Croatian Islands: Mini Cruise May 2017

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Friday and Saturday

The fully booked Embraer takes us from Deurne Airport to Split in Hrvatska (Croatia) in 1h40. The shuttle bus to the city center ends at the ferry and cruise port in Obala Kneza Domagoja , which also happens to be the train station. And all of this is less than 300 meters from the heart of the city. The country's busiest vegetable and general market teems with stalls and buyers and is located beneath the southwest tower of the former palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

I found a room 50 meters away, essentially an inconspicuous little apartment. It had a double bed, a bathroom with a small rain shower, and even an unnecessary small kitchenette for the price of, brace yourself, €34/night, payable in cash. There's almost no space, but for one night in a quiet alley just 100 meters from the almost complete UNESCO-listed old town with its astonishingly lively bustle, it's a steal. Most of the city center is built within the partially preserved Roman walls and towers of what must have been a massive fortress. Within, you'll find a cathedral (also a Roman mausoleum), churches, alcoves, narrow alleyways that seamlessly merge into open-air cafes, restaurants, patios, and squares. Along corridors sometimes barely a person wide, it goes up and down, there's a section of the lower city, and constantly those surprising streets with spaces that then become bistros or terraces. Sometimes you don't know where a street begins and a bar ends. Everywhere you look, you'll find facades and turrets, ancient monuments, Roman columns... In short, a stroll through a millennium and a half of mixed cultural history and architecture. But incredibly pleasant.

A highlight is the setting of the Perisilium (a Roman reception hall) with its colonnades and porticoes. One section is enclosed by the Svetu Duje with its bell tower, baptistery, crypt, and treasury. On the other side is the Renaissance palace of Grisgono Eipci. And in the tiered space, you can even sit with a cushion and a board, as it also serves as part of Café Luksor, which always has a lively atmosphere with constant acoustic performances and such. It's an example of how the hospitality industry has, so to speak, infiltrated the veins and pores of this sometimes endearingly winding old city. Unique. We grab a bite to eat, and I order cevapi kuna, a rather simple-looking sausage-shaped meatball, but with a uniquely delicious flavor. Furthermore, squid risotto is a specialty here.

Right in front of the palace and the old town is a magnificent, wide, beautifully modern seaside

promenade, creating a vast pedestrian zone between the waterfront and the palace walls, with a chain of expansive terraces of cafés, bars, and bistros that comes alive, especially in the evenings. Strolling in Split is a real treat. The next morning, we feel this even more, as the already unique market, full of scents and colors, continues alongside the stalls of the special Saturday market. A line as long as the promenade itself. The offerings here are simply everything, from small jewelry to small, carved wooden furniture. Funny, everyone seems to need a wooden ladle today, because almost everyone is carrying one. There are also stools and lounge chairs that reveal the shape of a tree, lavender, knick-knacks, and souvenirs ranging from creative to kitsch. As everywhere else in the world, football shirts are ubiquitous, featuring mainly local heroes on the red and white checkered national shirts, almost all ending in -ic: Raketic, Modric, Perisic (ex-Club), Mandzukic.

A stunning Saturday morning. I order a simple breakfast, but Nella wants a croissant with her latte macchiato. And they don't have any. "No worries," says the waiter, "there's a bakery two doors down, buy it there and eat it here." I don't see that happening here anytime soon.

Because of the narrow streets, they have a system of loading carts with a motor, which someone stands and steers. This is how supplies and garbage collection are carried out, as cars can barely reach anywhere. What I do find disappointing is that the air conditioning units are hanging outside everywhere, even on the street-side facades, which is a real disfigurement. And what does UNESCO say about that? What does keep making me laugh is the word "apartman," which you see everywhere. It means "apartment."

Yesterday we encountered a small brass band, with typical, sometimes grotesque, booted majorettes behind them, juggling sticks. And behind them, endless rows of four young people at a time, mostly girls in jeans or trousers with white tops, T-shirts, or vests. Later, we found them dancing at the command of a voice, performing simple folk dance steps. It's primitive, but the enormous crowd, hundreds lining a stretch of Lungomare, gives it a special touch. It turns out it's related to the feast of the city's patron saint on May 7th.

