Where's the Beach?! CROATIA!!

It’s about 6pm here in Uppsala and I’ve officially completed my traveling for the semester! This last week, I headed to Croatia with four other friends for a girl’s trip and one last ‘hoorah’ before getting ready to go home (how time flies!).

Let me just start by saying how BEAUTIFUL Croatia is! We landed in Zadar (the capital) in the early evening and then took an 8-hour bus ride overnight down the coast to a city called Dubrovnik. Out of all the planes, trains, and automobiles I’ve been on these past few months, this was hands-down the most uncomfortable, bumpy bus ride of them all! It literally felt like an 8-hour long earthquake as we swerved around the bends of the coast at speeds that I’m almost positive would not be considered safe. On top of this, while trying to get the little sleep we could, the bus went through two different passport checks, where a police got on the bus and physically checked each passenger’s passport (as if we didn’t need them to get into the country in the first place, right?!). And of course, I was the only one to have left my passport in my bag under the bus, so I had to get off and frantically find it to show the police. To say the least, we were all very ready to get off that damn bus by the time we got to Dubrovnik!

Waiting for us at the bus station was the owner of our hostel…a very cute, older Croatian man named Marin, holding a sign with Valerie’s name on it. We piled into his small car, which was only meant for four passengers, but managed to squeeze all five of us! After the type of bus ride we’d just experienced, we all went to put our seat belts on, but just as we reached for them, Marin stopped us and said “Oh no no, Police sleep here!” Haha we all had a good laugh, immediately fell in love with this sweet old man, and made our way to the hostel. Looking back on it, this was by far one of the best hostel experiences I had because all the hostels in Croatia are smaller and owned by families. Instead of the common dorm style, we got to split just two rooms between the five of us, had our own kitchen, and a big balcony that overlooked the city with breath-taking views!

Marin and our hostel!

They had juice and cookies waiting for us when we first got there, it was so cute!

The view from our balcony!

After catching up on some much needed sleep, we all woke up around noon and headed out with one mission in mind: to find the beach!! Dubrovnik is a city that’s basically situated so that all the houses are stacked along the mountainous coast, so you have to climb up and down A TON of stairs to make your way to the Old Town, which is the main tourist area. Old Town is completely surrounded by a brick wall, so you literally walk through an entrance into the town, making your way through all the little shops, to find the beach on the other side! We quickly discovered that Croatia is filled with mainly rocky beaches, but did manage to find Dubrovnik’s only sandy beach!

Entrance into Old Town.

This pose is for you Mama!

Me and Allyson!

Because Croatia is well-known for its many islands and national parks, we took a short boat ride to the closest island and spent a day enjoying the scenery of the park!

On the boat!

Of course we made time for tanning while on the island!

Aside from our national park day, most of our time in Dubrovnik was spent at the beach, getting our tan on, walking through the shops in Old Town, and making dinner each night to enjoy on our balcony! Although we went grocery shopping and cooked most of our meals, the few times we ate in town was by far the best pizza and ice cream any of us had ever tasted! Even better than Italy…weird right?!

Anyways, after four full days, we reluctantly spent a day on the bus back to Zadar to spend our last couple days in the capital. Zadar is very similar to Dubrovnik in the sense that most of its residential area lies on the outskirts of the city and then Old Town consists of all the restaurants and shopping. Zadar was different though, in that its Old Town sits on a peninsula, surrounded by some of the bluest water I’ve ever seen. After struggling to find legitimate beach areas around the Peninsula, we finally settled on tanning at the city’s famous sea organs. The sea organs are basically just holes in the ground that sit right up against the water, so that as the waves pass by it sounds like the music of an organ! Definitely a very cool area of Zadar!

Old Town Zadar.

Tanning at the Sea Organs!

Me and Valerie!

Although the area by the sea organs wasn't exactly beach-like, we decided it was too hot not to jump in the water, so Val and I held hands and plunged in! You'll see in the video below that it took us a little while to work up the courage, but finally jumped!

After traveling to so many different cities and countries throughout this semester, I’ve learned that every trip has a completely different feel based not only on what the city itself has to offer, but also based on who you’re there with. In recognizing this, I couldn’t have asked for a better last trip with four of the closest girlfriends I’ve met while being in Sweden. Making Croatia a GIRLS ONLY trip was truly a perfect way to celebrate one last ‘hoorah’ and this amazing semester all together. By the end of it, each of us couldn’t help but feel a little sentimental, which led Allyson and I to embrace these feelings and get tattoos! 

"Lev för nuet" means "Live for the moment" in Swedish!