We flew out to Croatia right after the last day of school for the kids-- took the train to Stanstead and then hopped on a RyanAir flight to Zadar. The flight was about as "bare bones" as it is possible to imagine-- Ryan Air could even teach Southwest a few things about no-frills flying. Still, it got us there in one piece with all our luggage, so I can't complain too much.
We were met at the airport by one of our guides from the tour company we were vacationing with, Huck Finn tours. From Zadar we drove to our hotel in Skradin, a small and somewhat sleepy town located on the Krka river just on the border of one of the Krka national park. Skradin is located just a couple of miles or so off the main coastal highway, which is a very nice and modern-looking road (apparently the government has just spent huge sums of money getting it upgraded/redone).
The first day we kayaked south on the Krka from Skradin in the direction of the ocean; the main objective seemed to be to get us into kayaks and get some paddling experience without anything too stressful or complicated. The Krka is quite wide and slow-moving at the point where it goes past Skradin, and as we headed south it widened out more to form a medium-sized lake. Our fearless leader for the expedition was Goran, one of the guides from Huck Finn.
Swimming in this area of the Krka is very interesting-- you get cold fresh water on the surface, but as you dive deeper down, you immediately run into a much warmer and saltier layer on the bottom-- very strange temperature inversion. Quite counter-intuitive, given that warm things are supposed to rise and not sink.
Lunch was at a restaurant in a tiny town off one of the beaches we stopped at-- grilled squid, fish, bread, and various salads. The process of ordering seemed to require a great deal of yelling back and forth between Goran and the owner of the cafe, but we did eventually succeed in getting our meal.
The group we had been placed into was about 17 people: another family with two kids from England, a Swiss family (mom, daughter, and daughter's boyfriend), a couple from Scotland, a couple from London, and a couple from the Netherlands.
The hotel was fairly decent-- nothing to write home about, but clean and with friendly staff. All of the older hotel workers seem to speak German but not English, whereas with the younger generation it's the reverse (this was pretty much the pattern that we saw across Croatia).
Day 2 turned out to be kayaking on the Zrmanja river. The group piled into vans (we just barely fit) and drove out to the put-in spot on the water. We were using 2-person kayaks, not especially quick or manouverable but very sturdy. The first half of the trip was on relatively flat water, not too many rapids.
We stopped for lunch at large tributary that had a really amazing waterfall-- it was about the nicest one I have ever been to. Fairly cold water, lots of it, very green and overgrown surroundings. Forgettable lunch (I think I had a peanut butter sandwich?); unforgettable swim afterwards-- it was fantastic. When you jump in and start swimming towards the actual waterfall, the current gets stronger and stronger as you get closer, so that after about 15 or 20 feet from the short you are swimming as far as you can just to stay in one place. If you dive deep down, though, you can get much closer to the "ground zero" point of the waterfall, though, since the current is much stronger on the surface.
After lunch we hopped back into the kayaks and continued on down the rest of the river. Fairly mild rapids, nothing too hair raising. Part-way through we encountered a larger waterfall-- this one we had to portage around:
The guides told us to leave our kayaks, though-- they had a different method for getting them down the falls:
Yes, that's right-- toss the kayaks over the falls. Pretty tough boats. Closer to the end there was a section where you could actually go over a smaller set of falls yourself:
At the end of the journey we got ourselves collected and piled into the vans again to head off to Zadar to explore.
One annoying thing about our travels was that we had 17 people but we were using two 8-person vans. This left us with 8 in one van and 9 in the other. Since our kids were the smallest and most "squishable", this meant that we always wound up in the 9-person van, with either Amy or myself squeezing 4 people into a 3-person row of seats, which was not at all comfortable (bits and pieces of seat hardware poking into backsides in various places). Luckily we had a good book to distract us: I was reading the "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" to Lydia, which kept both of us spellbound (in fact I am pretty sure some of the other Brits were listening in as well).
We had forgotten to pack a spare t-shirt for Ethan, which was a mistake- the life jackets that they give you for these expeditions are rather "odoriferous", so by the time you finally step out of your kayak you are also fairly ripe. I decided that I would be the stinky one, so I gave Ethan my spare shirt and continued on in the one I wore for the paddle.
Zadar has a nice "old town", with sizable sections of city wall that have survived from the middle ages, and with several nice streets to walk on and do touristy stuff. It was hot, so we bought a new t-shirt for Ethan and then some ice cream in short order (I was very glad to reclaim my spare). We walked the length of the old town out to the seaside, where they have a very interesting contraption: an "ocean organ". This thing is a set of organ-style pipes that are connect in such a way that the waves rolling in off the Adriatic force air through the tubes, producing interesting toots and honks. After a bit more wandering around, it was back into the vans and off again to Skradin and dinner, a good thing, since everyone was tired and hungry.
Our third day featured a boat ride up the Krka to the big waterfalls just up the river from Skradin. We swam at the base of the falls (very nice!) and noodled around for a while in the area. Here is a shot of the main waterfall. You can just make out a line of buoys-- that's the spot where we swam:
Here is our guide Filip encouraging the swimmers:
Other random photos of Amy and the kids:
Off to the side are the remains of an old hydro-electric power plant (apparently it was one of the first hydro plants in the world).
After that we had a short hike up the river to a dock where we got onto another smaller boat, then a lengthy boat ride up to yet another set of waterfalls, this one called "Rosti". Very picturesque scenery, but not a whole lot to do while the boat was chugging along.
