Day 59 Zadar to Korenica

From Zadar we started heading inland again to see the Krka waterfalls, which are a very popular day trip from Split and have a reputation for being ridiculously busy. As we didn't want to experience this we took the online advice and got out of bed very early for the hour drive from Zadar.

Once we arrived at Lozovac we had to take a bus to the entrance and then follow the one way boardwalk through the park, past the waterfalls and tributaries until we reached the major waterfall Skradinski buk . Getting up early was definitely worth it as there were only a handful of people there. We continued on the circular path and as the morning progressed it noticeably getting much busier.

At one point we both realised the path we were in was looking familiar, we realised we had started the loop again! We walked against the oncoming crowds until we found the turn off we wanted to take and bought tickets for the boat trip to Roski Slap. We had to wait until 11am for the boat so spent the time planning some further travelling for the next few days.

The boat for Roski Slap first stopped at Visovac monastery which is on an island similar to Bled, interestingly it wasn't originally an island but a pile of rocks, the monks built the island by bringing everything from the mainland. From there the boat continued to Roski Slap, which is a smaller waterfall where we stayed for a while before returning to our car happy that we had missed most of the crowds.

We continued on to the small town of Korenica for the night so we would be close to Plitvice Lakes for our visit the next morning.

Day 58 Rijeka to Zadar

We chose the coastal route south rather than the inland highway and this worked out well as the road hugs the coastline with lovely views of the Dalmatian Coast. Along the way we passed people on the side of the road selling pork on the spit.

We turned off for lunch following a sign we saw to Jablanaca and found ourselves in a small port that looked like a mini Hvar. It was very quiet and the only other tourists who seemed to be in town were the Aussies at the table behind us, we can't seem to get away from fellow Australians. As they had come from Italy they seemed to think that the Dalmatian Coast was nice and quiet like this stretch, they will be in for a rude shock when they reach Split and Dubrovnik.

After a lovely lunch we continued along the coastal route until we arrived in our stop for the night in Zadar, where the old town is on a peninsula. Zadar has an unusual attraction that we haven't seen anywhere else - a sea organ, where the waves of the sea push air through various holes in the surrounding concrete to make ever changing music.

Day 57 Trieste Italy to Rijeka Croatia

We left our B&B in Trieste and drove along the waterfront, there were many people out sunbaking on pieces of concrete early in the morning, which didn't look appealing as it wasn't that warm. We drove on to Koper in Slovenia, thought the border was hard to notice as both countries are in the Schengen area and it was difficult to tell that we had changed country.

Our morning coffee break was in Koper, once our coffee was finished and we were trying to leave we managed to take a wrong turn and ended up driving through the middle of the main square (oops), only to find we couldn't get out on the other side, meaning we had to drive back through again (there was no swearing involved.......). After leaving Koper we crossed the border back into Croatia, holding our breath as we left Slovenia that we wouldn't be hit with a €300 fine over the vignette. The border crossing on our side was easy but the people driving into Slovenia and Italy had a different story with kilometers after kilometers of cars queuing, most of them seemed to be holiday makers with more camper vans and luggage racks than we have ever seen in one place, maybe lots of people were starting their summer holidays that week.

Pula on the coast was our lunch stop where we found a car park right outside the ancient Roman amphitheatre which has been partly restored and impressively resembles a smaller Colosseum. 

After Pula we went on to Rijeka for the night, a port town on the coast, though not as pretty as its name, or many of the other coastal cities in Croatia.

Day 56 Ljubljana Slovenia to Trieste Italy

We started the day with a walk along the river in Ljubljana, there was a Sunday market with lots of interesting knick knacks for sale, a bit different and much more interesting than the ones back home.

From there we headed off to our planned trip to the Lipizzaner Stud Farm in Lipica, the oldest stud farm in the world and where the Lippizaner horses are bred for the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.

The grounds are quite large but the farm itself seemed quite tired, the paddocks were not in good order and the stables not kept as well as you would expect. The indoor school and the show seemed quite amateurish compared with the one in Vienna, maybe this is to be expected as it is the breeding and early training centre from which the top horses are sent through to Vienna. If you are in the area it's worth seeing but I wouldn't recommend making a special trip to Slovenia to see it.

Our stopover for the night was in Trieste, Italy which is very close by. Trieste is a seaport with the largest square in Europe that opens to the sea. The buildings around the square are architecturally beautiful and ornate but the square itself was very quiet, maybe because it was a Sunday evening.

Day 55 Bled to Ljubljana

We decided to start early to hopefully miss the bus loads of tourists we were expecting to descend on the tiny island with the church in the middle of Lake Bled. We hired our own rowboat and M was even wearing his black and white striped Venetian gondola style tshirt. The weather was perfect and we had that part of the lake to ourselves as we crossed to the island then moored our boat for a quick walk around the island just as boat loads of people started arriving. We would love to know who was the smart person who decided that they would charge €3 a tourist to ring the church bell and list it as a "must do", it was ringing non stop, ding ding ding ....ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching!

