After a couple of days waking up too early by cars or churches we not only decided it was time for some relaxation but also a hot shower.
Normally one can take a dip in the lake or the sea (with a shower afterwards) but now it’s a bit too cold to have bathing sessions in natural pools. Which means when we park & crash we do not have a shower nor do we have a toilet. We do have freedom but sometimes you want to smell good while feeling free right?
Split, the second largest city of Croatia
So, we drive to this beautiful medieval Roman city of Split. Well not all of Split is nice to be honest, but the old town is amazing. Cute tiny alleys that are connected through squares and two or three bigger streets. It’s a lot smaller than Venice but one can get lost here a bit as well. It’s amazing to walk through a city which is truly built by the Romans.
I mean Roma is great right? One of my favourite cities. But it’s different. Over centuries Rome is built by so many people, the true old city centre is lost. But not in Split.
Split still has the Roman stronghold in tact. Yeah, much has been restored, but it’s still there, with the houses, squares and pillars. Now of course the streets are filled with souvenir & shoeshops, oh and not to forget the many sunglasses you can buy here. A heaven for me because my sunglasses break the moment I touch them.
However, no need for new sunglasses now, neither are we here to shop for shoes or souvenirs. We are here to get lost and so we find a synagogue and Muslim centre next to each other inside the old stronghold. Oh how I love when things come together in one place. It shows we do have the ability to live as one humanity with love towards one another.
Anyway, you won’t get lost for too long here cause all the alleys and tiny streets are connected. After a while you will either end up at the gate of the stronghold or at one of the squares inside it. It’s not that big so it won’t take you hours to see it.
No sight of Corona
To really explore and experience of course one must drink a coffee and watch the people. And it’s easy to watch people cause it’s not as crowded as it used to be when tourists were all over this place, so one can actually see the locals. Then again, it is crowded considering the moment of time we are in. While in The Netherlands the worries regarding Corona are increasing instead of decreasing, here in Croatia it feels like Corona is as far away as the country it came from. The market is full of people, the sun is shining so the terraces are full, and people are enjoying their day shopping. For shoes and sunglasses of course. The only shops that are empty are the souvenir shops. So one can imagine how people in these shops treat us 😉
Anyway, we love to mingle, thus drink a coffee while the lady next to us is screaming to someone on her phone and at the same time trying to make sure her kids don’t fall off the steps of the stairs. I always wonder why these Romans made such huge steps. Were they so big? That can’t be it. Maybe they used the stairs like we do now; sitting on the steps while drinking a coffee.
It’s leave o’clock
When the church bells ring it’s time for us to leave. Oh no, will that be our connotation with church bells from now on? When the church bells ring it’s ‘leave o’clock’! Don’t worry, Yuri still peaks into every church we come across. He loves the fact that churches always did their best to make it look amazing. The architecture of churches, outside and inside, is amazing according to Yuri. And to many others. I also like the buildings but when I enter, I do not feel the enlightenment of religion but the burden of how many life’s it cost to build it and to keep the church in power. From wars initiated by the church to mercenaries who impose their religion onto others and crusaders protecting treasures stolen by the church to a pope that believes homosexuality is a sin. But I have to be honest, many churches have incredible huge halls decorated with beautiful paintings of the most famous bestseller of all times. I also love the colours when the sun shines through the windows. But still, I often skip entering.
Musings about historical events
Back to the Romans. Not a very friendly people but they did mighty things. Is that it? If you want to be mentioned in history books you must do unkind things? Think about the golden age of the Dutch, the start of New York, the Templars. Or what about Abel Tasman, Christopher Columbus and Hernán Cortés great explorers also great in doing whatever they wanted if it gave them a title or money. Anyway, the Romans did leave amazing structures behind. Something which we now love to visit and walk through. I do wonder how many people were beheaded at squares and how many weddings were celebrated at the same square. We always talk about history. What would it be like to walk through here when it was just built? How would it be like to build this? Would it feel safe when there was war? Would it feel alright when it was winter and there was an outbreak of the pest? Would there have been knights going through these streets with their horses?
