Zivily!

I recently went on a bicycle and boat trip to Croatia.  Yes that's right, I rode about 15 miles/day and exercised as part of my vacation and here's the kicker: I loved it!  Really.  And this from the girl who probably hasn't ridden a bike more than a handful of times in the past 10 years.

But Croatia is such a beautiful country and seeing it by boat is definitely the way to go.  Croatia has about 1,200 islands along its coastline - give or take and depending on what you consider an island.  The water is a spectacular and clear blue/green, the hillsides pretty, lush and green and the villages: so freakin' adorable!

I mean this isn't a bad view to wake up to every morning.

Plus the more miles you bike in the day and the more hills you climb, the more gelato you can eat and not feel guilty about it at all!  Seriously, the gelato a day rule was strictly followed.

Croatia is beautiful and historic so this vacation was really up my alley.  It's always so crazy for me to visit places in Europe (or really anywhere outside of the US) and realize just how much older their history is than ours.  I mean the Greeks and Romans were in Croatia!  It's kind of at an unique crossroads between conflicting areas in Europe.

Quick lil geography lessons for those of you don't know where Croatia is: (don't worry, I didn't know until I went there the first time three years ago.)

It was also interesting to still see homes and buildings that were bombed out or had bullet holes in them from the terrible Balkans conflict and genocide in the 1990s.  A time that was so recent!

But it is still so breathtaking!

Yes, I took a picture of my breakfast because 

a. I love breakfast!  

b. This is a very standard breakfast of rolls, nutella, meat, cheese, yogurt, museli, etc and I think it's interesting to note.  A little bit different than my standard cereal or eggs bene but still delicious.

But our days mostly consisted of biking anywhere from 10-15 miles in the morning.  And yes there were hills.  I was told that this trip was rated "moderate."  Whoa, I would hate to see a trip rated "difficult"!  It's a good thing our guides only knew the heights of the hills is meters and I am too bad at math to convert it to a number I understood.  Ignorance was definitely bliss!  So I walked up little bits of the hills - I decided it was a much better way to take in the scenery ;)

Then we would tour around the port cities during the afternoon and evening.

This was our lovely boat, the Romantica.  Very romantic for traveling with my fam. haha

But they are so much fun to travel with!  I am lucky to have such an awesome and wonderful family who have actually been taking these bike and boat trips for years.

And really nothing is more inspiring and wonderful than my grandparents, in their 80s, biking alongside us too.

Oh and zivily means "cheers" in Croatia.  It's the only Croatian word I remember.  I know, so out of character for me :)