This post is long over due. Not because I didn't want to write it but because I was dreading going through the thousand pictures we took. I know first world problems. But be warned this post is photo heavy.
Mike and I did not officially take a honeymoon after the wedding. We had a destination wedding that was like a honeymoon, but we were never there alone. So for my birthday we decided to spend a week in Croatia, and splurge a little on the hotel room. I'm not really a fan of spending a lot of money on hotel rooms, I mean what's the point you should be out sightseeing. I'm pretty middle of the road when it comes to hotels. I'm not a Motel 6 or Ritz Carlton girl, more like an updated Holiday Inn kind of girl. And if they have free breakfast, a balcony and any kind of water view I'm fully satisfied. We took all of these requirements plus perfect location and city view and we booked the Hotel Excelsior Dubrovnik. This place was amazing and was defiantly worth every penny. Actually I never saw the bill so maybe Mike had a different opinion.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, let me start at the beginning of our trip.
We narrowed down our destination choices to Croatia (mainly Dubrovnik) and Santorini. I'll be very honest, I had to look up Croatia on a map when Mike suggested it. Since we only had a week we decided we would wait and do a longer Santorini/Athens/other greek islands grand tour another year.
Normally, we fly out of Zurich. Zurich is a little over an hour away, it's not a bad drive but it still adds on to your travel time. There is an airport in Bern, but it is tiny and doesn't fly to many places. We lucked out and found a flight out of the Bern airport that had a direct flight to Split. Once you factor in the train tickets and time wasted in going to Zurich, the flight out of Bern was a good price. We decided to spend a couple days in Hvar so there wouldn't be too much travel on the first day. We got a direct flight into Split, took a ferry to Hvar and stayed for 2 days, then took a bus down to Dubrovnik for 4 days and ended with a bus trip back to Split for one night and then flew home.
The 2 hour flight, plus bus ride to the port, plus ferry ride to Hvar added up to a 4 hour travel day. Longer than I was expecting but not bad. The port/bus stop in Split is very busy, but the bus stop is right at the ferry port so getting a ferry to Hvar was pretty easy.
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| Picture of Mike taking a picture at the Split port |
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| Split port |
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| Boats were docked 3 deep. |
I read reviews that people really liked Hvar, but we really didn't do a whole lot of research and didn't know what to expect. I've never been to Italy but I would imagine downtown Hvar resembles it. Narrow alleys, cobblestone streets, lots of stairs, and restaurants tucked into every nook ( I have no idea if this is an accurate comparison). There is a ferry that goes from Hvar to Italy, I'd like to do that one day.
We got to the hotel early and our room was not ready so we went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. There were people laying out topless about 50 feet from us. Not awkward at all.
We picked a cheaper hotel that was about a mile walk from the port/downtown area. The hotel set up on a hill so we got a great view of the Adriatic Sea.
To get downtown we walked down 133 steps to get to a boardwalk that followed the coast to downtown. It was a really nice walk and it didn't seem like a mile away.
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| We walked up and down these steeps at least 7 times over the 2 days. |
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| Stairs leading into the sea |
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| Lounge chairs on the rocks |
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| There was a bachelor party at this bar and all the guys wore matching speedos. |
We had a nice dinner on a terrace and ended the night with gelato.
The next day we booked an excursion to the blue and green caves, but it was rained out. I really wanted to see these caves, so hopefully one day we can make it back there. The rain stopped by 1pm so we went to a fortress overlooking the city and then to the beach. The fortress itself wasn't anything to write about, but it did have a great view of the city.
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| Entrance to the prison |
The beach is a rock beach, no sand. It looked uncomfortable but people didn't seem to mind laying on rocks. We were able to find lounge chairs. :)
Hvar is romantic, beautiful, quiet (they did have one happening bar), and clean. They had all the trash along the walkway picked up by 8am the next morning. Even on a Sunday! And by the size of some of the yachts in the port, it's safe to say some 1%ers vacation here. We stayed in Hvar for 2 days. I think that was a good length of time, maybe 3 days to do everything.
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| There was a boat at least 3 times bigger than the gray one but I don't think we took a picture |
The next day we took a ferry back to Split and caught the bus down to Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is only 200 kilometers away, but with the windy road and stopping at the Bosnia boarder it took 5 hours to get there! There is a ferry that runs from Hvar to Dubrovnik but it only runs twice a week, and we were not traveling on those days. The ferry takes 7 hours. We got into Dubrovnik around 4pm. Mike had emailed the hotel a few days before we checked in and he mentioned it was my birthday. I was hoping for a room upgrade or a desert and the hotel delivered. We splurged on booking a room with a balcony and sea view, but the hotel must have upgraded us because we got a room with the largest balcony on the property. I love balconies so this was great.
