Welcome to Croatia! (Rovinj and Split, Croatia)

After nearly four weeks in Italy we were excited to hop on a train to our next destination, CROATIA!! My roommate freshman year was (well is…) half Croatian and she talked a lot about how beautiful her father’s home country was. Since then, Croatia has been at the top of my list for European destination.

Rovinj

Our first stop in our two weeks in Croatia was Rovinj. Rovinj is located in the very northern part of the country, on the Istrian peninsula. Crossing the border was seamless, although we held up the bus a little because as Americans we have to get our passports stamped, whereas Europeans only need to get theirs checked.

Rovinj

We only had one full day in Rovinj, which was enough time for us to explore this small, beautiful town. We walked to the highest point in town, ate mussels at one of the many harbor side cafes and went shopping (well I did) on the artisan streets. It was a lovely introduction to Croatia and we immediately felt… happier, more at ease, calmer, among other positive emotions, when compared to how we felt in Italy. We will be posting our overall experience in Italy once we figure out how to diplomatically blog about our opinions regarding Italy and Italians.

Mussles YUM!

After our short stop in Rovinj we made the long trek (12 hours on buses) all the way down the beautiful coast to Split. We arrived in the pouring rain, got extremely lost, before crashing at our B&B inside the walls of Diocletian’s Palace (yes, inside the palace!).

View from our room

The next morning we woke up to a beautiful, sunny day, perfect for exploring the ancient port town. We visited the church, climbed the tower, walked up Marjan Hill and enjoyed coffee along the Riva. Split is beautiful, especially seen from above, but seems to mainly act as a jumping off point for the islands along the coast. We spent just one day in the city before doing just that, hopping on a ferry to get to the island of Vis.