Island Hopping in Croatia

Croatia has a very long coastline bordering the sparkling Adriatic Sea.  Off of its coast lie many islands.  Although no one knows for sure how many islands there are, there appears to be over 1200 different islands, with about 60 or so with habitation.

Sailboat charters abound.  While we yearned to sail on the open sea, we heard the prices were close to $1000 a day: obviously not an option for two budget travelers.  Many articles tout the alternative of island hopping by ferry.

In the summers, ferries run from the mainland to the various islands daily.  The most common departure cities are Rjeika, Sibenik, Split and Dubrovnik, with Split probably being the most popular due to its proximity of many of the more popular islands.  We found that the articles make island hopping sound a little more carefree and simple than it really is.  Not every island is connected to each other each day, and some islands are not connected by ferry at all without a trip back to the mainland.  With some advance planning, however, the ferries are a cheap way to see multiple islands.

We wanted to avoid having to traverse back to Split, so we chose a route that allowed us to travel continuously.  Here was our route and some scoop about each island we chose:

One: Catamaran (a fast ferry) from Split to Hvar Town, Hvar Island

• Some of the ferries arrive at and depart from Stari Grad, a city north of Hvar.  Buses that coincide with the ferry times run from Stari Grad to Hvar Town.

  

• There were a ridiculous amount of Grannies to greet the ferries in Hvar Town, so have no worries about finding accommodation.



• Our apartment was a 10 to 15 minute walk along the water away from the main part of the old town.  We didn’t mind walking, and it got us away from the hubbub of Hvar Town.

  

• Hvar Town is definitely a place to see and be seen.  It feels a little higher end than the other towns on the island that we visited.  There were many fancy shops and restaurants lining Hvar’s marble old town.  Hvar is supposedly frequented by celebrities, although we didn’t see any.  As clubbing is not our thing, we did not go to any of Hvar’s infamous clubs, but there was certainly many people looking to party.  There were also families abound.  The harbor is lined with enormous yachts that are bigger than some houses.  One of our favorite activities on Hvar was selecting the individuals in the crowd  who came off the yachts.  The sweater tied loosely around the shoulders was a dead giveaway.





• Despite the sceney scene in Hvar, we enjoyed our visit there.  It is full of life and was fun to see for a few days.  (We planned on staying two nights, but stayed a third because it rained on our second day).  We highly recommend getting out to see the rest of the island.  The hardy could do this in a scooter, but I (admittedly a wuss) wouldn’t go near the old road with a scooter, high above sea, with no guardrail.  We saw older people who put us to shame by riding their bicycles up Hvar’s cliffs.  We did it the American way: renting a car for the day to explore the island.  The views of the sea from lavender covered cliffs and the heady scent of lavender is worth the cost of the rental.

Two: Catamaran from Hvar Town, Hvar Island to Ubli, Lastovo Island

• We took a ferry from Hvar Town to Ubli, the main port on Lastovo Island.  From Ubli, you can catch a shuttle bus to Lastovo Town and vice versa.



• Lastovo only has about 800 people total on the island.  We knew we had picked a less touristy spot when even most of the Croatians we had met had never been to Lastovo.  The island is beautiful, with much of it covered in farmland, mountains or vineyards.
• Although the ferry can take up to five hours from Split to Lastovo, the trip is under two hours if you break it up with a trip to Hvar or Korcula.  Plus, there is a fast catamaran (which we took) that reduces the time even further.



• We weren’t sure if there would be Grannies greeting us on Lastovo, so we booked ahead by scouring the Internet.  We were right; there was not a single Granny.  There is only one hotel on the island.  With prices over $100 a night at the hotel, we were glad we found private accommodation in advance.  That being said, if you brought a rental car over to the island on the car ferry, it would be pretty easy to find private accommodations by driving up to places labelled konobas and knocking.  Many of the konobas have rooms available because they primarily focus on getting sailboats to dock and feeding the sailboat crowds in their restaurants.  Without a car, we recommend booking something in advance and arranging for pick up at the ferry dock in Ubli or the bus stop in Lastovo Town.



• It is best not to stay in Ubli (somewhat bland, from what we saw) or Lastovo Town (inland).  Without a car, we didn’t get to check out Pasadur, a spot where some rooms can be found.  We really liked Zaklopatica Bay, but it is small.  The bay is lined with private houses that rent rooms, run small restaurants, and rent dock space to sail boats.  Make sure you get a room with a balcony, as the views over the bay are amazing.



• Most (if not all) of the restaurants are not open for breakfast or lunch, so either bring provisions, rent a scooter to ride into Lastovo Town to pick up supplies, or arrange for meals in advance with your host.  Other than bring yogurt for breakfast, we did none of those things and almost were caught without lunch.  Luckily, the owners of our konoba opened for lunch especially for us.



