I have gotten pretty behind on posting--we have been away! Our summer vacation this year was to Croatia! Though I wnated to do another hiking trip, I was not sure if it was a good idea with Jason's back, so we decided to do a more relaxing trip.
We were away for over 2 weeks, so it felt like a really nice get away. For the first week, we rented a car, and explored the North of Croatia. We started in Istria, in the far northwest of the country --which used to be a part of Italy, and is famous for truffles, wine, and olive oil. We stayed in a very cool town called Motovun and enjoyed all things truffle for a few days.
We even joined in on a truffle hunt--truffles only grow underground, so dogs are specially trained to find them based on their smell. The forests areound Motovun are famous for their truffle crop--and the white truffle, which is found there in the fall, sells for 9000 Euros a Kilogram!!
We found some black truffles and enjoyed a fantastic lunch afterwards.
After our time in Istria, we heaed to Plitvice Lakes National Park, the most famous National Park in Croatia. It is a beautiful series of cascading waterfalls--some small, and some quite large, with a labyrtinth of boardwalks criss-crossing the water. The water is also a really bright turquoise, which makes it even more spectacular. We got very lucky with the weather, as it was not too hot, and we spent one evening and one morning exploring the park.
We booked a beachside apartment for the next few days, but on the way, took a detour for lunch in Bosnia--because, why not? The lunch was very meat heavy and not particularly good, but I guess we get to add another country to our list.
Our days at the beach were relaxing. We stayed outside of the town of Trogir, which is a compact island conneceted to the mainland by a bridge. I thought the town was cute, but it was very crowded with tourists. By this point, the weather was really heating up, so we enjoyed the beach time too.
We spent our second week in Croatia on a boat. I was really interested in seeing many of the islands, but navigating the ferry system seemed complicated--so we we elected to cruise around the islands. We chose a company called Always Croatia, which runs small boat tours (max 35 people), and cruised for 7 days from Sibenik to Dubrovnik on the "San Antonio".
This part of the trip started off a little rough, as our pick up was quite late, but once we got on the ship we felt reassured. We only had 19 passengers on board, and the boat was very nice--with large cabins and comfortable common spaces. The cool thing about the boat is that we didn't actually spend too much time on the water--usually we cruised in the morning to a town, and then in the afternoon to another site/town. Overnight, the boat always docked in the harbor, and about half of the nights, dinner was not included, so we got to try different local restaurants.
The boat also stopped for swim stops every day, and the water was so clear and beautiful--a real treat given the heat! The boat came with a "ski bob", which is this underwater jet-ski thing that provided hours of entertainment for the kids.
We got to see a lot of Croatia--and overall I was really impressed. I think that my favorite two stops were national park Miljet and the town of Korcula, but honestly it was all amazing.
Our cruise eneded in Dubrovnik--what a beuatiful city! (But expensive!!) We had one night there before returning home.
