Wednesday 5th June
Opatija
We said goodbye to Rovinj this morning and hopped on our bus to Opatija.
It was a great bus ride, listening to podcasts, and snacking away on our picnic brekkie and lunch! The route we took today was passing back along the road we travelled to get to Rovinj, and it felt very strange seeing all the same stuff again!
We arrived in to Rovinj and our Airbnb lady was there to pick us up! She was so cute, she didn't speak much English but was trying so hard and was just so happy and lovely! Everyone we've met has been so friendly here!
We decided to come to Opatija because it just looked so cute when we were driving past the other day! It's a gorgeous little colourful town built into a hillside and down into the bay below. We found out from our host that it was actually the very first tourist town in Croatia!
We're staying in a cute little place below her house right up on the hill side of the town.
It's right above the beautiful green domed church that is here and has the most spectacular views of the bay!
We were both quite tired after travelling, so had our lunch that we packed and just chilled for a little bit.
A little later on we headed out to explore! We made our way down the steep hillside and into the town, which feels so typically like an old holiday town! It was the classic what you see in movies! Beautiful grand old buildings from that period, painted in bright yellows and pastel pinks! The grand old hotels are something out of Jane Austen, perhaps like Mr. Bingley's estate! You could just imagine the people of that time arriving in by boat, with their trunks and all dressed in puffy frocks!
Then below all of that, right down along the bay was a "beach" which was actually just concrete with steps into the water! There was a little area just back from the waters edge that had been covered in sand and had a volley ball net up, as well as a blow up waterslide in the water! The waters edge was then lined with a couple of restaurants and an ice cream stand! It was so cute!
There is a beautiful statue of a girl and bird down on some rocks on the water, and there was just something about it that moved us both. We looked into it after and apparently it is called 'Maiden with the Seagull'. The story is that she's a symbol of the town and is there to act as a vigil of the soul of a count who vanished in a sea storm just off the coast in 1891.
It's a really cute little town and we just spent the afternoon meandering and exploring.
We continued to wander around the coast and then back up through some gardens which was lovely.
We started to get hungry so headed back via a Tommy to pick up some bits for dinner.
Tonight we also had the "internet debacle". The internet was ok this afternoon, and then it just stopped working, then it came back a little, but not really. In the end it just flat out couldn't load anything. So we sacrificed some of our phone data to download something to watch over dinner, and you bet ya, as soon as it downloaded, it worked fine!
We chilled for the rest of the evening and had an early night.
Thursday 6th June
Opatija
We had a nice relaxing morning catching up with family at home, and just hanging out relaxing looking out at our spectacular view.
We then headed out for a little explore around our hill and to see if we could find a good angle to see the beautiful dome topped church from.
On our way back we stopped in at the Tommy bakery to pick up a burek for lunch, and you know what, we decided to try one of their strudels because they just looked so good!
We brought our goodies back to the apartment to heat up and enjoy over some catchup tv. Oh my goodness, it was the best burek we've tried so far! Each time we've bought one they've had different fillings! I think it was feta or ricotta today? TBH it could have been anything though!
The strudel was also delish, and I just flat up have no idea what the filling was! It definitely had sultanas, but beyond that I have no clue!
We spent the rest of the day chilling out, playing Mario party, and catching up on blog and vlogs.
Friday 7th June
Opatija - Zagreb
The majority of the day was spent playing Mario party mini games on the bus from Opatija to Zagreb. You know you've been in a country for a long time when you start to recognise the Croatian music on the radio! We were sort of bobbing along to it and humming and we sort of said to each other what is this song? It was really familiar, then we realised we've been hearing it on the radio for the last six weeks!
We arrived into Zagreb mid afternoon and met Phoebe! It was strange coming into Zagreb, it's the biggest city we've been to in a long time! It looks super nice though! We were driving in past manicured lawns with flower displays and water fountains!
We met our Airbnb Host who was again lovely, and up for a chat! The place we are staying is really nice, spacious and has a proper kitchen!
Phoebe then arrived!! It was great to see her again after so long! We spent the afternoon catching up before nipping out to get some groceries. There's a real mix of buildings here. There are some which are really old and run down looking on the outside, but we know from experience are really modern inside, and then theres others which are beautiful grand old buildings, with gorgeously designed architecture.
The rest of the evening was just spent chilling out together.
Saturday 8th June
Zagreb
We all had a bit of a sleep in and then spent the morning booking our next accommodation.
