Wednesday
Woke up and got ready to head out for Croatia with Nick. We caught the train to Stockholm around 1 and from there caught the airport shuttle to Skavsta. Croatia isn’t part of the EU so we had to have our passports checked before boarding the flight and once we landed. We touched down around 7:30 PM with just enough light to see some of the Croatia countryside and the Adriatic branch of the Mediterranean Sea! The flight there was a little peculiar. It was the loudest and most talkative bunch of people on a plane that I have ever experienced due to many Croatians flying to Zadar with us, this is very different from the more quiet and reserved people of Sweden. Stepping off the plane we were greeted by 10 degree (50 F) weather and high humidity from the nearby ocean. We caught a bus to the town of Zadar and walked from the bus station along the coast to the small peninsula where the Old Town of Zadar is located.
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| Roman Forum, Town Square, Tower, Church |
Old town was a maze of narrow streets with several squares and alleyways with small cafes and bars. It was very quiet when we arrived and we started to search for our hostel. This turned into over an hour of searching the entire peninsula and asking people for the hostel (which no one seemed to know about). Luckily some girls from London also looking for the hostel had the address and a man from a local shop lead us all to the hostel doorway, which was not well marked and we probably had walked by it 3 times already. On a positive note though we got a good first impression of the city and the hostel was a great little hostel on the 4th and 5th floor of the building. After checking in we explored Old Town some more and checked out the sea organ, which uses the gentle waves of the Mediterranean to create some eerie and soothing sounds. There is also a cool display of colored lights in the ground next to the ocean.
Thursday
We explored Old Town the next morning. For breakfast we got some great cheap and local pastries. (They use the Kuna in Croatia since they aren’t in the EU). We went all over Old Town, walked along the coast, checked out the marina, and then went to the archeology museum in Zadar. The area of Zadar has been inhabited since pre-historic times during the last Ice Age and has been heavily influenced by the Greeks, Romans, Italians, Ottomans, and Croats. Zadar was heavily bombed during WWII, but it still retains an old time Mediterranean feel with many old churches, narrow streets, and red tiled roofs. Zadar is also home to the only Roman forum ruin outside of Italy. The forum is right in the center of Old Town where you can walk, sit, eat and drink in the same place they did 2000 years ago.
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| Roman Forum ruins |
After exploring much of the city and enjoying a slice of pizza from one of the dozens of pizza shops we headed back to the hostel and asked about swimming in the sea. By this time in the afternoon it was around 22 degrees (72 F) and Nick and I were gladly wearing shorts and t-shirts with sunglasses while most of the locals still had jeans and jackets on. The owner of the hostel pointed us to a place to swim and we headed out with our trunks and towels. The swimming place was just outside of Old Town on the edge of a little park. There was an Olympic sized swimming pool on the edge of the sea that was fed by the sea but surrounded by concrete walls. No one else was at the pool and some locals at a nearby café gave us some curious looks. We laid out in the sun for a bit before getting up the nerve to jump into the pool. The water was rather shocking at first, but didn’t feel too bad once you were out. After jumping into the pool we jumped off the wall into the actual Adriatic Sea! It was very refreshing, but definitely worth it and now I can check off swimming in the Mediterranean/Adriatic from my bucket list. Laying out in the beautiful Mediterranean day I got more sun then I had for months and got a little bit of color on my skin.
Back at the hostel we freshened up and met two Aussie girls who were also staying there. We went to the point of the peninsula where the sea organ is with them and some amazing full sized pizzas to watch the sunset. It was an amazing sunset and once it was down the solar powered light display on the walkway along the coast lit up. We grabbed some amazing gelato and decided to take it easy for the night as we had set up a trip to go to Plitvice Lakes National Park the next day.
Friday
Nick, our new Aussie friend Tessa, and I went to Plitvice Lakes National Park for the day. A friend of the hostel owner, Dennis, drove us the two hours up to the park and back. The park is Croatia’s oldest and largest national park and is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It is a series of lakes and waterfalls in limestone geology.
