Its coming to an end...

This morning we took the ZET train (national train) to Dubronik, a.k.a the pearl of the Adriatic. We had heard from other tourists that in this area it is common to stay with locals. Given our experiences thus far, we thought we would give it a shot. Here is how it works. At the train station, large groups of locals wait and offer rooms for rent to visitors. The house was typical Croatian, which gave us a chance to really see life as local. The meals were decent. We spoke little Croatian, they little English – so communicating was so hard it almost wasn’t worth it. Café Buzza where we went for dinner would have been perfect for a sunset but it was overcast. At this point, we are starting to look forward to the trip home tomorrow.

A not-so-relaxing day at the beach

We are starting to settle in at this point, and can honestly say after all the time, travel and money that the trip is not worth it. On the suggestion of a brand new “friend” we made last night, we went to the beach town of Rijeka. Again, pictures can be deceiving. We were expecting something similar to the French Rivera based on the local tourism Web site, but just like our past experiences, we ended up with something more like a Florida beach post-spring break. Even the sand was different, as it was more like a covering of black pebbles, which was just so difficult to walk on. Back in Zagrab, we grabbed a quick lunch and had an early night to get ready for traveling the next day.

Watch your pockets!

On our second day in Zagreb, we decided to get breakfast in Jelaic Square amongst extremely old buildings within the walls of a medieval city square. Next we went over to the archaeological museum that held monuments and various artifacts from ancient Rome. They say in Eastern Europe you need to be especially careful of pickpocketing. No joke. I saw it first hand as I saw a young girl try to pickpocket a woman whose purse was thrown over the back of a chair. Dinner was at Maslina for some authentic Mediterranean cuisine, which ended up being a night drinking with locals till late in the night.

We made it

With my girlfriend, Jenna, as my travel partner, we landed after a long trip to Zagreb in the morning and immediately checked into our hotel. Hotel Stella is a relatively mid-priced hotel for what amounts to around $105 U.S. per night. They say you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. They were right! As you can see, the Web site shows nice rooms, good views – but these rooms in the pictures are the $400 ones, not our mid-priced average room. Disappointed, but ready to see what else was in store, we wanted to do a little exploring. We checked out Dolac Market because we were hungry and it was supposed to be an interesting place to visit. It was a fascinating place to see but way too touristy and hot. We don’t recommend it. After returning to the hotel for a short rest, we stepped out again in the early evening for a cappuccino in Tkalcieva before calling it a night.