We had a little bit of trouble getting back into our boat as a bunch of Asian tourists had started using it for a prop for their photos, M was under a bit of pressure setting off as they all filmed us rowing the boat back, luckily we were off to a good start but it was embarrassing when we realised halfway across that we had been rowing it backwards!

It was such a perfect day for a walk we set off for the 6km walk around Lake Bled, first stop was in Bled town to have morning tea on the lake and sample the famous cream cake that the area is famous for, which is very similar to a light vanilla slice with cream, and by the look of the cream filled beak of the sparrow on our table the bird life enjoy it just as much.

An international rowing regatta was being held on the lake and by the time we arrived at the finishing line they were awarding medals, its difficult to imagine a more  beautiful spot to have a regatta, except for the continual ringing of the island church bell, ding ding ding ....ka-ching ka-ching ka-ching!

We had been told that Vintgar Gorge was closed as they'd had a very bad winter with flooding and rock collapses so were still cleaning up the area to make it safe but we decided to go along for a look anyway and there was access for a little way.

From there is was on to the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, on arriving at our apartment M was asked if he was Slovenian as his Italian surname is apparently very common in Slovenia. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the bars and cafes along the river in Ljubljana which is a very pretty capital city.

Day 54 Zagreb Croatia to Bled Slovenia

We collected our hire car for a week of driving around Croatia and Slovenia and drove north to the border, we still had to do the passport control unlike other countries in Western Europe where formal border crossings don't really exist. We hadn't been in Slovenia for long when we started seeing signs about a vignette, this sounded vaguely familiar to us from our previous European trip. A quick internet search told us that we should have been advised by the car rental company, as they knew we were going to Slovenia, and failure to have a vignette results in a €300 fine at the border when you leave, ouch! We took the next exit sign and purchased a vignette from a petrol station,  hopefully we won't get fined!

We drove through the township of Bled and headed for Lake Bohinj, stopping for some lunch near the stone bridge before driving onto Vogel and taking the gondola up the Julian Alps and into Trivlag National Park. Once at the top of the gondola we took a chair lift up to the ski slopes where M took advantage of the patches of snow and hit K with a snowball.  

We took our time heading back to the chairlift to head back down, and when we disembarked at the other end we saw a sign saying that the chairlift stopped at 4pm, and it was 3:57! We were lucky we made it, it would not have been fun to have ended up stuck at the top of the mountain having to walk all the way down.

The next stop was Slap Savica which was a climb of 550 steps to the highest waterfall in Slovenia before driving back to Lake Bled and our Airbnb in the tiny town of Selo where we were staying.

Day 53 Zagreb

A much cooler day today and even though we were staying in the centre of town it took us a while to find a place for brunch. So many cafes but like all over the Balkans they only serve drinks, Croats mustn't go out for breakfast. We finally found somewhere that served food and coffee, we had been keeping an eye on the time for the 12 o'clock cannon fire but when it finally went off the boom was so loud and unexpected we jumped. 

We took the horseshoe shaped route through the city gardens and buildings and found ourselves back up on the top side of the city at the mouth of a very long pedestrian tunnel which ended up with an exit that popped out right near our apartment.

Day 52 Split to Zagreb

We had decided to catch the bus to Zagreb, spend a few days there and then hire a car from there for a week. 

We managed to check into our apartment right in the center of town very close to the bottom of the world's shortest funicular and then make it to the 5pm free walking tour only a couple of minutes late. On the tour we learnt of may famous Croatians, including the founders of the tie, the pen, and of course Nikola Tesla. St Mark's Church has a really interesting roof made of different coloured tiles that make patterns and coats of arms.

They had a strange museum called The Broken Relationship Museum where people have donated an item from a failed relationship and told the story to go with it.

At 12 noon everyday a cannon is fired from the Lotrscak Tower which is at the top of the funicular ride outside our apartment, the noise was so loud that we were very surprised when it happened even though we were sort of expecting it. The weather in Zagreb was very different from the heat of Dubrovnik and the coast, it is almost cool, and they have huge differences in weather, in winter the snow is a couple of feet deep, and in summer it can be 40 degrees - Melbourne doesn't look so bad after all!

Day 51 Hvar to Split

The ferry from Hvar to Split was at the reasonable time of 10.15 am and our apartment in Split was an easy walk from the port so it was an easy travelling morning. 

As it was hot and there were three cruise ships in Split that day we left most of our exploration until later in the afternoon. 

Split has as a very wide promenade and even though there was still a ship in town and lots of people around it didn't feel crowded. Diocletian's palace is very well preserved and the old town has more of an authentic feel than Dubrovnik which in comparison feels more like a theme park.

Day 49 & Day 50 Hvar

We were woken at 6am to church bells that seemed like they would never stop, a good way to get everyone out of bed early every morning. 

We spent the mornings walking around the port of Hvar and the beach areas until the heat became difficult to handle. K would relax in the aircon, M would go exploring, and we'd head out together again later in the day. 

Hvar is known as a party island and there were lots of groups of young people wandering around, apparently at 11.45pm the boats start ferrying everyone to the island nightclub that opens at midnight, we will never know for sure, somehow I think we would have looked a little conspicuous if we'd tried that trip!.