So, Croatia...

We came from Budapest and spent 2 days in the capitol of Croatia, Zagreb. Not a bad city, but not particularly exciting; bit of a chill out and relax. In an effort to make eating on a few euro’s more fun, we decided to play ‘Backpacker Mastershef’ – we gave ourselves a budget of 3 euros and went supermarket shopping to see who could make the tastiest lunch. Of course I won, but apaprently due to a minor technicality I was disqualified (about 10 cents over budget). I still regard myself as the masterchef champion.

After a couple of nights there, we started the 11 hour journey down to Dubrovnik which we were all pretty excited about – we’d heard it was amazing. 6 hours on a train, followed by possibly the most amazing bus ride of my life. 5 hours hugging the south Croatian coastline, winding around the hills and cliffs. We now can also say that we’ve been to Bosnia, after driving through for about half an hour, which included a 10 minute food stop.

So we were deperately hoping that Dubrovbnik wouldn’t turn out to an anti-climactic touist trap. No way. Although there was no shortage of tourists and a few big cruise ships in the bay, Dubrovnik turned out to be one of our favourite cities. The authentic old town, surrounded by the original castle walls, was amazing, both in the day and at night. To make things better, the cheapest accomodation I could find was to get our own private appartment 10 minutes out of the town, meaning that we could cook for ourselves, which of course came in handy the following day... I don’t think I’ll be able to forget this birthday anytime soon. We first found a supermarket and bought a small cake, candles and party hats, to kick off the celebrations (yeah, we party hard), and soon after hit up the beach. Small and overcrouded but with an amazing backdrop, it was our first beach hit in 8 months, we’d all missed it. After Hugh and Soph managed to get themselves a nice sunburn, we went for another walk around the old town untill we went once again to the supermarket to stock up for a birthday fry up. I’m still not really sure what we ate, but it was delcious. Google translator said one of the words on the packet of meat was ‘neck’, but that’s all we could make out, but we weren’t fussed. Then of course that evening we went into the old town where Hugh and Soph shouted me a couple of drinks. We decided it was a good idea to get a yardglass of cocktail, but luckily made some friends to help us finish it. We then hit up a street party in the old square, before heading back to bed. Good as birthday.

So we embarked on the 5 hour bus ride once again, untill we arrived at Split, the half way point, and decided where we were going to stay that night; the options were a night there, or the overnight train. We opted for the overnight train in the end, and it payed off, with out own cabin and fully reclining seats. Now I’m sitting on the connection, on the way to Belgrade, which is our stop over on our way down to Greece. Hopefully this’ll give us a chance to do sume much needed washing, and to catch up on a bit of sleep. I’ve uploaded pictures, so you can check them out if you’re keen.