A quick hour flight from Vienna brought us over to beautiful Croatian land. After playing the "I'm a pro, that's clearly ___" from the plane window and analyzing what's what, we realized we were both way wrong and had no friggin idea what's what - there's a shocker, I'm sure!
That said, that was hands down the quickest airport eviction ever - we walked right through customs with virtually no line, not a single question, and the customs officer didn't even look at us before stamping the passport. We were literally out of the plane and at the rent-a-car booth within minutes. Here, however, we spent a good hour declining the same upsells over and over until we finally got the car we paid for and could get in the car, take our shoes off, and head in the direction of Split, a short half hour drive.
Driving towards Split was absolutely gorgeous along the mountains as it all watches over the Adriatic Sea in its crescent shape. We found our way fairly quickly through the city and in the Old Town, where we had to park on the outskirts as there is no driving in the Old Town itself. The 8 minute walk from the parking lot with our one carry on and a backpack left us literally leaking sweat from the humidity and it took us forever to find our hotel in a tiny little alleyway as we kept hopping back and forth between doors and Justin repeatedly stating his disbelief at how a hotel doesn't have a sign up. Eventually, once he was in, I looked down, and there it was, a giant welcome mat with the hotel name at your feet.
Justin got it in his head that he wanted a nice old looking hotel, so a nice old looking hotel he booked, Plaza Marchi. When I say "old", I'm not referring to outdated and rundown, I'm referring to thematic and regal. I kid you not, all the furniture, walls, and accessories were as such and it was clearly very well maintained and beautifully done:
One thing we noted walking to the hotel was pretty much every single person had an ice cream in their hand and we were starving at this point, so we couldn't wait to settle in, shower, change, and hit the streets.
I'm pretty sure there are more ice cream shops here than anything else combined, but they all essentially have the standard flavours and I had read about this one place that does more interesting flavours like Lavender, which is a huge local feature considering how much of it grows wild here. So of course, despite lavender being a love-or-hate thing, with Justin and I both leaning towards the dislike side of the spectrum in general, we had to order it. We also got the orange-rosemary flavour. Have to say we did like it way better than the standard berry one we also had and it was essentially like eating the spa but there was just something so right about it. It was worth the walk out of the way for which we B-lined to get here, and now we wandered the streets with a cone in hand just like everyone else, taking in our surroundings.
We also stopped by the excursion booths to ask about the Blue Cave Tour for the next day as it's one of the biggest highlights of this area, but it was too windy that morning which brings the tide in and actually closes the cave to visitors - lucky we hadn't booked in advance as that was the main attraction out of the various islands that were included in the tour for us, and we chose not to book the tour without it. Those Vis (the island where the cave is) would've been cool to see - it's where Mamma Mia was filmed!
There were a few other adventures here in trying to find razors and a hair brush which had us going in circles for far longer than we'd like to admit, but we ended up picking up a couple of bottles of the local wine to head back to our room. Croatia has quite the wine production that is often overlooked and underrated so we obviously had to give that a try.
Our room came with its own private terrace over-looking Old Town and the sunset, so we wanted to make sure we could enjoy the view and grab some pictures while we changed and got ready to go out for dinner with a new friend.
For a week or so leading up to the trip, I have been in contact with someone in a travel group who has been more than incredibly helpful in giving us tips, assessing our potential route, and answering all questions I had and then some. She provided us little thoughtful tidbits that I didn't even ask such as how to understand/pronounce Croatian letters, driving tips, food advice, etc so we decided to take her out for dinner.
This turned into some interesting conversations about politics and history of her family, the city, and just in general all sorts of conversations about life here, the culture, and travel as a whole. We definitely vibed and the food was fantastic. She suggested a restaurant that I already had on my radar as one of the best ones in the city according to a number of foodie blogs, and can confirm, the food was incredible. Aside from lavender, truffle is huge in Croatia (you can even go on truffle hunting tours), so naturally Justin got truffle pasta which was nothing like the truffle pastas we've had before or attempted to make ourselves. Not sure what it was about it, but it was spectacular. The tuna tartare was incredible, and while the shrimp pate was alright, I don't even have words for the anchovies bruschetta. You read that correctly. But it was hands down the BEST bruschetta I've ever had and neither Justin nor I could even speak after having some. The blogs didn't lie. I also had the Black Risotto, it's a national dish and it's black due to the squid ink, with the most delicate pieces of cuttlefish and monkfish that tasted like scallops. It was absolutely delicious, but I couldn't get over the fact that I was not actually eating the promised risotto. Once I was in the mood for a gooey and creamy seafood risotto, the al dente dish of regular rice, as good as it was, just wasn't the same - but we did learn that all rice is cooked al dente here and all rice is referred to as risotto. Noted. Regardless, it was a fantastic meal even if it took our food 2 hours to come out and I think the waiter was boycotting us and our existence seemed to be a nuisance to him (but not really, this seems to be the norm due to reviews, so you come here for the food, not the service and that's ok and worth it nevertheless!).
We chattered way later into the night than we wanted to considering we were barely conscious from jetlag and going on maybe 2 hours of sleep at most. We parted ways and made our way home, for which the walk up the stairs to our room on the roof was twice as long than the literal 2 minute stumble to the hotel from the restaurant where we snuck in a quick call home to check in on our munchkin who had managed to already cut my mom's headphones cord within one day of us being gone.
We had no plans for the next day aside from grabbing the 1-hour catamaran ferry over to Hvar island so we figured we'll see where the day takes us.
All in all, a pretty damn good first (half) day and really can't complain about the start to our vacation from the flights to getting settled in. But we made it, and I raise my glass to palm trees, it's good to be in their presence again <3
