Epic Road Trip to the Beach

Every fall, when Slovak schools reconvene and the traditional question "What did you do on your summer vacation?" is intoned, a common answer is that kids went on holiday to Croatia. Croatia's got the closest major body of water to Slovakia, so if you want to go to the beach, that's where you head.

Robin is leaving in the middle of June, and we wanted to do something really fun before she left, so we decided to go to Croatia. This same idea had been floated last year, with no results, but this time we had a fellow English teacher (hereafter to be called Páv) with a van who was willing to drive us there. The main thing was to reach a beach, any beach; but Páv said we might as well go all the way to Dubrovnik. I was in favor of this, since Dubrovnik is on everybody's list of the best walled cities in the world.

Croatia is shaped sort of like a rocked-back P. Dubrovnik is almost all the way at the bottom of the country. If you're driving south along the coast, you briefly pass through Bosnia and Herzegovina, since it has about one town's width of access to the Adriatic Sea (Jadran). Even though you're only there for about ten minutes, they still check (but don't stamp) passports at the Croatia/Bosnia border, especially at about 3 in the morning.

Dubrovnik used to be one of the foremost trading areas between Europe and Asia, and was even its own republic, called Ragusa.* Large parts of the city were destroyed by an earthquake in the 16th century, and then in 1991 the city was besieged by the Serbs. The city is a lot like a cross between Italy and Central Europe. Croatian and Slovak are not entirely mutually intelligible, but almost.

The one major unforeseen element in our trip was that Páv wanted to bring along his brother...his five-year-old brother. Compared to what I was imagining, Pavičko was remarkably well-behaved.

Our route was the same both ways, and was basically Tisovec to Budapest, then toward Zagreb, Split, and then Dubrovnik. We left around 2:45 PM on Thursday and arrived around 5 on Friday morning; on the way back we left around 5:15 AM Monday and got home about 5:45 PM.

There are lots and lots of apartments and rooms to rent in Dubrovnik, especially in the Old Town. We were in a place that Rick recommended. Páv and Pavičko were in a room on the second floor, and Rob and H and I got the apartment on the top floor. It had a kitchen and an air conditioning unit and a fabulous view of the Old Port. We loved it there.

The Adriatic is really salty. It's also really clear and really blue. Most of the beaches are rocky, but they're nice, rounded rocks, and were pretty comfortable. I floated in the water and looked at the Pearl of the Adriatic and it was amazing. In the foreground above is the public beach we frequented.

On Saturday we took a ferry to the island just off the coast, called Lokrum Island. The ride back is the video below; I started recording just after we left Lokrum. It's got a former monastery complex, and an old fort, and a rocky coastline where you have to climb down into the water on short ladders, and a nude section, and a lagoon called the "Dead Sea," at left, and lots of peacocks. We went to one of the rocky swimming areas first, and climbed down some rocks, then the ladder, and then swam over more rocks to get to the open sea to float around in. Getting back in was a little tricky, because you had to go over the rocks again, but this time with the waves pushing you directions you didn't necessarily want to go. I think we all got a little dinged up coming back in. It was kind of fun, though, and I'm glad I did it. Then we headed over to the Dead Sea and hung out there for a while.

Dubrovnik also seems to be a really popular cruise-ship stop. I saw more cruise ships, and really huge ones, there than anywhere else I've been. We seem to have gone at the perfect time, when it was warm enough to swim and spend the day outside, but not yet high tourist season, when the place would be packed.

On Sunday morning, H and I got up and headed out before everyone else. The city walls opened at 8, and I wanted to start walking before they got crowded and the weather got hot. The one major drawback to these particular walls is that you must pay to walk around them (70 kuna for adults, which was just shy of €10, although it does include admission to one of the forts on the north side). Because of the destruction mentioned previously, parts of the walls have been reconstructed, and in general they're very safe—well, except for the smooth and occasionally slippery stone that's used throughout the town. Inside the walls you see all the Mediterranean-style red-tiled roofs, and it reinforces the idea that you're far from central Europe. The highest point of the walls is a tower at the northeast, if I've got my orientation correct, and the western stretch is on the cliff by the sea. There are some houses built right up to the inside of the wall, but there's one bar that's actually on the outside of the western wall. (It's called Buža and we went back that night for drinks. You walk through a doorway in the wall and then down some stairs to a set of terraces with tables. Since Sunday night was cloudy, it was quite dark, and hard to distinguish where the water ended and the sky began. It was very cool.)
The way home was fairly uneventful, except for the fact that Páv promised Pavičko we'd have lunch at McDonald's near Budapest. This led to Pavičko about every 15 minutes telling his brother not to forget that we were going to go there, and also a McDonald's-hunger-induced hysteria on all our parts when we briefly got lost in Budapest, which led to Páv calling the female voice on the GPS something really inappropriate.

We drove 195 kph in a Ford minivan. We drank lots of coffee and Coke. We each got four stamps in our passports. We passed big rigs from Russia, BMWs from Germany, camper trailers from the Netherlands, and a Porsche from Switzerland. We sang along to "Don't Worry Be Happy" a lot. We held our breath going through tunnels. In short, we did everything right for a road trip, and it was a terrific experience.

*Although Marco Polo identifies himself as Venetian, there are sources that indicate that he was born on the Croatian island of Korčula. Look, it is practically a condition of my Master's that I must talk about MP whenever possible.