Mali Losinj and Cres - Hard to pronounce but easy to travel in!

We left our wonderful Greek islands and travelled for two days to get to our next destination. First we returned to Croatia's party city, Split. The town was full of 20-year-olds eating burgers and drinking beer. They were ok. They certainly were having a great time! We retrieved Bruce the Bike who had spent the last 10 days in a shed, and hired a car so we could take Bruce to Rijeka. a town further up the coast where we could catch a ferry from. En route we passed through tunnels that were built to allow free passage overhead to bears and wolves!

All went ok and we arrived at our destination, a Croatian island in the north called Losinj, a bit after dark.

A tip on Croatian pronunciation - nothing is as it seems! Losinj is pronounced Loshin.

The island is a big summer destination for Germans, Italians and Slovenians. For the first time, when we met say, a waiter in a restaurant, they would first try to speak to us in German. Luckily for us, waiters in this part of the world usually speak at least four languages - Croatian, German, Italian and English!

We stayed in the town of Mali Losinj and it was beautiful. It was full of gorgeous houses in pastel colours clustered around the harbour.

Our accommodation here was wonderful. The house was about 170 years old. The lady who owned it was lovely and looked after us so well. She made coffees for John and let us do laundry in her machine which is always a bonus! Thanks Georgie!

We came to this island as there were supposed to be heaps of walking and cycling trails but there actually weren't that many which was a bit disappointing for John. Anyway, I hired a bike a few times and we had fun exploring the gorgeous bays in the area. There were very few beaches and most of those were stony but it was still lovely.

The town was quite touristy but it wasn't too bad. I loved this mannequin outside a shop!

I heard there was a 'klapa" music performance happening one night. This is what they call the a capella music. It's quite traditional in this part of Croatia. John didn't want to go so I headed off and found it in the most amazing setting. It was in front of the town church which was beautifully lit up. There must have been 1000 people there to watch the performances.

There were male and female groups performing from nearby islands.

By far the best group though was the one from Split. The lead singer had the most incredible voice. I've learned how to put videos up now so here's one I took that night. Unfortunately, I can only post quite short videos in this blog but this will at least give you an idea of what it was like.

One of the places we explored by bike was the village of Veli Losinj. It was really gorgeous. Like my cool retro bike? It wasn't very practical on the rough tracks but it was fun - and relatively comfy!

We realised there is a bit of a theme happening here - again we had pastel coloured houses clustered around the harbour. It was all very scenic.

We had a fantastic lunch at a restaurant on the harbourside. It was the first of the Italian-influenced restaurants we came across. We soon learned that just about every northern coastal Croatian restaurant is heavily influenced by Italian food as Italy is so close. I love the colours of this place!

We kept riding until we found a nice place for a swim. We picked the place below, parked our bikes and wandered over the rocks near the lady in the foreground of the photo below. We didn't realise til we got there that that lady was naked. There is a lot of nudity on the beaches here - mostly by Germans. It's a bit of a thing for them to get their gear off when they go to the beach.

We also passed a group of teenage boys jumping into the sea from a rope. It was really high!

We left Mali Losinj and travelled to the next island, Cres. I said earlier that words are often hard to pronounce in Croatia but this one takes the cake. It's pronounced Tsress and the 'r' is rolled. Trying saying that one three times fast!

The two islands are linked by a bridge so John headed off early and rode the 55 kms to Cres Town. I followed with the bags on a bus. All went well but it was fairly hilly and hot so John had a good workout! 

Again we found pastel-coloured houses around a lovely harbour.

The old town was gorgeous again - lots of stone houses and narrow cobblestoned streets. The street names are usually just one word - they don't have the word for 'street' after them. We took this one for you Connor!

Again, we went for bike rides and walks and explored more beautiful bays.

At our hotel we met Fritz Senior, Alex and Fritz Junior, a German/South African family. We had many laughs and good nights with them.

One evening, after drinks and nibbles in the courtyard of our hotel with Fritz and Alex (they do things in style!) we headed down to the harbour for dinner. We rounded the corner and witnessed the most amazing sunset. I didn't have my camera with me but Fritz and Alex had their phones. The sunset only lasted about a minute but we timed it beautifully!

