23- Croatia & Bosnia Herzegovina: Split in the Nation

By our calculations, we haven’t had a holiday from work since 2012. It is a tough life- it should be noted that in our calculations we exclude travelling because that wasn’t really a holiday from work, it was more like a sabbatical and trips home to Ireland from Australia were naturally excluded, as these were really more like fulfilling familial duties. Hey, it’s our calculation, we can do it however we please!

So for our first holiday in an age, we said we’d expand our European horizons and head east to Croatia. The route we chose was a one way route, flying into Zadar and making our way leisurely down to Dubrovnik and flying home from there.

Zadar, and to be fair lots of others places in Croatia, were unknown to us before the trip. Ryanair fly in and out of there so it seems to have assisted in putting it on the maps. We spent a couple of days there, a very pleasant place. The highlight being the lovely waterfront area that’s been built there, a great location for sunset. Alfred Hitchcock is quoted in 1964 as saying that the Zadar sunset is the best in the world. A big claim and one that Zadar has gladly put in all of its brochures ever since. It’s certainly gorgeous and right up there with the best we’ve seen but I think what we’ll remember most are a few additions in the last number of years that Hitchcock wouldn’t have been privy to. The first is the working Sea Organ along the waterfront. What looks like steps leading into the sea along waterfront is actually a working organ, operated entirely by the water. It’s 70 meters and has 35 pipes of varying length and height that play 7 chords of 5 tones depending on the tides. Ingenious. The second addition is the Greetings of the Sun which lights up after dark to give some fantastic reflected sunset photos. Definitely a few reasons to make Zadar worth a visit.

In order to get to our next stop, Split, we had to get the bus. We were travelling the rest of our route by boat and one bus trip was enough! The highlight of this one was when the driver missed the turnoff for Split then proceeded to break suddenly and reverse his way back down the motorway so he could take the turn! The fact that he was on the phone for the whole journey didn’t exactly put us at ease either. He did get us there on time though so give credit where it’s due! Alive and on time- just about!

The main highlight of Split is a visit to the Palace. When we arrived at our accommodation, the first question we asked was about the opening hours of it as we were struggling to find them. We were greeted with a big smile and told that Split is the Palace! A simple walk to the old town and it becomes clear that the palace walls still stand as do large parts of it but there are no gates, no security guards thus no opening hours! The palace has been absorbed into the city with houses built in and around it. It’s appropriate to say that Split is a palace and the palace is Split. Feel free to use that on your tourism posters lads! It really is a lovely city, very different for the reasons above. It’s got huge character. A lovely place to visit.

Next stop was to Hvar, to give us an insight into the lives of the rich and the famous. This is where super yachts dock as they traverse the waters of the Adriatic Sea. The biggest one we saw had a rental price of €900,000 per week-that apparently doesn’t even include food, drink or staff! I suppose if you can afford to pay €900,000 a week what’s another couple of grand to you! Different world- maybe for next years holiday Aoife!

For those of us living on a tighter budget, we were amused to see that if you give birth on the ferry to or from Hvar your child will get free travel on the ferry for life! How very nice of them- it does seem a bit harsh that the mother wouldn’t get free travel also given she did all the hard work but thems the rules I suppose!

Hvar is beautiful, an old town overlooked by a castle with a phenomenal location is it acts as the main point from which you are a short boat road to a whole host of idyllic islands. For the price of a bus ticket you can grab a taxi boat to an island and find your own piece of paradise. Every day was a new adventure.

As far as advice goes, the one we received a number of times was to buy or borrow sea urchin shoes. As with all advice received, we smiled politely and told those supplying the advice that’d we’d definitely look into that. The lesson to pay more than lip service to such advice was learned when my wife managed to stand on one of the famous urchins- lesson learned, we too advise you to buy shoes or else run the risk of having to pick spikes from sea urchins out of your foot for the remainder of the holiday! Sometimes advice is worth listening to.