• Without a car, you are at the mercy of the restaurants in the bay for dinner.  Fortunately, all of our meals were tasty (albeit a little pricier than we normally like to spend).  We ate at Konoba Santor, where we were staying, as well as Augusta Insula, a popular konoba a few doors down.
• One of the konobas two doors down rented scooters, so we took advantage.  Having never driven a scooter before, we ended up wussing out about an hour into the ride and didn’t explore nearly as much of the island as we intended.

  

• We got the sense that everyone on the island knew everyone else.  The island is so small that children live on one of the larger islands or in Split during high school in order to attend school.

Three: Ferry from Ubli, Lastovo Island, to Vela Luka, Korcula Island

• Korcula is the birthplace of Marco Polo!  Many memories of calling out as a kid, Marco!  Polo!
• From Vela Luka, we rode a bus through Korcula’s windy roads for about 40 minutes to get to Korcula Town.  Again, the buses are timed to coincide with the ferries.



• Although filled with the ever present tourists like Hvar, Korcula Town is smaller and had a better vibe.  Many of the bars, cafes and restaurants play music.  We especially liked Treseta, a restaurant we stumbled upon one day as we waited for a bus to take us to the beach.  The food is great (supposedly homemade by a Croatian granny!) and various people sat and strummed guitars while we ate.

  

And finally return to the mainland: Ferry from Korcula Town, Korcula Island, to Dubrovnik

The Croatian Grannies

When we were trying to decide where in Europe to go, Croatia kept popping up as a suggestion.  Croatia has recently been steadily increasing in popularity as a travel destination for Americans.  While just a few years ago, people had lingering concerns about whether Croatia was safe after its war of independence from Yugoslavia in the 1990s (perhaps from watching too many ER episodes about Dr. Kovac), now many wonder whether Croatia is overrun by tour groups and cruise ships.  With many seaside cities with quaint stone and marble old towns, a long coastline on the Adriatic sea, and the supposed charm of Italy without the prices, Croatia has seen an influx of travelers in the last decade.

We opted to forgo a guidebook for our time in Croatian (more on that later), and did very little other research into Croatia.  So when we showed up in Rovinj, a town picked somewhat randomly because it had a good bus connection from Slovenia, we were surprised to not see many hotels or any pensions (simple, budget accommodations prevalent in Europe).  After walking around for a while, our backpacks heavy on our backs, we stopped in a travel agency/money exchange type of place and asked the man working there if he knew of any hotels.

He directed us to what seemed like the only hotel in walking distance from the old town and told us to come back if it was too expensive.  Upon learning that the rather simple looking hotel was $160 euros a night – over $200 – we returned and rented a room from the man for $57 euros.  The man instructed us to make a couple of turns and look for a house with an elderly woman leaning out of the window.  The woman did not speak a word of English.  The room we rented was just that – a room on the third floor of the house, grandmotherly décor, and a religious photo over the bed.

At a café with wifi later that night, we did a little more digging and learned that while Croatia has some five star hotels in various cities, the mid-level hotels and budget hostels or pensions have not found their way to Croatia.  It has been decades since the fall of communism, so I can only assume there is some reason that I am not aware of that prevents opportunity seeking capitalists to fill this void.  (If anyone knows the answer, I’d love to hear it.  I couldn’t find a good answer anywhere).

In the meantime, the private residents of Croatia are stepping up to gain some extra income and provide lodging to Croatia’s many tourists.  All private rooms must be licensed.  The rooms are all different.  Some are modern; some are very outdated; all are simple.  Some have private ensuite bathrooms; others do not.  Some are apartments, with a private entrance; others are simply rooms in someone’s house.

Even after research telling us that private accommodation was the way to go, I still hesitated when we were greeted at our next stop in Pula by an elderly woman with hair growing out of her moles, who was telling us Come with me.  My room, it is very cheap.  I talked Sean into staying into staying at one of the few hotels in Pula instead.  At 96 euros a night (about $121), it was our second most expensive place on this trip so far, and it was nothing to write home about.

The next day, I succumbed to the reality that if we wanted to stay in Croatia, we would have to go with the Grannies.  Anyone who travels to Croatia by any form of public transport will meet the Grannies.  Many of the Grannies were not actually grannies at all.  Some were younger; some were male.  But because our first experience was with a woman who was at least 85, they will forever be known as Grannies.  At each stop during our ten hour bus ride from Pula to Split, the Grannies swarmed around us, calling out Sobe?  Camere?  Room?  Zimmer? They didn’t always speak anything other than Croatian, but they threw out the name for room in every language.  Even telling them that we were just stepping of the bus to go to the bathroom sometimes didn’t stop them from shouting after us.  I suppose they thought they might be able to convince us to get off the bus and stay in their town.

