This morning, we took a catamaran to an island called Rab, as recommended by the receptionist at the hostel! It was looking like a promising day, but the second we arrived, a crazy storm started brewing, and before we knew it, it was pouring down rain! It was our first time having to use our trash bags over our packs! The campsite was a Looonnnggg walk away, and in the rain with crazy wind…it was not fun! We went into a hotel and were told its only 500 meters more….then walked FOREVER and asked a random little hut on the side of the beach and were told…only 500 meters more! WHAT?! that wasn’t the first time we heard 500 meters either!
Finally, a sandy beach!
BUT when we arrived, the campsite was very very cool! It had everything…tons of restaurants, cafes, a market, a bakery, a playground, mini golf, ping pong tables and it was right on the beach with beautiful sunsets!! People definitely lived there permanently! But it actually reminded me of the caravan park i would go to with Oma and Grandad! So brought back good nostalgic memories! Too bad though…a lot of the things were still closed…apparently the whole island opens up on May 1st…so we were a few day shy!
Beautiful view in Rab!
So it was pretty miserable as it did NOT stop raining for a day and a half straight! We pretty much hung out in the tent and at one of the cafes all day..played cards, did a lot of sewing, read our lonely planet book…luckily, on the 3rd day we were there, it was nice enough to walk around the town. The Romans had some old establishments there, and they actually let u walk in them and explore. We climbed to the top of an old lookout point, and had a beautiful view of the city! Then we stumbled upon this amazing trail that winds through the woods, and it was so nice! And we had been so good the last few days with not eating out, so we decided to go out for some cevapi…mmmhhm Meat again!
The tower in Rab!
Enjoying a refreshing swim!
Typical lunch for us!
Of course, on the day we leave, it is absolutely gorgeous outside with not a cloud in the sky!!
Luckily our bus wasn’t leaving until 4, so we found ourselves a big rock on the coast and soaked up the sun! It was sooo nice! I loved that rock…i think it was just because it wasn’t raining…but we made a nice lunch on it…und a really comfortable groove to lay on! Didn’t want to leave, but we had made a firm decision to go to Plitvice lakes national park…even though it was going to cost us some money!! So we caught our bus to a town called Senj! It was cool because the bus had to go on the ferry, and i had never really done that before…0o the things that excite me!
Crazy fallen tree!
When we got to our campsite in Senj, it was straight rocks!! AND we found out a bus wasn’t leaving to go to Plitvice for 4 more days!! Ahhhh we did not want to stay in Senj for 4 days….so
we were planning on making the walk (we later found out…yeah right…we could NOT have done it!) and camping along the way! As we enjoyed the sunset, we suddenly head music and looked behind us to see an older man playing the accordion! How cool! Before we knew it, everyone from the campsite was gathered around and we were being force-fed (although we were not objecting) homemade Italian wine, champagne, Italian cake!! Everyone was singing or humming along..It was Great!!
Accordion celebration!
It was hilarious trying to communicate with everyone…we even broke out our language book as this Italian man was trying to speak French to us! Phew…that was hard! The accordion player, Klaus, spoke English too and when we said USA everyone immediately thought California!! It was awesome…everyone was so nice! Then these two younger kids who were backpacking from northern Germany joined us, and luckily spoke wonderful English! It was nice to be able to communicate again, and they brought up in conversation that we were trying to head to Plitvice to Klaus, and he offered us a ride with them!!!! It was the best news ever!! It was a pretty late night for everyone, but eventually we go to bed…excited for what was ahead of us!