Island Paradises in Croatia

I have spent the last few days on some of the islands off the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia and they have been absolutely stunning. I took a bus from Dubrovnik to Korcula Island. Yes, you heard me right, a bus. The bus went through some beautiful country and I saw tons of green, lush hills covered in trees and small towns. Upon arriving at the port, the whole bus gets on a car ferry and then they take us over to the island where they dropped us off at the main town on the island: Korcula town. I got off of the bus and was immediately swamped with people asking all of us if we wanted rooms to rent. I was planning on going to the hostel, but I did not have reservations since it is the down seaon right now. I headed to a tourist info place to grab a map of town to find my way there. When I got there, I was informed that the hostel had closed 2 weeks ago and there are no other hostels in the town since it is so small. That left me with not many options. The agency keeps a list of people who rent rooms out in their houses because this is extremely common to do in Croatia, so they called up a woman who came to get me and took me to her house. It was really nice and I was the only one there cause the other rooms were not being rented out, so it was a nice break from sharing a room with 2-10 people.

The next day was a bit cloudy and rainy, so I mainly just checked out old town. The old town was a walled city that has one main street running down the center with small streets all off of the main street. There are some high, old towers there that used to be defensive towers for the town. I spent the day walking around and looking at all of the little alleyways, watching the numerous stray cats around the city, and checking out the water front. Although it was not very warm, I decided that I needed to go for a swim because this is my last country with beaches, so I threw on my bathing suit and headed into the water. I was the only one in and once I got used to it, it really was not cold. I was carefully dodging the numerous amounts of sea urchins so that I would not end up with a war wound on my feet. I basically jumped in and headed straight out to where I could not touch the ground to avoid the spiky litttle guys.

After spending 2 nights there, I caught an extremely early (as in 6am) katamaran for Hvar Island. I arrived at my hostel, threw my stuff down and went exploring the town for the day. Unforntunately my first day there was rainy and overcast as well due to it being fall weather and all, but it gave me a good opportunity to explore the small little town. Because it is considered low season now, the towns have really died down in the amounts of tourists there are, especially in Croatia because it is not as touristy as some of the other countries. The island was ruled by Venice for a while so there is this great Venetian Fortress up on the hill overlooking the town that I walked up to. There are some great views of the city and many other small islands nearby. The fortress has a prison in it that I went down into that was somewhat dark and creapy (glad I wasn't in there). I checked out the rest of the small town that day and did some reading and writing. The town is very little with not much to see.

The next day, we woke up to beautiful weather which was perfect for my last day on the islands. I headed out, found a beach (which in Croatia is not sand, but instead a flat rock), and did some tanning and swimming. The coast in this country is amazing because the water is unlike anything I have ever seen. It is so clear, but also teal and azure at the same time. When I was smimming in it, I could see straight down to the bottom, including all the rocks and fish which had to be atleast 20-30 feet below me. The coast is super lush with trees and plants all over the place and it is just the epitmoy of an island paradise, especially when you are the only one there for the entire day with the exception of a few boats going by. The country is truly a beautiful sight to behold that words cannot describe and pictures are not even going to begin to do justice to. That day was my perfect ending to my time in the islands.