Hopefully this is the first in a string of updates. Due to a lack of reliable internet availability, I haven't updated in a while, so I'm filing this one under Croatia. Stories on Italy will follow shortly.
The end of Lecce was all right. It's a nice little town, and we got to do some fun things like travel to other nearby towns and beaches, etc. I visited Matera, a town built into the rocks in central southern Italy. It's where they filmed part of The Passion of The Christ. That might be a bit cooler if I'd actually seen the movie... oh well. Where else... Gallipoli, Otranto, Bari, several beaches. It was all good times. Then we had a week's break before arriving in Italy, and a friend and I decided to explore Croatia.
Let me start by saying that first and foremost, Croatia is quite possibly the most beautiful place I've ever been. Pictures are coming soon. We took an overnight ferry to Dubrovnik, which now ranks high on my list of favorite cities. We did all the touristy stuff, including walking around the city walls, which have great views of the city and the Adriatic. The first night, we went to a classical music concert in a really old building. I would be more specific, but I forgot. lol. We also took ferries to local islands, including Lokrum, which was also absolutely amazing. There are ruins of a monastery and a fort, and there's a private little lake which was quite possibly the best swimming we encountered in Europe. We also hit up the Elaphite Islands, which were also pretty cool. Basically all the beaches are breath-takingly gorgeous, if a little cold. Most of them are pebble-y or rocky and the water is bright blue.
One day while in Dubrovnik we rented scooters and drove all over the city and then to a nearby town. The road goes almost straight up a hill which overlooks the city, and provides excellent picture-taking opportunities. We stopped at a beach, and in Cavtat. Also pretty much awesome. Scooters are so much fun. The man we rented them from was thoroughly convinced that we were going to kill ourselves, but we proved him wrong! And it was fun! And now we're expert scooterers.
After 4 days in Dubrovnik, we moved up to Split for 2 days. It was also beautiful, but in a different way. This time we stayed in an amazing hostel in the heart of the old city. It was totally bizarre, but had a lot of character. The woman who ran it was really nice, and there was a cow-print toilet seat. There were also TVs, which were probably the highlight of my trip (I kid.). But really, we watched The Daily Show. And we hit some more beaches, walked around the old city, toured Diocletian's Palace, and ate a lot of pastries. The pastries and bread in Croatia are... ridiculous, for lack of a better word. I think that's all we ate for the last 2 days.
People of note:
-Jonathan, a guy we met on the ferry. We recognized the name of the band on his shirt and then followed him so as to get a look at his passport to see if he was from an English-speaking country. Turns out he was from Vancouver (! BC, not Washington). We named Jonathan. We never found out his real name, but he was pretty interesting. We ran into him the next day at a grocery store in which we both accidentally ended up while looking for the bus station. We could have asked him his name then, but decided against it since we'd already named him Jonathan, and it would have been weird to think of him as something else.
-Old man on Kolocep. The people in Croatia were all crazy nice and also crazy impressive, as pretty much everyone speaks every language (or so it seems). But really, people will just ask "Which language?" and then switch between German, English, Italian, French, Croatian, etc. It's insanity. Anyway, so we met an old man who spoke English on a little island we stopped at. He was really nice and pointed out places of interest, and then told us to come back and have coffee. But then we didn't have time. I guess this story sounds more interesting in my head than in the journal, but just trust me on this one. He was cool.
-Crazy hostel ladies. Both the hostels were run by somewhat crazy older ladies. But they were really nice and took good care of us.
-Adi and John. We ran into two guys from our hostel in Split at a restaurant recommended to all of us by the hostel lady. Arielle and I spent most of dinner debating over where they were from (I was right, Adi is Australian and John is from Manchester), but had no intention of approaching them. Luckily, they were more outgoing and asked us to join them for drinks. We did, and it was fun. We walked around Split for a while, went to a caffe and then a club overlooking the beach. It was nice to meet fellow travelers, especially ones who spoke English, as we'd just spent 3 weeks surrounded almost constantly by only Italian. And they were interesting, too. Adi was just beginning a 3 month trip around Europe before he hopes to end up in New York to find a job. John just finished teaching English in Hungary, and decided to tour Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia, etc. before heading back to England. It was good times.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that Croatia was nothing short of amazing. I highly recommend it. In the future, when I win the lottery, I may even consider buying my villa there instead of Italy. That should say a lot about it- I think we all know how much I like Italy. When I finally put up the pictures, you'll understand.
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