After Venice we said 'arrivederci' to Italia, and headed on to new horizons, specifically Croatia! We left Venice and travelled to Trieste. From Trieste we took a bus towards our first stop in Croatia, Riejka, billed by the law of Rick Steves to be not worth a visit. Wrong again Ricko'. We found Riejka to be a great central point for our few days in the north of Croatia. The locals were friendly, the hotel was great, the food was amazing, and the lack of tourists after Venice was extremely refreshing. Our day trips from Riejka took us around the Istrian Peninsula to some sunny, senic beaches and picturesque hillsides.
From Riejka we retained our rented car and drove down to Split, mending our differences with our travel booklet and returning to the tourist trail. Don't get me wrong, Split is a gorgeuous, sunny city, with nice people and tasty food... but it is also back on the main tourist trails for all of Europe, raising prices and lengthening queues to anything worth seeing, which alsmost makes me prefer the ulgier, more utilitarian city of Riejka. The temperature was a toasty 30 degrees while we stayed there, making it painful to hustle around the city center with the rest of the mob. My best memories of Split involve lounging on the beach, and playing with some kittens that had decided to take up residence in our hotel's pool bleachers.
On the day we left Split for the island of Hvar it rained. Now, this may sound like a trivial thing to mention, but in the context of our very sunny vacation it was a momentous event. Not only did it decide to rain, it decided to rain. Everyone on the boat over to the island was soaked during the short walk from the undercover area to the ferry. Naturally the rain stopped after we got to the island, but not before soaking us all to the skin, despite our raingear. This was a poor start to our day on Hvar. We spent the night in a communist era hotel (read: no AC, no fan, no screens to keep out bugs, nothin') due to the rain the mosquitos blossomed. We had the window open for an unintelligently long time in a vain attempt to cool our room. This resulted in an infestation of mosquitos. My brother and I quarentined the main room; I slept in the hall, while jonn spent a rather uncomfortable night in the tub. You win this round mosquitos, and you lose Hvar.
From Hvar we went on to our final destination in Croatia, Dubrovnik: the Pearl of the Adriatic. Dubrovnik is a beautiful city. From our arrival in the place, things started going our way. Our taxi driver was a super guy, the kind of superior person that you really don't expect behind the wheel of a cab, but there he is anyways, brightening your day with his own contagious cheer. The hotel he deposited us at was great as well. The AC being the most glorious feature after the previous night spent in the sweating, infested, communist box on Hvar. The few days we spend in Dubrovnik brought nothing but delights, from wandering around the gorgeous walled old city, to sun tanning on the plethora of beaches that ring the whole city. Great food, cheap (cold) beer, and friendly people made this the best place we had been on the whole trip so far, and was a fitting end to our little odessy around the Mediterranean.
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