Interestingly, Christine Hickson posted on FB the following day about a huge thunderstorm in Venice, which is not far west of Cres. Thanks for the sunset, Christine!

 On one of our walks we came across not only a nudist beach but a whole nudist camping area. People were reading books, sitting at tables and lying on the beach, all totally naked. About three quarters of them had obviously visited the waxing salon before they left home and there wasn't a lot left to the imagination! People of both sexes bent over, they sprawled out with their legs apart and strolled about nonchalantly. All I could think of was all those sunburnt willies!

Having said that, I've realised how hung up Aussies are compared to many other cultures. From both locals and tourists we've seen male friends that walk arm in arm just because they're friends. We've seen parents holding hands with their teenage children and the teenagers don't mind. Young kids have much more freedom than we allow ours. They can often wander where they like. Admittedly, these towns are small but kids under 10 often hang out together on the waterfront. These kids seem much more capable and make our kids look overprotected. It's funny the things we notice when we travel!

On our last day we hired a car to explore other parts of the island. We had three options, one of which was a convertible (a cabrio to non-Aussies). They were all the same price so we had to take the convertible of course! It was the best day ever (to quote Connor)!

First we drove north with gorgeous sea views.

As much as we'd like to think we were Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie driving that car, we are still practical Aussies and we had to wear our hats to keep the sun off plus we had to have them done up under our chins to keep them on. It kinda spoiled the image somewhat!

Our destination was the stunning hilltop town of Beli. It was only tiny but it was soooo gorgeous!

 Again we had beautiful old stone houses and cobblestoned streets. Many houses had views like this.

There were some walks from the town so we headed out on one. We came to a bridge and were met by a fierce guard!

None shall pass!!!

The walk was steep and very hot. It was lovely though and every now and then we'd come across sculptures and interesting sights.

One of the more interesting sights was a paddock of stone mazes. I suspect that the one below was quite old but the rest were new.

We found some ruins and the most stunning vines were growing over them. The vines wound their way through any cracks and flattened themselves hard against the wall like they were camouflaging themselves. They were very cool!

It was very atmospheric - gnarly old trees lined the road as dark clouds started gathering overhead.

We then drove south to another hilltop town called Lubenice. As we arrived those dark clouds let loose thunder and lightning in the distance. We had a fantastic view of the storm with the town in the foreground but, try as I might, I couldn't photograph the lightning!

We laughed when we saw the sign below - who on earth wants to visit a Sheep Breeding Museum? Anyway, it was free so we went in and it was great! The lady who ran it was very enthusiastic and we learned a lot about how milking and shearing used to be done but it's now a dying industry. It's much easier for people to renovate a house and rent rooms to tourists than to live off sheep so the traditional lifestyle is being lost.

On that note, here's another interesting story. The island has some parts reserved for the protection of the Griffon Vultures. Traditionally, the vultures lived off dead sheep. Farmers were happy for them to clean up diseased stock. Then a hunting group decided to release wild boar onto the island so they would have something to hunt. The wild boar quickly started attacking not just lambs but sheep as well. Some farmers lost entire flocks. So the farmers lost their livelihood and the vultures lost their food source. The numbers of both sheep and vultures plummeted. So vulture protection areas were set up but it was painfully obvious to us that these areas were just for show because as we walked through them, air force planes rocketed low over our heads. The vulture protection areas were actually air force training areas. If a vulture and one of those fast planes met in the air, I somehow don't think it would be the vulture that would be protected!

So that's the end of our Croatian island adventure! We'll still be spending more time in Croatia but there will be no more islands for us for quite some time.

Bye from Brad and Angelina!

10 Days in Greece

First, a brief explanation..... John's cousin's wife is Greek and she has a house on a small Greek island called Halki. Last year was the 100th anniversary of the house so we had a huge celebration there with about 40 other friends and family members. This year a few of us agreed to meet there again. We prepared ourselves for another liver-pickling, hangover-inducing catch-up! 

It took us two days to reach the island even though we weren't that far away. Before we got there we wondered if our memories of the island were glorified by the wonderful time we had last time. Was it really as good as we remembered it being? No - it was even better!

