Travel – Page 18 – ThePassportPrincess

Day 69 – Rome

October 23, 2015June 13, 2016SarahLeave a comment

I left my apartment in Split, Croatia just after 11am and headed to the airport.
My flight for Rome didn’t leave until about 3pm but I needed to walk down to the bus terminal with all my stuff and get a ticket.

Thank god I left when I did because it started pouring with rain as soon as I got to the terminal.
I bought my ticket and then waited for the next bus which was at 11.45am.

The bus ride was long, and everyone was so pushy trying to get on.
Eventually I got to the airport and checked in my over weight bag. And again, they didn’t charge me. Woohoo!
Maybe they understand that I need a lot of products to make me look half decent some days haha.

The airport was verrrry average. There wasn’t even anything to eat really. I just ended up buying some kit kats from duty free and nibbling on those while I waited for my flight.

When it was time the board, I kind of laughed at how small the plane was. Oh well, I guess I was only flying to Rome haha!
The time on the flight was spent talking to the lady next to me. I think she was slightly nervous flying on that small aircraft so we sat and chatted and she showed me her pictures of Croatia. She was actually from Split but had moved to Australia years and years ago. She just went back to Split to bury her mother as she had passed away recently which was sad.

It was good to meet someone new though to add to my list of ‘people I talk to on planes’
The flight wasn’t too long, and when I landed I tried to decide whether to catch the train or catch a bus.
The bus seemed cheaper so I went with that option.
I probably should have taken the train though because I had to wait for the bus for over 20 minutes.
Then when it came, everyone was so rude and just shoved past each other to get on. I had already loaded my bag underneath the bus so luckily I got on by probably pushing in front of a few people too. (But in a nice, slip-in-there way) not like some people who blatantly just stood right in front of you when they used to be 4 people behind you.

The bus took way longer than I expected, we got stuck in afternoon traffic so I didn’t get to my hostel until about 7.30pm.
It was easy enough to walk to from the train station (which was where the bus stopped) it was just so painful having to carry all that luggage 😣😣

I stayed at The Yellow Hostel and if you’re ever in Rome and want some cheap accommodation, I really recommend it. The rooms are all good, not super fancy or anything but I roomed with 3 other girls and we had our own shower and toilet.
The Yellow Hostel is spread out along one street, so they have like 3 different buildings where all the bedrooms are and they have their own pub/club too where you can get food 24/7 and good drinks!

They also have some entertainment on at night on certain days. That night they had a magic show and I saw this guy put his whole body in a balloon haha.

I headed to the bar as soon as I’d re-done my face and funnily enough I bumped into Nick who was on my Top deck tour through Europe haha. He was staying at the hostel as me so I sat down with him and we grabbed some late dinner from the bar.

I ended up talking to this American girl for a while over some drinks and then these Aussie’s came and joined us for more drinks. After a night of drinking and dancing I headed off for my first nights sleep in Rome at about 3am 😴

Day 65 – Makarska (Croatia)

October 22, 2015June 13, 2016SarahLeave a comment

This will probably be the most pathetic blog I’ve written so far.
I can’t even remember what I did in this town.
As I’ve bought a new SD card for my phone (to make more room for all the pictures I’ve been taking) I took the old one out which had all my photos from Mljet. Now I have nothing to jog my memory.
I could go into my bag and get my old SD card out and put it into my phone but it’s currently 12.36am where I am and honestly, after 3 cocktails no one has time for that.

Instead, these wonderful pictures off Google Images will have to do.

