Personal: Southern Croatia

In 2014, I committed to living the life of my dreams,
NOW,
not later in life, with the many excuses we love to create!
So I went to Europe!
The first stop on the adventure was Croatia.
It is placed on the Adriatic Sea, across from Italy,
a popular summer vacation destination for other European’s.
It hasn’t become trendy for American’s…..yet.
I will post photographs from three countries,
with a list of my pro’s and con’s of each destination!

CROATIA
I loved…
1. The water!!
I LOVE swimming, so the Adriatic Sea was my dream!
Warm (70-80 degrees in August), clear, and clean, with NO sharks, sting rays, jellyfish, etc.
but plenty of beautiful fish to observe while snorkeling!

2. The exchange rate!
The exchange rate is favorable to the US dollar, so food and activities was soooo affordable.
So cheap in fact that I couldn’t pass up parasailing when I didn’t even have a burning desire to do it!
But for $30-50 why not? (I can’t remember the exact cost)
We also took a day-long boat tour to other islands for about $45, lunch included.

3. Our Airbnb.com apartment host!
He went above and beyond his duties: he drove us to and from the airport,
drove us to a private-ish beach one day and set up umbrellas and chairs for free,
generously provided us with produce from his garden!

4. The vegetation!
Croatia was bursting with fruit-
grapes, plums, apples, pomegranates, avocados to name a few.
It had desert cacti, agave plants, palm trees and also lush plants like pine trees, grass, flowers…
It was beautiful and so unique!!

I did not like….
1. The humidity in August. I’m just not a fan.
But I guess that’s what makes swimming even more enjoyable!
August is perfect for swimming, but not sightseeing.
The evenings we went into Dubrovnik, the walled city,
it was soooooooooooo sticky and hot!

2. The food, kind of.
Most of the restaurants had a melting pot of choices…
offering any and ALL food from all the European countries haha
Being vegan, I had a harder time eating in the small towns of Croatia,
but then again, I have a hard time finding food in ANY small towns in the world,
the US included. Cities provide options for weird diets.
The small grocery store in the town we stayed, had slim veggie options,
so the fresh vegetables from the airbnb host garden was a god-send!
We found one vegan restaurant in Dubrovink that was DELICIOUS,
the only problem was we had to take a bus to that town,
it wasn’t available within walking distance of our apartment.
But I am still thankful to have had a few delicious meals!
All that being said- if you have no diet restrictions,
you won’t have any complaints about Croatia.

We stayed in the town of Srebreno:

A restaurant- the canopy of grapes, and plenty of entertainment haha

Dubrovnik:

We spent a day at a TINY island off the shore:

The neighboring town Mlini was adorable!

Many boat tours, taking visitors to the beautiful surrounding islands: