HIIIIIIIII! So I am currently writing this from the airport in Dubrovnik and most likely will be on the plane annnnnd probably from home too as this WILL be a LONG post but it has loads of pics!!

SO, this summer holiday we wanted a week of chill and a week doing stuff and Grandma came along with us for the first week which was nice!!

So the first week we spent in Croatia in a lovely hotel, which we were basically just chilling by the sea on the hotel sunbeds and going out for dinner in the town (Cavtat) via the golf buggy – holidays are for laziness yeah?!?! Myself and Anna also got round to going to the hotel gym once… BUT typically, I was getting a sore throat in the evenings and we thought nothing of it, then a couple of days in I pretty much fainted so I was kept in the shade (how annoying!) for a while, then a day or so after that, my throat was ridiculously bad, like I was in a hell of a lot of pain and I was so hot and then so cold, had a couple of meltdowns, basically unable to get out of bed in the mornings, and not eating much dinner at all so I spent a couple of days inside and had a lovely vegetable soup courtesy of the hotel room service! Annyywayyyy, me and Dad went to the docs (the lady was weirdly terrifying) and turns out I had like a throat infection kinda thing so they gave me some tablets which helped me for about 7 hours and then I completely flopped after that! They also told me to not do exercise….but we went paddle boarding. I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how difficult it was! As I was still a little weakling, I struggled the most and sat down for the majority of it, but it was fun regardless of the state I was in (higher recommended if ya haven’t done it).

On one of the evenings we took a small boat across to Old Town Dubrovnik which took us about 45 minutes with a few stops along the way! It was so pretty and clearly very popular as it was so busy. It has a lot of history behind it which made it seem more interesting but u can look it up if u can be bothereedddd!;)

We stopped off for dinner after a bit of exploring, and the restaurant was down one of the many side streets. Obviously with a recovering throat AND a tiny appetite I didn’t want anything too big, so I went for tomato soup…what a shock. When it came it took me a while to realise that my outfit matched the plates (I also looked like a plate from spoons oops) but the waiter loved it n so did I! ALSO another shock I got was that they put rice in the soup! I did not know that was a thing, but it was very yummy so I was happy and filled me up a bit more! Then before we got onto the boat to go back to Cavtat, we bought some ice cream  which was deeeeelish (I think mine was kinder but I can’t really remember)!!

On Grandma’s last day/our last day in Croatia, we had a bit of time to sunbathe for a bit so we went down to some seats on the rocks (our funky beach shoes came in handy) which weren’t as comfy as the sunbeds but they were still good. Swimming in the sea down there was nice as it was quite quiet but it was sooooooo COLD!!!! We were given some flippers and masks and snorkels by a family earlier in the week so we took the flippers in the sea which was amusing but hard when you aren’t under the water!

We took Grandma to the airport and then we went and got our hire car to set off on our next adventure….. MONTENEGRO!

We were told that the main borders were super busy and that it took some people 6 HOURS to get through! Thankfully some people told us about a way to a different border control and it took us about 20 minutes to get through both bits which was nice! QUESTION: Where are you when you are in-between borders? Like you are literally no where!

We took a short ferry across to the other side rather than driving a very long way without crossing over, and it took us about 40 mins/1 hour to get from the ferry to our apartment in Kotor! We had to meet the guy who owns the apartment because we would’ve got lost very quickly and got stuck in a lot of traffic without him! When we got in, we went to a little shop down the road to get a few provisions as well as some pasta and pasta sauce for dinner! After dinner and a couple of card games we went to bed!

The next day we set off on our first adventure…. we packed up a few bits like pjs, toiletries and swimmers as we were going to do some white water rafting, and we stayed in an ethno-village which is basically an area of land with lots of little huts which looked adorable! When we arrived, the cold hit us… we didn’t think about the weather conditions up there at all! It was just open land and was about 16 degrees and we were in shorts and tshirts, not the greatest outfit choices! Our little home for the night was interesting. It was a very small hut with 4 single beds and a toilet in. 2 beds were on one side of the bathroom and the other 2 were on the other side, it was cosy!

