Tuesday, 4 October 2016
Split - Croatia
 |
| The view from halfway up Marjan lookout - the port of Split. One cruise ship docked. |
Split, second largest city after Zagreb and the largest on the Dalmatian Coast for Croatia. One of the oldest cities in the area and home to the Palace of the Roman Emperor - Diocletian whom ruled from 284 to 305AD. The Palace was constructed for the Emperor's retirement in 305 and remains mostly intact.
We arrived in Split 5 days before we departed on Sail Croatia, to do the tourist thing and take the time to look around and see the sights. We stayed in a self contained apartment we found on AirBnB which was around 1km from the Palace and old town city centre. All the AirBnB's we have used thus far in Croatia have been really really good! Possibly some of the best accommodation we've had for the trip in terms of value for money, comfort and amenities.
 |
| Gregory of Nin - outside the golden gates of the Palace. He had a lucky foot, if you touched it a wish would come true. |
 |
| There were a lot of daily markets surrounding the Split Palace selling clothing, nic nacks, tourist rubbish and lots of nice fruit and vegetables. |
 |
| Inside the Palace - narrow streets... |
 |
The Palace Peristyle - central square of the palace and the entrance to the emperors quarters. |
 |
| Ruins of the some of the original buildings |
 |
| Entrance to the cellars/basement. Over the centuries most of the palace has undergone some form of restoration however the basement still keeps some of its originality. |
 |
| Port side, outside the walls. The esplanade I suppose you could call it, home to an abundance of bars and restaurants. |
 |
| Interesting solar seat with wifi...... |
 |
| Atop Marjan lookout |
 |
| Enjoying some Nutella donuts. |
 |
| Blue skies, temperatures around 25-30deg C |
 |
| Amy's mate Candice, and her friend Rebecca rolled in a couple of days later in preparation for Sail Croatia. |
 |
| #catlyf - cats everywhere |
After a couple of days exploring off our own bat we decided to take a walking tour to get the facts about the Palace/old town area. The tour was around 75 kuna each and went for 2 hours.
 | |
|
 |
| Some of Game of Thrones has been shot here and its pretty popular with the tourists! Plenty of walking tours constantly in all languages around the palace. |
|
 |
| Inside the Emperors Quarters |
 |
| Inside the Emperors Quarters looking towards the port. |
 |
| Some of what is left of the Emperors House where the semi circle window is. Some of the palace had been renovated prior to been declared a UNESCO heritage listing in 1979. |
 |
| This house built above the street, when the residents inside the palace ran out of room to live they started building above the streets and in between existing buildings. Our tour guide said at certain instances throughout history up to 60000 people lived inside the palace walls. |
 |
| Residential apartments inside the palace, inside the Emperors quarters. Since the UNESCO listing, these ruins cannot be refurbished unless significant paperwork is complete and many of the existing residents whom still call some of these buildings home approve it. |
 |
| The massive Vestibule inside entrance to the emperors quarters. |
 |
| The bell tower, not originally roman, built in recent times - maybe like 18oo's. However, the granite sphinx you can see on the right is 100% original 3500 years old and placed there when the Palace was first built. |
 |
| enroute to the beach |
 |
| Amy and Candice enjoying the new purchase ahead of Sail Croatia. |
 |
| A rocky beach, typical of the Croatian coastline. |
- The Marjan lookout - gives you a good perspective of the coast, you can see for miles and we enjoyed watching boats and water planes come and go. The port was a hype of activity.
- Walking along the esplanade and around the port looking at all the massive yachts and private ships.
- Exploring the Palace, there are so many hidden restaurants and bars. Its all so cramped and gives you a good idea of what life would have been like over a thousand years ago!!
Sunday, 2 October 2016
Krka & Plitvice Lakes National Park's - Croatia
Natural beauty, clear water and plenty of tourists. Krka and Plitvice Lakes National Park's were on Amy's radar for a while and Zadar provided a great base to explore these two parks.
It was the beginning of September - which meant prices dropped to off peak season saving us a little cashola...
Our strategy to visit these two National Parks was based on trying to visit them as cheap as possible. Each day out of Zadar, excursion companies ran buses to each park. These excursion prices didn't include park entry fees, or any meals throughout the day just transfer to each park and some sort of guide.