For the entire afternoon the 3 of us walked around the lakes and waterfalls over an extensive boardwalk system right along the lakes and even right over some of the waterfalls. The water was a gorgeous green-blue that really contrasted with the still heavily dormant plant life and the gray-white limestone walls. The tallest waterfall is 86m (282 ft) and the whole series of lakes and waterfalls descends some 500m through the park. The park was very empty as high season for tourism has yet to start so it was very peaceful everywhere we walked.
We also took a ferry across one of the larger serene lakes to see the upper lake section of the park. Dennis was a little late coming back to pick us up so Tessa, Nick, and I had some soup at the park restaurant. I had a delicious lamb soup that is a bit of a local specialty. On the 2 hour drive back Dennis stopped at a place that had two brown bears in captivity and I was surprised to see that the bears were quite large and resembled grizzly bears more than black bears that I am used to in Colorado.
Back in Zadar we met 4 American girls (Julie, Kristine, Krista, and Amanda) who had just arrived to the hostel. They were from upstate New York and were studying in London for the semester. We went out for some nightlife in Croatia with them, Aussie Karl, and also our driver Dennis. We went to a couple bars including one that had ethnic Bosnian music and another with Croatian pop. It was a good night that lasted until about 4:30 AM for some of us.
Saturday
We showed Julie and Kristine around Old Town Zadar in the morning and later all of us went back to the seaside pool to swim and enjoy the once again gorgeous weather. We spent more time in the water this time and some local Croats also jumped in, but didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as we were. We also shot a basketball around at the park adjacent to the pool. Nick, Julie, Kristine, and I had a great lunch at a local restaurant before strolling around town.
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| The American Crew at the Pool |
Nick and I said bye to our new friends at the hostel and caught a bus to the airport. Our flight back to Skavsta didn’t leave until 8:45PM and arrived just before 11PM. We then caught the shuttle to Stockholm only to find that we had missed the last train to Uppsala for the night. This meant we were stuck in Stockholm until 7AM the next morning. It was cold in misty in Stockholm and we passed the time at one of the few places still open that wasn’t a bar or club, McDonalds. We were in MickyD’s from about 1:30AM until they closed at 5AM. It was a long time, but there was plenty of people watching to do. At 5AM the train station opened and we tried to sleep on benches in the station. We finally caught the train to Uppsala at 7:11AM.
Sunday
We walked through the cold mist in Uppsala, encouraged to see even more snow had melted in our absence, but still cold, particularly compared to the Croatian weather that had spoiled us. Once we were back to the corridor I immediately went to bed and slept from 9 to 3. The cold rain outside made it a perfect day to be lazy and catch up on sleep after a great half week on the Mediterranean.
Random:
Lovisa commented on how I am tan now from the trip. In all honesty I’m slightly sun burnt, but this isn’t entirely my fault because as we found out in Croatia they think of sunscreen as a seasonal product and we couldn’t find one place that was selling it. The baseball season started on Friday and I’m excited for the new season. The Nuggets are also coming down the stretch of the season and tomorrow is the NCAA basketball championship between UConn and Butler. Gotta love sports this time of the year. It was a running joke Friday night of how Amanda looked a lot like Snooki from Jersey Shore. Kristine’s nickname was X. Being surrounded by 4 American girls was something I had not experienced since I’ve been in Europe, it was refreshing and also really showed how different American girls can be than Europeans. The gelato I had in Zadar was amazing, pistachio one time and Creamy Caramel another. The flight back to Skavsta was very empty with only about 30 people. While trying to sleep on the benches in the Stockholm Train Station we were yelled at for trying to lay on the benches with our feet up on them despite almost no other travelers being in the station. Large slices of pizza in Zadar were less than $2, a whole pizza for about $7. Gelato was $1, a huge scampi spaghetti meal for $10. Once back in Sweden, a Big Mac meal for $10.
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