Short stop at an island monastery along the way-- interesting but slightly weird place. At the upper falls we had lunch: bread, proscuitto, onion, tomato, cheese, and beer (all of it locally made).
After a nice swim, we hopped back on the boat again for the trip back. This time the kids were getting bored, so we had to find ways to entertain ourselves. Ethan re-introduced us to the game "chopsticks" (a counting game involving fingers-- hard to explain, but fun to play), and we had fun tying knots with some of the ropes that were lying around on the boat.
Showers for all back at the hotel (ahh), then a round of cards before dinner (dinners were very late on this trip: 8pm). The British family in our group taught us a new card game, which was fun. I won't repeat the real name of the game, since it is somewhat off-color, but Ethan and I decided to rename it "The Complicated Game", due to its numerous weird rules.
The fourth day was a river rafting trip, this time on the Cetina, another superbly unspoiled and beautiful stretch of water. Instead of Kayaks, it was 6-man "SOTAR" rafts, rubber top, teflon bottom. NB: SOTAR is an Oregon-based company, the name stands for "State Of The Art Rafting" (or if you are working for one of their competitors, it stands for "Swim Over To Another Raft" :-). I have always found rafts a little less fun to noodle around in that kayaks, but given that the river was a lot more lively, I suppose it made sense to make the switch.
Our guide this time around was Marko, one of the more experienced guides. We learned a lot talking with him on the van rides-- he had some interesting perspectives on Croatia's political situation, and their efforts to get accepted into the EU. Apparently Slovenia is working behind the scenes to block Croatia's entry into the EU, supposedly so that they can extract concessions (in the form of more direct/unimpeded access to the Adriatic, which Slovenia covets). We discovered that he is a vegetarian (not an easy path to take given the meat-heavy local fare) and liked to read English authors, including Aldous Huxley. Our raft consisted of Marko, our family, and Mike + Emma, a couple from Scotland (both veterinarians).
We had some interesting rapids, got bumped around a little, but most everyone managed to stay in the boat. We had two swims to break up the ride, one at a flat place in the river and one at a narrower spot where there was a diving rock.
We had to be somewhat careful since the current was very strong. At the second spot, Lydia was washed down stream almost from the get-go; we had to get her to stay put on a rock and then pick her up when we were done.
After the ride we hopped in the vans and headed off for Split. Very nice lunch overlooking a beach to the south of the city (pizza and salad). The kids played for a while in a nearby playground, and we did a little walking (we stayed away from the main part of the beach, since it was incredibly crowded).
Then it was off for a short city tour with Goran and the rest of the gang. All of Goran's tours were very similar-- lots of very fast walking from spot to spot, followed by sort of furtive looks around to make sure that people were catching up, then a few hurried remarks/comments about what we were looking at, then off at another fast walk to the next spot. Split was no exception; it was the speediest city tour I have ever been on.
On the van ride back we commented to Marko about it, and he finally gave us an explanation that made sense. Apparently in Croatia there is a very strong union of city tour guides; the union was able to get a law passed that says if you are caught trying to give a tour without being part of the union, you have to pay a whopping fine (25 thousand Kuna, or about 5 grand US). This explained Goran's weird tour style (also explained why all the tours we saw advertised were so expensive).
Split has some nice walking areas, including a few bits of an old Roman palace build by the emperor Diocletian. We also walked past an old section of the city that featured a series of wells, where Lydia immediately spotted a pair of kittens (apparently part of a family of stray cats that lived nearby). She was delighted, of course, and wanted to stay and make friends. We would have liked to spend more time exploring in the city, but everyone was tired and hungry after the long day.
Day five was sea kayaking; this time we took a 40 minute drive down to a coastal town, took a ferry out to one of the islands, and did a paddle that took us all the way around the island.
Not a terribly long ride, just a couple of hours, but the sun was incredibly intense. I wound up getting sunburnt on the one patch on my ankle that I had forgotten to apply sunblock to (in this environment, you learn right the next day when you make a mistake applying sunblock). For this trip we used a new type of sunblock recommended by the wife of one of Amy's co-workers (who has very fair skin). It's called "Riemann P-20", and it's ferociously effective stuff-- you can apply it once at the beginning of the day and it will last for an entire day of outdoor stuff (pretty amazing). Slightly weird goop-- it has a sort of amber color, and goes on like varnish (lots of alchohol, which immediately evaporates). It is hands down the best sunblock I have ever used, though.
Lots of small vegetable gardens and things growing in small nooks and crannies in the smaller towns. We saw lots of fig trees and grape vines:
For lunch we stopped at a small local seafood place and splurged on "scampi", which turned out to be European-style langoustines (either very large and well-armored shrimp, or small lobsters, depending on your view of things). Very tasty, but also a great deal of work to get out of the shell. More card games on the ferry ride back-- we showed the Brits how to play "Pig", and they taught us "Follow the Ace".
The sixth day was supposed to be a rest day, so we decided to take the optional trip out to the coastal town of Primosten (small and extremely sedate). There is not actually much to do there, but it's picturesque and there is nice ocean swimming to be had-- the kids had a lot of fun splashing around while Amy and I read the International Herald Tribune. We headed back fairly early after that-- it was good to have a shorter day for a change.
Our last day, Sat, we spent noodling around Skradin. We rented bikes for a ride around the town:
and did other bits of exploring and souvenier shopping; very low key. Here are some shots taken from an old fort overlooking the town:
After that it was off for ice cream... that always seems to improve everyone's disposition:
Well, most everyone. Can't quite recall why Ethan is looking grumpy here (maybe general embarrassment over parental behavior?)
