For vacation this year I joined a big group with a friend on a packaged tour biking in Croatia. I wasn't totally sure about this, because there were 22 of us and that's a lot of people for me to be nice to, but it wound up being a really terrific trip! I went with VBT, which was so lux - they did everything for us including booking my flights. Also, I had an ebike, which was the best! We biked on two of the Dalmatian islands - Brac and Hvar, and they were pretty hilly. With the ebike, though, it was no problem. I also swam in the sea every day, ate a lot of ice cream, and had other wonderful food.
The trip started with a day in Split, where I had my first swim and walked around a few historic sights. The time difference is 6 hours - I slept a little on the flight there, but was pretty tired, so the first night I got into bed at 8 pm and fell right to sleep. I wound up sleeping for 10 hours, and woke up on Croatia time. The second day we met our tour guides (totally awesome, of course) and took a ferry over to Brac. Our hotel was right on the ocean and we had a balcony! The water in the Aegean sea is so clear and blue, I loved being able to just jump in at any time. We also got our bikes on the first day in Brac, and my bike was soooo much better than a blue bike or my ll bean bike, it was such a pleasure to ride. Our first ride was just a 6 mile loop to get used to the biking, and I was totally stoked to find myself ahead of the pack while just riding a normal speed. That held true for the entire trip - I was always up front and loved the biking so much.
The two big days of biking on Brac we went to an Olive Oil Museum (which I thought was a little silly when I heard about it, but actually turned out to be really interesting, and they gave us samples which were delicious) and to a stone cutting school which was so hot I mostly just wanted the tour to be over. It was in the 90's the first couple of days, and everywhere was hot, except biking because of the breeze. And the sea, of course. We also went to a dinner hosted by a local family, and I had some of the best gnocchi ever - I'm going to try to make some here I'm pretty sure.
We took a small boat to Hvar after three nights, which was a non-biking day. We got to spend time at this amazing beach and eat more ice cream. In Hvar we went to a fortress and then walked down to town to our next hotel. This one wasn't on the sea, but there was a view from the window, and we had a suite with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, so no sharing required! The biking on Hvar was even hillier than Brac, but the uphill was pretty slow and steady, and with the ebike it wasn't a problem at all. I loved poking around in some of the shops and eating some really delicious food. I also felt pretty good about myself because most of the women decided not to bike on the hills. On our last day of biking we wound up at this amazing beach, with an inflatable bouncy park that one woman and I did, and some cliffs (low - like 6 feet high) to jump off of. I was already done swimming and dressed by the time we got to the cliff, but it looked so nice that I stripped down to my underware and jumped in :)
We ended the tour in Dubrovnik, where I walked around the walls of the old city and had some really delicious food. The town was really amazing, but so touristy in the old city - I wasn't sad that I only had an afternoon there. We flew out from Dubrovnik, and it was the first time that the weather was anything other than sunny and hot - there was a wind storm that caused our flight to be delayed by 4 hours, which meant we missed our next flight and had to spend a night in Zurich. Happily, we got vouchers to stay at a hotel (instead of like last year, when I had to sleep on the airport floor). Still, it was a taxing flight home, and I was exhausted and jetlagged after. We flew lufthansa on the way there, and swiss on the way back - definitely recommend lufthansa over swiss - seats were just a little bigger and more comfy. Two thumbs up on Croatia - it's becoming a real tourist destination, and I can see why.
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