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"Not all those who wander are lost" - Tolkien

Solo Backpacking Europe in 80 days: Croatia

10/28/2015

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ZAGREB & PLITVICE LAKES » 6-9 March (3 nights)

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Oh, Croatia...how could you be the best and the worst of my trip! First of all, thank you for teaching me that I can beat the ass of my loneliness, and second, thank you for giving me my own perfect Winter Paradise and totally winning my heart.
My first moment entering Croatia happened right at the Slovenian-Croatian boarder, when I was asked for my passport and it took me twenty minutes to find it, a lot of clothes out of my backpack, and two very angry guys waiting for me as I delayed the train. Sorry...
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I guess I've said this a million times, but again, Croatia wasn't in my plans either. Being Winter, I had excluded it for obvious reasons, as the places I wanted in this country were Dubrovnik and Split. Zagreb was never a place that called me, but The Plitvice Lakes had been in my dreams for ages! And while in Ljubljana, I discovered the train to Zagreb would only cost me 16€, to which I said YES right away. Again, my mother hated this, because I did it all the time. One day I was going to Hungary, and the next day I decided I would go to Croatia. Sorry, mum!
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My stay in Zagreb was like being punched hard in the face and then seeing Paradise in a dream an coming back to reality.
In Zagreb I arrived already with a weird mood, as I was made fun of for counting my money about three times to know how much I was spending on a slice of pizza! I then discovered I was the only guest at my hostel, which didn't made any good to my feelings of loneliness. The receptionist girl seriously tried to make me some company, but well, I was on my own.
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I had reserved my second day to explore the Plitvice lakes, which would take me 2h30 to get to by bus, but I guess trying to catch a bus at 7am is a mission impossible. Lets just say I arrived there one minute before and it had already departured. Damn you, Croatia! I missed my Italian always late trains.
I then had thee worst cappuccino of all time at the station. And this is how the day I decided I didn't like Zagreb, started. Waking up before the sun, missing a bus, and having the worst cappuccino on Earth, besides being the only guest at the hostel, and the streets being flooded with people and me feeling like a dwarf trying to walk normally and the fact that nothing there was exciting for me.
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And then the next day I was able to get to Plitvice Lakes, and when the bus dropped me off I suddenly started crying, and I cried a couple of times more during the rest of the day.Even not being prepared for that much cold, and the fact that I bought a return ticket that I could only get two hours after the park closed and that I was forced to pay for a new one, when a bus leaves you in the middle of snow mountains you will make that moment count!
From the start of my trip, I had dreamed to arrive in a place covered in snow, and I had lost my hopes on that, when suddenly I'm in a place with so much snow I can't even understand where I'm suppose to walk.
Plitvice Lakes are a dream! A place were you'll get lost searching for watterfalls, frozen lakes, with views that don't even seem possible to be real. I was out of there with my face burned with cold, but fuck it I was happy, like crazy stupid happy and in love!
So this was Croatia, a mix of opposite feelings in just three days, a bunch of bad times that were all worth it by getting the chance to make a dream come true and see Pltivice Lakes with my own eyes and confirming my love. I'll be back!
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Plitvice Lakes: Winter Paradise

