Kevin Blake's Blog

First thing’s first, we have arrived in sunny Croatia. It’s sunny alright. A nice 22 degrees as we stepped off of the plane. I write this because it’s the easiest way of letting everyone know both Pete and I have arrived safely and have made it so far as our first hotel. Not really as any thrilling revelation or news about Croatia and all that we’ve found so far.

This morning, I discovered, was early. A 6am start with a really fast trip into Gatwick (can you believe, with the cost of train fares nowadays, it’s cost me £3.50 to get to the airport from Watford. Shocking! Nonetheless, a morning still filled with comic quotes from people all around, and the holiday hadn’t even started yet. One discussion on the new security measures … “You can take pens on board, but not ink-based ones”. Right.

Speaking of heightened security. Check-in was the expected nightmare. We put the ticket into the machine, answer “NO” to the on-screen “has anyone tampered with your bags”, and “are you a mass-murdering psychopath . terrorist” questions. Walk up to the drop-off desk (huge queue of three people), before joining another queue of 10 people at the security checkpoint. Now, I could have been very lucky, but the whole process seemed a hell of a lot smoother and nicer than usual. There was a small amount of evidence in the form of evian bottles on the side, by security – but certainly no jekyll and hide-esque mothers, sampling all manner of concoctions designed to werewolf an entire 747 crew and bring the world to its knees. Oh yes, it’s one of THOSE entries.

I got a 3-1 ass kicking at table football, and also picked up the currency from the Travelex nearby. Mostly impressed by the 340.5601 Slovenian Tolar to the Pound exchange rate. After watching the poor guy count out 68,500.00 of the things, it was all I could do to not throw my credit card over the desk screaming “Make me a millionaire – quick – I may not get another chance”.

So, fairly uneventful flight. Learnt a few card games, read the history of Croatia (y’know, they’ve done pretty good avoiding wars in the past by setting their neighbours against eachother instead – hit Bosnia in the shins, look around and whistle. “oh that, must’ve been that guy, he looks a bit shifty”.

And then we started flying over Croatia, and see gorgeous mountain/island views, before landing way down in the south at Dubrovnik airport.

After staring at the bus outside the airport for all of 2 seconds, we decided to get the taxi to the hotel. Costing a huge 170 kuna (10.4 to the Pound – so about 15 quid) for the 10km trip, we did at least get a running commentry on the journey. Not only that, Pete has also found out to say Hello in Croatian. Just say “Hello” says the taxi driver. Just watch, we’ll be teaching at local schools before the week is out. Guaranteed.

So, Hotel Zupa is located really near the small fishing town of Mlini, and about 10km from Dubrovnik. It also hosts a balcony, which is just great since they make perfect blogging spots, as well as somewhere for my GPS to find its way before setting out. The view from the balcony….well, we can see the sea, a very calm looking Adriatic off to the left, mountains off to the right, and a massive derelict run down hotel-looking / apartment block slap bang in the middle. Gorgeous Apparently the Serbs occupied this area in 1991 / 92, and most of the hotels were looted. We’re very fortunate, I think, to have one of those hotels directly in front of us. Especially so as it’s one of the ones that hasn’t been rebuilt

Anyway, off to Mlini now, to see what the taxi driver describes as one of the most beautiful tourist areas in all of Croatia. Hotel Zupa is also apparently one of the most beautiful hotels. And Dubrovnik, most beautiful place … except for Mlini. It might just be even better here, he says.