Krka day trip from Zadar
- 60 Euros per person
- 15 Euro park entry per person
Plitvice day trip from Zadar
- 65 Euro per person
- 15 Euro park entry per person
So, we decided to hire a car for 70 Euro per day, and visit each park with the freedom that comes with it which paid dividends. This allowed us to get to Plitvice when it opened, and explore Krka which is very spread out and requires driving between several sites.
 |
Our Renault hire care (upgraded from a Volkswagen Polo) - note how its parked. The hire company handed over the keys and left us to this without batting an eyelid!
|
Krka
 |
| 20AUD each for entry to the park - a map and away we go. The cost of the entry ticket included bus transfers inside the park - we decided to walk. |
 |
| The walk to Skrabinski Buk Falls was a couple of km's of a rocky track, not suitable for thongs. |
 |
| We arrived late morning to Krka with many other tourists. The main feature of Krka are the Skrabinski Buk Falls and where 90% of the visitors visiting the park visit these falls only. |
 |
| A board walk into the falls zig zags over all these clear ponds. |
 |
| Looking down on the falls from the walk into them |
 |
Plenty of humans about, we were still toey about leaving our gear alone so we didn't really enjoy the swim - just worried about our gear tied to a tree on that little island to the left of the photo. Under foot the rocks were bloody slippery and sharp and we both awkwardly fell over in the shallow water haha... The water was pretty refreshing, nice and warm. |
 |
| We had a little swim and stayed at the falls for half an hour or so before heading back to the car and continuing onward to explore other aspects of the park. |
 |
| Island Visovac - the site of a 15th century Franciscans Monastery. This was about 40km drive from the falls. |
 |
| Menu at one of the cafe's here. MEAT! |
 |
| Lookout on the walk up to Ozidana Pecina Cave. |
 |
 |
| Ozidana Pecina Cave - something like 500 steps up to enter a prehistoric cave in the side of the mountain. Surprising how good their engineering and fabrication skills were in prehistoric times to construct the aluminium walkway.... |
 |
| Man made channel coming out of the National Park |
Plitvice NP - HIGHLIGHT OF CROATIA
We booked an AirBnB a stones throw from Plitvice the night before to ensure we could arrive to the park as soon as it opened to beat the tourist buses. This was one of the best decisions of the trip, it meant we could park close to the entrance, there were no queues into the park for tickets and we were almost alone for the first 4 hours at the park.
I didn't have any preconceptions about the park or what we'd experience - for our time at the park I pretty much walked around with my mouth open in awe of the natural beauty. I've personally never seen anything like it!!!!
Plitvice is one of the oldest National Parks in Europe founded in 1949 and hosts up to 1 million visitors every year. Formed by mountain run off, two sections have formed and cascading water flows throughout these two sections, and upper and lower sections. To walk the length of the two sections is roughly 14km walking.
There are several walking options with regards to direction, distance or where you've parked the car. We managed to park at the central car park, walked the upper lakes first against the flow of people (this was fine since we were at the park early and pretty much had it to ourselves for the first few hours).
When we reached to top of the upper lakes, a shuttle bus transferred us back to the centre of the park where we then walked the lower section against the flow. At this stage there were a lot more people arriving (late morning), and since we seemed to be still going against the flow of traffic, we didn't have queues for a couple of the boat transfers etc.
Unfortunately you aren't able to swim at Plitvice unlike Krka, but that doesn't take anything away from the experience. If anything, it makes the park so much cleaner, and seems so much more untouched when comparing it to Krka.
Overall we spent about 7 hours exploring the NP and it was one of the most amazing places we've ever been. It truly is a must see when visiting Croatia. After visiting Krka mid-day and experiencing the park with so many other tourists, I cannot stress enough the importance in visiting such a place in the crisp morning. Early bird gets the worm.
We booked an AirBnB a stones throw from Plitvice the night before to ensure we could arrive to the park as soon as it opened to beat the tourist buses. This was one of the best decisions of the trip, it meant we could park close to the entrance, there were no queues into the park for tickets and we were almost alone for the first 4 hours at the park.
I didn't have any preconceptions about the park or what we'd experience - for our time at the park I pretty much walked around with my mouth open in awe of the natural beauty. I've personally never seen anything like it!!!!
Plitvice is one of the oldest National Parks in Europe founded in 1949 and hosts up to 1 million visitors every year. Formed by mountain run off, two sections have formed and cascading water flows throughout these two sections, and upper and lower sections. To walk the length of the two sections is roughly 14km walking.
There are several walking options with regards to direction, distance or where you've parked the car. We managed to park at the central car park, walked the upper lakes first against the flow of people (this was fine since we were at the park early and pretty much had it to ourselves for the first few hours).
When we reached to top of the upper lakes, a shuttle bus transferred us back to the centre of the park where we then walked the lower section against the flow. At this stage there were a lot more people arriving (late morning), and since we seemed to be still going against the flow of traffic, we didn't have queues for a couple of the boat transfers etc.
Unfortunately you aren't able to swim at Plitvice unlike Krka, but that doesn't take anything away from the experience. If anything, it makes the park so much cleaner, and seems so much more untouched when comparing it to Krka.
 |
| Early bird gets the worm! |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Overlooking one of the largest lakes in the park. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Note: lack of hand rails... |
 |
 |
| Typical of the board walks around the park |
 |
| Oh geez... |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Tourists starting to roll in around 10am. |
 |
 |
| Another water fall |
 |
| Lower lakes canyon |
 |
| One of the last lookouts over the lower lakes canyon |
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)
