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When Megan first suggested going to Croatia to celebrate her birthday,
my instant thought was, "Isn't there a war there?" But there isn't, and Croatia is the new place to go for a summer
holiday. So me and five girlfriends, Megan, Justine, Laura, Jen and Christine headed off together for a cruising holiday
in Croatia's northern islands, with Katarina Line.
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| Our little "Pogled" |
Despite Croatia becoming more popular, it's still not all that easy to
get to and it took much of Friday to get there, involving a flight to Trieste in Italy and a bus through Slovenia to Opatija
on the Adriatic coast. There we found a hotel with "french love beds" for those who wanted them... then headed out to
enjoy the balmy weather with a wander along the "beach". (I say "beach" because, like all Croatian beaches, there was
no sand and the "beach" consisted of pavement. Still, it was a fabulous setting and you can't have everything can you?)
We found a hidden pizzeria where we sat outside and drank beer and ate pizza, except for Jen who was faced with whole scampi
for the first time and Justine who particularly enjoyed her "green pastry and ham".
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| Justine and Kirsten (also from Dunedin!) |
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| Megan and me |
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| Karen wasn't really that scary - honest! |
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| Pogled plods across the Adriatic |
The sun was already streaming outside while we had our first of many breakfasts of bread, cheese and Europe's answer to Nutella. We explored the beach-front
markets stalls where we bought sarongs, lilos, masks and snorkels, "Eros", who sold me my sarong, seemed particularly
enthralled with my blonde hair and blue eyes. Oh, to have such admirers! Fighting off the suitors, we
headed down to the harbour to find our boat.
Our
home for the week was “Pogled” (meaning “view”). She
was, apparently, a “vintage sailing ship”, although there was not a sail in sight.
She was far smaller that the rest of the company’s large three deck ships, but ours would be far cosier and friendlier
too.
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| Me and Christine, starting the week as we meant to continue! |
I did exclaim in surprise at quite HOW tiny our cabins were, barely room
to swing a rat, let alone a cat, but I hardly planned to spend much time down there. We soon discovered the cook Marco's
skills were not too bad at all as we were fed a full cooked lunch and met our fellow shipmates.
Our group of six made up a third of the group. Apparantly quite unusually,
there was a clear majority of antipodeans, including Gary, Michele, Malcolm and Chris, two australian couples who quit their
jobs, kicked their kids out of home and are travelling the world for a year! There was a young couple from NZ, Korey
and Nat, and other antipodean singletons; Karen, Kirsten, Travis and Simone. We were reminded how small the world is
- Kirsten was my patrol leader in Girl Guides, many years ago! Our group was completed by Zdenek and Jana, a friendly
couple from Prague.
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| Michele and the Cook |
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