CROATIA & MOSTAR

October 2019

In the summer and autumn of 2019, Marco, my boyfriend was visiting me in Europe. He’s from Costa Rica :) . We met each other in his own hostel in Costa Rica (check it out@ www.mangiferahostel.org). If you like to see pictures I took in Costa Rica, check out my posts about Bajos del Toro. ​ To be able to extend his stay with me in Belgium / The Netherlands (which are part of the Schengen Area), Marco stayed for some time in other European countries that aren’t part of the Schengen Area: Ireland, Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina in his case. Long story short… in October 2019, I flew from Brussels, Belgium to Zagreb to travel together through Croatia! While picking the pictures that I'm showing you on the right side, I actually realized how many cool places we visited and how we really enjoyed and made the most out of every single day of the trip. It was very challenging to make a good selection that still give you an idea about the atmosphere of the whole journey. For yet another reason, this visit to Croatia turned out to be extra special, but more about that in the story below..!

After staying for one night in a cosy AirBnb in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, we took off to Plitvice national park. This normally very crowded natural park is well known for the fairy tale like water spectacles it offers. The fact that it was low season ánd because autumn was in full swing in Croatia, made it a wonderful visit. The autumn colours, in combination with the crystal clear and blue waters of the Plitvice lake, made the scenes literally look like paintings! Because of the clearness and stillness of the water, we were able to look straight to the bottom of the several lakes we passed. The autumn leaves floating in the ponds, sometimes looked solid enough to walk on them, like islands floating in the sea. The way the small waterfalls trickled down the green terraces, reminded me a bit of the tea plantations that I’ve seen in Thailand (check out the post about Tha Ton to get a taste of Thailand!). We had almost the whole area for ourselves, so we could fully enjoy and soak up the surroundings. We hiked for about 8 kilometres through the hilly landscape, which made it a very enjoyable workout as well.

Rastoke, a village built on waterfalls

At night, we drove to Zadar, a city in the middle of the long, outstretched west coast of Croatia. While driving on the highway, we got an unexpected surprise... Because the Croatian highways have no street lights, I spotted a block of wood, that was lying in the middle of the highway, too late and I couldn’t avoid running over it with our rental car..! As a result, we got a flat front tire… Luckily, we were safe and sound, we had a spare tire in the trunk, and fortunately Marco perfectly knows how to change a tire..! :) For me, it was my first time changing a tire. Well, we learn something every day after all! After changing the tire, we continued our journey to Zadar, where we stayed in a simple, but very cheap AirBnb. We actually stayed in several very nice, but relatively cheap AirBnb’s. during this trip. Yet another advantage of travelling off season: the rental prices of lodging is way cheaper than during the high season..!

Church of Saint Donatus, Zadar

Sea Organ, Zadar

In Zadar we took a ferry to the island ‘Dugi Otok’, a long island located in the Adriatic sea, between the Croatian west coast and the Italian east coast. We arrived on the island at night, so we searched for a place to sleep. We took a gravel road towards an area that was indicated green on Google maps, and arrived at a couple of abandoned holiday houses. We decided to pitch our tent between a couple of nearby bushes. The next day, we had a good breakfast and started to discover the island. A hike on the south of the island took us to the top of a couple of impressive sea cliffs, a gang of donkeys :) and the salt lake ‘Mir’. This lake is salty, because it’s connected to the sea by several cracks in the rocks that form the Dugi Otok island. Like in Plitvice, the water in the lakes on Dugi Otok is also amazingly clear. From a pier in the sea, we saw an octopus chilling out on the rocky sea bottom! ​ When we returned at the car, it was already time again to search for a place to sleep. We headed for Sakarun beach, normally a very crowded and touristic place. Well, as you could guess, there was practically no one. The only people we encountered that night were a couple of fishermen. We had a nice supper on the beach, self-cooked on our camping gas stoves, watched the sunset, pitched our tent, and… then we thought it was a good idea to drive the car - over a small side road near the beach - closer to our tent. Well, it turned out that we got stuck in the pebbles..! We still did an attempt to dig out the car and to help the tires to get a grip again with some pieces of wood we found on the beach, but our efforts brought us nowhere.

At a certain point Marco proposed to let the car be (it wasn’t going to go anywhere anyway… :) ), to go back to the tent, enjoy the rest of the evening and sleep. He told me he was sure that, during the morning, some enthusiastic people would arrive, ready to help us! Well, I was still doubting this scenario a bit, but it was clear that, in the dark, we would never be able to move the car.

