The Adventures of Josip & Melanie

The last stop of our Croatia trip was in the wonderful city of Dubrovnik. It is so unbelievably beautiful I hope our photos can do it some justice but I really do recommend that if you are ever in Europe make sure you get to Croatia, especially Dubrovnik.

The place has quite a history I could give you the full on technical version but to cut a long story short they built these huge walls (14^th to 16^th century) around the city to protect them form there various enemies such as the Arabs, Serbs, Venetians and Macedonians to name a few. The Serbs tried again in 1991 and it was badly damaged but they failed again and the city has now been restored to its original condition. It is also world heritage listed and protected so hopefully there is no repetition of history.

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If you ever happen to be in Croatia you must check this place out. It is astonishingly beautiful and looks picture perfect. It is as if you were flicking through an art magazine. Josip’s Uncle Tom took us here for a day trip as it is only around an hour and a half from Karlovac.

A few days before we went there I saw it on the local TV and some American guy was like I never knew such a beautiful national park existed and went on to say it was the best he had ever seen. Well he was right it is awesome, I think you can see that for yourself by these pictures. You end up doing a shit load of walking but you don’t even notice as it is so cool just to be there. The water is so god dam clear you can actually see all the fish just swimming around. But it is very well protected and there is no fishing or swimming here and it is also world heritage listed.

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We got to spend a day in the city of Zagreb the Capital of Croatia. We took a bus there as it only takes around an hour from Karlovac. When we got there we had a look around the city it is quite pretty and old looking as most European cities. The cathedral we had a look at was undergoing some renovations but is still quite beautiful.

We ended up going to the cinemas. It only cost us around 5 Aussie dollars and the cinema was pretty cool a bit like the Village cinema at home. We ended up eating subway for lunch as it was the only thing that was recognisable as a restaurant. All the other places seemed to be full of people smoking instead of eating. We had a good day out of the village even though most of our time was spent in the cinema. We did enjoy the city but the country is definitely more entertaining when you are killing Russian slugs!

Make sure you check out the pic below! Is it a train ticket machine, a bus pass swipe machine, no wait it’s the freakin gate to enter the public toilets and it costs 30 pence or 70 cents for you Aussies.

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We also got out of the village for a day and managed to see the Karlovac city area thanks to Branimira (Josip’s uncle Steve’s girlfriend). She took us to her house where she lives with her parents, her son, her brother and his family. They all have there own level or apartment but have the convenience of just popping downstairs if they feel like visiting.

They treated us to a beautiful meal of chicken, veal, pork, roast potatoes, salads you name it they had it and of course Branimira famous home made gnocchi with gorgonzola cheese. Followed by like 6 varieties of cakes that she mostly ate. After lunch we chilled out and got to play around with the hand guns, no bullets of course. But do we look mean?

We then visited the Stari Grad Dubovac which is an old castle and it overlooks the whole of Karlovac very pretty. We walked around the city a bit and it was sad to notice that some buildings had still not been repaired since the war in 1991-92. It was terrible to hear the stories of 300 bombs falling on the city in one night I could not even imagine what it would even feel like but I’m sure it was terrifying.

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Finally getting to Cro was awesome but it was even better to know that we would be spending time with family. We stayed with Josip’s grandparents (baka & djeda) for about a week. They live in a village called Zamrsje which is in the City of Karlovac about 1 hour drive from the capital Zagreb.

It was a huge change from the hustle and bustle of London life. It’s very green, clean and so peaceful. Josip’s grandparents actually have a farm and yes they have real life animals so unfortunately the smells are also very realistic. They have cows which provide milk to make cheese, chickens which provide eggs and pigs which provide some really good sausages!

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Today we were heading of to Croatia. We were both really excited besides the fact that we knew there was no sleep for us that night as our flight was departing from London’s Gatwick Airport at 6am. So we pulled an all nighter in order to get to the airport by around 4am in time to check in. Let me tell you we were so happy to be leaving London as it was so cold that night that the beanies got pulled out of the cupboard.

At the airport it was so amusing to see two young girls with full on Irish accents break into some Croatian words and boast about going home. Josip and I could not help but laugh but as you may not know there are as many Croatians based all over the world as there is actually living in Croatia at this present time.

We finally made it to Split with a brief stop over in Zadar ( that’s where mum is from) and the whole flight from London – Zadar – Split took a massive 3 hours (direct its about 2hrs 20 mins). This is one of the few joys of living in London. Split is really pretty it is a port and coastal town with a real Mediterranean European feel.

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The reason we came here was to travel and now we are finally going on our first trip since arriving in London. And of course Croatia is our first travel  destination. We are both excited but of course I am more so as I have never been there before even though I call myself a Croatian.

We found a cheap flight  to Split which we will be leaving for this Saturday morning and from there we will make our way up to Karlovac to Josip’s grandparents. So Josip is hoping we find some old baka’s house to stay at that has internet access so that we can upload some pictures for you all to see. But besides that we are looking forward to our trip and can’t wait to share the pictures and stories with you all.

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Some of the pictures in this blog entry may look familiar because we have been to the Tower of London before. However today we actually payed the 15 Pound to get in and see what was behind the big old gates. The tower of London is basically a huge castle like structure which was like a medieval city inside. It was home to , Queens, Knights, Peasants and Prisoners. As you can see by the pictures the buildings are all pretty impressive. We followed a tour guide (Yeoman Warder) around who explained the history and the story behind the tower. He asked the crowd where we all came from and when he got to the Aussies his comment was ‘Welcome home’.

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We decided to get out of the house today and do a little day trip as it was so sunny and beautiful it would be shame to be indoors. We went and got some great shots of Westminster Abbey Cathedral, London Eye and you can even see Big Ben which is attached to the Houses of Parliament. The pictures below actually shows you how close all the main sites are to each other. We are standing besides Westminster Abbey where you can see Big Ben and the London Eye in the background.

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