Croatia: Krka Waterfalls

One of the advantages of travelling off season to these sunny places is that we never run into crowds. Sometimes it is so nice to explore places without having to fight the crowd for the best views…

Going at our own pace we drove from Trogir to Sibenik county to see Krka National Park. We had a couple of choices—drive to one of the entries to the park, bike or take the boat. We chose-the boat.

Katya was in charge of holding the camera for about twenty minutes.

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I believe I deleted about a hundred pictures of Alex doing all sorts of faces—Katya was taking pictures of him while Robert and I were buying tickets.

That’s our boat. We got to sit on the top level to enjoy the view.

The boat ride lasted about 25 minutes and we ended up at the waterfront entry to the park, the one closest to the waterfalls.

This national park is gorgeous! I am sure it is beautiful in all seasons, and I can only imagine how pretty it is here in the summer time. We visited only one small part of the park, but if you are interested in finding out more, you can read about it here.

As soon as we got off the boat and ate a quick picnic lunch, kids got changed into their swimsuits and ran over to the waterfalls.

You were allowed to swim close to the bridge and near the river bank…although we saw someone swim up all the way to the waterfalls and even jump off one cliff (they got in trouble).

Mark was still very eager to get into the water…but did not enjoy the rocky bottom of the river.

I just enjoyed looking at nature.

After a while, we walked up the trail that goes to a beautiful observation point.

This is on the way to that point.

And this is looking down from that observation point.

It was beautiful whichever way we turned!

Mark decided to jump up at this moment, so it looks like he is the same height as Alex.

And we try to take as many family pictures as possible…sometimes it’s tricky to figure out whom to ask.

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If we ever go back to this area, we will definitely go see Krka  National Park again, but probably explore a different part of it, as there is still a ton to see.

Wouldn’t be fun to go see this monastery built on Visovac island in the middle of the river?

Well, it was about two in the afternoon when we left Krka waterfalls and drove up one more hour north to Zadar.

Croatia: Trogir

I was going to start this post but mentioning how gloomy it was here yesterday and how nice and sunny it is right now in Croatia. But then I checked their weather forecast, and—surprise, surprise—it is merely 15C (high 50s) and wind/rain/thunderstorm warning.  That made me feel even better, reminding me how lucky we were with our weather while visiting Croatia.

The day we left Dubrovnik, we checked out of our apartment, conquered another hundred stairs (this time with suitcases), walked five minutes to Hilton hotel where Sixt car rental place was located, and received a nice surprise. “Is it okay if it’s an automatic car? We apologize, for inconvenience, it is the same price”, the rental dude informed us. I don’t think Robert let the guy finish that last sentence…He, trying to hide his obvious excitement, hurryingly answered,  “I will take it!”. Oh what a relief that was to have an automatic car-hahaha.

We squished the kids in the back, luggage in our trunk, and made our away out of Dubrovnik. The journey north was supposed to take 3 hours and 20 minutes if you take the toll way, but we chose to go up the scenic route—a beautiful road that goes up along the coast. Journey time was a bit longer, 4 hours, but it was still very pleasant.

As always it is hard to capture the real beauty of the view with a camera when riding in a car. The drive was very-very pretty. But we stopped only three times—once because Mark got car sick…like the real deal but it was not in a pretty place, so we didn’t take pictures; once to grab some Croatian pastries and croissants for lunch (I was getting rather good at my Croatian by then!); and once because it was indeed a very pretty spot.

This is a very long bridge we had to cross coming out of Dubrovnik area.

Oyster farming near Ston.

Ston is also a city that has the longest stone wall in Europe, kind of like the Great Wall of China but not as grand, of course. We did not stop there…but it was one of my possible places to visit.

Thank you Wikepidia for the picture.

And this is the pretty place where we stopped.

So sunny! I love it!

We made it to Trogir, a town just passed Split (a major port and a popular cruise ship stop) around 4 pm. It took us several minutes to find where our place was since even people on the SAME street didn’t know about our apartment. It was pretty funny.

Our apartment at Klaudija’s House was fantastic! So clean and modern, in a fantastic location and with everything we needed-for only 50 Euros! The owner and her husband were so nice and helpful. We were trying to figure out how to make us stay there two nights and do our daytrips from this place…but unfortunately if we cancelled our next night’s apartment, we’d have to pay a cancellation fee.  So we settled on our planned one night.

Since it was still sunny and warm we quickly walked over to the beach (the owner had a few beach towels we could use). 

I am sure this place is absolutely packed during summer months! This beach was quite small but picturesque with all the beautiful boats nearby.

Oh my goodness! Kids are actually getting along!

Katya jumping off the rocks (and not to worry…we did check the water depth beforehand).

And we got to watch their beautiful sunset with Trogir in the background.

