Italy gets a lot of love, and deservedly so. But just a short 140 miles across the Adriatic Sea resides a country that is on par with Italy in many respects but enjoys far less trumpeting – Croatia. And butting right up alongside Italy is Slovenia – a country that might receive even less fanfare than Croatia, if that’s possible.

Slow_Mustang took a long, leisurely trip through Croatia, Slovenia, with a jaunt over to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and ended the journey in Venice – taking plenty of photos along the way. And nothing against Venice, but solely judging by the photos, the beautiful Italian city would be my last choice among the areas visited/reported on. Here is just a taste of fantastic photos in the thread.

As great as the photos are, I also got a kick out of Slow_Mustang’s descriptions of the sites and sounds of this beautiful region:

Perched 299 steps above the Split waterfront/harbor is a bar and a viewpoint with a commanding view of the city and the waterfront. We accessed the viewpoint from the back side by walking on a sloping street and then came down on the steps to the harbor.

I love the detail – down to the exact number of steps, and the deliberate point Slow_Mustang made to avoid climbing them. While I’m not entirely sure this was his intention, I’m picturing a seriously menacing staircase 🙂

A Croatian folk dance being performed at a stage set up at the promenade to celebrate 10 years of something or the other

So often I read trip reports in which the reporter describes local events/celebrations in a way that would almost have you believe he traveled the distant globe just to witness that event. Truth be told, I’ve even fallen into that trap from time to time – attempting to add information but in the end simply sounding pretentious. I love that Slow_Mustang doesn’t fall into that trap with his descriptions – and particularly the above caption.

And this description of the King Tomislav Square and surrounding area almost had me giggling with giddiness at its exceptional detail:

Tram #2 from in front of the hotel takes you to the main train station. Across from it is the King Tomislav Square and long city parks. A 15 minute walk along these city parks leads to the city center square (Jelacic Sq.) with a monument to a general/nobleman Ban (a title of noblity) Josip Jelacic in the middle of the Jelacic Square. On the first evening that we were there, they were having a rah-rah gathering in support of some national political leader. To make the description of the layout simple, I will detail the three paths from this square. Walking up along the right end of this square leads to the cathedral and the bus stop for bus #106 to the mirogoj cemetery. Walking up along the left side of the square leads to Tkalciceva, a pedestrianized street with lots of local shops, cafes and restaurants. Also, walking along the left side, straight up are some 30 steps which lead to Dolac Market – an open air fruit and vegetable market open only in the morning; up another 10 or so steps at the end to, I believe, Opatovina Street. This street’s claim to fame is that it still has the old style gas lamps for street lighting and a city employee comes around every evening after sunset to light these lamps.

Read the trip report in its entirety: Six city trip through Croatia, Slovania and Venice – Apr/May 2014