First off, let’s just say that it has been much more difficult to find internet access than I anticipated it would be. Thus the lack of posts. But now that we are in Dubrovnik, I don’t think that will be a problem. But let’s not get ahead of the story.
We spent the first three nights of our trip in Pula, Croatia. From there we were planning on heading south via ferry through the Adriatic Islands and end up in Dubrovnik. Well this is where the story all breaks down. Apparently the ferry from Pula south only operates during the peak summer months of June, July and August.
So we took a bus, two buses actually as we had to change buses, to Rijeka. This took about two hours. From Rijeka we were able to catch a ferry south to the city of Rab on the island of Rab. We only had enough time to get a quick bite to eat, buy our ferry tickets and get a drink in Rijeka. A pity as the city was really pretty with the typical European walking only shopping/eating district. I figured I would never be back there again. Little did I know we would be back in three days, but I am getting ahead of the story again.
We spent three nights on Rab, a very relaxing island. (Note: I am planning on doing separate posts for all the cities with lots of pictures and mildly entertaining commentary.) While in Rab we came upon a now familiar problem. No ferries heading south. Actually there were really not any ferries going anywhere. We seemed to have landed on a dead end island. So after much finagling and local bartering we came up with two options. Either take a one day excursion boat trip to an island called Mali Losinj and just get off at the island instead of coming back to Rab or take the ferry back to Rijeka.
We decided to just cut our losses and head back to Rijeka, see I told you we would be back. One problem was that the only ferry off the island was at 6:45 am. This was not so much a problem as an inconvenience. Because let’s face it, I don’t like to be anywhere at 6:45 am when I am not on vacation. And really who wants to be somewhere that early on day 6 of a 14 day vacation? But as we had no option, it was up with the dawn.
We arrived in Rijeka as about 9 am. We had decided as part of our ‘let’s just get moving south plan’ that we were going to take the overnight ferry to Dubrovnik. This ship left at 8 pm and would put us in Dubrovnik at 2:45 pm the next day. The ferry was actually pretty nice, it had both inside and outside lounge areas and a restaurant. We had our own cabin. Unfortunately the ferry was quite full (a new Croatian experience for us : crowds) and we were stuck with an inside cabin. But we didn’t have to ‘rough it’ with all the backpackers and those type of people that just slept on the deck.
One of these roughing it people was a girl, obviously American, wearing an Oregon hoops tee shirt. She and her friend were very tall and I figured they might actually play basketball at Oregon. Well, it turns out that both are from Seattle, and they are on a six week holiday from their regular job. Playing professional women’s basketball in England. Manchester and London based teams if you cared. Luckily neither went to Oregon, so I didn’t have to be rude to them on general principle. Turns out that the girl with the Oregon shirt went to high school at Kennedy. For those of you that don’t know, this is very close to our house in West Seattle. That was our small world moment for the trip so far.
We arrived in Dubrovnik at 2:45 pm and were promptly assaulted by the meat market that is all the old ladies trying to rent rooms to tourists. We ended up hooking up with one such person, and got a room right next to the old town walls. It had a great view with fabulous deck, BUT we had to share a bathroom with one other couple and it was REALLY small. Needless to say this did not go over very well with my better half.
As we only paid and committed for one night, we went to the tourist information office and tried to locate a place to stay for the next few days. Since this is Croatia after 5 seconds of conversation the tourist agent knew a guy with ‘the perfect place for you’. Apparently this place was already booked, but of course he knew another guy with ‘an even better place’. And the guy with the even better place was willing to pick us up in his car and take us to the apartment to show us.
A little reluctant we were. And we were thinking of just cutting out and getting a proper hotel, but it turns out that this place was great. We decided on the spot to book it for the next three nights that it was available and ditch the other shared bathroom place.
As I write this, we are on day 2 in Dubrovnik. We have two more nights in this wonderful apartment and then need a place for four more nights. Our landlord has an apartment inside the old town walls that is available. We are considering it, but it is going to be hard to give up this view:
More later.
Cheers!
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