Croatia recap

We're in Bari, Italy, at the moment. The only reason we are here is because the Croatian and Greek ferries come through here. There are no direct ferries from Croatia to Greece. Apparently, it's something to do with both countries believing they have the best island group and are not interested in helping people compare them! Not much to do in Bari and it's Italian Siesta at the moment. Luckily, the Internet cafe is open.

We arrived on the ferry from Dubrovnik last night and head out to Greece this evening at 8pm.

We loved Croatia. We spent one day in Split, three in Hvar, three in Korcula and one in Dubrovnik. Split was quite pretty. We were very impressed. Our standards were too low though. Hvar was even better. I was expecting a quite port town but this place was buzzing. There are some excellent restaurants and some interesting bars along the waterfront. It's a bit of a promenade really. Lot's of trendy people walking around strutting their stuff. We stayed in private accommodation - as you tend to in Croatia. However, they were basically running a hotel. We had a 2 bedroom apartment with Steph and Michael. Jackie was in another room very close to ours. Our hosts were very nice. They quite enjoyed the fact that they could speak with Michael in Croatia. Seems that most of their guests are foreign so the language side of things must be hard work for them...they didn't speak much English. The wife ran the show but I think the husband was quite happy when Michael asked if it was possible to watch the handball final in the Olympics (Croatia vs Germany...Croatia won). The TV was in the kitchen but we could see it from outside. We were invited in to watch the game and even given beers. All very pleasant.

We did a day trip from Hvar to Vis. There is a Blue Grotto that is supposed to be quite amazing. The boat sails into the cave and you are surrounded by amazing colours. Unfortunately for us, the weather was marginal. Halfway during the crossing we were informed that they'd just heard that we wouldn't be able to go to the cave. I was also ill on the crossing...Mel wasn't feeling so good either but kept breakfast down.

Instead of the cave we just spent more time on the island of Vis. We went for a swim and lunch. I couldn't face fish for lunch especially with another 2 1/2 hour boat trip ahead of us. That was a real shame as this was where Steph and Michael had the best seafood of the trip. I tried a piece of Michael's Langostine (crayfish/prawn cross thing). It was wonderful...even with a dodgy stomach. We survived the return trip quite easily. The wind direction and swell were much more favourable.

From Hvar we went to Korcula. Korcula is a very small walled city on a peninsula that you can walk around in about 10 mins. It's exceptionally beautiful. More on that in the next blog...