European Road Trip!

Well, I'm done with my internship. It was great. I had 2 weeks from the day I was done to the day I fly out, so I decided to party it up! :) Alana's cousin Erin flew out a few days before the rest of her family so the three of us could go on a 

Road trip! 

Our plan of attack was as follows: Take a taxi from my apartment to the train station. Catch a bus there to Brussels South airport. Fly to Treviso, Italy (close to Venice). Rent a car. Drive to Croatia! :) 

Here's the players in the game: from left to right - Me, Erin, and Alana. This is at the airport at 6 am... 

Once we had rented the car, we had to drive through Slovenia to get to Croatia. Alana's boss had told her about a little town in Slovenia called Postojna where there were some caves. We decided to see what it was all about and happened upon the Predjama Castle. It was so awesome! It was built right into the mountain! There were caves that were part of the castle. It was unbelievable!

After our exploration of the castle, we headed to the Postojna Caves.  These caves are incredible! They are 21 km long, but we only say 3 km! You take a train into the caves and then go on a walking tour. Here's us on the train:

The caves are cool because of the thousands upon thousands of stalactites and stalagmites inside. I wasn't supposed to take pictures with a flash, so this is one of the only good pictures from that adventure. 

Our last stop in the cave was what is called the Concert Hall. They really hold concerts in here! It is huge! And the acoustics are so awesome!

After Postonja, we were on the road again. Here's the part where I tell you that we were in a little manual transmisison Opel Corsa... ahem.  I was the DD... :) 

Due to my recent exposure to DVT, I'm pit stop happy. We landed in Croatia and stopped to buy Magnum bars (The most delicious thing ever! Try them!) at a rest stop. The rest stop also had a playground... 

It was getting dark, so we (after a funny navigational experience) found a place to stay. We were close to the Plitvice Lakes. There are several people who just rent out rooms in their house for the night. We found a great deal, and stayed! This is the next morning as we were leaving. Our car is pictured here as well...

Destination (day 2): Plitvice Lakes National Park. Holy smokes, this place was unbelievable! The water was so incredibly clear and blue-green! It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen! There are over 90 waterfalls at the park, and you can see them all in a day. We hiked up, took a boat ride (included in the ticket price) and saw some more. Once you reach the top, there is a tram that takes you back down. We saw everything in about 5 hours! It was "simply stunning!"

We saw a guy with an SLR camera and figured he knew how to take pictures. We asked him, in our broken Italian, if he wouldn't mind taking a picture for us. He decided to get the best angle and climbed off the pathway, nearly killing himself, to get this picture for us!

This is the biggest waterfall in Croatia - 78 meters high!

The park is set up so well! There is a path you follow that leads you right onto the water. I think one reason it has been preserved so well is because of this. You are walking right next to the water falls, and right over the lakes! No one is allowed to swim in order to preserve the park, but you are literally right there! You can get a glimpse for this here:

I would recommend Plitvice to anyone and everyone. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen!

Once we were done at the lakes, we headed to the ocean! We realized we had all put on shirts from our respective universities, so we stopped and took a picture in Senj. 

This was our first real view of the Adriatic in Senj, Croatia. It was incredible! It was so clear!

We stopped to touch it. It was beautiful!

We decided it would be fun to spend the night on the island of Krk.  This is the bridge we took to get there. Props to Alana for taking this picture while I was driving!

Krk was stunning! We passed some burros on the road. Instead of honking (like anyone that lived there would do), we threw the e brake on and took a picture!

Here's the middle of the island. 

We stayed in the city of Krk that night. Once we were situated, we went and got pizza. There was a full moon, so we ate our pizza with our feet hanging over the edge of the ocean! It just doesn't get any better than this!

We met a guy from Texas at the pizza place that had moved to Croatia about 4 years ago. We asked him for a recommendation and he told us to go to Baska, which is about 28 km from where we were staying. So, the next morning, we headed to Baska! It was incredible! We ate breakfast on the beach! It was so beautiful! 

This is a view of the beach where we wandered:

All three of us had Chacos. This provided many opportunities for pictures! :) 

As we wandered along, we were struck by the beauty of Croatia! The water was so crystal clear! Erin decided she was going to live in the house that had access to this cove: (I don't blame her!)

Every corner we turned we were in awe of the beauty! Here's Alana posing with her Chacos!

The funny story for this trip (well, one of them) was our stumbling upon a "Naturist Camp" AKA nudist beach. At first, we didn't know what was going on. It isn't tourist season yet, so there were only a few people there. However, a few things caught our attention: this sign, and a few rocks that weren't actually rocks... ;)

Our discovery of the beach led to the invention of the Crudar. This stands for a Croatian Nude Beach Radar. 

There are little stripes that will lead to you certain beaches. Different colors mean different things. We came to the conclusion that red = fishing, blue = swimming, yellow = sunbathing, and green = nudist beach. (Information that might have been helpful earlier...)

Driving back onto the mainland we found a glorious statue. It looks like a fork, but don't be deceived. In fact, it is the first letter of the old Croatian Glagolitic alphabet. That's right, folks! This is an "A."

Our last stop on the glorious road trip was Venice, Italy! It was pouring rain, so we bought umbrellas and then gelatos. :) Here's Saint Mark's square.

Like I said, it was pouring rain. Chacos actually was a wonderful shoe choice for the day. You'll notice our soaking wet pants and our dark colored sandals... :)

In Italy, we stayed with some friends of Alana's family. This is Ilenia and Igor. They are so much fun! They made us pizza with homemade tomato sauce the first night. The second night, Ilenia's mom Lucia made us Artichoke Risotto. Holy smokes. It was SO tasty!

They live on a vineyard. This is the day before we flew out from Ilenia and Igor's driveway. 

So, pretty much, this was the best road trip ever. We had a blast! We laughed for four days straight, and quoted Elf more than we'll admit! :) It was absolutely delightful... 

"Simply Stunning"

:)