We met up with our guide Marko and the other family who were from Israel and were doing the rafting with us for dinner, so it was nice to get to know everyone. Dinner was not as expected ngl. The descriptions of meals are limited. A lot of the food they had was meat and fish (both of which I don’t eat) so I was thinking like a salad would be nice, so I found a roasted red pepper salad, with my high expectations I was expected a greek salad style to come out…. nOPE! Both me and Anna ordered 3 cold roasted red peppers with a bit of garlic on top. Thankfully we had yummy bread and fries, but like, I was disappointed with what was put in front of me!! Oh well, I ate it and we went back to our little home and I had the best night’s sleep EVAAAAA! Everyone else slept for like an hour but I was sound asleep through the whole night which was perfect!

We went for breakfast at like 8am which wasn’t perfect but we made it, again in our shorts and tees! I had a couple of eggs which gave me enough fuel for the day! We got ready and then we set off to the Tara Canyon! It was about an hour drive, then we got out and went to get our very flattering wetsuits, as well as some boots, a hat and a life jacket. We then piled into a car to get down to the starting point and this took about 30 mins (they claimed it took 15).

Once we were down by the river, we all hopped into the boat and everyone apart from me and Anna had an oar, which I was like yay to but it was only because we would hit eachother if we all had one, so we alternated every so often. The water was amazing and you could see the bottom most of the time! Anna volunteered to jump in and get ‘saved’ by Marko and therefore she got dunked a couple of times! It was VERY cold. When we stopped off, we all managed to force ourselves into the river for a swim, some needed to go in more than others if ya catch my drift??! We all jumped back into the boat, went down a few rapids which was cool, other than getting stuck a good few times! It’s all part of the adventure!!!!!! The best bit was definitely going into another country! Once side of the river was Montenegro and the other side was Bosnia! So we made a stop in Bosnia as there was a waterfall, and we could stand in the top part. Anna and Dad were brave and went under the waterfall but from experience of being under a heavy waterfall, I opted out! We then paddled back and got a car back to where we parked and had some lunch there! We had soup and then I had an amazing plate of food! As a vegetarian, I didn’t fancy the meat or fish so they brought out some courgette fritters, rice, potatoes and some very strong cheese! I enjoyed all aspects other than the cheese which is strange for me! Once we were finished up at lunch, we made our way back to our apartment. It took us about 3 hours to get home but it was a well needed/deserved rest!!

The night after we went out for dinner in the Old Town which was like a 20 minute walk and we did a little explore until settling for a restaurant! Old Town was similar to Dubrovnik in the way that it was super pretty and lots of little streets! After walking around for like 20 mins, we found somewhere for dinner. It was a really cute little restaurant but the food just wasn’t fab! Dad had something like roast beef which was very standard and plain, Anna had a salad (can’t go wrong with that), mum had some pasta which wasn’t anything special and I had a vegetable pizza. When I say vegetable pizza, I mean there were about 100000000 mushrooms on there (I don’t like mushrooms) and 100000 courgette bits (thankfully I like courgette)! It just wasn’t the greatest pizza tbh!

On Thursday, we had a very chill day at the apartment and the pool and then late afternoon into evening we went over to another town called Perast which was about 20 minutes from where we were staying. My friend Molly was staying there so we met up with her for a little bit too, which was nice for a little catch up! Mum and Anna went for a dip in the sea and then I met up with Molly for like 15 mins and then we left her and went for dinner by the sea which we had missed SO much! After dinner we went for a drink and I FINALLY got alcohol! After a Sex on the Beach on the first night, and not being able to drink alcohol with the tablets I had for my throat, I was able to have one! I needed a celebratory drink as I passed my college exams yippeeeeee! I wanted a mojito but they didn’t seem to have one so I had an aperol spritz instead which supposedly is the drink of the summer! I enjoyed it v much! Molly and her family came and had a lil chat then her parents left and we just had a little natter until we went home!

