CROATIA

WOW! Croatia was the most beautiful place I have ever been! Our boat docked at the Gruz Port which is outside of the Old Town. 15 of us ended up renting a villa for the 4 days we were there. We couldn’t check in until 2 pm so we decided to have lunch on the ship and then get a cab to our house. We were told it was very close to a beach and about a 10 min walk to the Old Town, had a garden and a pool. Upon arrival we found out it was indeed very close to the Old Town and also our port but the beach was further away than we expected. The house was AWESOME though. The pool was pretty big and we had lounge chairs lining the pool and also a sweet patio with lots of seating. The house wasn’t enormous or anything but it had 5 bedrooms each with a king size bed and 2 bathrooms upstairs and one downstairs. Some people went to the store right when we got there to get frozen pizzas, hotdogs and stuff for sandwiches and cereal for the morning. The rest of us hit the pool! We got out my iPod speakers and found some blowup floats and the pool party was underway in no time! We all hung out in the pool for a few hours and then decided that we wanted to go cliff jumping. So Jarrett, Caroline, Kathryn, Spencer and I took off down a street toward the ocean. We didn’t really know where the cliffs were but we knew they were close. We ran into these 2 fourteen year old boys who both lived in Croatia but one of them grew up in Houston so he spoke good English. Turned out they were both going cliff jumping too, so they lead us across the street and down this path toward the water. This place had 2 cliffs that you could jump from and where the lower cliff was there was a pretty big platform where you could lay out and hang. The higher cliff was probably 40-50 ft high and it was kind of scary to go off at first but after a little convincing we all did it! It was so exhilarating and a BLAST! We stayed there for probably an hour and by this time it was getting dark so we headed home to eat dinner. Everyone had frozen pizza, I thought it tasted AMAAZING, seriously the best frozen pizza I have ever had, and definitely better than any pizza I have ever had in the US. We pre-gamed at our house for a while and some other Semester @ Sea kids came over, the party was pretty buumppinnggg! We heard the happening club that night was Fuego which was less than 10 min from our villa, so we decided to check it out. It was a latin dance club and turned out to be an absolute blast! We danced all night and hung out with the 50+ SAS (Semester @ Sea) kids that were there. When we got home that night we were all so hot and sweaty that everyone jumped in the pool! It was a Fun night!
The next day we woke up and went into town for a few hours and just walked around, and then had lunch on the way home at this place called Sesame, we ate upstairs on the balcony that was enclosed by all these leafy vines, it was a nice relaxing lunch! Then we came back to our house and had another epic pool party, lots of people came over and we had the music going! It was a blast, then we went exploring in town later in the afternoon because we had heard about this bar on the cliffs outside of the city walls, called Buza so we wanted to check it out. No one in our group really knew where we were going, but we knew it overlooked the ocean so we just took a bunch of right turns until we found a driftwood sign that said, cold drinks, and we followed this little passage through a break in the walls (the walls are 20 ft thick in some places) and then we went down some steps to a gorgeous view of the water and an island off the coast of Dubrovnik. Hannah and I went swimming for a little bit on the rocks off the walls and we watched the sunset, and then had dinner at this pizzeria in town. Then we all went to Fuego again and met up with a bunch of SAS kids!
Our third day was my favorite! We started the day in town and had lunch at a local restaurant and then some of our friends called and said they chartered a boat for us, and they would take us where ever we wanted to go around the islands near Dubrovnik. It was a flat bottomed boat that had railings and a canopy and 2 benches along either side, and then in the front had more seating. We left out of the old city port and started driving along the coast line, I got bunch of great pictures of the city walls. The water in Croatia was SO CLEAR! After about 40 min of driving, we stopped and all got out and swam around and the water was so clear you could see the bottom even though it was like 50+ feet down! The water was soooo salty though, after you got out and your skin dried off it left a film of salt. We drove to this beach that is only accessible by boat on an island that we never got the name of, but lots of really huge yachts were parked in the cove and people were lounging on the beach, some of the boys and our 2 boat captains, (Tony and Tony) jumped off the boat and swam to the shore to get something to drink, but most of the girls and some of the other boys stayed on the boat and just swam nearby because the swim was pretty far! Then after an hour in the cove we got off and went to this island called Lopud, that Tony and Tony said was an hour and a half from Dubrovnik, it was the cutest little water front town, with a beach where a bunch of locals were swimming and hanging out and they had lots of paddle boats, and slides that went into the water. At this point it was like 6 and we were all hungry so we ate at this little café on the water, and watched the sun go down. It was beautiful! Then we got back on the boat and drove home, it took about an hour and 45 min, and a group of us sat in the front of the boat and just talked and listened to music and had a dance party! We got home at like 8:30 pm and most everyone was exhausted so we went back to the house and showered and met Lauren and Adelaide for dinner at this restaurant that looked at the city walls and had a pretty view of a cove, and we had delicious caprese salads, wine. I was falling asleep at the dinner table, so I went back to the villa and went to sleep but everyone else went out and had a good time!
Our last day we woke up and took our bags back to the ship, 10 min from our villa, had lunch on the ship, and then headed into town to walk the city walls. It took probably an hour and was SO SO HOT, but the views were fabulous and the hike was definitely worth it! Then we just walked around and did some souvenir shopping. Having realized that I didn’t pack a single pair of flip-flops in my 2 large duffle bags, I bought my first pair of Havaianas! We shopped along the main street and then veered off into the side streets to find shops that were a little less touristy. We got separated from Carol at some point so Hannah and I decided to look inside the War Photography Museum that we read about in our Fodor’s travel book. It was very interesting, but also very sad. We saw exhibits about the conflict with the FARC in Colombia, and a really touching exhibit about war veterans from Iraq and their war wounds, it left me feeling sad and I wanted to leave. I got some ice cream to cheer me up and it was almost ship board time so Hannah and I got a cab and went back to the ship!
Croatia was far more beautiful than I expected, and everyone we met was so friendly and welcoming, and most spoke very good English! I am very excited to get to GREECE!
Thanks for reading, miss everyone!
Hayley