Korcula

On days three and four of the Great Croatian Adventure, I got in an argument with a Croatian waiter about losing my most favouritist hat, developed a wicked case of conjunctivitis and almost fell down a ladder.

So hatless, glassed and with knee pains, we visited the Island of Korcula, a queit respite between the bookends of Dubrovnik and Hvar. Korcula is known for its atypically sandy beach, plentiful local wine and the bar in a turret up a ladder. Our first glimpses did not disappoint:
The Old Town was built just before Venetian (or Roman) occupation and is designed like a fish skeleton to protect and harness the wind blowing from all sides of the sea. Ingenius! (and pretty cool looking).



Due to various snafus in ferry schedules, we ended up spending three and a halfish days on the island, but oddly. Two days on the way to Hvar, one point five days on the way back from Hvar. So we stayed in two different places but stuck to seeing pretty much the same things.

I've never travelled for three weeks in one fell swoop, and at 13 days in, all I wanted was a beach. so we beached ourselves here:

sandwiched behind these:


Then we cocktailed. In a turret. At night. Where we had to climb a fireman's ladder that the picture doesn't show. In dresses.

and some of this was involved:
at roughly £5 for a litre bottle, we were pretty happy to soak up tourists and bad accordian busking in the centre of town

Other scattered images of two days of rest...




up next, the impending hedonism of hvar...

Dubrovnik (dia dos)

In a perfect world, the internet would work and i'd like my job. But I live in London so we'll settle for what we can get. My ex-housemate and travel buddy actually commented on this situation recently. She's working in Pakistan now where her internet connection is better. Stand proud London, stand proud.

But I digress. The point of my bitter quips is that the rest of Summer 2010, half term(s) May and October 2010 probably won't happen till i hit michiganland at christmas in three weeks. But at this point and in a few weeks, I suppose it will still be nice to reminisce about summer Jennifer, that rare unstressed creature smelling faintly of sunscreen and hope.

So Dubrovnik.

We started by fighting our way through the bodies on Banja Beach. that wasn't fun. we wanted to have fun. so we got on a boat to an 'isolated island'. Liars.

south side of the harbour (i could totally be making up the south part of this caption, but it sounds good, doesn't it?)

some hidden cove on the island of Lokrum, a 40 kuna swindle of a boat ride away from Dubrovnik

they say no photos but they don't really mean it

After getting delightfully lost on this little island, we motored back to maniacville for a three-hour-tour of the city walls. This is where Dubrovnik shines. There were still a million people, but it somehow didn't seem to matter.

perhaps the prettiest views ever

the isle of Lokrum with its nudist colony from the city walls







my classy travel buddies (two brits, an australian and an american...With the power of these nationalities combined we could've annoyed entire busloads of europeans. And yet, we didn't. And we actually didn't kill each other. well, until Hvar, at least.)

I think the highlight was brilliant, cheap seafood and wine at Lokanda Peskarija right on the cove. Fresh squid, prawns, smelt and mussels for pre-war prices. ah, local recommendations always win out in the end.

But I stick with my initial impressions of this city. Tres beautiful. Tres far too many people.

Dubrovnik (day one)

After bidding adieu to Jen, i joined up with Matt and Rosa to pick up Anita and Natasha, who flew in from London. The bus station was busy. The town was worse.

A bajillion and five tourists have officially heard about Dubrovnik. My friends and I were those extra five, perhaps five too many.
The UNESCO walled city's opening gates felt like the entrance to Disneyland, minus all the magic. Cordoned off ropes directed us in and out, hordes of people gnawed on smelly food and a bajillion tourists had to get a picture in front of that plinth or that column or that person dressed up in a funny costume. Hideous!

but beautiful!


we avoided the Old Town during the day as much as possible and instead crammed ourselves onto an impossibly small beach full of an enormous number of impossibly small people in impossibly small swimsuits. There were boat rides, nudist colonies, bad seafood, great seafood and an american hostel owner.

Other side of the city walls

They aint lying

The Most Beautiful View

Nothing remarkably exciting happened. This entry's pretty boring. I'll leave it at that.

end of Kotor and onto Dubrovnik

We finished off our 1.7 day stay in Kotor with Montenegren Salads--a compilation of sheep's cheese, cucumber, tomatoes and oil. clearly, i'm excited about the impending hop north of the border back to Croatiaville, or maybe i just love cheese that much.

In the grand tradition of summer 2010 bus trips, we got on, yet another delightful coach heading from Kotor to Dubrovnik where Jen would make her way back to sunny London. The bus was rammed full of Montenegran, Croatian and Italian tourists so our choice was to stand for the winding two-hour journey or sit here:
In this amount of space, I was able to bend half of my dodgy knee, cough on Jen and massage the head of the rather dopey Montenegran woman sitting in front of me. She had dandruff and needed to get her roots done. This is a real-time example of exactly how much space we had:



Midway through the journey, Jen and I both gained a rather persistent case of bussickness exacerbated by the beautiful-yet-windy bus route around the fjord (basically if we could've traveled in a straight line through the water, we'd have arrived in thirty minutes) and the lack of 'air' blowing from the 'air conditioning'. Bad hair lady didn't seem to mind. She just made sure her six-year-old daughter had more leg room than she had legs. que lastima!





The rather ridiculous journey was punctuated by a pass through Croatian customs where our bus conductor played a mean trick on the Italians in the back of the coach who, when the bus left the customs stand, thought their passports were left in the office. It culminated with a lot of 'WE HAVE TO GO BACK' shouting, storming up the aisle and tears. Then Mr. bus conductor pulled the passports out of his sleeve and smiled sardonically. minus the Italians, the entire bus jeered, and our Mediterannean friends remained rather quiet for the rest of the journey.

Arrival in Dubrovnik was relative chaos compared to our first ten days...and that's leg one of the summer 2010 travels!