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| I love ample toiletries |
It's hard to tell in the picture but we had a view of the beach and downtown from our balcony.
Dubrovnik is one of the 10 best preserved medieval walled cities in the world. It's one of the most prominent tourist destination on the Mediterranean. It's a port city, and had the largest cruise ships I've ever seen. It's also used for filming the Game of Thrones. Our hotel was a 7 minute walk to Old town (the walled part of the city). There are a lot of tourists in the main street, and it's made even busier with the tours from the cruise ships. But once you got past the souvenir shops it really wasn't bad. We had dinner and headed back to our hotel. Our balcony was right next to the restaurant. I guess that impeded our privacy a little bit, but we just turned our backs to the people eating to admire Old Town. The restaurant also had musicians playing outside and we got to enjoy their music. At night the town lights up and it's really beautiful, we were never able to get a good picture of it.
The next day we took a boat that was used in the Game of Thrones, on a 3 island tour of the Elaphite Islands. The boat was super crowded. We signed up for the boat tour last minute, so I'm glad they didn't cap the guests. But it was a little too crowed to tan or walk around. We visited Koločep, Lopud and Šipan. On Lopud they gave us three hours to explore the island. We went to other side of the island to Šunj beach. The was a nice secluded beach with sand.
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| The churches were built to look like a fort |
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| Going into the church |
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| We went onto the Church's roof to view the whole island |
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| Cemetery |
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| The bell only rings when someone dies....of course someone in another group rang the bell |
When we got back I went for a run in the gym. It overlooked the indoor pool. If I have to work out on vacation at least I got a good view (and some good people watching).
We ordered room service and ate it on the balcony. The restaurant had musicians and the weather was great.
The next day we walked along the top of the wall. The wall is 1.24 miles long, and goes around all of Old Town. This was a great way to see the city. It was my birthday, and when we got back to the room the hotel had delivered a dessert to the room. They also left a nice little letter for me. I went to the gym for a run (yes I ran 3 times on vacation!) and then we went to the indoor pool and saunas. We wanted to have dinner outside but it was raining so we ate at the hotel inside.
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| Check out the waves going into the pool |
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| Is that a ladder? |
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| Boys singing on top of the wall |
Thursday we rode a cable car to the top of a mountain to get a great view of the city. At the top they had a dune buggy tour. The tour took us to the other side and we got a good view of the islands we visited Tuesday.
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| You can't tell but I'm showing off all the mud Mike got on me. |
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| I didn't actually drive. |
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| The beach |
That night we had dinner on our balcony again. Last night in Dubrovnik.
Friday we took the bus back to Split (this time it only took 4.5 hours), and we got into split at 3pm. Our hotel was only about 10 minutes from the bus stop. Our hotel only had 4 rooms, it was tiny. It was probably only 30 feet wide, and each room was stacked on top of another. The room was the smallest room I've ever stayed in but it had everything we needed and a nice view of the cathedral.
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| A tiny safe and hairdryer for our tiny room |
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| Our room number |
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| Our view of the Cathedral from our room |
We climbed to the top of the cathedral to get a view of Split. The stairs went from super steep stone to a scary medal staircase.
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| Look how steep those steps are. |
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| I made friends...I had to pay them so we weren't too good of friends |
It was a Friday night when we stayed in Split. We didn't realize Split was such a party town. And we defiantly didn't realize our hotel was right in the middle of the party area. We watched the end of a wedding, and a Friday night outdoor party all from our window. The walls were paper thin and we could hear every 90s pop cover song that they played all night. We had to be out the door by 6am so we didn't not partake in the party but I guess we could have because it's not like we could have slept. After the music stopped at midnight, next came the drunkards singing randomly till about 3am and then came the clean up crew washing the stone street. When we left the hotel at 6am, there were still partygoers walking home. There were even a few who pulled all nighters at the airport....they didn't even bother to change out of their going out clothes.
We loved Croatia. I'm not sure which city I like more Hvar or Dubrovnik. They were so different. I would suggest going to them both. Everyone was so nice and spoke great English. It's pretty easy to get around, but it does take a while to get into cities.
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