While you can book private accommodations in advance from the savvy owners who have set up websites or listed their properties on sites like Hostelbookers, searching for private accommodations this way is very time consuming.  We found it was much easier to subject ourselves to the mercy of the Grannies at the bus stations and ferry stops.  As long as you were not picky (a very difficult concept for me to grasp), you could be lead directly to a room or apartment by a Granny after finding one where the price was right.  The best we could do is try to learn important facts, like how close the apartment or room was to the old town  (always, very close, very close – until you press further and find out that very close means a 15 minute bus ride to town).

It was hard to choose a Granny.  With the exception of a less populated island we visited, each time we stepped off a bus or a ferry in a new place, the Grannies were waiting.  Some Grannies took the approach of shouting at you before you even walked down the ferry ramp.

Other Grannies rushed up to you the second you stepped on land, each of them looking at you with expectant and hopeful eyes.  Still other Grannies stood back, and patiently waited for you to come to them.

The savviest Grannies had pictures of their rooms on their signs, like Maria in Hvar Town.  Upon stepping off the bus in Korcula, we were drawn to Vela’s sign like a moth to a flame when we spotted the words “Free Wifi” in big black letters.  (Internet access was a rare commodity in Croatia’s private accommodations.  I was starting to the shakes).

While not all of our private rooms or apartments had private bathrooms, and some of them probably have not been updated in forty or fifty years, all of the rooms or apartments were clean.  Some had balconies overlooking the Adriatic Sea, and most were centrally located.  They ranged in price from $38 a night to $75 a night.  Those willing to spend more could probably find more modern and luxurious private apartments.

Of course, the best part about staying in private accommodation is that we get to know some Croatian people a little bit better, and experience their hospitality.  Nada, in Split, recommended a tasty Croatian restaurant for dinner.  Vela, on Korcula Island, always stopped to chat when she saw us.  When we asked if we could use the outdoor drying rack to hang laundry, she not only said yes, she offered to do a load of laundry for us for free.  Valentina, on Lastovo Island, picked us up and dropped us off at the bus stop several miles away. And Maria, on Hvar Island, invited us to her birthday gathering on her patio with her family.

We ate prosciutto and cheese, drank homemade wine from Hvar grapes, and sang Maria happy birthday as she blew out the candles on her cake (which, fortunately for us, but unfortunately for her, was made by her!)   While Maria spoke somewhat broken English, we got to chat with her brother and sister, both of whom spoke nearly perfect English.   We met Mae and Margaret, two friends from Norway staying at one of Maria’s apartments, who brought homemade Norwegian pancakes and sang Maria a Norwegian birthday song.

For our part, we brought guacamole and salsa, made from ingredients we collected at the island’s farmer’s market.  We actually were able to track down tortilla chips at the island’s grocery store, which is no small feat in Europe.  The crowd chuckled at our choice of Mexican, given America’s lack of a national food.  We explained that as a nation of immigrants, most American foods borrow the best of world – a diversity I rather enjoy.  It was funny watching some of the guests try to figure out what to make of the guacamole and salsa.  Most ate them off their plates without tortilla chips.  Their confusion didn’t prevent them from polishing off both bowls.

All in all, while commodities like beers and food were more expensive than we anticipated for a country who has not adopted the euro, it is not hard to keep costs down by moving around by bus or ferry and by staying with the Grannies.

Europe’s Ugliest Car

The unfortunate thing about Slovenia is that all public transportation goes through Ljubljana. We tried to figure out how to take a bus or train from Ljubljana, to Lake Bled, to Bovec in the Julian Alps, to Piran on the coast. We realized it couldn’t be done: all busses travel through Ljubljana, which would have required a lot of time backtracking. So we rented a car for the Ljubljana to Bled to Bovec leg, returned the car to Ljubljana, and took a bus to Piran. The car we rented was, um, interesting. We used a local company, which got us perks like a free GPS and Cockta (a strange tasting Slovenian cola), but also got us the smallest, cheapest car he had: a 2003 Fiat Multipla. European automakers should stick to what they know best, and that is not SUVs. We rented a rather strange looking SUV type thing when a group of us went to Normandy, but the Multipla really took the cake. It was bulbous and boxy at the same time, and had this strange shelf looking thing on the outside with teeny buggy lights. The guy at the rental car company kept telling us it was a six seater (as if this was a plus, being that there was only two of us), but we didn’t know what he meant until we saw the upright seat in the middle between the driver and front passenger. The Multipla was so ugly, even the Europeans were making fun of it. When it was parked in Bled, we saw a group of people pointing at it and peering in the windows, laughing. I wanted to yell out, really, we didn’t choose this car, it is just a rental!

Alas, as aesthetically challenged as it was, the Multipla performed fine, chugging up and around the fifty hairpin turns in the Vrsic mountain pass through the Julian Alps.

USA! USA! USA!