It was getting chilly, so we had to pack up, unfortunately. Just a beautiful spot…

We ventured out to the Old Town for dinner. It was only five minutes to walk to it, which was very convenient. The owner recommended us a place with good seafood, but when we found the place, we discovered it was closed because it was the end of the season and the owners were taking their own vacation-haha. A lady in a nearby souvenir shop recommended us another place on the neighboring street, so we decided to try it.

We were the only ones in the whole restaurant—dining outside.

And excitingly waiting for food to come.

With lots of kisses.

Finally, Mark got his mussels.

and I got my Scorpion fish or something like that-it was delicious.

Robert had Pašticada and traditional meat dish that was tasty but not THE BEST.

After our dinner, we walked around the walled town. We loved this place. I know kids just wanted to get lost here.

Trogir was like a miniature version of Dubrovnik with fewer touristy bits and much cozier. It is nicknamed “The Stone Beauty”, surrounded by walls, with its churches, towers and fortresses. Throughout its long history it was influenced by the Greeks, the Romans and the Venetians, and its architecture shows it all.  In fact, Trogir is one of the Unesco Heritage sights, so I really wish we had more time to spend there to wonder around town.

Well, we did not leave Trogir without a souvenir. No, we did not bring gelato with us (also we did get ice cream right there in the middle of the walled city). We saw a barber shop and since both Alex and Mark needed haircuts, I just had them get their hair cut right there. I am telling you, I am getting really good at my Croatian!

Oh he loves getting his hair cut!

My two handsome boys! And a quarter of the third handsome boy’s face.

We had a lovely time in Trogir, although we did most of the exploring in the dark. Good place to stay, beautiful buildings, great food and wonderful people made it a very enjoyable town for us.

Next morning we were off to another beautiful place, this time further inland.

Croatia: Dubrovnik

We arrived in Dubrovnik late on Saturday night-around 10:30 pm. A taxi van was already waiting for us. Usually we try to make our own way to our apartment just to save a bit of money, but this time those 35 euros I paid for five of us were worth every cent, as it was dark and we had no desire to look for our place on our own. The chauffer and his wife that brought us to the apartment were so nice! We mentioned that we did not get any dinner because, thinking that the airlines would feed us (as it said online), we did not buy any food at the airport. They right away found a bakery so we could get some quick snacks for the kids and for our breakfast.

This is a lovely shot of the place where we stayed-hahaha. I think Katya took this picture.

This is what our narrow street stairway looked like. I am not exaggerating when I say that the whole city’s structure is based on stairs. No wonder everyone is thin around here.

Oh yes, so our apartment was quite a nice house—two bedrooms, two bathrooms and kitchen with living area. This is the entryway.

The only downside was that those stairs actually lead upstairs to the second and then third level of the house, and although there was a gate on that landing, you could still hear things from upstairs—like SNORING! 

Our living area even had a piano!

And we had a lovely area in the front where kids could play ball and we could hang out at lunchtime looking at orange trees.

Our house was a five minute walk from the Old City gate (the walled town). We walked over there in the morning (it was shortly after 10 by then) and saw crowds and crowds of people, tour groups, tour buses—crazy. We didn’t have a real plan about what to do on each day, so when we saw a girl advertising kayaking tours, we thought, why not. The kids squealed with excitement and ran back to the house to change into their swimsuits.

We departed from this tiny beach right off the city gate. We had quite a bit of people in our group—probably ten two-person kayaks and two guides.  Most people were in Dubrovnik because this was one of the stops that the cruise ship was making.

I got to go with Katya—my devoted partner in paddling.

Mark was the lucky one—he got to sit in the middle between Robert and Alex and enjoy the view.  Lucky kid!

So it was girls versus boys…and we were consistently the last kayak to arrive to the next stop (I am talking about me and Katya here). Look at that! Isn’t that a gorgeous view? Sea kayaking around the ancient city walls…

We got to stop about five or six times at different places and listen to a narration about history of Dubrovnik.  Mark said this was his favorite spot—near the cave.

This is where we ate our lunch (provided), rested for 30 min and kept going.

Lots of cruise ships.

This is the island of Lokrum. We went AROUND it. It is believed to be cursed, so no one stays on the island overnight. It’s a peaceful place to go walk around and eat a packed lunch with peacocks who live there, but that’s about it.

The last hour or so, Robert had Katya help him and I was with Alex.

The whole tour took about 3.5 hours. We were quite tired by the end, but so satisfied. The kids did not complain a bit! Although it was quite chilly as the the day began to wind down.

I guess now you can say we are a kayaking family, and now we can try it at other locations someday. Our friends who live in southern Spain invited us to come visit and take their sea kayaks out, so we might do that in the next two years.

