#WaterfallWednesday The delightful Rastoke-Slunj, Croatia August, 2012 #TravelPhoto #Wanderlust #SplitHappens

Today is the 11th anniversary of the beginning of our #SplitHappens adventure, but also happens to be the anniversary our first trip to Split in 2010, the year we retired. We decided to take a ferry there for the weekend because we could. We fell in love with the energy and the ease of traveling in Croatia. #TravelTuesday

#SplitHappens - fin
Home again! Thank you for coming along.
#FingerpostFriday

#SplitHappens - part 26. The 89th day of our exile from Italy found us back in Split where it all started. It was nice to be there in October, without the heat and hordes of tourists. We enjoyed eating with the locals, and exploring Diocletian's Palace and the cathedral by ourselves. And so the Magical Mystery Tour ended the way it began, with a full moon over Split. Full car, full hearts, ready to take the overnight ferry back home. #TravelTuesday #Wanderlust

#ThickTrunkTuesday Spotted in Kotor, Montenegro. October, 2012 #CatsOfMastodon #SplitHappens

#SplitHappens - part 25. Toward people the end of the Magical Mystery Tour, we dipped down to Kotor, Montenegro, a place of ethereal beauty. They say that the drive around the Bay of Kotor is one of the most magically beautiful in the world. They aren't kidding. #TravelTuesday #Wanderlust

#MeerMittwoch Dubrovnik, Croatia. October, 2012. #TravelPhoto #Wanderlust #Sunsets #SplitHappens

#SplitHappens - part 24. As our Croatian adventure started to wind down, we made our way to Dubrovnik. This is what I wrote at the time: "You know how when you go to a fireworks show, and the first part of the show is like 'Oooh.' 'Aaah.' And then it's like 'OoohAah, 'OohAah,' and then at the end they are so high and so close together you are almost dizzy going '000, 00o, Ooo, OohAahOohAah!!!!' It's kind of like that." #TravelTuesday #Wanderlust

#SplitHappens - part 23. Your travelers next went to the charming little town of Mali Ston, where we enjoyed the best-equipped kitchen we had encountered during our odyssey in Croatia. A sharp knife! A cutting board! The one thing that all of our prior non-hotel accommodations had in common was a kitchen approximately the size and configuration of a thimble. I was in heaven. The town, and neighboring Ston, were lovely, too. #TravelTuesday #Wanderlust

#SplitHappens - part 22. It is a miracle that we ever heard about Mljet. The owner of our favorite beach bar in Split recommended it as his favorite place to travel in Croatia. We would never have made it if we had listened to that guy with two first names who said: "Many Croatians rave about Mljet. Take it with a grain of salt." He calls the park "overrated," and suggests that "one day is plenty for Mljet." That guy’s an idiot. #TravelTuesday #Wanderlust

#SplitHappens - part 21. We spent 9 days exploring the clear, clean water of Mljet Island’s two interior lakes, thick forests, and heartbreakingly beautiful views. The western end of the island is a national park which contains about five little villages, each more quaint than the next. We stayed in one of the apartments rented out by islanders which offered home-cooked meals from the abundant local seafood, caught that day. #TravelTuesday #Wanderlust

#SplitHappens - part 20. At day 60 of our Magical Mystery Tour, we left Istria to return to Croatia’s mainland, and it just kept getting better. We took the ferry over to the islands of Kres-Losinj and enjoyed perhaps the most dramatically beautiful coastal drive I'd ever seen. (Well, when I didn't have my eyes squeezed shut, that is!) Mali Losinj is a fishing village which combined medieval cobblestone streets with a laid-back Keys feeling. #TravelTuesday #Wanderlust

#SplitHappens - part 19. While we were in Croatia, our running joke was the absence of vowels. This was the next little town down from our house in Istria. Every time I saw this sign I thought: "Hmm, I wonder if Ms Pggj’s home?" I crack myself up. #TravelTuesday

#SplitHappens - part 18. The best part about our month in Istria was the easy access to the rest of the peninsula. Within a half hour, we could reach two beautiful harbor towns, Rovinj and Pula, a peaceful fjord, and a smaller fishing village, Fazana. A little further up the road to the north was another historical harbor town, Poreč (formerly known as Parentium - how cool is that?), and picturesque ancient hill towns of the interior. #TravelTuesday #Wanderlust

#WaterfallWednesday From the delightful old mill town, Rastoke-Slunj, Croatia. August 2012. #TravelPhoto #Wanderlust #SplitHappens

#SplitHappens - part 14. After bouncing around the interior of Croatia, your intrepid travelers decided to take a beat and rent a house in Istria for the month of September. Istria is a county in Croatia that is so close to Italy we could almost taste it, not surprisingly since it was historically part of the Republic of Venice. We found ourselves in the tiny hamlet of Smoljanci, which I’m pretty sure is Croatian for Hooverville. #TravelTuesday #Wanderlust

#SplitHappens - part 13. Day 30 of our odyssey found us in the scenic mountains of northern Croatia, in a serene meadow near the quaint village of Sunger, with the promise of fall in the air. We had learned exactly 5 words of Croatian, what we call the magic words: please, thank you, good morning, good day, and cheers! When we walked through town, we gave a big "dobar dan" to all the little old ladies on their porches or in their yards, just to see their faces light up. #TravelTuesday

#MeerMittwoch Split, Croatia. August, 2012 #SplitHappens #TravelPhoto #Wanderlust

#SplitHappens - part 12 In a happy confluence of #TravelTuesday (in the US) and #WaterfallWednesday (where I am) we reach one of my favorite days in our Croatian adventure: the day we returned to Rastoke Slunj and spent the day at National Park Plitvicka Jezera. The heat finally broke, and I was as happy as I’d ever been in my life. One of my top ten travel days ever. In Rastoke, a creek flowed under our apartment, giving a lovely breeze all night. Just heaven. #TravelPhoto #Wanderlust

#SplitHappens- part 10. Osijek is located in eastern Croatia and is its 4th largest city, but like most Americans, we had never heard of it. It is on the banks of the Drava River, a tributary of the Danube. The summer of 2012 was incredibly hot and the heat caught up with us in Osijek with temps of 105 during the day. It was about 97 degrees in our hotel room. Luckily, Osijek has marvelous outdoor spaces, and we enjoyed being out in the parks and cafes by the river at night. #TravelTuesday