I don’t think I realized what a high pitch squeal I have, at least when cheering for sports, until we watched the United States play Slovenia in the World Cup.  We found ourselves in Bovec, Slovenia on the afternoon of the game, which is a small town in the mountains consisting of less than 2000 inhabitants.  The pouring rain dashed any hopes of watching the game at the big screen television set up on Bovec’s main street.  We only had about two or three other options, so we ducked into a local bar and found a spot towards the back of the room.

We quickly realized that we would probably stay incognito until the United States scored, as everyone was focused intently on the game.  Plus, despite all our tough talk on the way to the bar, I realized that I am a wuss and did not have the guts to barge in a bar full of Slovenians chanting, USA! USA! USA!

In the first half, Slovenia looked strong.  We watched the bar go wild when Slovenia scored a goal.

Then, in the second half, it happened.  The United States scored.  Sean and I both let out cheers from the back of the room.  Only the two people in front of us whipped around to face us and not the whole bar, as I had feared.  Luckily, they were pleasant and did not run us out of the bar.  Although I had notions of good natured ribbing and cross-cultural interactions, this World Cup business was serious, especially for a small country like Slovenia.  No matter how good Slovenian athletes may be, there are simply less of them.  For a country as small as Slovenia, who had a scrappy fight to qualify for the World Cup in the first place, it must be frustrating to not beat the United States in a sport that is so huge in Slovenia, yet so insignificant in the United States.  I almost started wishing Slovenia could win, but then my American competitiveness and pride kicked in.  As it turns out, Slovenia and America tied, leaving many of the Slovenians glum.  What did you think of the game? we were asked.  Slovenia was robbed, they said, even though it was the United States who had what would have been the winning goal taken away from them for no apparent reason.  I’m just glad we weren’t around the following week when the United States scored a winning goal against Algeria at the last minute.  America’s win caused it to edge past Slovenia to advance to the next round along with England.  Luckily, we were long gone by then.

[And unfortunately, before I got to post this, the US was knocked out by Ghana.  So that’s that.]

Rafting in the Rain

Bovec is known as the adventure capital of the Soca River valley, so of course we had to partake in some adventure.  We opted for rafting, the cheapest option, and something we had done once before on the rivers in Richmond, Virginia.  (There are actually class III and IV rapids right by the city of Richmond).  We chose a company that had good reviews and had been in business for about 20 years (we suppose since the fall of communism).

We ended up rafting with a big stag party – otherwise known as a bachelor party.  I was the only girl in a group of about 12 Italian guys and Sean.  If only I had pictures of Sean and I, surrounded by the Italians, with too small wetsuits and silly looking helmets.  If the Italians were not drunk, they were certainly slap happy.  There was much singing, roughhousing, and silliness, which pretty much set the tone for the trip.  When we went rafting in Richmond, there were lots of rules, instructions, and seriousness.  In Slovenia, it was the opposite.  There were some instructions, and we wore life jackets, wet suits, and helmets.  But about 15 minutes into the trip down the river, all trust in our guide was lost.  He told us to prop ourselves up on the side of the boat so that we could paddle faster.  Suspicious, everyone did as he said.  Two seconds later, I found myself in the freezing cold river, sputtering and flailing around, along with everyone else in our raft – except the guide.

Being intentionally pushed overboard pretty much erased any credibility the guide had.  Not to mention the guide’s directions for us to intentionally ram the raft onto rocks or the other raft with the rest of the Italians (both much to the delight of our Italian raftmates).  So it was hard to know if our guide was serious when he said things like, anyone want to jump off that rock?  It is about 700 meters high but it is really fun! or we need to paddle hard up here, because at least four people die here every year.

It was unseasonably cold and rained every day except one while we were in Slovenia, and this Saturday was no exception.  The rain was constant while we were on the river.  This company had advertised that they would go out rain or shine, and would never cancel, just delay if it was storming too bad.  As we rafted down the river, we heard loud claps of thunder and saw at least one bolt of lightening.  I kept glancing at Sean, wondering if the rain or shine policy really was a good idea.

We knew we were a long way from home when the guide had everyone get off the raft and flipped it up onto a rock.  He instructed everyone not just to slide down the raft, but to run down it.  Despite my wariness of the guide, I suppose I trusted that we would not land on a pile of jagged rocks or get caught in a huge undercurrent when our guide started doing backflips in the air into the water.

Although a risk taker I am not (not counting the part where I gave up a career and house to travel the world), it was fun to loosen up a bit and splash around in the water.  Plus, actually rafting the rapids was pretty neat as well.  The rapids were not huge, but fast enough to give you a little thrill as you sailed down the river.  It was wild to be out there in rushing blue-green waters, tree covered mountains on either side, soaking wet, with pouring rain beating down on your face and roars of thunder overhead.  Especially because we did not, in fact, get struck by lightening.