This is my first post in this community and this time I wanted to share with you how last weekend went for me!
I have been travelling across Europe for quite some time now, it's almost two months and a half since I left Argentina, my home country. Right now, I'm currently spending some time in Croatia, one of the countries I had been dying to get to know. My sister has moved to Barcelona a couple of years ago, so we thought it'd be a good idea to meet here, as she wanted to visit some croatian cities and it was just a two hour flight for her.
Dubrovnik
On Saturday, it was quite a long day for me. I was in Zadar and was supposed to meet my sister in Dubrovnik, almost 400km apart. I woke up incredibly early and left the hostel I was staying at about 5am, as my bus was leaving 5.30. After that, I would have to wait for two hours in Split and then, finally, another bus that would leave me in Dubrovnik's station.
That day was incredibly warm, the sun was shinning really bright. My sister's flight arrived at 2pm and I was in Dubrovnik at 2.30 more or less, so I just had to wait for her a while as she got from the airport. We went straight to the hotel to leave our things, we really wanted to start getting to know the city.
As it was already afternoon when we were ready to go out once again, we decided we would join a walking tour so as to start learning a bit while visiting the city.
I'll make a detailed post about Dubrovnik, specially because of the huge amount of things that I learnt! I wasn't expecting such rich culture and historical heritage in Croatia, but this country has made me fall in love over and over again. The more I get to learn about it, the more perfect it seems to me.
This is the main street: a very wide avenue in which you can find all sorts of shops, from ice scream stores, to souvenir shops till, of course, restaurants and everything.
The city was full of amazing sightseeings, museums... and it's all surrounded by a huge huge huge wall that used to protect it from being attacked from pirates and other nations that would like to invade them. It's actually quite interesting how this walls, fortresses and everything seem to remain untouched after so many years... these walls I'm telling you about have no less than 800 years.
And of course, as it was incredibly warm and we had had a long day, we had an Aperol to celebrate that we were meeting after not seeing each other for about two months.
The city was all full of lanterns from all colours and sizes, that actually made it look so nice and interesting!
And also, this was the view at night!!
After that, we were incredibly tired, so all we wanted to do was to go to bed and call it a day.
On Sunday, we woke up early so that we could enjoy the beach before it got incredibly crowded. As beaches here are not so spacious, it's quite a good idea for you to secure a spot to enjoy the sun and sea before it's too late.
This was the sightseeing after half an hour of walking under the sun, it was incredibly worth it:
We were there chilling, taking pictures and enjoying nature for quite some time. I believe we were there for about three hours, as we left by midday when the sun was starting to get brighter and brighter.
Although we used a lot of sunscreen... we did get a bit sunburnt.
After we were back in the hotel, took a shower and had something for lunch, we were once again in the city center so that we could visit the city walls!
It was an amazing thing to do, as it's one of Dubrovnik's top attractions... but it was so warm! Specially considering that these walls are so tall and that there was no wind, a lot of people were not feeling that good... still it was a great visit.
After such intense heat, of course we had to treat ourselves to some ice cream! My sister had Stracciatella and Amaretti, and I had Amaretti too but with Pistaccio! it was incredibly good!
Bonus track: Monday
On Monday, as my sister was going to stay with me till Thursday, we were leaving to Split, another Croatian city that was 200km from Dubrovnik. I had already booked the bus tickets beforehand and we left at midday for our trip.
I had never had a problem when it came to buses and I have already taken a bunch of them on this trip, believe me. The most random things happened to me, but there was never an issue with the bus... well, there's always a first time, right?
We got on the bus on a 30 celsius degree day, the air condition was off but we thought it was just because the bus hadn't left the station. When the drivers turned it on, there was no cold air coming out, it was like a warm breeze instead... things started to get rough from that moment.
It was a 4 hour trip, but it was only 15 to 20 since our departure that people started to feel dizzy because of this air condition. It was incredibly warm, humid and impossible to breath inside the bus, and we couldn't open the windows. We asked the drivers to turn the air condition to the maximum as we could not breath and the barely paid attention to us... until someone fainted.
After that, they paid attention to what we were saying: it was impossible to travel four hours (four hours for us... there were people travelling to Zagreb, and that meant at least ten hours on board!) like that. The stopped the bus, they allowed us to get out of it and started checking was was wrong with it. They "fixed it" and we started our trip once again... just to stop by this same issue just a couple of minutes after. Too bad.
They tried to fix it once again, we got on the bus once more and we left. Of course, the air condition did not work, but at least we made it to Bosnia's boarder. Just in case you didn't know, if you travel from Split to Dubrovnik, there's a 20km border in between that belong to Bosnia. So that means leaving Croatia, entering Bosnia and Herzegovina, getting your passport checked... and then, 20km after that, leaving Bosnia, entering Croatia and getting your passport checked again. Quite an interesting and senseless thing, believe me haha.
So, we were now in Bosnia, with our passports being checked and everything: the driver told us that he would leave us in the nearest gas station to wait for the next bus. Everyone got crazy.
Yay, passport check coming ahead:
We got to the gas station, the bus stopped there and we all knew that we would have to wait between 10 minutes and 3 hours for the next bus. Some people went to a nearby lake to swim, others kept complaining to the drivers, kids didn't understand much of the situation... and we just sat there, laughing at the situation and just drinking Coca Cola... what else could we do? Lol
Everything was so bizarre that we started making jokes, this is me trying to get the attention from cars that were passing by 🤣🤣🤣🤣
In the end, everything turned out to be fine, we arrived three hours later than expected to Split... and spent three more hours than we would have liked in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but still, we got to Split and that's all that matter.
That's all by now, friends!
Thank you so much for reading and see you in another post :)