Days 43 - 50: Croatia

Shifting our very tentative to begin with schedule around, we decided to go to Croatia and come back to Austria and Czech Republic. so we hopped on a flight down to Dubrovnik. we're including a map, since most people (ourselves included) aren't too familiar with Croatia and the surrounding area.

The area has an interesting history of wars and ethnic differences. The countries in this area have changed rulers and names frequently and recently. We only tapped the surface of the history while we were here.

So we started in Dubrovnik, wayyyyy down at the bottom. see it? trains don't even run here! the city is famous for its Old Town, a beautiful area surrounded by the historic city walls. We rented a room from a super cute lady named Magdalena. She lived right in the center of Old Town, and insisted that we sit down right away to cheers with her homemade juice when she realized it was our honeymoon. Telling her it was our honeymoon was a fantastic decision, as she seemed even more eager to host us. She showed us her favorite restaurant, and insisted we get the fish. Neither of us are particularly big fish eaters, but we went for it! Luckily it was delicious. We also had access to free internet at her house, and borrowed her laptop in the middle of the night to catch some of the Giants games and to watch Harry Potter 6 (in prep for the seventh movie!!)!

We wandered the city and walked the walls, overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The next day it was sunnier, and we took a boat ride to 3 islands. The Dalmatian coast is dotted with islands all over the place. It's a really popular summer destination, but we were catching it in autumn. The boat captains really liked us and pulled Jared over to steer the boat for the first leg. We made it safely. The lunch served was fish again, and again it was pretty delicious. (and we could throw the extras to the seagulls following us).

Thanks to a friend's connection, we met up with a group of girls who are traveling Europe. They had been in Dubrovnik for almost 2 weeks. We met them for some tasty pizza and had a fabulous time. It turns out that a few of them were heading our same direction up the coast. So the next morning we met up with Katie and Mindy to ride to Split. And the adventure began!

Their other friends Kelsey and Tayla met us later in the afternoon. Split was a coastal town centered in Diocletians Palace. The Roman Emperor built a palace and now it houses a ton of apartments, shops, and restaurants. We wandered the town and daydreamed about which sailboats and yachts we wanted to ride on. On the afternoon of the next day we stumbled into a large group of people in a plaza. We noticed many of them had scarves for a football team, and discovered that the local Split team was playing that night. So we followed the crowd and ended up at the stadium! We bought tickets and went in to watch the game. It was absolutely nuts. The section next to us started cheering (as in choreographed chants) 15 minutes before kickoff and didn't stop for the entire game. It turns out it was the 60th anniversary of the team, so in the 60th minute they went nuts. Things were exploding, people were chanting SO loud, and they all threw paper onto the field. The smoke from the flares was so bad they stopped the game! If we hadn't been in the stadium we would have thought bombs were going off nearby. These fans are dedicated.

We left the girls (miss you! come to San Diego!) and went further north to the capital of Zagreb. (we celebrated Halloween with some candy by ourselves. it's not a big holiday here we discovered.) we're heading to Vienna today and have one week left in Europe.

ciao!
Sophie and Jared