Mljet, Croatia 9/20
Julie was adamant about visiting at least one more island and the one we settled on was Mljet. It was not far from Dubrovnik, and had a good portion of the island allocated to the National park, with some lakes, and a monastery on an island on one of those lakes. All this sounded great to us, reminiscent of Bled.
When we woke up the rain from last night filled the cup with a rose that was left for us by Ivan on the balcony to the brim, and it was still showering at times. But we decided that just like the day before we should be fine as long as we take our jackets. So we set out to catch the first (and only) catamaran to Mljet.
The weather was cooperating almost all the way to the island. Only at the end it started to rain, and hard. That, however, did not scare us enough not to rent the bicycles (we were advised by Ivan to rent the bikes because the park was huge), and be on our way. After about 20 mins of uphill riding in the pouring rain Julie’s patience ran out, and I was subjected to a different kind of storm. We weathered that storm together under a roof of some building that was nearby while playing the Tangram game on Julie’s phone. We solved about 20 levels by the time the rain subsided, and I was able to persuade Julie to try once again to make it to the boat that would take us to the island with the monastery. After all it was the main attraction, and the only boat back was at 4pm which was still 3 hours away.
We got on our bikes, and in about 5 more minutes in light rain we made it to the boat. In 10 more minutes we were on the island with the old monastery, and a restaurant. The next boat back was in 5 minutes, and the one after in 1 hour. It did not look like there was much to explore, but taking a boat in 5 minutes did not make any sense either, so we decided to walk around. We finished the walk around the island, the monastery, the chapel in about 20 minutes. The weather was still sucky, and we were not hungry at all, so restaurant was no use to us. But as it turned out the water in the lake was much warmer than the air, or the rain. So I went swimming, and enjoyed that part of our trip quite a bit. Julie was entertained, and took some pictures. After the swim, and some more idle time we were back on the boat, then back on the bicycle, and then back on the catamaran. This was definitely the wettest day of our trip not considering the night in Kolka, but we did not have to bike around then.
When we were back to Dubrovnik we felt like having a good dinner, but Ivan’s suggestion we used this time turned out less than satisfying, probably due to the fact that we did not order the right thing. The tiny, recently born kitten kept Julie entertained throughout the meal.
Next morning we were off to Saraevo on the way to Budapest. Did I mention that one of the reasons against Dubrovnik was that our latter destinations would be far away?..