Camping Split
After our usual musings about the past it was time to get Alexine out of here and onto a campsite. Which was near so we only had to drive about 10 minutes. We chose a campsite at the sea and luckily for us there was a beautiful spot directly at the beach. Made for us!
Surrounded by white German campers we attracted a lot of visitors right away. People curious about the beautiful van asking us where we are from and how old she is. Something you normally don’t ask a lady but when it’s a car “the older the more beautiful” but also the more unreliable. More on that later, for now we found the right spot to get our white skin brown and give the bags under our eyes a rest. Oh and of course that hot shower I started this post with. We got a wrist band for 7 showers!!! (We want to stay for 1 night) a bit too much, or are we smelling that bad? Maybe it’s my hair. However, after one shower (of 7 minutes max. they time it) we already feel so much better. The sun is shining, lots of seagulls are making a nice spectacle in the bay and we are sitting in our retro camping chairs drinking a glass of wine.
It’s 6:15 in the morning and the church bells ring without rhythm but quite loud. Ok, we chose to stand in between the church and the nuns. And while we wake up quite abruptly, the nuns seem to be prepared as they immediately run back and forth between the convent and church. An amusing sight if it wasn’t for the hour on which it occurred, which for us is way too early. And honestly; who is going to church at 6:15 on a Sunday? No one! Probably that’s why at 6:40, which seems to be a strange time anyway, the church bells ring again. This time louder, longer and it’s seems even less a melody. But, if their goal is to wake people up to go to church, it worked! We are awake. Well kind of.
Still a bit sleepy we walk to the supermarket across the street to buy ourselves some sandwiches and we do enter the church. But only to check if they have a toilet which we can use. Not even that..
So we say goodbye to the sisters and we drive to another spot where we can have a coffee and a toilet. This spot happens to have a beautiful view over the water and the best thing; it’s warm! We can actually sit in our sweaters.
In Switzerland we were walking on our flip flops and looking through our sunglasses. In Slovenia we slept in thermo underwear& pyjamas and our nose still froze off and now… now we are drinking a coffee with sea view in our sweaters while the sun is trying to find its way breaking up the clouds. Lovely!
The rest of the day goes quite smooth, like all Sundays should be. God might take a rest on Sundays, his followers do not and neither did we. We decided that Alexine deserves a beauty treatment so we washed and cleaned her. Something I wanted to do in Switzerland already but forgive me…
After cleaning Yuri wanted to watch the Formula 1 so we found a nice spot, ordered a beer and asked for the WiFi code. Yuri watched Verstappen win the race and I did some work on the blog. It’s improving but I have so many ideas that I always keep changing things. What I want to do is inform you more on the history of the Silk Road, stories about the van and maybe some information on travelling during the COVID-19 pandemic. But, this is a diary of our trip, a way to take you with us on this memorable journey. It’s not the typical blog where you read about the best campsites to stay at or where to drink the best coffee of Venice. That’s not really our style and I already get bored thinking about writing that kind of stuff. But something about the van, the Silk Road and/or COVID-19 might be nice and is part of our journey anyway. Let us know in the comments below if you are interested in any of that.
Ok, so it took about two hours and in these two hours the sun started to shine and our faces got burned. Or maybe it were the beers? We aren’t used to terraces anymore 🤣 Lots of people around us, smoking, loud conversations. Are we already becoming those dwellers that feel more comfortable in nature than surrounded by people?
Not yet!
We went to town to have diner and afterwards enjoy the beautiful sunset on the boulevard with many other people. Listening to the voice of the sea through the famous organ (Morske orgulje in Croatian), which isn’t that good but it’s more melodious than the church bells.
It’s already getting dark when we prepare the van for another night with potential noise. This time from people and cars instead of a church. Not sure what is better. Anyway, while we sit there people take photos of the van and it feels a bit strange sitting there while people take photos. It happens often btw. also on the road. People filming and taking photos. I might post a sticker with mygrations.nl on it.
Sorry, another diversion, anyway, suddenly a German speaking couple comes towards us and starts talking about the van. They have an old van as well. Bought in Kosovo I believe. They flew to Kosovo and are driving back. So they have visited some countries we are about to visit; Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and now Croatia. While he blows the smoke of his stinky cigarette in the van, she keeps talking and talking and talking. She gives some tips about travelling in these countries and we give answers to questions about the van. How old? How much? Where from? What about this? What about that?
