Croatia - August 24th - September 3rd

CROATIA - Croatia is a Central European and Mediterranean country, bordering Slovenia in the west, Hungary in the north, Serbia in the east and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the south. Croatia also has a long maritime border with Italy in the Adriatic Sea.







Dubrovnik - August 24th - 27th
Stayed in Dubrovnik for 3 nights before the sailing cruise started. It is such an amazing, unique town on the Adriatic and was very clean with shiny stoned streets. It was hard to believe the old city was bombed severly in 1991 and has recovered so quickly after such a devastation. We stayed above the old town and it was a decent walk up many steps back to our pension. 'Milo' was the owner of the Pension and he was so hospitable and nice looking for an older man too!!! By day we would lounge by the beach, sunbaking and swimming - with 30+ on of course!!! We went to lovely restaurants by night and explored the history and culture of the town. We explored the city walls (a whole 1940 metres of them), taking in awesome sights of the city and sea!!!! Dubrovnik is a must see - but is becoming very touristy!




Sail Croatia - August 27th - September 3rd
For 7 days, 11 Friends and I (Amber, Damo, Ellie, Tan, Luke, Rach, Erica, Meagan M, Megan, Mark and Vaughan Parkes - who I had to mention in full as he so desparately wants to google his name) cruised on the clear Adriatic seas around the Southern Dalmatia Islands with a vintage sailing ship - the sails went up once when the winds were good.

It was so relaxing and lovely (there you go Ellie!!!)! We were cooked whole fresh fish most lunches by Tony the chef, dived off the boat into the clear waters of the Adriatic, sunbathed on deck chairs as we achored or sailed to the next destination, explored the islands, ate fresh seafood of an evening, had a few cocktails and then slept on board the boat.

We sailed from Dubrovnik to some lovely, quiet islands to relax, swim and enjoy amazing dinners - The Chef's recommendations of eateries was spot on!



Some of the island stopovers
- Hvar, which is the longest island in the Adriatic. Great night life seen full of various cultures!
- Korcula, the birth place of Marco Polo.
- Mljet where we hired bicycles and viewed the gorgeous scenary and swam in the salt lakes of the National Park.
- Sipan, a lovely little island that was furtherest away from Dubrovnik on our tour.

I have painted a great picture and for the most part of the trip it was exactly like this, however here are some of the lows:
- Sea sicknesses on the first day, due to a thunder storm - which made me hurl over the edge of the boat and almost made me think what have I paid for? - but I quickly found my sea legs!
- Having to get up at 8am to have breakfast
- Watching the chef on the last day lick his fingers after serving every individual dessert!
Health and safety rgulations in the kitchen obviously still haven't reached Croatia!!! But the food was good!

We met some lovely couples on the sail boat and it was great to hang out with such a good mix of people.