We were met at the port by John's cousins, John and Colin, (known locally as Yiannis and Lambros) with ouzos in hand in the middle of the afternoon. We were obviously launching straight into it!

All of John's and Colin's families were there as well as some notable others. It was great to get to know the younger generation a bit better. We all had a ball. We ate memorable meals at Kiki's and other places. (Thanks for the photo Paris).

Of course we worked our way through the cocktail list at the Steki Bar. Maria and her family were still running the bar and it was like we had never left. We had one huge night where Breanna and Alex took control of the music and we danced and sang til 3am. The memorable hit was "Living Next Door to Yorgos", complete with the chant in the middle!

We stayed in the same house as last time and the view was just as spectacular. I still love how crystal clear the water is. It was quite hot and I swam several times every day. Heaven!

We also went to Ftenagia Beach and nothing had changed there either. Nick was still running the restaurant and the water was still beautiful.

We had five days of this before it was time to leave. Ahhhh, it was truly wonderful!

Instead of returning straight back to Croatia, we took a detour and visited Symi island. We're Rick Stein fans, particularly of his food series Venice to Istanbul as it covers a  lot of the area we are visiting. He always does his cooking parts in a big house in Symi and it looked beautiful so we thought we'd check it out as it's not far from Halki. It turns out that there were no direct ferries so we had to ferry back to Rhodes, taxi and bus to Rhodes Town, then catch another ferry to Symi.

Symi was beautiful but very disappointing. It was so noisy! We stayed right in the main part of town thinking that we wanted to be among the gorgeous old houses, but they are all clustered around the port and the port is so busy! Huge ferries pull in alongside oodles of yachts and fishing boats. Engines roared, anchors rattled and horns blared. Here's the view from our room.

To top it off, we were also above the bus station and the family in the room above us clomped around on the wooden floors annoying the bejeeses out of us when we stayed in our room.

Ok - so that's enough whingeing - here are the good parts.

The houses tumbling down the steep hill to the sea really are gorgeous.

There was a heat wave while we were there. One day it was so hot that if I stepped into the sun I could feel it burn instantly. It turns out that it was 39 degrees in the shade that day. It sure felt like it. To avoid the heat we would get up early each morning and get a walk done while it was comparatively cool. It was amazing how very few people were doing the same. Even the bakery didn't open til 7am. By then it was around 30 degrees.

We had fun exploring the town on those walks. We climbed to the top of the town where some gorgeous churches were.

We loved the sign on the church gate.....

The views from the top were superb.

I'm not much of a cat person but the cats here just seemed so photogenic.

The cats are a bit less tame here and are largely not de-sexed. They are breeding like rabbits. I saw one half-grown kitten getting raped by an adult cat. She was miaowing pitifully - or maybe I'm wrong and she was miaowing orgasmically! Either way, she was way too young to be a mum but that's nature for you.

Like houses on many Greek islands, some were falling down, some were renovated and some were in-between. Of course, I had to take photos of the gorgeous old paint layers and colours.

The harbour might have been noisy but it was entertaining. There were heaps of yachts but the super-yachts were incredible. There was plenty of serious cash parked in this port!

Even the ferries were somewhat entertaining. Some of them were huge. Trucks were driving into this one.

There are a few beaches (mostly pebbly) around the island and to get to them you catch a local boat. We caught one to a small beach one day and it was lovely. There were several options about when we could return to the town and in our conversation with the captain about this we asked if we had to book a specific time. He said no. John asked, "But what if the boat is full?" The captain looked at John like he has just asked if the sky is green and replied, "I just put more on!" He then proudly told us how he once fitted 130 on the boat. I counted the seats - there were about 40!

On our last morning we walked to another bay and found a lovely quiet fishing village with a place you could swim and a small taverna. This was much more our style! I loved the menu here.

Before we could return to Croatia we had to spend another night in Rhodes. We had found a good place to stay in the old city and we really enjoyed it here. We found the most amazing restaurant with basic but fabulous Greek food.

Our room was supposed to be 2,500 years old. I'm not sure about that but yes, it was pretty old. Unfortunately you can't see much of it in this photo but we loved the 4-poster bed!

We're at the airport, heading back to Croatia now. We loved our little Greek sojourn!

Heather and John