Honeymoon (another day)

We have been trying to arrange diving and white water rafting for our entire stay but there always seems to be obstacles (mainly the Croatian strange planning methods). Having finally sorted a dive place today we may get to go in the morning the obstacle today was wind making visibility rubbish.


So far we have done neither so went to Split ancient town yesterday. The palace walls still exist and surround the old town we spent our entire afternoon within the walls. Before heading to Bravic beach for an evening Pivo. 

Tomorrow we are heading to Italy, taking a ferry from Split to Ancona (approx 4 hours) and then will drive to Florence and stay in a hotel for the night. We will both be sad to leave Croatia as have had an amazing time here and will definitely be back... however at the same time very excited to see Italy.

Honeymoon Day 26

The previous link to the wedding photos does not work so here it is:
https://picasaweb.google.com/joncaines/ChrisSarahLR?authkey=Gv1sRgCPDCiLyk1PaUgQE


Not quite sure if it is day 26 or 27, lost count and we went to a cool bar called 'The Garden' in Zadar. It sits overlooking the sea and we finally found some good cocktails, one of them must have been off though as we have sore heads this morning. It's owned by the drummer and producer of UB40, we had dinner there so hopefully the 'rat in the kitchen' has been dealt with.

Zadar's old town has an amazing amount of Roman remains but the highlight for us is a 'Sea Organ'. Set within stone stairs that descend into the sea, as waves hit the pipes it whistles through holes in the steps. As large boats go by it completely changes the tones. It's very cool and the only one in the world.

Took a swim out and listened from the sea.

There is also a solar powered light show next to it called 'Sun Salutation' (designed by the same guy), it collects sun all day and then provides a light show at sunset to sunrise and is so efficient they now use the excess energy to power all the street lights.

Trying to upload a video of it here but it's taking ages so will load one to Vimeo, which will be visible under 'Our Video's'.

or 

http://vimeo.com/user6382461 

Heading of to Split now which will be our last destination in Croatia.

Honeymoon Day 24

The fish dinner was another success, fish platter for 2, demolished.

After dinner we headed to town to check out the renowned night life, it was fun but their in serious need of some cocktail training (a mojito without mint!!!! make that a lot of training!!!!). Sarah's latest business idea a proper cocktail bar in Novaji, if it means spending more time out here I'm in. 


Had a lazy day sitting on the beach yesterday, we were hoping to dive but all the centres seem to be shut so in need of excitement we hired a jet ski and scared the life out of Sarah. She loved it really but her role as action photographer was a bit of a failure.

Finally got round to cooking for ourselves last night and finished the first of our gas bottles so the load just got lighter. After dinner a lovely Dutch couple from next door introduced us to mish mash, a local drink for the ladies. They have travelled Croatia extensively so imparted their knowledge of the best thing to see and best places to stay, which has saved us a couple of hours of research (so time for another jet ski I think).

A nice surprise yesterday was the arrival of the official wedding photos from Andy. Was great flicking through them on the beach.

There are some awesome shots.

Jon has uplaoded them to: 

https://picasaweb.google.com/joncaines/ChrisSarahLRauthkey=Gv1sRgCPDCiLyk1PaUgQE&feat=email

Honeymoon Day 23

Left the beaches of Nin (nr Zadar) today. We had a cool time there, the water was lush and the food fabulous. 

We also found some lovely Croatian wines. 
Last night the local restaurant made us Steak Tartare at the table to follow the chef's seafood platter, we ate so much we have missed breakfast and just had a bag of crisps for lunch.

We have now arrived in on the Island of Pag, which is gorgeous but we'll let it speak for itself

Set up a new home and, as seems to be the trend in Croatian campsites, have had lots of lovely German people introduce themselves and offer us things (mostly booze). They call us 'the camping poor', as they mostly have RV's with all kinds of mod cons (Sat TV, bathrooms, full kitchens, verandas, boats and carrying smart cars or mopeds) and we have a little tent and a double burner. 

Took a swim in the sea as the sun got very hot whilst setting up, but now it looks like we might be in for another storm. The people next door have offered shelter for the night in their RV incase lightning comes. However we have found what looks like a another great seafood restaurant and having promised to cook tonight look set to break that promise. The place is on the beach has platter for two made up of the days various catches for £16!!! It's not worth wasting the gas on our own food.

Honeymoon Day 21

Spent an amazing morning seeing the second area of the national park, was fun to have a couple of city day's in Zagreb but this was more like the adventure we had planned. 
We hired a rowing boat, can't do the views justice with words so check out the photos. 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/58792688@N06/sets/ 

After lunch we set off for our next destination and we're now in Zadar. It was a great drive through mountains on empty roads, an hours worth of twisting bends to throw the car around as we left the park area.

Arrived in Zadar and drove around a while to find a decent campsite, fearing our chosen place was going to be like the Venice campsite. After viewing the alternatives decided to return to the first choice and it's turned out to be great. 

Found another great seafood restaurant and ate far too much. You order fish by the gram here which makes it difficult for us, there was two options for the squid and we ordered 350g. 3 massive squid's arrived (1 would have been enough) The other option was 1kg, which must be a weeks worth. Considering starving ourselves for the day to get the 1kg of lobster tonight.

We're right on the beach and can go diving, white water rafting, hire jet ski's etc. So looking forward to a couple of action packed days. 

Its 29 degrees so plenty of sunbathing for Sarah as well.

Honeymoon Day 20

We arrived in the Plitvica National park for lunch today and found a restaurant built from an old mill that ran off the surrounding waterfalls. On the menu was fresh trout caught in the river and cooked on a BBQ pit.

After lunch was time for a hike into the main sights of the park which is a world heritage site and we immediately found out why.

We spent 2hrs trekking the gorge's and viewing amazing waterfalls

wifi here rubbish so signing off as this has taken an hour. will post the photos to flickr ASAP as their amazing 

Honeymoon day 19

Just woke up in our luxury hotel following another great night out in Zagreb. It was hard work though as the night before still lingered but it was hard not to party in such a lively place. 


The night before:

We stayed at The Regent, Esplande - was only 140Euro a night, the same in London would be £400 easily, it made us feel like honeymooners again.
When we arrived there was a group of English chaps doing a cannonball run for charity (Build Aid for Haiti). The concierge assumed we were a part of it and parked us in the line up.

They invited us along for their last leg to Hungary, but we would have to get rid of the luggage (and wife) to keep up with them. When the concierge, realised we were new guests he took the keys and drove off, this wasn't easy to watch but the cannonballers assured us he had done a great job with their machines.

Checking out soon and back to camping. We are moving on to The Plitvica national forest (where we should have been 2 days ago) Its a 2 hr drive (1.5 if Sarah falls asleep) The sun is shining again and here is what we have to look forward to:

Will spend a few days hiking and 'drying out' as technically we must be alcoholics by now. Last night over our 5th schnapps we realised how long our trip is and that we can't possible drink everyday, but Croatia does have some great wines.