Monday, April 18, 2011

Croatia


The past two weeks have been almost at extreme opposites of one another. I spent a week in Croatia (thanks to a ridiculously cheap 22 euro ryanair flight!) and spent the other week working non-stop on my thesis (which is coming along! I'm starting to look at dates for flying home.) Obviously, the more interesting/fun of these two was the week in Croatia.


My Quebecois friend, Chris, and I booked the cheap flight to Croatia almost as an insurance policy. We both had a lot of work to do, but since it was so ridiculously cheap, we decided we might as well buy it and then if we hadn't finished our work, it would only cost us 22 euros. Neither of us knew much about Croatia, except that it was not that long ago that the country was in the midst of war after the fallout of Yugoslavia, and that it was supposed to be a beautiful place. So, we packed our bags and hopped over to Zadar.


Zadar is an older city in Croatia. We found a hostel in the center of old town, which was on a small peninsula between a bay and the sea. On the one side was a massive city wall left over from Roman times, and the other side was an open view onto the sea and surrounding islands. Zadar was really a beautiful place, although we found the individuals from Zadar to not be the most friendly. For example, we heard a bunch of people singing and playing instruments at a bar, but as soon as we approached to sit and have a drink and listen to their music, they stopped playing and stared at us. When we turned around to go, they started playing and laughing again. We're not sure why, but it was a bit discomforting. Besides that, Zadar was excellent.


We took a day out to the island of Ugljan and were the first people to rent the new mountain bikes they had purchased for the upcoming tourist season. We spent the entire day biking around the island. We were given a map, and tried to follow it, but found that the signs on the island were pretty poorly placed and designed, and that "bike train" really meant anything that was larger than 1 foot wide. We rode down steep rocky hills, through bike trails, and under fallen trees. It was an excellent day, but not something that we had been warned of while renting the bikes. Either way, we spent the entire day hardly seeing another soul (except for a few locals walking their dogs) and saw some stunning beaches and beauty. We also found an incredibly eerie church, St. Jerolim, which seemed abandoned, but strangely was not vandalized at all. When we opened the door, someone had assembled what seemed to be a small gremlin out of what we think were sticks and leaves, but we didn't want to get too close. Either way, it was an interesting find on the island.

After the Island, it was back to Zadar and then Dubrovnik.


From Zadar we took the night bus to Dubrovnik, which took us through parts of Bosnia, and down a large stretch of the Croatian coast.

It was really a beautiful drive, albeit 8.5 hours long, and upon arriving in Dubrovnik, was well worth it. Dubrovnik was absolutely gorgeous, but unfortunately felt a bit "fake." It was weird, because in the old city we could see that there were a lot of locals and a fully functioning city, not one just set up for tourists, but it seemed almost impossible to find any of these people during the day. Everything seemed to be set up for tourism, kind of like going to a historical theme park. That did not take away from the beauty of the city, as walking around the city wall was one of the best sights I've experienced in Europe.

We also were able to find a "blues bar" which, while expensive, did have a quality live guitarist and very intimate setting.

Further, at our hostel we made some good Australian friends who were traveling around the world for 9 months. Lucky for us, they were also heading to Split on the same day we were, so we were able to catch the bus with them.



Split was very different from both Zadar and Dubrovnik. As the second largest city in Croatia, it felt like a real city, not just set up for tourists. It also had an incredible old town, but this one seemed much more like old ruins that had been around for a long time. Walking around the city streets, you could envision Roman soldiers walking around the same stone streets and looking at the same (albeit now partially destroyed) buildings that made up the old town. Just outside of old town, was the beautiful port area, some great parks, and the rest of the city. It made for a great two days of exploring and getting to know our new Australian friends as we took in the sights.

After Split, we had to make the bus trip back to Zadar, then catch the flight back to Brussels (Charleroi). Unfortunately, due to poor planning on our part, we had to spend the night in the Charleroi airport because our plane landed about 5 minutes after the last train back to Maastricht left. It was not a friendly airport for sleeping, as the security guards forcefully awoke everyone in the airport at about 4 am, but after that, it felt good to get back to Maastricht. Upon return, I spent a lot of time catching up on my thesis, and today I've started my last class which will end in June, hopefully around the time my thesis is finished as well.