After another stroll through the city center and the fruit, vegetable, herb, flower, and plant market, with bargain-priced strawberries and the first mini cherries, we lock our suitcases and room and pull our trolleys a mere 250 meters further, where our yacht-like cruise ship, the MS Seagull of Katarina Lines, awaits us.

Imagine… This small ship, with an 8-person crew and room for 28 people, was chartered by Classix Cruises. The entire vessel for our group, 8 travel agents, including the incredibly friendly Paul De Bruyne, CEO of Classix. He's a relaxed cruise lover and entrepreneur, more of a bon vivant than a frantic sales rep. My kind of guy. It will be an enjoyable introduction to all our fellow travelers. Carefree island hopping, feeling free, along some of the highlights of the Croatian coast (and islands).

The crew does almost everything together. Bartender Drako, a Thibaut Courtois clone, the cook, a cleaning lady, and a few sailors all have their specific tasks, but they're at the service of every operation. Engineer Dominik and the captain play host, and everything is arranged with us. For example, we can stop anywhere for a (brrr) refreshing dip from the jetty at the back of the ship. Another characteristic of the concept is that we always stay in a small harbor overnight. The distances are therefore very short here.

We're welcomed by a pleasant woman from Katarina Lines, who's waiting for her colleague "with the machine." It turns out to be a portable payment terminal. After a cheerful introduction, introductions, a local liqueur, and lunch, we agree to dock in Hvar at 8:00 PM, where we'll have our only unscheduled dinner. This gives us time to visit a small town for an hour. A bit of a shock: no, it's not called Stalingrad, but Stari Grad (which means old town). It was once the ancient Greek city of Pharos (385 BC). We take a pleasant stroll along the waterfront, dotted with small boats, yachts, tidy houses, and few, if any, explicit sights, but with occasional bars, terraces, and practically… nobody. The season clearly hasn't started here yet.

Not until later in Hvar, on the island of Hvar. While it was sunny and pleasantly summery in Split, a less favorable period awaits us, and it's already starting to drizzle. We stroll around in the evening light. Numerous yachts and a thousand years of history are reflected in Gothic palaces and Renaissance loggias. Once again, clean, cozy alleys with outdoor benches and attractive interiors in cellars or rooms with ancient walls and the occasional lost Roman column. The town is dominated by a large hilltop castle, but we stay down below in search of dinner. At the chosen restaurant, most people are enjoying delicious lamb with oven-roasted rosemary potatoes.

There's a wine produced exclusively here, enjoying the dual effect of the sun reflecting off the sea and thus onto the vines, while simultaneously being cooled by the sea breeze that prevails everywhere here. Vivino rates this red grape wine, Zlatan Plavac Barrique, highly, with a delightful nose and a medium-dry body. A steadily increasing wind makes the ship bob up and down at the dock all night long. Quite conducive to sleep for this young man.

Sunday: We leave Hvar in the morning and, as predicted, we're in for a bumpy ride. Someone gets seasick, but—and that's a uniquely enjoyable experience—we anchor for lunch in a sheltered bay full of scrub and forest. No more waves, just a 360° idyllic setting. From here, it's only a half-hour boat ride to Korčula, a highlight. A town fortified with medieval walls on a small peninsula. I've been there before, but I don't remember anything. We're given a funny guide, although I can see her classic pointes coming from miles away. The cobblestone streets are unique, originally conceived on the drawing board by the Romans to anticipate wind, shade, winter cold, and summer heat. We visit, among other things, the Cathedral of St. Mark with its incredibly loud bells (15th century) and the Land Gate with the Venetian St. Mark's Lion. The cultural and historical influence of the trading nation of Venice is omnipresent in Croatia. The Serenissima ruled here after the defensive walls made it impregnable (15th, 16th century).

The house where Marco Polo stayed for a while has a late-Gothic tower and four stories. Naturally, everything here revolves around this globetrotter. After the tour, we stroll around the city's terraces and experience the difference between a windy side and a sheltered side.