On our island hopping tour, Korcula was our next stop. Another little piece of paradise as the old city walls surround the island and give fantastic views into the sea and vice versa when swimming.  Great food, and great sunsets here too but it was wine tour we went on that will never be forgotten- by one of us anyway! We set out by bike on a wine tour of the island, a nice way to see both the island and taste what it has to offer. The wine was good, the explanations were……. Less so. My favourite being as the local sommelier poured us our taster glasses, we waited expectantly for the detailed explanation as to what we should expect. Tanins? An oaky taste perhaps? Hints of citrus fruit? Instead he smiled at us and said “WHITE…… WINE”. It was all we needed! Direct and to the point, my kind of man.

The really memorable part happened on the way back as one of us dropped her hat and the other of us being an absolute gentleman cycled back to get it. In the act of handing it over, one of us knocked the other off her bike thus resulting in a bit of red leg on one of the participants. Although this is a clear and accurate account of what happened, it’s only fair to get the views of the only other witness to the event- “after a few too many tastes of wine, you careered right into me and flung me off the bike resulting in significant bruising on the legs, arms as well as untold psychological damage”. Hmmm, the weather was pretty hot that day but clearly the steam coming out of someone’s ears put up the temperature another few degrees- Best to move on methinks! No long term damage done, eh. We’ll know next time that a bus escort is always the safest way to do these excursions!

Our final stop in Croatia was to Dubrovnik- the main tourist spot in the country and with good reason. A spectacular city with all of the city walls still standing and offering wonderful viewing points of the city from all angles. A lot of filming for Game of Thrones is done in the city so to those who’ve seen the show it’s like walking into a scene from it. To those who haven’t, just enjoy the Medieval feel of the city and be amazed at how well preserved it is. And the same could be said for a lot of the parts of the country we saw. For a country that was in a gruesome war of independence as recently as the mid nineties, there is very little sign of it in where we saw.

While we were in the Balkans, we took the opportunity to take a day trip to Bosnia Herzegovina- tick another country off the list and hopefully see something different. We weren’t disappointed as we drove in and out of the EU to visit Mostar. The border control was the first thing that amazed us and not for a good reason. As we drove out of the EU on a bus (return trip was the same), nobody had to get off the bus to show papers and nobody came on to inspect the bus. A guide left on both occasions with a pile of passports and came back in and off we went. Bizarre how lax the whole thing was. Especially considering there was a line of cars a mile long waiting to get through, I’m sure these companies have a long standing working relationship with the border control but if we had wanted to smuggle anything on board it would have been extremely easy. Considering what we’ve seen on many other occasions crossing borders, it seemed mad.

Bosnia was much more war-torn then Croatia and significantly poorer (42% unemployment there versus 10% in Europe and 17% in Croatia). Mostar was very much a city divided with numerous ethnicities and religions on show. Easy to see how the war could have been particularly divisive there. The main site to see in Mostar is the Stari Most bridge. A really unique looking bridge that was over 400 years old when destroyed during the war. It was rebuilt in the early 2000’s. In order to maintain its UNESCO world heritage site, it had to be rebuilt as close to the original structure as possible- this included any flaws or mistakes the first time- they all stayed. One side of the bridge is quite western and once you get cross over, you find yourself in the east. An amazingly quick change and clearly a dividing point between the two cultures. There are a bunch of locals who make their living by collecting tips form tourists to dive off it. Whatever pays the bills but at 24m high and how shallow the water looked at times, I wouldn’t fancy it personally!

After our day trip, we had another few days to enjoy the wonders of Dubrovnik. Definitely a city to put on your to do list, so many nooks and crannies to discover. Great places to eat and drink, some wonderful sunsets. All very romantic! A wonderful place to end our holidays in a fabulous country. Two thumbs up from us.

Click here to see a selection of photos from our Croatian trip

Route

Fly Dublin to Zadar, bus Zadar to Split, boat from Split to Hvar, boat from Hvar to Korcula, boat from Korcula to Dubrovnik, day trip to Mostar, Bosnia- Herzegovina, fly Dubrovnik to Dublin