Lady Luck from Dubrovnik to Split

We rented a little Skoda for our drive from Dubrovnik to Split. There wasn't much power under the hood, but with the 5 speed transmission, it did remarkably well on the twisty hilly terrain. The travel distance was about 200 kms which would take about 2 hours on North American highways, but cruising along the Croatian coastline totalled about 5. And, of course it was somewhat eventful.

The first little wrinkle came when trying to get back from the car rental agency to our hotel to pick up Marlene and our luggage. Google maps didn't account for a bus & taxi only route, so there I was. On route in heavy traffic, a guy on his scooter was waving that I shouldn't be going there, the taxi behind was flashing his lights madly, and no doubt there was signage in Croatian forbidding regular passenger vehicles. But fortunately, there were no police along the prohibited kilometer.

Later, we were in a little seaside town, taking in the scenery, sipping wine and eating lunch when a truck pulled up and took away the vehicle parked in front of ours. There were a couple of signs we hadn't noticed, and probably wouldn't have understood No Parking even if we had. We quickly finished our lunch and moved on before Mister Tow Truck came back for our little Skoda.

History has divided Croatia into 2 parts, with a bit of Bosnia in between. We had been advised to have our passports handy and warned that on a bad day, the wait could be in the order of hours. But given it was our lucky day, we slipped into Bosnia with only a few minutes wait and a simple scan of our passport. An hour later, our luck got even better when we approached Croatian Customs in the EU traveller lineup by mistake, and when the agent saw the confusion, just nodded us through without even scanning our passports.

By the time we got to Split, it was late afternoon. Traffic was heavy, our Google instructions inadequate, but we were prepared with a detailed map for backup. Unfortunately, all the street names were compound, some with 3 words, a few having a dozen letters or more. Most were impossible to read from a distance, never mind associate to a street on the map.  So, we drove around and around , up and down, then back and forth until we found our mini-hotel , the Vila Baguc in the historic part of town. It was tiny, only 4 rooms, with a sign a foot square. A needle in a haystack comes to mind.

Upon reflection, lady luck was on our side for our travel from Dubrovnik to Split, and it's all we needed for a sweet drive along the scenic Croatian coast.

Click this link for the next story in this series: Mother Nature Plays Her Rain Card