Day 28 (Drive to Krk, Island)

Well the beast was back! He woke up at 4am, 6am and 7am. Practically on the hour every time. It wasn’t as bad as the night that he jumped up and down for over an hour but it still woke me up. I am a light sleeper so I hear everything.

Bojan is picking us up at 9:50am so we have some packing to do. We were able to get in one more load of laundry hoping that it would dry on the drying rack by this morning which it looks like it did.

Bojan arrived right on time and we were at our car in the Graffiti district by 10am. Our plan is to drive about 2 hours South to Krk Island (Kirk Island) and stay in the city of Kirk.

We arrived to find more of a Disney feel with lots of large restaurants on the bay and a small castle with many alleys like the other walled cities that we found. They are all a little different but the shops feel the same. Lori found a jewelry shop so that meant another posting outside for about 45 minutes. She found some more bracelets for her wrist and I think another addiction has reared its ugly head. I’m not sure that I will be able to see her forearm by the end of the trip. Her wrist is already out of view. It was past lunch time so we found a restaurant down by the bay and had lunch. Lori had Tuna steak slices with vegetables and fries and I had a Cuban sandwich with fries. Both were really good.

We decided not to stay here because it did not have the feel that we were looking for. Maybe we are ruined from our stay in Ravinj. We decided to head across the island to the other town called Vrbnik. This was supposed to have the narrowest street in the world. We saw a picture of someone squeezing down it sideways which looked like you better not be Claustrophobic. Unfortunately, by the time we drove around and realized that it was not a city that looked appealing we left. We completely forgot about the narrow street. Turning around can be a problem but we did consider it before we continued out of town.

We then decided to drive down the cost to a find a hotel in a town on the sea. We drove for a couple hours and only came across a couple towns that might have a hotel. The drive was really pretty, a lot like driving highway 1 in California. Lots of twisting roads, motorcycles, impatient people, and guardrails. We kept driving until Sunset when we started to wonder how much further before we find a hotel. Lori is looking on her phone which has intermittent signal. We finally drove past a hotel that she was just looking at. We went to the reception desk which was like a hotel in the Old West with cubby holes behind the lady and keys in nearly every box. We asked if she had vacancy and she said that she had room for 1 person. Huh? So a room with one single bed? What does that mean? We looked at each other with a puzzled look and left. Outside we tried to decipher what this 1 person room might look like. It was not surprising because we were in the middle of nowhere.

She found a place in Zadar that looked nice with a sea view. Even though we were arriving after dark it is nice to wake up to a view so we reserved it online for little bit more points (from here credit card earnings). We reset the Apple Maps and it routed us another hour down the road. It is 7 pm now and we have been driving around since 10 am. Oh yea, we are starting to get hungry but every restaurant that we pass by is closed.

Apple maps led us right to the sign for the hotel and told us to turn right to our destination. We pulled in to a parking area where there were some abandoned cars and a pretty shady looking neighborhood. The green machine is not built for speed and sticks out like a sore thumb but I was ready for an evasive maneuver! We pushed through the projects and found the hotel on the other side. We locked up the car and left the luggage in the car in case this was a bust. There was nobody at the desk so we had to call. A woman that sounds like a 70 year old Russian chain smoker answered and in a bothered voice said that she would be right there. When she came around the corner she was actually a pretty blonde girl in her 30’s with a deep Russian voice. She was very nice and helpful and took us to our room. Of course the room was not totally made up yet. She apologized and pulled one of the pillows from the balcony. She said that she was airing it out and placed a pillow case on it. This is what you get last minute sometimes. Lori is usually spot on with her research but this time she found us a Croation Motel 6. A very rare event for her. We asked about the view that we paid extra for and her response was “all the rooms face the pool”. We said that we reserved one with a view and her response was “it is dark and you can’t see anything anyway”. That is when we stopped the questions and accepted our fate. We started getting ready for bed and there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find the receptionist saying “I forgot to tell you to plug in the mosquito repellent”. What?! There are mosquitos in here? She said yes, if you open the door to the patio. I frantically looked around but was not able to find a mosquito. Then at about 3am I woke thinking, did she mean bed bugs? The rest of the night was itchy.