4/23/2015

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This place was a dream come true. I used to dream about it while I was at home, in Portugal, planning my trip, and it was the only thing that made me want to go to Croatia (in the Winter) in the first place.
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Things in Croatia didn't start that great, as I had a hard time in Zagreb, feeling like I was falling apart and that I had no idea what I was doing, and missing my bus to the Plitvice Lakes the first day sucked and got me in a very angry, weird mood.
So, the next day, since it was my last opportunity to hit the lakes, and after finding out how boring Zagreb actually is, I was determined to get on that bus no matter what! Got up at 6am and basically ran to the bus stations I would be there on time - couldn't risk missing the bus again.
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Buying the ticket, I was told there was only one bus back to Zagreb at 6pm (I found this weird from the start), so, if it was the only one, I had no choice but to buy it and spend 10h at the National Park. Big mistake right here! But I didn't know it then, I would only find out it was a mistake by the time I was already at the lakes. Lets just say that there are a lot of buses that go from Plitivice Lakes to Zagreb, and in the Winter the Park closes at 4pm, so you can imagine how angry I was to find out about this, because I had to buy another ticket to go back earlier and the driver even gave me the wrong chance. Sometimes being a tourist kinda sucks, trust me, I know this better than anyone.
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I fell asleep on the bus and by the time I woke up I was somewhere in the middle of the mountains, and there was snow everywhere! I suddenly got the cutest smile on my face, because I can't tell you how much I'd been wishing to get to a place covered in snow. I love it. It makes me happy, like I'm in a fairytale land, far, far away from home
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This is where the bus left me
I was eating my oreos (as always) and looking like a kid watching the snow when I noticed we stopped and I was suppose to get out! I grabbed my stuff and ran outside afraid the bus would leave with me still inside.
It was freazing cold outside! I was not ready for cold. In Zagreb the sky was blue and the sun was shinning, so I just figured I would take a Spring shirt and my Winter jacket.
Little did I know I would end up with my nose burned because of the cold.
The hilarious moment the bus drove away and there was just me and a bunch of Korean guys in the middle of the snow trying to understand where the lakes actually were.
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All I know is it was freezing cold, but I was a happy kid walking in the mountains surrounded with snow. Something like this was just what I needed that day. I needed something to make my heart race, to make me happy and remember why I was backacpking solo in the first place, and Plitivice was just that. I wanted Paradise and I got it sooner than I expected.
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There's no better feeling than getting to a new place and falling in love with it as soon as you look outside the bus. It's that heart racing moment as you feel you are exacly where you're suppose to be.
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Walking around the park and seeing those views, I couldn't believe I was really there. I felt like living a dream. Just a month before I was working at a restaurant, planning and dreaming of the places I was working for, and this was one of those for sure! It's about that moment, you know? That unforgetable moment when you just feel pure joy, you're eyes get all shinny and you notice you have this smile on your face. I believe that happiness while travelling is about the small things that you would never appreciate or even notice at home. For me, at the Plitive Lakes, it was about the snow and the clear water, seeing all that beauty in person and feeling I made it there on my own. It was a mix of being proud of myself and the fact I couldn't believe how a place like that can exist and how l lucky I was to be able to witness something so amazing.
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So I walked (and I admit I had a small embarrassing moment of happy dance) the rails, all alone in the middle of nowhere. I sat on the higher places and just enjoyed the view. I appreciated every second of that place. I watched the water falls for ages and the half frozen lake. I even embraced the cold and decided it was part of the beauty of the place, because if it wasn't that cold it meant there was no snow, and trust me, the mountains covered in snow made the difference. It was what made this place to special to me.
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So, even if my stay in Croatia wasn't as great as I thought it would (being Zagreb my least favorite place of the ones I've visited), taking the trip to the Plitvice Lakes was one of the highlights of my backpacking trip around Europe and I'm so, so happy I decided to stop by Croatia simply with the excuse of being so close to it at the time. It was a day that will stay carved in my memory for the rest of my life.
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The entrance at the Plitvice Lakes will cost you 55Kunas (around 7,5€) during low season, and around 10€ during high season. As for the transport to the Park, the best way to get there is by getting a bus. You have a few buses from Zagreb (a journey of 2h30) that will cost you less than 10€. Don't buy the return ticket there. You can buy the return ticket directly inside the bus and you can get one anytime you want once you're out of the Park.
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Not so charmed by Zagreb

