by Katie
Croatia is a beautiful, exotic country. The land is lush with greenery and cacti. The temperatures range from warm in the morning and hot in the afternoon, to cool at night. All the people you meet will be kind and willing to help you. We stayed in Hvar for one month and then traveled to Plitvice Lakes National Park for three days. I loved all of Croatia and would recommend you go and enjoy its beauty as well.
Croatians are very friendly with one another and with you. They all speak very good English so language was not a problem. Croatian seemed very hard but we learned "hvala" which means thank you. If you have a problem and need help or are lost they will gladly go out of their way to help you. One of the things I really enjoyed about Croatia is that when you walk down the streets they are lined with carts and carts of lavender that smell so good! We bought lots to send home! The one day we went on a tour of the city and our tour guide said that the lavender pickers are always so happy even when the sun beats down on them in the middle of the day, because the smell of the lavender makes them feel so happy and alive inside.
Even though during the day it is hot, at night we always needed a sweater. Most of the restaurants had blankets on the backs of the chairs, to wrap around your legs or you could eat inside. We visited for part of September and October so I dont know if you would need a sweater in June or July. Croatia is just starting to be discovered by people all around the world so the prices for food were very inexpensive. Croatian food is not that different from what you would eat at home but still very good. We stayed at a beautiful apartment and had the best view of the Mediterranean Sea!
We not only had a great veiw of the sea but also of the huge fortress that watches over the town. We went to see the forteress and learned lots of cool stuff! The fortress was built by the Romans but they brought in Spanish engineers because the people of Hvar did not know how to build on such steep hills. For this reason, the fortress has more of a Spanish style look than Croatian or Roman and it's called the Spanish Fortress. In the fortress my favorite part was the dungeons. On display they had old ball and chains, used to hold your arms and legs down and they also had an old wooden stock. A really cool part was that they had found old ship wrecks with amphoras in them, and had them on display. They think that the ships were in the middle of shipping some wine and olive oil and they crashed on the rocks. Some of the amphoras still had the wine and oil in them because the Romans had figured out a new way to seal the amphoras. They would fill them right to the top instead of three quarters of the way to reduce the amount of air and increase the suction. When they were discovered, the treasure hunters could still eat the oil and drink the wine.
The neatest thing I saw when I was in Croatia was the Blue Cave. The first time we tried to take a boat to go see it, the water was so choppy and the wind was so cold we had to turn back. Luckily, the weather was going to be nice for a few days so we went a few days later. We all loaded into a speed boat and drove to a few different beaches and the Blue Cave. When we got to the blue cave we had to duck our heads because the entrace was so low! But when we finaly looked up it was like a whole different world! There were schools of tiny fish that looked black against the glowing blue water and if you stick your hand in the water it would catch the light and glow blue as well! The cave was blue because under the water there was a large hole where sunlight would flow in and illuminate the water with a bright blue tinge. How amazing!
After Hvar we went to Plitvice Lakes for two days and that was amazing! We went around the whole lake in two days and saw at least five hundred waterfalls of all shapes and sizes. My favorite water fall was not the biggest but a smaller one off to the side that you could walk over! A thing that I really liked is that they made the paths so that you felt you were walking on water. We have so many pictures because everything was just so beautifull! The walk was long but not hard at all. It said on the board the walk would take two to three hours, but we took about five because we stopped so much for pictures! The most amazing waterfall there, in my opinion, was a waterfall that was almost 55m high! So amazing and beautiful!
All of Croatia, that I saw, I loved and enjoyed so much. The weather was gorgeous, the plants exotic, and the sights are to die for. I cant think of any bad things about Croatia and would go there again in a heart beat.
