The Experience
Horrible and terrible weather awaited us in Split. Worse – the first thing we heard when we got off the ferry was that our accommodation had been double-booked for that evening! What a disaster. They are rather informal with rentals it seems in Croatia – not sure if the agent we booked with was registered or not but her sister ended up taking us to this place about 20 minutes drive out of the city centre. It ended up being two separate flats which was quite good in terms of space but not so much in terms of ease of getting in to town.
But before we even got to that place the driver offered to take us to a place she knew of which was being rented by a relative or something like that. I didn’t see the place but fair to say it was very weird! The four that went in to check the place out said that it was like we were going to be staying in a place where there was already someone living there! And the flat was in a kind of housing estate type area. Very unsafe feeling!
In the end we stayed the one night out of town and the second night in the proper room. Thankfully in both instances we were provided transport … though I don’t know why it was the real estate agent’s sister and her husband! who were doing all the driving around when it should have been the agent herself taking responsibility!
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There isn’t a whole lot to see in Split itself (next to the Palace, Cathedral and Squares) so the day we arrived we spent the late afternoon / early evening walking along Riva which is the city promenade and exploring the nearby squares and markets and eating corn!
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For the most part the rain stayed away at least but with a storm threatening we decided to make it an early night to make the most of the next day which was spent at ….
Bol! More specifically on what is arguably Croatia’s best and certainly its most well-known breach: Zlatni Rat or Golden Horn.
The journey from Split to Bol is not the easiest. First is the ferry from Split to Brac (which is the island that Bol is a part of), followed by a bus (which is supposed to take 50 minutes but took longer than that) followed by a walk from the town which is supposed to take about 20 minutes but was more like 35. I can tell you though that the walk was very worth it.
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When we started our trip out the skies were gray and the rain was falling. But we persevered and prayed that the weather on the island would be different. Arriving at Zlatni Rat it was an improvement somewhat in the sense that the rain had stopped at least but it continued to be overcast. This proved a boon in many ways – we practically had the beach to ourselves and we were able to negotiate a nearly 40% discount on our sunbeds!
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Our perseverance paid off as within about an hour of settling in the sky cleared, the sun came out and we got some decent sunbaking in. We were having such a good time that we decided to risk getting the last bus back to what I think was the last ferry leaving Brac!
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This was the perfect end to our Croatian holiday … only topped by the fact we had the best views out of our plane window departing the next morning.
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