Cruising in Croatia

group photo on the boat
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Well it seems that the croatian partying lifestyle has gone straight to my head, i've been sitting in an interent cafe for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to write a journal entry into my travel blog, but i've had a complete mental blank about how to access that part of the webpage!  A group email will just have to do instead!

So we have been in croatia for maybe 10 days, 7 of those have been on a small cruise boat touring the islands betweeen split and dubrovnik.  if i've ever wanted to trade in my busy sydney life for something a little different it will have to be with the way the croatians live.  Amazing food, seafood, pizzas, pastas, better than anything i've had in italy, or in Norton st for that matter! Endless bottles of homemade wines and grappa, chilled out days lounging in the sun, regular siestas, and big nights out - every night of the week!!  sure, this was all a little exaggerated by the fact that we were on a 'holiday' cruise, but stopping off at all the towns along the way certainly proved thatwhile most other cultures work way too hard and miss out on the best things in life, the croatians have got it down packed.  sorry for the philosophical speech, but you know those really deep, hearty laughs that you know are truely genuine - well the amount of times i've heard them over the last week confrms my suspicions that sun, food, wine and socialising with friends are the best medicine for a happy life!

Partying with the (cute!) boys in Croatia
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For those of you that are following my itinary with interest (ok, maybe only my parents fall into that category... if them at all), we started our croatian leg of the trip flying into Split from London, and hired a car to explore north of split (we were to be heading south for the cruise).  the four of uss squashed into this little car with our huge bags reminded me of that national lampoons european holiday- we litereally had no idea where we were going!  But some of the most special holiday spots are found like that.  About 2 hours out of split we found Primosten, and managed to nab an apartment literally ON the beach.  Although we did a bit of driving during the other days, we couldn't move past this gorgeous town and stayed here until we left for the cruise last saturday.

Croatia's amazing coastline
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It was always going to be a risk booking this cruise, b/c it wasn't cheap (about $800) for the week, and the cheaper ones that would have attracted our age group were on really shitty boats and conditions.  So it didn't surprise us that we were the youngest people on the boat by quite a few years - there were two families from sth africa with teenage children, an eldery couple from melbourne, a croatian couple who didn't speak a word of english, a young welsh couple (who were incredibly anti social and spent the majority of the week in their cabin!!), and a set of twins celebrating their 50th birthdays with their husbands from NZ.  At first we were disappointed by the company, but the crew were our age, and really took us under their wing, showing us exactly where to eat and where to go out in each town.  We've made lots of new croatian friends purely though them. but these boys were seriously party boys, and finished off the night at 6am, to start work at 7am.  don't know how they do it week in, week out.\

so tonight we are back in split, staying with a woman who has an apartment we found through one of the people on our cruise.  not much sightseeing- its 6pm, and i have to admit i've spent most of the day sleeping!  tomorrow we head back to our favourite island of hvar for two nights, then two more nights down in dubrnovnik, before heading back to london for a few days.

Keep in touch everyone, love to hear your news,

L xx