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Articles Tagged ‘Skradnik’

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Blonde Moment

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Hi, everybody! First off: I had a blonde moment. I sent some emails with news about the photo album my friend Gregg had put together. Then I forgot to put the link in all but one of those emails! Ooopsy. So if you’re here looking for the album, I do apologize for my “doh!” maneuver.

Here’s the URL for you to cut and paste

http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=51ef842eb373be03&sid=0QZMWrNwzaM3Tw

Hope you enjoy it. If not, blame Gregg!

(just kidding, Gregg)

Well, we made it to the boat today! Yay! I went on an excursion! And it was quite lovely. I didn’t make it to the castles, though. If you ever might go to Krka National Park in Croatia, read on. Otherwise, skip the next paragraph!

If you want to take the #3 boat trip up to the castles and old monastery, you have to drive to Roski Slap, park, and walk up the trail to the little info hut and book the trip there. Apparently only a few people do the #3 excursion each day. Well, it aint easy to arrange! If you want to take the #1 or #2 boat trip, you just go into the main park entrance at Skradinski Buk, and walk up the trail to the far end and buy the tickets just past the last stand. I was told that you could ride the #2 boat to Roski Slap, and book the #3 boat there, but that is not actually true. You see, when you buy a ticket on any of the boat rides, it is for the round trip, and you have to stick with the same boat the whole trip. I had hoped to hop off my #2, grab the #3 for the afternoon, and then catch the last #2 out of Roski Slap, but they dont let you do that. So if its castles you want to see, get a ride to Roski Slap and book it there! Also, the boat trips sell out fairly quickly, so get your tickets as early in the morning as you can! One last thing, I highly recommend staying in Skradin while exploring the area. It is a delightful little town with good views, markets, a few good restaurants, a nice swimming hole, little museum, very friendly people, and good internet spot. Our sobe is Zura, and I give her 5 stars! And you’ll never lost track of time with the handsome clock tower ringing off every hour and half hour.

Okay, back to blogging for all you folks not traveling in Croatia! We rode Boat Excusion #2, a 2 1/2 hour trip through the river lands and lakes, with a half hour stop at a year 1445 monastery on a lone island. It was a peaceful, beautiful trip. We were really lucky, too, because we were in the back of the line to board, and by the time we got on, there were no more seats. So, we got to sit up front on the (?) all by ourselves and we had the golden ticket view! It was as if we had chartered our very own private yacht to show us the sights at our leisure. I took pictures and ate grapes.

Once more, I must recommend to you all to visit Croatia. It is wonderful here.

I’m off to explore the town some more. I must find chocolate. Ciao!

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I’m Alive! Aliiiiive!

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Hi everyone!

Thanks for all your well wishes, I am sure they helped bring me back from the brink of death by phlegm.

Well, here we are, in Skradin Croatia. Its a sweet little town next to Krka National Park. We went into the park for a while today, and it was very pretty. Dont eat the food in there, though. Hamsa wanted a crepe, and we had to wait almost an hour for it (don’t ask) and when we finally got it, well, it sucked. It was the worst crepe ever. I had two bites of mine and stopped there. But Hamsa ate his, the whole damn thing. Then he spent the next hour looking for places to vomit.

But as all things must, the nausea ended and we were able to continue on into the park. To find out the boat excursion I wanted to go on had sold out while we were waiting for crappy vomit-inducing crepes. So, we just stuck to that part of the park  – Skradinski Buk. It’s a nice little area, full of waterfalls and lakes, a nice swimming area, and a very nice hiking trail. And the trail even had lots of those things I love – the signs with pictures and info about the local flora and fauna. I love educational trails, I really do!

And there was a little mock village with buildings representing how things were around here in the 19th century. My fave was the grain mill, which is still running, by the way. Today they were grinding corn. And there was a water-powered “washing machine” where 2 big wooden mallets bang on whatever you stick in there. And a working blacksmith. There was also a donkey, but I don’t know why he was there. He just stood around eating hay, and stared at the little kids who kept trying to feed him.

But the trail was my favorite part. It was very pretty, if crowded, and had many beautiful vista points where you could have many Kodak moments. Also, I saw tons of dragonflies! Blue ones! And green ones! And cobalt ones! And clear ones! I took like 200 pictures of them. I was in heaven. Ooo! And we saw snakes! Three different ones, and they were all different species, and they were in the same pool, fishing! They would go up for air, then go wrap around an underwater branch and wait for some unsuspecting little fish to swim by and…. STRIKE! We were mesmerized. We sat there for a long time. As people walked by, some would see what we were staring at and join us. Others couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about. “Crazy Americans”

Speaking of, I haven’t met a single American in this area yet! The closest I’ve come is one Canadian. It’s kinda cool. Like we’re in some place that’s just too far out for our fellow Americans. There are many Germans. And Italians, Poles, and some Czechs. Lucky for us the world’s lingua franca is now English, or we’d be screwed. And eating octopus and tripe.

Being a vegetarian in Croatia isn’t so great. The big cities have a spot or two, but outside that its the standards: spaghetti, pizza, and salad if eating out; and from the market – fruit,  bread and cheese. You don’t know what I’d do for a tall glass of chocolate Silk right now!

So, back to the park… tomorrow I’m gonna drag my snarky teen out of bed bright and early so we can get in the park and get me those tickets!!! And no crepe will stand in my way ever again! I want to go see some castles, dang it!

Day after tomorrow, we head to Split. I’ll try to post from there. In the meantime, I hope all of you are doing well and keeping cool! I hear its an oven over there right now. I can’t relate, b/c it cooled off over here. It’s actually quite pleasant, with a nice sea breeze and a chill in the evening air. Ahhhh….

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