As our plane passed over the shimmering water of the Adriatic Sea sparkled with that unbelievable blue that you find on a Greek postcard, my heart caught in my throat: I was in love. Coming into this vacation I didn’t even know the basic essentials about Croatia—all I came prepared with was the knowledge that they did not speak English, were not on the Euro, and that we’d gotten an apartment on the water. So when I finally did catch a glimpse of my home for the next few days, my stomach fluttered and I could not stop smiling. If love at first sight existed, surely this was it.
Our bus ride into the city of Split was full of longing looks out the window and several comments of: “Wow, are we really here?” Split is an offset “Mediterranean-style” town free from the international spotlight of Mediterranean tourism. In fact, that’s what made our journey to the apartment so interesting. Still unable to come to grips with the reality of where we were and realizing that yes, the view from everywhere is just that amazing, we soon discovered a slight imperfection in this gorgeous country: public transportation. Amanda, Rebecca, and I set off to try to decipher the Croatian bus system and maybe find our where the hell our apartment was. Yet even though our supposedly half hour bus ride turned into a two hour ordeal where we unknowingly passed our apartment three times and ended up having to walk along the highway for a kilometer with luggage and all, I found myself willing to forgive Croatia’s initial flaw. Because even though we were all worried and lost and had no way of communicating with the bus driver, I was still grinning. And upon stepping into the apartment, all three of us forgot about the entire thing… Set right against a private marina on the sea, we found ourselves in a marble-floored, spacious apartment with a modern kitchen and an indescribable view from the balcony (all of which cost $100 a person for four nights). About half my pictures from our vacation were taken every time I stepped through our glass doors out onto the porch. Every time I woke up in the morning and every time we came into the apartment, I could never get over its beauty. It always just seemed a little too good to be true.
Saturday we explored the flea market and “Old Town” of Split (side note: we were staying about forty minutes outside of Split in Sumpetar which was ultimately worth it in the end and made us masters of the transportation system by the end of our stay). The night after, we discovered a small pizza bar along the water with a hostess who spoke English (YES!) and enjoyed a few domestic beers and a shrimp and muscle pizza. The rest of the days and evenings were spent with no internet, phone, or computer lounging, exploring, dipping our feet into the sea, and generally soaking up everything that was around us. Walking back along the beach at night, looking up at the stars, seeing the clear outline of a cloud from the Milky Way, and hearing the waves crash up against the apartment, I couldn’t help but think of how lucky I was. And despite having to work at the relationship in the beginning, I knew that I had to come back to visit some day. From the moment we met, Croatia stole my heart and kept me smiling until the very end.
Our bus ride into the city of Split was full of longing looks out the window and several comments of: “Wow, are we really here?” Split is an offset “Mediterranean-style” town free from the international spotlight of Mediterranean tourism. In fact, that’s what made our journey to the apartment so interesting. Still unable to come to grips with the reality of where we were and realizing that yes, the view from everywhere is just that amazing, we soon discovered a slight imperfection in this gorgeous country: public transportation. Amanda, Rebecca, and I set off to try to decipher the Croatian bus system and maybe find our where the hell our apartment was. Yet even though our supposedly half hour bus ride turned into a two hour ordeal where we unknowingly passed our apartment three times and ended up having to walk along the highway for a kilometer with luggage and all, I found myself willing to forgive Croatia’s initial flaw. Because even though we were all worried and lost and had no way of communicating with the bus driver, I was still grinning. And upon stepping into the apartment, all three of us forgot about the entire thing… Set right against a private marina on the sea, we found ourselves in a marble-floored, spacious apartment with a modern kitchen and an indescribable view from the balcony (all of which cost $100 a person for four nights). About half my pictures from our vacation were taken every time I stepped through our glass doors out onto the porch. Every time I woke up in the morning and every time we came into the apartment, I could never get over its beauty. It always just seemed a little too good to be true.
Saturday we explored the flea market and “Old Town” of Split (side note: we were staying about forty minutes outside of Split in Sumpetar which was ultimately worth it in the end and made us masters of the transportation system by the end of our stay). The night after, we discovered a small pizza bar along the water with a hostess who spoke English (YES!) and enjoyed a few domestic beers and a shrimp and muscle pizza. The rest of the days and evenings were spent with no internet, phone, or computer lounging, exploring, dipping our feet into the sea, and generally soaking up everything that was around us. Walking back along the beach at night, looking up at the stars, seeing the clear outline of a cloud from the Milky Way, and hearing the waves crash up against the apartment, I couldn’t help but think of how lucky I was. And despite having to work at the relationship in the beginning, I knew that I had to come back to visit some day. From the moment we met, Croatia stole my heart and kept me smiling until the very end.
1 comment:
Wow the water is so incredible,clear and blue. What was the temperture of the water. Glad to see you were not wearing your two peice?
Mom
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