In the evening, we take a taxi to a lost village where we experience the "Village Experience," an encounter with local rural life, its social development, and its food culture. Frank, a bony, old islander who, like so many of his compatriots, left for New Zealand to live there for a long time and earn a living, shows us around. They later returned to buy a piece of land—pretty much everyone's dream here. We're given a kind of homemade grappa, one with the scent and flavor of roses, watch fresh pasta being hand-rolled, and finally enjoy an unpretentious, rustic meal full of local specialties, cheese, and charcuterie... and a delicious ragù on wooden benches under a natural outdoor canopy, partially covered with vines.

Monday: Mljet boasts a vast national park teeming with forests (pine, Mediterranean maquis, holm oaks, strawberry trees, and so on) and wildlife, including the introduced mongoose, which has become a pest. It's a bit of a climb over rocky paths to a double saltwater lake connected by a lock. We take a boat to the charming little island of Otok Sveta Marija, where only one building remains: an old, dilapidated monastery, founded by Benedictines from Puglia, which now houses only a restaurant (Melita). It's a beautiful location for private parties and regular concerts, whose hills surrounding the water create a unique acoustic effect.

Once back, it's especially amusing to see that, as we've often seen, up to three boats are moored horizontally next to each other, meaning that if you need to return to the furthest ship, you have to pass through the first two boats. There's a kind of freedom of mooring, but with limitations and obstacles. If the ship next to the quay has to pull away, or a ferry arrives, the other two also have to move aside to make way. We sail to the island of Šipan. Another typical Croatian harbor village nestled around a small bay... On the terrace next to the ship, a little boy proudly shows off his freshly caught octopus. We stay here because we're already close to our final destination, Dubrovnik.

It's captain's dinner tonight, so we're dining with Captain Tom and his brother Dominik (engineer-turned-jack-of-all-trades). We wash down all sorts of grilled fish, mussels, and shellfish with local wines, including Vrhunsko Vina Graservina from Kutjevo (that name!). The crew is introduced, and the conversations with the brothers are unique, as they talk so passionately and passionately about sailing and their family traditions within the shipping industry and in Croatia in general. Touchingly authentic and amicably friendly. I'm also amused by Rose-Marie, a Walloon woman who constantly teases me with her accent. "Wimmeke, sweetie... watch out!"

Tuesday: Cruising around Dubrovnik is normally a paid excursion in itself. It's an experience, the

impressive fortress walls so directly in the sea, the small harbor. But the actual cruise port is a bit further away; we disembark and travel by bus to the main entrance and meeting point. We were only on board for four days, but the farewell was incredibly heartfelt. The guide awaits us in front of Pile Gate, the large city gate. There are a lot of places here that were used in Game of Thrones. I've been here several times, but it's still worth a visit. The maze of tightly packed streets with old houses, monasteries, and museums, with no new buildings anywhere, surrounded by those very thick fortifications, forms a wondrous whole. Along the wide central street, Stradun, we walk from the Clock Tower, Onofrio's Fountain, and the Church of the Savior to Luza Square with the Roland Column, Sveti Vlako Church, and then on to the small harbor.

There's a lot to tell historically, but the 1607 earthquake was crucial, and parts of the city were thoroughly destroyed. So you sometimes see a mix of before and after styles, sometimes within the same monument. And then there wasn't enough time to visit interiors and museums.

Then it's off to the cable car, where from the hilltop, we have a fascinating view of Dubrovnik, the coastline, the islands, and the turquoise Adriatic. After a delicious lunch overlooking the harbor, we sprinted through a sudden downpour to the bus that would take us to Hotel Lapad. A nap, a delicious dinner at a nearby restaurant, and the next morning, our flight to Brussels, which meant a train and a short bus ride to Deurne to pick up the car.

It was an unexpected, short, but memorable experience, so different from the “big” cruising.

More photos on Flickr: Croatian Isles mini cruise: https://www.flickr.com/photos/wimvanbesien/albums/72157681812781162