After a quick shower, we finally ventured out into the Old City by 6 o’clock. The crowds were nothing in comparison to the morning. We could actually see what we came here for.

This is what it looks like inside the Old City. It’s a walled town inside the city-no driving permitted. It is such a unique place that even we, who have seen many beautiful European towns, simply fell in love with it.

Instead of just having narrow streets between buildings, you have steep stairways. So fun!

This picture was taken while we were searching for Nishta, a vegetarian place (what??? I promise,Robert went along with my idea this one time) only to discover it was closed that evening. We still came back there the following day and had fabulous falafel, mushroom pasta and vegetarian burritos.

During the day this street, the entrance to the Old City is PACKED! They have a system of which way people should be going and NOT just wondering and hopping around like we were.

Oh yeah! Mark is cool!

Good morning, Dubrovnik and your beautiful blue skies!

The next day, we got up a bit earlier (the clocks already had been turned back and hour so it did not feel as early) and made our way to the city walls.

The way it works is that you pay a fee to go up to the path above the walled part, basically walking the perimeter of the Old City. Here is Alex looking down on that same street where that picture of Robert with the kids was taken the night before (just to give you an idea).

The first walls of Dubrovnik were built in the 8th century, with most intense construction happening in the 15th-16th centuries. The city walls of Dubrovnik are in a shape of an irregular polygon with a perimeter of almost 2 kilometers. 

Here is a picture of the walls taken from another observation point later that day.

It took us about an hour and a half to walk the whole perimeter.  Some stairs were quite steep and challenging even for us, youngish people. The kids did great! I am glad I brought water though. I cannot imagine doing this with a tour group or in the middle of a hot summer day. So my advice—GO EARLY!

I must share a few of the pictures. The view was just spectacular wherever we looked! Cannot say enough about how much we loved this city!

The cool part is that people still live within the city walls—some places are rented out, some are occupied by permanent residents. There are numberless restaurants and souvenir shops of course all scattered inside the walled city.

Mark, what are you doing?

Mark and Alex were best buds on this “hike”. They loved getting their pictures taken.

This is right outside the city walls-Dubrovnik port where you could catch a boat to a number of islands nearby.

Amazing!

By the time we were done with our walk, it was almost lunchtime. So we grabbed some quick lunch stuff at the tiny grocery store nearby, ate lunch outside on our terrace, changed into swimsuits and took off in search of a beach. They are not very difficult to find—just a couple hundred stairs down there and another hundred up there.

We came across this beautiful place—nothing like we’ve ever experienced before. This is not your regular sandy beach. This is the rocky/pebbly kind where you jump into the water like in a swimming pool.

The water was about 20-21 Celsius (68-70F), so not too bad, but still quite a bit colder than what we are used to.

Alex was so brave—he just plopped into water and swam back and forward.

Katya, loving the sun and deep blue waters.

It is obvious that this kind of beach is much more difficult for people with younger kids to enjoy. Our older kids are great swimmers so we were not worried about them. Mark was a bit more hesitant about getting in until…

he found his horsie (or dolphin, or whale).  And then he had a blast too.

After a little while, we headed to another spot to swim, just to see what it was like.

Again, another pebbly beach with an awesome rock to use as a jumping off platform. Can you spot Alex? He is wearing his Crocs!

A nice British family sitting nearby was kind enough to take a family picture for us.

After swimming, we headed to Lovrijenac, a detached fortress that is technically part of the wall. You can see it in the background here.

So after another hundred stairs, we finally made it to the fortress.

If you want to see the best view of Dubrovnik, you need to come here! Fantastic!

Oh look, we kayaked over there the day before.

The Old City.

Mark’s favorite phrase from this trip was “Can you take a picture of me and put it in my picture album?”.  I think he must have said it at least twenty times each day. 

It was almost time for the sun to start setting (about 4 pm..and it was the last week of October), so we quickly made our way to the cable car that would take us up Mt Srdj (don’t know how to pronounce it since even Ukrainians don’t have many words that have no vowel), 405 meters above sea level.

We are quite high up there!

Atop the mountain you can see the Imperial Fortress, the one that now houses Homeland War Musuem. It was also the place that sheltered local firefighters defending the city during the Siege of Dubrovnik.

The cable car was originally built 1969.

But it was completely destroyed in 1991 (pictures taken from the station’s posters in the waiting area).

It was refurbished and reopened in 2010. Now the ride takes merely 3 minutes or so. 

The kids love this sort of stuff, so they all enjoyed looking at Dubrovnik as a miniature version of a cool Lego city.

I am sure you can figure out from this post, we enjoyed Dubrovnik very much. The kids did great, thus making us like this place even more-haha. So glad we were able to spend two full days here.

Coming up next—our driving day where we make our way from Dubrovnik to Trogir.