Cliffs of Dugi Otok

The normally crowded Sakarun beach, a perfect place to wild camp (low season), and to get stuck with your rental car

The next morning, we had yet another great meal on the beach, when we saw a group of elderly people strolling down the beach. We asked them for help when they passed by our breakfast spot, but they were on their way to catch a ferry to another island… Well, they still had time to swim naked in the Sakarun bay, about 100m further down the beach, but well… Then, when we saw a couple approaching! (It feels like I’m telling a story about two castaways, waiting for their salvation :) ). A man and a women, in their forties, walking down the beach… They turned out to be from Hungary and they were up for helping us! With the four of us, we tried pushing the car out of its position several times, but the car didn’t move. It actually dug itself deeper and deeper into the gravel… At that point the man says: 'Well, we’ve got a big Jeep with a towing cable…' Then we knew we were fine and saved! Not even 20 minutes later, our car was in a safe spot, ready to drive us to the next destination…​

Dugi Otok donkeys

Which was Sibenik! Another town down on the Croatian cost. We hadn't had any expectations about this town, but it turned out to be a very cosy and photogenic place. A typical Mediterranean scene, with a harbour full of small fishermen boats, small streets with stairs winding up and down the hilly landscape, laundry hanging outside to dry in the autumn sun... We roamed around a bit, enjoyed a drink, saw a huge sea turtle grazing at the bottom of the harbour, visited some squares where parts of Game of Thrones was filmed, cooked ourselves a nice mean back at our AirBnb, and we got the flat tire repaired! So we were all good to go again.

The surprisingly beautiful Sibenik

Sibenik is just a stone’s throw away from Krka, another national waterfall park. The greatest thing we saw in Krka, was a huge red and cream coloured toad, that granted me his patience to sit still so I could take some wonderful pictures of him (or her!). It even stroke a great pose, making its eyes, fingers and colourful and bumped skin come out really nice. It can make me SO happy and enthusiastic if a picture turns out how I like it. I love to photograph animals, although it’s often a big challenge, especially when encountering them in their natural habitat. Wild animals are often very far away, between leaves, branches and other ‘obstacles’ and they move a lot, so that makes it really hard to take a good picture of them. So, when I actually manage to take a good picture of an animal, I get really exited!

Just look at the beautiful colours and expression of this amazing toad

I actually also own a very nice pair of binoculars and often, I rather look through my binoculars to an animal (especially when it comes to birds), then doing a lot of effort for a picture that turns out to be shitty :) … I would highly recommend to invest in a good, lightweight binoculars.

Waterfalls of Krka in low season

Leaving Sibenik behind us, we drive on to Mostar in Bosnia Herzegovina. Mostar is another normally very touristic place, and for a reason..! This place is a melting pot of different cultures and religions and that makes the city have its very own architecture, character and atmosphere. On top of that, the scars of the Balkan war, that only ended a couple of decades ago, are still very visible in the streets. The famous bridge of Mostar was actually completely destroyed during this war, but luckily it was rebuilt! It’s an impressive piece of architecture in the city. ​ Bosnia Herzegovina is in general a lot cheaper than Croatia, so we decided to take advantage and to go out for food a couple of times! We tasted Bosnian coffee, Burek (a Bosnian pastry stuffed with spinach and cheese), Baklava (a layered pastry stuffed with walnuts and drenched in honey), and a lot more.

The famous bridge of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina Can you spot the diver that is about to jump off the bridge?

Cliff diver warming up to jump off the bridge

Characteristic streets of Mostar

Scars of the War: Sniper tower, Mostar

After a lunch in Trebinje (Bosnia Herzegovina), it was time to move on to the Game of Thrones city of Croatia: Dubrovnik. And, I can confirm that it feels indeed like as if you’re walking around on a film set. The buildings, walls, gates and streets are all very well preserved. Around every corner there is another square, gate, church, or impressive building to admire. No wonder why a big part of Game of Thrones was filmed in this city!

The next day, we visited an island in front of Dubrovnik’s coast, called ‘Lokrum’. The island is not only famous for being inhabited by a lot of peacocks and rabbit, but also because the original throne of the immensely popular series ‘Game of Thrones’ is located on the island. After taking a boat to the island, we first walked around on the north part. We found an old bunker, with a great view of Dubrovnik’s city walls and gates. On the south part of the island, we swam in a beautiful lake, and jumped in the sea for some snorkelling. Although it was late October, the water temperature of the sea was still 'acceptable' :).

Our last stop, before getting back to the ferry, was the thrones of Game of Thrones. First Marco took his turn to sit down on the throne and get his picture taken by me, then it was my turn! When I wanted to get up out of the throne, Marco came to me and said: sit down one more time. ‘What do you want?’, I asked. ‘I want to marry to’ is what he replied :) :) :) ! Yes!! And so now you know what made this trip to Croatia extra special for us! While sitting in the real throne of Game of Thrones, Marco proposed to me and I said ‘Yes’! Croatia, Dubrovnik and especially Lokrum will always be a very special memory for us!

View of Dubrovnik

Unfortunately it was already about time to go home again. After a quick visit and stay over in Split, an even so picturesque town that we reached after a wonderful drive up north along the Croatian west coast, I took my flight back to Brussels…

Picturesque streets of Split during sunset

What an experience this journey has been! It might sound like we really ran from one place to the other, but that was actually not the case. In a very chill way, we managed to see a big part of Croatia (and even a very small part of Bosnia Herzegovina :) ). We hadn’t even really planed anything upfront, we just follow the road, enjoyed the places it took us and booked AirBnb's along the way. I must say that the rental car - which in the end survived the journey completely ;-) - gave us a lot of freedom to get wherever we wanted to go. I hope you get the chance to visit this area, but remember: better go off season to have a unique and relaxed experience and to avoid the crowds!