The three of us left Budapest on the Flixbus and arrived at the last stop in Zagreb, Croatia on August 14th. We switched to a rental car and continued driving southeast along the Adriatic Sea until we reached the town of Split.
Croatia has really become a hotspot for tourism over the last several years: the town of Dubrovnik has served as the setting for King’s Landing from Game of Thrones, and Savannah had wanted to visit Split since it was featured in the reality series Below Deck.
As we arrived, we were immediately enchanted with the windy narrow roads and scenic ocean views. However, this enchantment soon turned to panic, as we navigated our little rental car down an alley that ended up like the shrinking room from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
The shrinking alley finally ended, but there was no where to go. At the end of the road were 3 concrete pillars blocking any further vehicle traffic. There were buildings on either side, so there was no way to even Austin Powers my way out.
With a rapidly beating heart, sweat beads on my forehead, and pedestrians and bicyclists swarming in all around us, I put the little stick shift car in reverse and slowly moved through the narrow alley, praying to not hit anything or anyone. We finally reached daylight and made it to the main road where we started. This time we parked and walked to our Airbnb.
The room was a perfect location, only a 10 minute walk to the city center, but it had a strange floor plan with no living room and only 1 A/C unit in the kitchen. Our host Mara was very nice though, and she even arranged an island hopping boat tour for the 3 of us.
We settled into the room and then took off into the city. Split was really an amazing place. The architecture was like nothing we had seen, the food and drinks were reasonably priced, and there was no shortage of exuberant nightlife.
We got up early the next morning to head down to the marina and meet the captain of our boat tour. This was a great deal. For only $100 per person, you get a full day tour of several islands off the coast of Split. It started with a very long and very bumpy ride to the first island which had its own blue cave. Our boat captain had a very thick, gravely Croatian accent so we could never understand much of what he said, but his hearty laughs and constant smiling ensured us that all was good. We stopped at several coves and a blue lagoon where we were able to swim and snorkel.
These islands had the bluest water we had ever seen, but it was really salty. There aren’t any sandy beaches in this part of the world, so you have to get used to walking on rocks. After a long day of adventure, we made it back to Split by around 5pm, fully exhausted and sunburnt.
We had a blast in Split! We will definitely come back again someday, but it was now time to leave back to Zagreb to drop off the rental car and catch our flight to our very last stop in Europe…Athens, Greece.
