As we were planning our 2015 trip, and trying to go from Italy to somewhere in Croatia, we found an inexpensive flight from Venice, Italy to Split, Croatia – on a discount airline called “Volotea Airlines.” Jeremy had been trying to make the plans work, and combined with a one-way car rental from Split, Croatia to Dubrovnik, it seemed that we had a plan.
That said, we mostly just intended Split as an overnight after a late afternoon flight, but we were pleasantly surprised by what we saw in the morning.
Evening Arrival
Our flight landed just as the sun was setting – we could tell looking out the window that it was a lovely place, with lots of small islands in the bay, and the sun rays reflecting on the windows. But by the time we got our bags and picked up the rental car, it was pitch dark, and we had to get to the hotel without the benefit of iPhone directions working.
We then had some further issues – on arrival to to our hotel, we learned that there was a problem with a leaky toilet in our room and that we needed to stay in one of their neighbor’s apartments instead. We are pretty sure that it was simply a neighbor doing a favor and not necessarily someone that usually rents out her rooms. The owner of the house had just stripped all the beds and she was still making them up. As it turns out, the sheets were really scratchy and the streets super noisy. What are you going to do at 10:00pm when you don’t speak the language and you have two incredibly sleepy kids? So, we went with it and ended up with a surprisingly good night sleep.
Morning on the Adriatic Sea
But when we woke up, everything became magical! Our balcony had an amazing view of the Adriatic Sea.
When we went to check out, they gave us a free breakfast for our trouble. It was on an amazing deck, just steps from the beach. What an amazing view!
We spent some time enjoying ourselves, and made a note that this is a place that is more than just a stopover when you have an evening flight and don’t want to drive far in the dark. Definitely a place to come back to.
As much as we would have liked to linger, our itinerary called for a wonderfully scenic drive to Mostar, Bosnia. The water was an amazing color of blue, crystal clear, with a ton of super cute villages on the way.
Keep reading our travel blog for more adventures in Europe!
Here are some more blog posts from this trip:
Adventures of the 4 JLs 