Day 5 Zadar and Split

Zadar was a nice city with some interesting sights. But, to start our day we got a killer parking spot near the main town square, along the harbor. We saw the Church of St. Donat. I was hoping it was Donut. But no. It was still cool and according to the Lonely Planet it is one of the most outstanding monuments in all of Dalmatia (dating from the 9th Century). It was built over the old Roman Forum (from 1st Century BC and 3rd Century AD), which I thought was actually much cooler. There were all sorts of columns and blood alters. What I always find amazing about Europe is that all of this stuff is just sitting in the middle of a city somewhere. People can climb on it, have lunch in it, just hang out by it and its no big deal. I am aware that the last statement makes me sound abit naïve and like an American.

The highlight was the “Sea Organ” which somehow has a bunch of organ pipes that make sounds based on the waves and currents of the ocean. It was free to just go sit on it, dangling your feet in the water and enjoying the beautiful day. We had an unremarkable lunch at one of the thousand pizza places lining the street and then headed out for a coastal drive to Split.

The drive to split was beautiful. And, along the way we stopped at a gas station for soda and bio-breaks. The view at the gas station was pretty breath-taking. I stopped and got an espresso at the café in the gas station and just took-in the view. Our beautiful drive was interrupted by road signs directing us to take the Croatian interstate the rest of the way. Croatia built a new, efficient highway through half the country. It’s great if you want to get somewhere fast, but its not attractive. The conspiracy theorist in me says that they put the signs there to get us to pay the tolls on the highway.

We quickly found our hotels. Joanna and I chose to stay at the Le Meridian. The first of a few SPG point stays on this trip. The lack of air-conditioning in Zadar and overall, lack of…hotel experience that I’ve grown accustomed to, combined with paying upwards of $150-200/ night per room, had me wanting some good old, heavenly bed and shower and a FREE room. When we called SPG they said they were sold out. I asked them to call the hotel to make sure. When the guy got back to he said, “we have one room and the manager is willing to give it to you for $365 euros.” I responded, “great, we’ll pay with points.” It was a great deal!

Once getting everyone settled in their hotels, we met up for dinner and went to Tifani (which is located at a hotel in Diocletian’s Palace). By far the most ridiculously awesome meal we’ve had so far on our trip. We had some fantastic Croatian wine and a mixture of some of their dishes. Everything we had was amazing. During dinner we heard a girl singing American pop music. We couldn’t hear it too well and didn’t think much of it. After dinner we walked toward the music and saw the old town square filled with people sitting on steps and ledges drinking and listening to a duo singing. It was AMAZING. We had a few beers (our new favorite since we arrived in Croatia: Karlovaċka) and just enjoyed the experience.

Day 4 Plitvice and Zadar

As you may have read, it’s basically nature. Lots of nature. Waterfalls, hiking, turquoise lakes, hiking, steep cliffs, hiking, dirt, plants and lots of other things that grow. And kids and dogs. But, I made it through. Just to be clear, there was no fainting. The guest bloggers were just being dramatic. I think they were hoping I’d faint but I didn’t.

Ideally we’d publish pictures to this thing, but we’ve had some struggles getting pictures from our camera to our laptop. Before I wrote this update, I was reading the camera book. Its possible that I was supposed to format the SD card before taking pictures on it. So…well, that’s my bad. Anyway, if you see the pictures, you’ll probably enjoy them, because I am probably the only person who gets bored of waterfalls. Mostly, I just wanted a coffee.

Speaking of coffee…When we got to the top, I really wanted coffee. I know it was hot, but the morning coffee was pretty terrible, so I hadn’t quite quenched my craving. I saw folks drinking coffee at the end of the hike, and yes, I thought it was very refreshing. Until the ice cream girl knocked it out of my hands and all over me. Not an ounce of espresso was on the ground, it was all over my shirt. Incidentally, it’s a good thing I changed shirts. I was wearing a black Bryant-Lake Bowl earlier in the day, but didn’t think it was an appropriate shirt for nature.
So, I changed into a Kellogg t-shirt that I wore inside out. Thank God. Since, its now ruined and covered in espresso. The good news is that she felt bad and bought me another espresso. Now, off to Zadar.

You might be thinking, “why zadar.” The answer is, “mostly because we thought it was a cool name.” We found it was so much more.
But, first, accommodations. I had booked us in “the only apartment in the old town.” We spent about 2 hours driving around the old town trying to find, “a gate with a lion.” We finally found this gate with a lion and I met up with a nice woman who had been guiding us to the gate with the lion. She took me to see her apartment…It was old, rusty, there was no air conditioning or elevator to our fifth floor rooms. It didn’t look clean, the beds didn’t look great. I was just not happy. So, we left to find accommodations that better suited our needs. We found those at the hotel Albin. The staff was friendly; the rooms were clean and nice. It was 10 times better than the other place. And, it was about 15 minutes from the old town. We had dinner at their restaurant, which was again, FANTASTIC. We had drinks at the LA café down the street where they played a combination of random Tupac, Croatian rap, Lionel Ritchie, Billy Joel and some sort of live Croatian Celine Dion (the Croatian version of her is about as bad).

Guest Bloggers: Heather and Mer, Day 4

After all of the commotion with yesterday’s journey, we awaken in Plitvice.national park at the Hotel Jezero. The hotel is pretty basic but has a great location about 100 feet from the entrance to the park. And it boasts an awesome breakfast. Mer and Heather were delighted to find among the basic/expected breakfast options a beacon of light in the jams/spreads area… a nutella-like half-chocolate, half-vanilla cream spread. Never mind that it came packaged in a cartoon character packet. This was clearly for adults.

Little did we know just how mission critical this breakfast would be, when we set out for what would become a five hour hike before we’d get to lunch. As most of you who know John would expect given this information, John fainted of starvation less than 27 minutes into the hike. We did not know whether John’s fainting spell was the result of insufficient nutrition or overexposure to nature, given that he complained of both. With John passed out, we began to enjoy the breathtaking scenery surrounding us. There were waterfalls around every turn and turquoise lakes that extended as far as the eye could see. The turquoise color was actually a little ironic because earlier in the morning, while looking for postcards in the gift shop, Heather refused to buy a postcard with images of the turquoise water convinced that the image had been doctored… in fact, the water truly is an other-worldly color. Apologies to those of you who could have received said postcards.

The highlight of the day came at the end. After lunch we began the final leg of the hike which turned out to be the most physically demanding, uphill and in the sun. Don’t worry, John made it. But Heather had to carry the backpack up the hill. We think John made it because there was ice cream waiting at the top. So, we stop for a respite and a refreshment. While some refreshed with water and ice cream, John chose espresso. Did we mention it was hot outside? Anyway, what happened next cannot truly be summed up with words. We’d like to share with you a brief video below.

Holding his super #1 coffee while ordering an ice cream, John soon found his espresso covering his shirt when the ice cream lady opened the freezer with a bit too sudden movement. I think John may have yelped. He was not happy. And he smelled a lot like espresso.

We made our way back to the car and hopped in for a two-hour ride to Zadar, a charming coastal town. It should be noted that we are a very hi-tech bunch. Joanna in the front seat with computer on, burned a cd for us to enjoy as a soundtrack for our journey.

When we got to Zadar, John went to check out the accommodations that he’d reserved on the phone earlier in the day while we waited in the car. John couldn’t handle that first hotel, so we wandered around getting lost in the neighborhood looking for a new hotel: Hotel Albin. This was by all definition identical to the first, but according to John the presence of air conditioning made it a thousand times better. Little did John know that the a/c in his bedroom was broken and that he would find himself taken two cold showers in the middle of the night to avoid overheating.