From Zadar to Cavtat

Bright and early on the 3rd of June I awoke from a deep sleep in a comfortable B&B bed, got dressed in the dark, put on my trusty Birkenstocks, kissed my sleepy husband goodbye and walked across the road to where the rest of my travel buddies were getting ready in an equally sleepy manner. We squeezed into the little maroon Peugeot and headed to the airport to catch a rather early flight to Zadar. This was my first experience flying with Ryanair - an airline who prides themselves on their cheapness and punctuality. It wasn't a bad experience, just a little bit annoying since it was 7am and every thirty minutes or so there is a deafening chime on the speakers followed by a rather annoying advertisement about some kind of beverage that they are flogging off so they can try and keep their fares low. I was happy to put up with it though considering our flights were considerably cheap. Also there was a rowdy bunch of guys heading to Croatia for a crazy, alcohol-fuelled beach holiday and they decided to start the fuelling on the plane - might I mention again that it was 7am?

We arrived in Croatia, greeted by some rather nice, sunny weather and went to collect our hire car which took a while to sort out (I'm getting quite used to Swiss efficiency). We packed the car with all of our luggage - lucky for us they gave us a pretty big car with PLENTY of boot space (enough to store a few bodies, one might say) so there was ample space for our stuff. Before we got there, I had visions of us all squeezing into a tiny car and having to travel five hours with bags on our laps.

We then thought that I would be a good idea to get some money out of an ATM - Croatia isn't part of the EU yet so we had to get some of the local currency (Kuna). I had to get extra out so I could pay for my accommodation in cash, the email from the company that managed our accommodation said that I could pay in Euros. So I took that as a sign that they would prefer that I paid in Euros. The ATM only dispensed Kuna's (of course, why wouldn't it) so I went to the only bank in the airport (it was a very small airport) and asked if I could exchange some money. The lady in the bank - who reminded me somewhat of Paulette from Legally Blonde, said to me (in a very strong accent) "why you pay in Euros?" and I tried to explain to her my situation but she told me "No, you only pay in Kuna". She said that I could exchange my newly acquired Kuna's into Euro's if I really wanted but with a rather high commission charge. So I asked her to write down the exchange rate so I wouldn't get jibbed whilst paying for my accommodation since they had only given us the price in Euro's. So finally we could all jump into the car and head on our merry way down to our villa in Cavtat which is about thirty minutes south of Dubrovnik.

The drive down was really quite beautiful - that is, when I got the chance to look out of the window in between holding my head and my stomach and trying to stop myself from hurling my breakfast up. I'm not usually the 'car sick' type but there was something about those windy, bumpy roads and perhaps the hot weather that made me feel rather rotten. Luckily though it was only the last half of the car trip that I was feeling yuck so I got to enjoy the first part of it.

The hire car 

We all screamed out "GOATS" when we saw this herd amble across the road in front of us with a lady holding a large stick running behind them.

Part of the drive down you have to drive through Bosnia and Herzegovina to get to the bottom of Croatia where Dubrovnik is. It's a rather strange concept for an Aussie girl to drive through part of a different country to get back into the country you were just in. Have a look on a map to understand what I'm talking about. I think Bosnia just wanted to have part of the coastline. We had a lunch stop while we were driving through, just so we could say that we had lunch in Bosnia and Herzegovina (we were struggling to remember how to say this name - most of the time we just called it Bosnia Hexagon because that was much easier to remember).

After more windy and chunderous (sorry for that visual) driving, we made it to the lovely, little town of Cavtat where we stopped at a grocery store to stock up on some supplies for the next few days and then continued on to find our lovely villa. We had to give an estimated time of arrival in an email to the accommodation company so a lady could come and meet us with the keys and since she had to drive for four hours to get there from Sarajevo, she was extremely pleased with our accurate estimation. She was very accommodating and was pleased to give us bucket-loads of recommendations for restaurants and local sights. Then it was time to unwind, settle in, relax and for me, lie down and feel sorry for myself - I was still feeling rather seedy. Luckily I had two "Mums" on hand to help me out. They promptly made my bed, tucked me in and gave me plenty of water to keep me hydrated.

Some great photos of our lovely villa, taken by Mitch

Our villa was rather nice. It was in a tiny village about five minutes drive from Cavtat surrounded by rugged landscape and friendly neighbours. Since the landscape was so rugged, so was the wildlife. Our little oasis was inhabited by many different varieties of creepy crawlies - Mitch found a scorpion under their bathmat. On our drive down we kept seeing signs for wolves and bears so we had dreams of being attacked in our somewhat unlock-able villa by ferocious bears and hungry wolves, but lucky for us we were able to sleep soundly without being eaten.

More Croatia (and surrounding countries) stories to come.