Croatia- Split

We spent the last week relaxing by the beach, swimming and doing a little exploring of the town. We didn't stay in the centre, but about half an hour out in a town called Podstrana in a lovely sea side apartment :) 

these are a few of our photos, not too many as really we just did a lot of swimming, reading and relaxing :) 

The View from our apartment: 

Sitting outside, watching the sun go down with a glass of local wine ($2 a litre, cant say no to that :) )

One of our many beautiful sunsets: 

A couple of the days we took a trip onto Split to have a look around the town. The old town of Split is all pretty much within the walls of Diocletian's Palace and is pretty magical to walk around with its ancient churches and rabbit warren streets we had a lot of fun walking ourselves in circles and getting slightly lost

Stairs to the top of the bell tower

 Some views from the bell tower:

 

 

The staircase was tiny

 Some photos of some of the little streets:

 

 We stopped for lunch one day to have a beer or two (naturally) and some local food. as you would expect the menus consist of a lot of sea food around here. There is also string influences from Italy with the other two main items on all menus being Pizza and Pasta.

The Palace Gate

 

Back at home more relaxing, swimming and aimless strolls along the beach were in order: 

Our local Pirate Ship

 

The water is just so clear and beautiful. and when we can go out for half a day by the beach without sunscreen and not get burnt, we defiantly became more beachy people :) 

We are now in Dubrovnik until Friday which is our last stop in Croatia before we head over to Bosnia and Herzegovina. As you would guess it is stunning here as well. 

So Croatia in a word: Stunning 

Croatia- Plitvice Lakes

This place is heaven.  The water is as clear as glass and you can almost literally walk on water(falls)

We spent a week staying in an apartment in the park and spent 2 days walking around this magnificent lake area.

This place gets super busy, even this late in the season they get an average of 15000 visitors a day! so we wanted to avoid all of the tourists getting in the way of our experience and photos so for both of our days we got up early and walked to the lakes entrances for the park opening at 7.  It is much more peaceful at this time of day, with only a handful of other early risers.  we were normally done with the section of the park we were walking on the day just after lunch.  by that stage the droves had well and truly arrived both days and we were thankful we were on our way out as they were coming in. I think between 9-10 people start showing up, so if you ever come to this part of the world (and everyone should!) i would recommend getting here nice and early before the buses roll in. that way you stay ahead of the crowds and get to fully experience the beauty.

The pictures don't do it justice, but here is the first few. the internet is still being slow, so we will add more when it is better :)

 

lots of fish

 

lots of board walks to walk along

 

 

                                                             Becs excited to be here

the water is like glass you couldnt tell when it begin so nic decided to find out

 

the lake view from the top of the mountain after climbing a ridiculous amount of stairs but totally worth it as there was no tourists willing to climb up this far.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sorry Michael no trams here :p