Splitting up after Zagreb!

Arriving in Split was a bit of an anticlimax, we’d had so much fun on the islands in the Adriatic sea! But, all good things come to an end…

Since Alex and Laura were catching an overnight train to Zagreb that evening they were not going to be out looking for accommodation. Suz, Trina and I managed to find an older lady offering rooms. We followed her for about 10min and were actually shown the best room that we’ve had so far. Trina even had a TV in her room (but then again, the day we left she was forced to leave so that they could put two people in that room and get more money….not very nice!).

Anyway, back to our day in Split…. Suz and I were going to fly out early the next morning to go to Zagreb so we decided not to make it a late night!

Walking around the town we quickly realised that there isn’t all that much to do in Split, we had been told by friends to skip the city… and that’s why we were only doing a day there.

We walked along the streets of old town, seeing some old buildings here and there and also finding a big statue of some 10th century Croatian Bishop. It’s said that if you rub his toe you will have lots of luck. And it seems that a lot of people have done it since the toe is really shiny!

Later on we walked through the area that houses the Diocletian Palace with its roman guards standing outside. We walked around it and later on also under it… Most of all we were just walking and observing the people travelling in big tour groups.

There is always a person leading them by either holding up their hand, umbrella or some sort of sign that people can follow.

So Alex decided to do the same for us, she walked ahead and waved the Lonely Planet Croatia book high above her head and said while walking; “This way, come along!”. We might have gotten some weird looks but it was hilarious!

Since there isn’t all that much to do in Split we starting to wonder if we would go and sit for a few hours in a cinema watching whatever was available. We checked, but the movies weren’t until 19.00 or so that evening.

So we just killed off time by sitting in an internet cafe, doing some more strolling around and eventually we decided to go for an early dinner.

It was really our last supper together…. that evening Alex and Laura were leaving by train, Suz and I by plane in the morning and Trina would stay another few days before going back to Canada. We managed to find a decent place and had a good dinner, I finally managed to get the Black Ink Risotto I’ve been craving for a while and it was good!!

Well, we said our goodbyes to Trina that night and had an early night, the next morning we were up at 4am (absolutely hate these early flights), caught a bus to the airport and then a 40min flight to Zagreb.

The girls would arrive in Zagreb before us and we had said that we would meet them at the hostel.

After touching down in Zagreb we had to catch a bus to the city and then figure out which tram to get on and where to get off. We did pretty well and just got off one stop too early on the tram.

While we were walking we must have looked lost because a lady from across the street shouted to us; “Hostel, there”, and pointed down the street from us. We thanked her and walked a few hundred meters down that street and then another little old lady pointed straight ahead and said; “Hostel”.

So, thanks to these two sweet old ladies we found our hostel, the Ravnice Hostel. When we checked in they said that our friends were there already. We walked towards our dorm and were thinking that it would be great if the four of us were in the same dorm room…

And will you belive it, we were…. when they arrived that morning the girls had asked for us and managed to move themselves into that room. This was perfect, Suz and I were wondering what kind of people we were going to be sharing rooms with. It turned out perfect this way!

The hostel itself turned out to be a great place, sure it’s located a 20min tram ride from the city centre, but once you get over that fact it’s perfect, clean rooms, good equipped kitchen and very nice people. From what we have read online about the hostels in the centre of Zagreb we are quite happy we found this place.

So, after checking in we decided to tour the city for a while. All four of us went in together (Suz and I didn’t have a ticket for the tram ride but there were never any ticket inspectors during our 3 days there).

The tram took us to the main square of Zagreb, the Trg Josip Jelačića Square. From here we walked along Radićeva street for a while, eventually we found a place that was open for lunch and sneaked in for a quick pasta (at this point we were really getting tired of pasta and pizza but it’s something quick and easy to order).

After lunch Alex and Laura went back to the hostel to catch up on some sleep so Suz and I wandered the streets of Zagreb by ourselves. We eventually made it to the train station where we inquired about the prices for a return journey to Ljubljana in Slovenia.

Since the price was in our budget range we decided to get them for the next day and just do a quick day trip (you can read more about that trip in the next blog).

The rest of the afternoon we spent walking around the city, looking at some Cathedrals, some parks and just looking at the people of Zagreb….

We also made it to the famous St Mark’s Church which contains the coat of arms of Croatia on its roof. It’s very striking, unfortunately the effect was somewhat less since the whole church was covered in scaffolding (everywhere we’ve been on this trip there has been a famous monument covered with scaffolding).

Well, other than that we really didn’t do much more in Zagreb, the next day we went to Ljubljana and on our final day we just relaxed in the hostel until it was time to leave for the airport.

We said our goodbyes to Alex and Laura and sent them on their way to the airport (their flight left 2-3 hours before ours did). We’ve been having a lot of fun travelling together with them, they are just as crazy as we are so of course we got along perfectly!

There is nothing wrong with Zagreb and it’s not fair to compare it with the islands of the Adriatic sea, but it’s difficult not to. If we had arrived in Croatia and did Zagreb first, I think we would have appreciated it more, it really is a cute city.

And Croatia as a whole? We absolutely loved it…. we were a bit disappointed with the costs, we’ve been told by a few friends that it’s really cheap, and while it wasn’t as expensive as for example Italy, it doesn’t have long to go before it reaches that level. The next time we will just know what to expect.

And we will definitely come back to Croatia, it’s a beautiful country, the waters of the Adriatic sea are the clearest we’ve come across, the people are so friendly and it has a lot of culture and history to offer.