Enjoying Kvarner

When my girlfriends and I bought tickets for the bus to Croatia, we were all so excited. That was our first time we managed to coordinate our schedules to spend vacations outside of the borders of our country all of us chicks together.
I must say now that when we came there, I was in a pretty bad mood. I promise to myself never to leave my homeland again. The bus ride lasted for ages; it was either hot or cold inside and I was squashed like a worm for the whole trip. The friend sitting next to me ate a fistful of nausea pills as we took the road, and the next minute she was dribbling on my shoulder. Some guy in front of me pulled his sit down so he was practically lying in my lap; I could see his nostrils trembling while he snore the whole trip. I needed a hot shower right away. My tune did improve a bit when I saw the house with our apartment. I said house, but it was more like villa, like a castle on the clouds. It wasn’t by the sea, it was somewhere on the hill-side above the famous Opatija. The place is called Pobri and we couldn’t find it on the map, but it turned out to be ten minutes from the beach downhill. My girlfriends were enchanted by the apartment; I heard them screaming while I enjoyed scrubbing the traces of the voyage of my body in the large clean and lovely bathroom.
The first thing I noticed about our suite was big doors leading to the balcony. I’ve opened it and then I saw it. I don’t think I have ever seen a scene so powerful and breathtaking. Somewhere down there beneath my feet and above me, the nature and human hands joined together and spread the bluest sheet splashed with tiny diamonds all over it. Above my head was summer evening sky filled with stars, and downhill this miraculous place reclined; Kvarner. I just to dream to become princess like many little girls do. And now for the first time in my life I actually felt like one; the whole bay spotted with little dots of light in warm august evening embraced with stars on the sky and in the sea, seemed to me like the crown waiting just for my majesty.
The truth is I felt like that for the whole vacation, and my friends did to.

Kvarner bay is a place with the longest tourist tradition in Croatia and everyone can easily see why. It is practically in Europe, it touches Italian and Slovenian border. Not only because of that, it was a destination of many wealthy people through history who believed that the air here has healing effect on their bodies and souls.

Beside the well built infrastructure and lots of hotels and apartments hidden in beautiful secession villas or modern houses, both with astonishing gardens, Kvarner has a great combination of climate and relief. It is a place bellow the knees of the mountain called Učka whose foot toes are immersed in warm sea of the North Adriatic. Kvarner islands, so close and jet so different from the mainland, as well as one from another, are must see. Rab, Cres, Krk, Susak, Pag and other. The bay line is like a pearl necklace with small pearl towns like Opatija, Lovran, Matulji, Ičići and twenty more. I’ve seen them all; I broke the promise to myself, and I come here every year.

Even that first time we came, the day was to short for all the things we wanted to see and do. We didn’t have so many assets so we cooked at the apartment. Those few times we ate on the fairy terrace by the sea I remembered for tasty food and really good vine. We struggled so that nightclubbing don’t swallow the great part of our days. I probably didn’t sleep at all.  Now I prefer a bit calmer holidays. But I still don’t rest; go for sea sailing, rafting, diving or just walking on a mountain or by the sea with my eyes wide open so I don’t miss the smallest fragment of Kvarner’s beauty.
Yes, there are so many beautiful places on this Earth, but I can’t see them all anyway.

That is way I am returning on Kvarner on and on, where I feel like I am the princess living in a castle wearing a pearl necklace and the crown of lights and stars.