they're not so regular from here. All of the coaches are really nice and fairly cheap. We paid around £10 ish each for an average 2 hour coach journey. We did get a local bus one day which was also fairly new, clean and cheap. The new, main road built through Croatia makes travelling all around the country really easy.











Truelove's top ten tips

1. Look out for secret paths in the national parks to get under waterfalls (you're not allowed but it's so cool).

2. Take a little fishing line and try and catch some fishies (but not in the national parks as its illegal).

3. Definitely take a snorkel - the water is too clear not to (we found octopus, crabs, starfish..)

4. The j's in Coratia are pronounced like y's.

5. Don't visit Okrug beach on Brac (unless you like Benidorm).

6. You probably won't find a sandy beach.

7. They call ice creams "slags"..

8. Take only hand luggage (it's less hassle and the drivers of the coach don't charge you to store).

9. Take any medicine you may need just in case (it costs a lot to see a doctor/get a prescription).

10. If you visit Split, learn to breathe through your mouth at the harbour, it's a bit smelly.

Poor little starfish.

Go easy, I'm new to this..

 So it's 01:41 and I've finally found some time and ambition to start something I've really wanted to do for a long time. I'm completely new to the blogging world, and I've never written anything like this before, but since I've finally had some time on my hands, I thought I'd give it a go.

 I'm aware that the internet is currently occupied by thousands of travel writers, eager to share their experiences of the world, so whether anyone will even read this seems pretty ambitious right now, but it would be really cool if the needle you found in that haystack was mine. All I really wanna do is share how amazing the world is, through my eyes, even if that means one person reads this, my goal has already been achieved and I will be one happy bunny! I'm only 19 years old, and I know I have a lot of travelling and learning ahead of me yet, but I'd love to share my travel experiences and if someone even liked a small aspect of what I wrote, that would put the biggest smile on my face. Some constructive criticism would be amazing. I have no idea what angle to take with this yet and I am completely new to the blogging/travel writing scene, so go easy on me!

 Before I actually start writing any official posts, I thought it would be best that I wrote a sort of 'introductory' post, in order to explain why I've decided to write a blog sharing my travels in the first place...

 Ever since I can remember, I've always loved to travel. Starting from a young age I was really fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to some amazing places all around the world. Most of my friends in school hadn't even ventured outside the little town we lived, let alone to a different continent. It's not until lately that I've realised how lucky I was to have had those opportunities, and I feel it's definitely made me a more confident and open minded person today. My memories of these earlier holidays are vague, however my experiences, of what to me were the most notable countries I'd visited, I remember very well. Rastafarians, reggaeton, the dutty wine and the sweet taste of sugar cane. These people with funny looking hair, dancing oddly to music I'd never heard. It was all new to me. We filled our suitcases with that sweet tasting sugar cane, "better than sweets" the big Jamaican lady said. She sat preparing the plant on the side of the road outside our guarded Holiday Inn hotel, dressed in rags. She asked for what was pennies to us and we bought the whole lot. She couldn't have had a bigger smile on her face and we had sugar cane to last us weeks. Hookah pipes, the dead sea and sand, lots of it, comes to the mind when I think of our travels to Egypt. 10 years old, and I couldn't believe my mother was letting me smoke! They were of course tobacco free, fruit hookahs, but nonetheless, I felt badass. I'd never really saw a fish in real life, apart from a couple of goldfish we'd had, so when we snorkelled coral reef with thousands of different fish swimming around our feet and I swallowed a load of sea water in awe and threw up, I shouldn't have been surprised. This was the first time I saw a rainbow parrot fish, the most colourful living thing I had ever seen. The whole reef seemed like a rainbow to me. I feel these earlier travels to such interesting places with such interesting, different people, had a massive impact on how my passion for travelling and Geography developed. Being a white, young, British female, coming from a predominantly white area, seeing and meeting people of a different colour was a new experience to me, and I was instantly intrigued to learn how these people from different countries lived. Forget glaciology and the geomorphology of rivers, the main reasons I chose to study Geography at University is because I love learning about different countries and cultures, even the most smallest of tribes in the most obscure of places.

*Here is where I'm supposed to provide you with one of those terribly cliched quotes on how travelling broadens the mind.*

 As amazing as my earlier travel experiences were, looking back I felt something was missing, like I wasn't getting the full experience and that's when I came to realise that these experiences were just holidays where we were guarded and gated both inside the hotels we occupied and inside ourselves. I don't want to have the tourist experience. To me, the tourist view is boring, benign, buying into false representations of how native people live. I want to experience these places as the native people would, and that would be the only real way to truly gain any sort of true understanding of how these cultures live. I want to drink authentic mint tea and eat homemade lamb tajines in Morocco, drink from coconuts and eat homemade jerk chicken in Jamaica and handpick and eat fresh, homegrown figs in Croatia. I want to experience their world through their eyes. I want to taste not only their food but the richness each culture has to provide, and so, here I am today, either out there, experiencing the world or sat right here, writing about it.