So it was Friday and we trekked back to the travel agency (360 Monte if you are interested). As they didn’t provide any food other than fruit, we thought we should take our own snacks, so mum boiled enough eggs to feed the whole of Montenegro! Once everyone was there, we all followed our guide to find the boat which was amazing and not what we expected! It was like a catamaran boat so quite fancy! The main bit of the boat was comfy with a lot of seats undercover and then a couple of deckchairs at the front of the boat, but the BEST bit of the boat was the top of it! Myself and Anna were the first ones up there as the guide was like ‘girls go up’ so we did! It had 2 MASSIVE bean bags which were so comfy so we bagsied them fairly quickly! Once we had set off, me and anna basically had a photoshoot as it was too gorg to not!!!! Our first stop was Our Lady of the Rocks which is a famous island with a 17th century church on it. It was so pretty but rather hot which is where a slight incident happened. We were at the end of the tour of the church and Anna got dizzy and very hot so she sat down and then ended up fainting so a lot of water was used to keep her cool and hydrated, then she thought she was ok to stand up and stuck her head out of the window to get some air and then she fell down again, but this time, getting her top caught on a priceless piece of artwork which ended up wonky on the wall! Lots of tourists were asking if she was ok and one lady said ‘I don’t have any water but I do have salted peanuts’, which obvs wasn’t the best offer! Everyone else from our trip had gone back to the boat by this time, but our guide had stayed with us and had gone to ask a lady who works there for some water with sugar in it which sounds disgusting and probably tasted vile too, but Anna seemed a lot better after downing it!

After this, we went a bit further, had a little swim stop, I jumped in without realising my sunglasses were on (typical) then got out after 30 seconds after as I was cold and then the guide tried to push me in but my technique to get out of this sort of situation is to make your way down to the floor and sit cross legged… it works so well!

We changed boats as our boat wasn’t able to get close enough to the prison (which again is only accessible by boat!) It was weird to see it because you can’t imagine it ever being in use, but the views were lovely!

 

We then made our way across to the blue caves. We stayed in the little boat as our one wouldn’t have fit in. The water was super blue and clear and pretty, so everyone jumped in, but then loads more boats came in and it got quite crowded!

We then made our way to a small town where we could finally get some lunch! Typical me, I got macaroni cheese (I missed it so much) AND I HAD A MOJITO! I had a sex on the beach on the first night in Croatia but since being ill I hadn’t been able to have one, but unfortunately the mojito wasn’t up to my kinda standard, but still, I HAD A MOJITO! Me and Anna had a little swim in the sea and then we got back onto our big boat and set off back to where we started! We did have one stop for swimming and diving which lots of people did but I was too tired to go in again, and then another stop to look at some submarine thing! Everyone got back on board and we did the final stretch back. More photos were taken as the sunset was amazing!!

On our final full day we chilled by the pool and went and found a little pebbly beach! We got a bit bored whilst trying to dry off so came up with some games which involved trying to hit a beach shoe down with rocks and we all had 3 goes, then me and anna did one where you had to throw as many pebbles into a beach shoe as possible.. Anna won both.. In the evening we went back into the town and sat down in a restaurant with comfy seats and yummy food (pizza) and I also had another mojito which was better than the boat trip one but still not fab! We did a little bit of souvenir shopping e.g. holiday bracelets for us and friends and Dad got Gran a little pres!

SO our final day!! We set off fairly early as we needed to get back to Croatia and didn’t want to get stuck at the border! We also managed to have a bit of time to sunbathe, swim and grab lunch! We went back the hotel we were staying at and went to the hotel beach and the beach restaurant. I had fish and chips because it was so good AND A STRAWBERRY MOJIITO (mixing it up!)… AND IT WAS THE BEST ONE OF THE HOLIDAY BY FAR! I was very happy! Before we left we got changed into out travelling clothes (I wore some comfy trousers and a little crop top) and I felt so sticky from the suncream and it wasn’t nice walking up a fat hill in them in the heat! We got to the airport fine and everything went smoothly all the way home! We had some dinner on the plane as we weren’t getting home until 9:30 ish and we got hungry so I had a fancy sandwich but can’t remember what was in it :/. But yeah we got home all good and picked Alfie up the next day!

SORRY THIS POST WAS SO LONG BUT WE DID SO MUCH I JUST HAD TO WRITE IT ALL DOWN!!

Congrats if you got this far, I appreciate it and hope you didn’t forget about your cup of tea??

See ya next year!!!

(My yellow bikini and patchwork bikini are both from Zaful if anyone was wondering.. Let me know if ya want anything linked)

G

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