Being honest, if I can’t remember this place then it can’t have wowed me.. (or it could be the fact that I slept for ages that afternoon and only awoke when it was dark)

It sucks because all the places in Croatia I went to, I can imagine in the Summer time for them to be amazing!!
I could imagine lots of people walking around, a Gelato in their hand, drinks in the other, laughing on the way to the beach.
But the scene I got in some places was tumbleweed rolling down the empty road. All the restaurants had shut, a few were open with one worker just having a smoke out the front, the boats all docked in the harbor, a few oldies having a walk around. (Korčula I’m looking at you) zyoonoghbcr8q
Apart from Dubrovnik, It wasn’t really the Croatia I was hoping for.
But it was to be expected when you book your sailing trip for late October.

about-makarska-croatia-5

As this post is about Makarska I guess I should write a little bit about the place.
Its about 60 km southeast of Split and has a population of 13,834 residents.
Lots of tourists come to Markarska as here lies Biokovo Mountain. It’s the second-highest mountain range in Croatia and tourists can join an organised hiking trip to climb up. Otherwise, there’s a Nature Park at the bottom of the Mountain with a Botanical garden.

franjevacka

The center of Makarska is an old town with stone-paved streets, a main church square with a flower and fruit market and a Franciscan Monastery that houses a sea shell collection featuring a giant clam shell.

I didn’t wake from my sleeping slumber until about 5.30pm (I was soo tired, I had come down with another cold on top of my sickness) so I got myself dressed and then joined everyone for dinner at this sea food type restaurant. I ordered a chicken curry type dish that was actually really nice. Apart from the fact I felt really sick afterwards 😩

When we got back to the boat, we all started drinking and then headed out to one of the clubs. It was so small though and ended up being really hot! I sat outside with a few others half the time because I’d just be sweating inside otherwise.

I didn’t stay terribly long that night. I guess I just wasn’t really feeling it so I went home with a few others at about 1am. Thank god I did though because when we got back a storm came over us and it just absolutely poured down.

Next day was Friday and we were heading back to Split in the morning 🙂

Day 64 – Mljet (Croatia)

October 18, 2015June 13, 2016SarahLeave a comment

Wednesday 14th October 2015

While we were in Dubrovnik on the Tuesday, we were told that as the weather was going to be getting worse over night, we would probably have to skip our next destination Mljet, and go to Korčula again instead (the really quiet island we went to a few days ago)

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A few people on the boat weren’t happy about that (because there was absolutely nothing to do in Korčula at that time of year) so on the Wednesday morning before we departed at 4am (and I was sound asleep) 7 people from the cruise hopped off and hired a car to go to Bosnia instead.

bosnia herzegovina tours mostar old bridge l ge — Bosnia

The rest of us set sail to Korčula but in a turn of events, we actually ended up going to Mljet. Our captain braved the choppy waters in the end and we arrived safely just before lunch time.
The chef on the boat cooked us some lunch when we’d docked (which I didn’t end up eating as I had a sleep instead) and then myself and a couple of the girls went across to what looked like the only hotel on the island to check out their day spa.
There was one girl working that afternoon and we were all keen for a massage so booked in one after each other for 4pm.

I was pretty hungry as i’d skipped lunch and as there was only 2 really small grocery stores I had very limited choice on what to eat.
I was sick of eating sugary food and all I felt like was some rice crackers and hummus 😐 However that was way too hard to find so I settled on the only crackers that they had in the store and Millie bought a bag of crisps which we shared back at the boat.
Probably one of the most average meals I’ve eaten in my life haha.

At least my massage was good. I’m probably the worst person to massage as ever time I get one on my back I end up giggling and moving the whole time.
I know it’s because my neck isn’t quite right and i have a weird disc in my neck which makes getting back massages in certain places really ticklish. I think from sleeping on buses and using crap pillows everywhere I go it’s made my spine all out of place.
Think I’ll have to book a chiropractic appointment when I get back home to New Zealand.

That night the chef was probably feeling pretty sorry for us as we were all bored out of our minds with nothing to do that he cooked up a BBQ dinner for us.
Yay for french fries!!
After dinner, a few people started playing cards and I watched a bit of Orange Is The New Black on my tablet until it started to run out of battery so I went to bed.
Today was a very very quiet day. I’m not going to lie either, it was probably one of the boring-est days on the trip.

We were told if the weather was still crappy we may have to stay in Mljet for another night which we all were not keen for! We just had to see how the weather turned out.