Laowai

I’m so happy that I got to see a bit of Croatia. We have Mabel and her family to thank because they chose Croatia and the town of Omis as their vacation destination and we followed along. Omis was lovely. It’s a bustling little town that is flooded with people looking to enjoy the beach. Plus it has a charming old town area and a unique river canyon that comes down from the mountains. The photo below is the path that took us between our apartment and the beach.

Here are a couple photos of the historic part of the town.

Saltwater sandals love – photobombed by Bea and her flip-flops.

When I hear the word Croatia I think of war – at least before this trip that’s what I thought. I tried to educate myself on the Balkans war and how Yugoslavia was broken up but honestly it is quite confusing. There is a war memorial near the beach in Omis and it is shocking to see the names of men who were born in the 1970s and died in the early 1990s. There were fresh flowers floating at the edge of the water that surrounded the memorial.

Claire and Brian and I took a hike to a fortress up on a rocky hill one morning. When we started off it was shady and cool but soon we were very hot and sweaty.

The Starigrad fortress was built in the 15th century.

There’s the main beach of Omis below.

Heading down – I liked this hike but I’ve never been so hot in my life.

Omis has a lore of being a town of pirates. They would go out to sea to steal from big boats and then retreat back into a the river canyon. We went for a fun boat ride up into the canyon one day.

I was too busy taking pictures of these beautiful girls – I guess I forgot to get a shot of the pretty scenery.

The next day we went to the city of Split. We wanted to see the amazingly preserved Diocletian’s Palace. Diocletian was a Roman Emperor and he built the palace as a retirement home. Today the palace is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s busy with tourists and it’s a little town area where a small number of families live.

The palace’s latest claim to fame is that it is one of the places where Game of Thrones was filmed. Mabel’s mom, Danea, was geeked out about the Game of Thrones connection. She said she felt like she had been there before. 

After the palace we tried to get a little relief from the heat at a park above the city. It was a beautiful park but I’m not sure it cooled us off. I feel like I complained about the heat just about every minute of this trip except when I was swimming.

There’s our group below. What a treat it was to travel with them. Every night when it started to cool down (slightly) we shared a delicious meal. I looked around and loved seeing the girls laughing and being goofy. 

Thanks Croatia – Your towns are beautiful, your water is cool and blue, your people are kind and helpful and your gelato is yummy.