Schones abend!
We watch ‘I am Greta’, an inspiring docu about Greta Thunberg and go to sleep afterwards. Tired and ready for another advanture. The next day we will continue our journey east to Split.
It’s our goal to have coffee at the most beautiful places and I’m sure this will be one of the best during our trip. Alone at lake Bohinj with cristal clear water and an immense reflection in the water while some ducks came to check out if we would share our breakfast. We didn’t. Our food isn’t good for animals even though they crave for it. But oh my was this a magical moment. We took our time to really enjoy the moment, inhale so we would remember this.
It’s one of those things that’s a little hard when traveling like this. We see so many places, experience so many things, explore many locations that you tend to forget those moments. That’s why we try to remind ourselves at these moments to really enjoy it, take it in and remember the feeling they give us. Which we did. But, when the clouds came and the coldness returned in our bones we decided it was enough.
Covid-19 makes traveling a bit more adventurous but at some places it also makes it a lot more boring. When it’s cold, nothing is open therefore not much to do, it get’s quite boring. So, Slovenia we will be back when it’s warmer.
After two hours we arrived at the border into Croatia. To our surprise there was a lot of barbed wire at the border. Apparently Slovenia is tired of being a transit country to refugees. For us transiting the country it’s not a problem, but when you are fleeing a war zone or oppression you are not allowed to enter. So they are fencing their borders with Croatia once again. A horrible sight and it made us a tat nervous. Not too much though because there is something we have that makes us very privileged travellers and that is our Dutch passport.
When we got at the border we were stopped by the police asking us for our passport and where we are going. “To China!” We answered. They always look a bit strange when we tell them we are on our way to China. But often it makes for a nice conversation or a laugh. This time as well. It took a while for him to check the car (she is old so has an old license plate by which you do not know where she is from). After a couple of minutes we were allowed to enter Croatia. Oh and nothing about Covid-19.
Soon we found out that in Croatia everything is open; bars and restaurants. Well the terraces are open. Good enough for us. We drove all the way to Plitvice National Park, through amazing forests. What we found interesting is that everywhere you drive you see these holes in the landscape around you. No idea what they’ve been. Maybe some air or gas, or a prolapse, I don’t know but it looked interesting.
After another 3 hours we arrived at a campsite, checked in and had our first diner in a restaurant since Appenzell, Switzerland. Wow, that seems like so long ago!
We went to bed early cause the next day we would visit the famous Plitvice waterfalls. The waterfalls are amazing but because winter is still here half of the waterfall is closed. Unfortunately for us that’s the most beautiful part of the park. But, we still got to see the beauty of the place. One more night near the waterfalls and we are really done with the cold. So South we go.
Our destination is Zadar, while on the way we stop at a cave. Before entering the cave we have lunch in the nearby village. More like a ghost town. It’s like one of those towns where people are born, never leave and know only that. Where the men start drinking at 12 and the women work in the local supermarket. These kind of towns always have a strange impact on me. But, I must say that we had a nice coffee here, at a local bar through which windows you can’t look and even though it’s not allowed a group of friends is drinking and smoking inside. We also had a nice sandwich which was made inside the supermarket by one of those women from town working there.
Back to the cave! The cave is 345.8 meters long and 35 meters high. Sounds like big but we soon find out there are caves in Croatia of 13km’s and some are nowadays even combined to a length of 50 something kilometers! Very nice. What’s also nice is that it’s 8 degrees inside which is warmer than outside. After 1.5 hour walking through the cave hearing Croatian jokes and interesting information on cave colors, forms and history we are truly heading south.
Finally warmth; 13 degrees, sea and an amazing sunset!
Hi there! We are Milene & Yuri. We are travelling the world together since 2015. Our endless curiosity and will to explore has resulted in many cool, and somewhat extreme, adventures. On MYgrations you'll read all about our adventures, you'll find lots of information about the countries we visit you won't find anywhere else and more. Enjoy!
We’re also grammin’
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