3/11/2015

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I was not suppose to go to Zagreb. My plans were to get on a train to Vienna, but then I started thinking that I was so close to Croatia, that it didn't make sense to go up right away. And Plitvice Lakes had been calling me for a while now. And when I went to buy the ticket and it was only 16€ I was like "Hell yes!!"
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The train ride had the most amazing view I had seen, going in the middle of the mountains and right next to the river, it was perfect!
Since I'm not used to the thing of crossing boarders and having to show my passport, I was almost sleeping when a guard started to speak to me in some language I couldn't understand and I was very confused. Eventually I understood he wanted to check my ticket and passport. The thing is, I didn't remember I was crossing a boarder, so I had no idea where the hell was my passport. He stared at me, impatient, while I took everything out of my bag looking for it. By this time it was not just one, but three guards looking at me and I was starting to freak out and all I could say was "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry"
Once I found my passport I was so happy I yelled a little "YES!" and the guys seemed to finally relax and even smiled at me.
Note to self
: remember to have my passport in a place I can easily find.
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Arriving at the train station was a bit weird. I knew in Croatia I'd have to pay with Kunas, but I didn't even know the value of it, which got me to the point where I looked like a crazy person as I was buying a slice of pizza, because people were waiting I was like "wait!wait!" as I took my phone to use the calculator to do some math and be sure how much I was spending.
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Since I was the only person at the hostel (again!) and I was feeling more exausted than ever, I decided I would take a day off. My legs were hurting, my feet killing me, by back felt weird for carrying so much weight, and I just felt I was out of strengh to spend a day exploring. I had three nights in Zagreb, so taking a day off would be the right thing to do.
After 32days of backpacking, I needed to click the pause botton.
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Next morning I got up at 6am, to get the bus at 7h30 to Plitvice Lakes, but luck was not on my side, and I arrived at the bus station one minute late and the bus was gone. This made me angry, because I really wanted to go to the lakes. I wasn't feeling like exploring Zagreb, I wanted to explore nature and see the huge waterfalls. But fate did not want me to go this day, and so I decided to do the only thing possible, explore Zagreb
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I was disappointed. But I knew I would  be. You see, I had seen photos of Zagreb before, and it never really got to me. There's something missing in this city, something that makes it incomplete. It lacks the narrow colourful streets that I love so much, and for some reason it just didn't take my breath away, at all. I got bored after one hour of exploring the streets and finding out I had walked the entire city centre already and there was nothing cool about it.
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And to help my disappointment, it was Saturday and the streets were FULL of people! And when I say full, I really do mean full!
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Not sure if you know this, but people in Croatia are tall, like seriously tall, and I was a dwarf trying to walk Zagreb's streets without dying ran over by crazy crowds. Maybe I should've learned to say "excuse me" in Croatian, that would have been helpful.
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So, Zagreb wasn't my thing. Our vibe wasn't the same and we didn't understand each other, and it got me bored and I don't like to be disappointed at a place, because there are a million places in this world that are way too amazing to the human eye, and not liking a place makes me mad because I could be spending my money in incredible places and instead I made a bad decison.
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I believe the most known thing in Zagreb is a museum that everybody who comes to Zagreb has to go to. It' called the Museum of Broken Relationships. Did I go? No, I didn't. Why? Because I am already a mess trying to figure out my head and heart, and I don't think reading sad stories about broken relationships would help my spirit in any way. I think it would make me cry for the rest of the day, so I decided to skip it for all the personal reasons I cannot say here.
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So,this was Zagreb: being totally alone in a hostel, missing buses, being disappointed, feeling like a dwarf, getting mad, feeling weak and tired, and one night of crying (and I didn't even go to the Museum of Broken Relationships...Imagine if I had gone there. It would have be eenthe end of the world for me that night!), feeling lonely and needing my friends around.
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Solo travel is not easy, ok? It isn't Paradise and walking over water. It's hard and it hurts sometimes. It hurts like hell sometimes!! You have to question everything you believe, get out of your comfort zone, be more interactive, do things sometimes you wish someone else could do it for you. It pushes you to your limits, it makes you go throw things you would never have to endure if you were travelling with a friend. It makes you do things you thought you could never do before. It's a journey, and it's about the journey itself, the adventure, the problems you overcome, it's not about the destination. My friends and family keep asking me if it's pretty, if I'm liking it, if it's amazing, and the truth is I cannot explain them what my life is right now. It's like every little thing is an adventure, even going to the supermarket!
I always knew this wouldn't be easy, and I still wanted it anyway! You have to be super-woman, you have to be strong, because your life depends on it. You cannot stop, you cannot quit!

Gotta keep moving, put one foot in front of the other, and you'll get there one way or another!
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    Travelling With RIta

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