We all also had fun trying to figure out the 'shower'. So in a lot of places they don't have the shower head hanging on the wall, you've got to hold it, which is fine, we're used to that now. The interesting thing with this one was that it was a bath with a hand held shower head and no shower curtain! I don't know about the others but I felt very silly sitting in the bath holding the shower head over myself!
After lunch we headed out to explore the city!
I really like Zadar, it's completely different to what I was expecting. It's not just another busy, dirty city, but rather it's relatively clean, with beautiful colourful old buildings in the 18th & 19th century Austro-Hungarian architecture that are all so well kept!
The FIFA world cup had also started today so pubs were thriving and the city was so lively!
The city is beautiful! We walked through the streets from our place to the centre and came across King Tomislav Square, a beautifully kept garden with a fountain and gorgeous old building!
We then found out that the gorgeous yellow building was an art pavillion!
From here we wandered and came across a park with beautifully kept lawns that people were picnicking on and colourful flower displays.
We ended up in the main square of the old town, with it's tram lines and gorgeous old buildings. I just love the architecture here, again it's so different to all the other places we've been in Croatia.
We left the main square and headed up a beautiful hilly street to the Zagreb cathedral.
The cathedral was stunning! It was so huge, it was so tall! It was beautiful, all white and so intricately decorated with sculptures on the outside.
It was lovely inside as well, with the tallest stained glass windows I've ever seen!
We wandered around the streets here for a while, all the architecture was just so pretty. We were really surprised that they had some really old looking cottage type buildings as well just in the city.
It was so incredibly hot today, it hit 36, so we decided to get an ice cream. Well, where else would we get one from than the penguin ice cream shop!
We were wandering around with our ice cream (which was so tasty and they had really piled it onto the cone!), and the streets were so cute, full of little cafes and bars, when we spotted a tunnel. Naturally we entered the strange tunnel to check it out. It was about 10 degrees cooler in here, it was lovely! It seemed to be some kind of bunker tunnel thing which stretched on for ages and had multiple exits at different points along the way. We looked it up later and turns out we had found Grič Tunnel which was a bunker tunnel in WWII.
At the end of the tunnel there was a really strange virtual reality art exhibition.
We popped back out of the tunnel into the heat and headed back down to the main square.
We noticed that riot police were gearing up and lining the main street, and could just see sirens in the distance and hear a crowd. We then realised that it was Pride month, hence the rainbow flags around the place and the pride parade was coming past! How cool is that? We've ended up being here at the right time to see the parade!
Zagreb is beautiful, I really like it, but it's also much smaller than I expected it to be. Looking
at the map it appears to be huge, but we walked around the entire old town in the afternoon!
We slowly made our way back to the apartment for the evening, where we introduced Phoebe to the mediterranean taco for dinner!
Sunday 9th June
Zagreb
We had such a fun day today!
We had a chill morning at the apartment and then headed out after lunch across town to the national theatre because we'd heard that the architecture of the building was something special, and it certainly did not disappoint! It was such a beautiful building and I just love the colour.
It was super hot again today so we stopped off for an ice cream!
We then spent the next few hours having fun shopping! The H&M building was nice and cool, so we all had some fun trying bits on and picked up a couple of summer pieces (which ended up in the world's biggest bag)!
After our very successful shop we quickly dropped it all off back at the apartment and headed back out to the movies!
We took Pheebs to see Aladdin for her Birthday and splashed out on some popcorn and ice cream! It's so cheap to go to the movies here! Aladdin was fantastic, I loved it! Just like in Dubrovnik the theatre was great. It was a crazy multi-storey theatre with tickets on the ground level, then food and some theatres on the next one up, and more theatres on the upper floor. It was really cool!
We then returned for a late dinner of Mediterranean tacos!
Monday 10th June
Zagreb
It's our last day in Croatia!
We just had a chill one today. We had a little wander around, picked up a few bits and then spent the day hanging out, packing, and booking a couple of things.
We then enjoyed a bit of a fun treat for Pheebs' birthday dinner and our last night together!
Our three weeks that turned into six weeks in Croatia has come to an end. Croatia is such an incredibly beautiful place that has stolen our hearts. The country is stunning, and everywhere we've been has been different yet still maintains the common Croatian feel to it. And for a country with such a colourful past, the people are some of the kindest and friendliest I've ever met. The food is fantastic, the culture is rich, the country beautiful, and the people kind. We have loved every minute here and we will be back one day!
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