Bog from Croatia!

I am back in Amsterdam after a fabulous holiday last week with Jude. We got to see a lot but also had plenty of time relaxing in the sun, swimming in the Adriatic, eating great local food and drinking good local wine and beer....what more could you want in a holiday!?! It feels as though Salzburg was about 2 months ago so it was definitely a very relaxing week.

I really enjoyed our time on the island of Korcula...we stayed in local accomodation ie. someone's house in the middle of the old town, and our two days felt like a week. We swam off the rocks, sunbaked on the pebbly shores, drank cocktails in the stone 'turret' by the sea, ate lots of good food, and bought some beautiful local jewellery :) On one of the days we had lunch in the village of Pupnat which is 15km from the town of Korcula, pretty much in the deadcentre of island. The group was catching the bus out there but I decided it would be good to explore the place more thoroughly and so hired a mountain bike and set off up the hill (10%!) out of town to ride into the interior. The surroundings change rapidly as you ascend and move inland...it is quite dry and looks almost desolate with few trees, mainly coastal shrub. It was a beautiful warm sunny day and I had a sweat up by the time I reached our destination but it was well worth it. We had a beautiful lunch of local antipasto, pasta and dessert with plenty of local white and red wine to wash it all town. Most of the group jumped back on the bus for the drive home; 3 brave souls started the walk home (Jude included) and I cruised next to them on the bike for awhile before taking of down the fast descent home. I took a different route home, down the side of the 'mountain' for 5km to the coast and then a leisurely cruise back along the road that hugged the coastline...I even had a tailwind...lovely!
From Korcula we headed up to Split for a couple of days....similarly we had time to explore the local sites with plenty of down time for sun and swimming. Split is home to Diocletian (a Roman emperor)'s palace and it is amazing. It is quite run down but they are doing extensive restoration and it is incredible because within the palace walls is the whole of the old town....restaurants, cafes, heaps of shops and then lots of people living in apartments in the old buildings of the palace. One of the days we caught the ferry out to the island of Brac...hired chairs to save us from the pebbly shores and there we remained for hours, swimming in the beautiful clear waters of the Adriatic....mmmm....
After Split we had an interesting day getting to Zagreb (the capital of Croatia) which is where we were flying out from. We hired a car, drove on the smaller coastal roads to Zadar which is beautiful the whole way and then onto the fairly new super-highway for the last 200km to Zagreb. The new road is amazing and very different to what my visions were. Jude and I are both pretty hopeless with directions but we found our way to the hotel, explored on Sunday night and then flew yesterday.
I'm now back in Amsterdam, we went to Aalsmeer flower markets today which Jude wanted to see and then she flies tomorrow. I need to get back into the groove now, do some uni work and get myself organised for next year. At this stage I don't think I will be home for a few weeks yet but I will write when I know more....