Our time in Jelsa passed way too quickly. For two days we did what you’re supposed to do on vacation. We relaxed! Jelsa was the perfect place for that due to the easy accessibility to the water, the lack of crowds, and the sheer beauty that surrounded us.

Yesterday morning we had to leave our little piece of paradise. It was a long travel day with a packed itinerary and a chance we would miss at least one of our connections. When we left Jelsa, we honestly were not sure where we would end up sleeping that night.

 

Here’s a recap of our day. We left our apartment and walked about 1.5 miles to the bus station. We took a bus from Jelsa to Hvar. We had about twenty minutes from the time we arrived in Hvar to get the ferry port before our ferry deported. The skies had turned blacked, it was very windy and lightening was in the sky. We ran through downtown, then old town and through the port before reaching our ferry.

From there we took a one hour high speed ferry to Split. Due to the rough waters the ferry ride was a bit choppy. I watched the color drain from Michal’s face and wondered why I hadn’t thought to put a barf bag in my purse. Thankfully we arrived in Split without any sea sickness. Once in Split we took a 45 minute bus ride to the airport.

Then came a two hour flight to Berlin. Once we arrived in Berlin we had about 20 minutes to get off the plane, get through customs, get through the airport and out to meet a van to take us to Szczecin, Poland. This was the part of our trip where we weren’t sure we would be able to pull it off. Thankfully the line at customs was short and the officer didn’t ask any questions, just gave us a stamp in our passport. We even manged to squeeze in a bathroom break and pick up a sandwich for the road.

After 2.5 hours in the van we had to run from the bus station in Szczecin to the train station to catch a train back to Koszalin where Michal’s parents live. We had about 15 minutes to make it and once again we somehow managed to make it with a few minutes to spare. We were doing really well!

Now if you know me, you know I really do not like Polish trains. The ones we ride always seems to be old, slow and over crowded. Yesterday’s train was fairly empty which was a nice surprise. Things were chugging along for awhile then we came to stop. The conductor informed us we would be delayed for 30 minutes to wait for another train to pass. 30 minutes quickly turned into 45. Let me tell you when you’ve been traveling over 12 hours a 45 minute delay can make one very irritable!

It was dark by now and we stopped at abandoned looking train stations that looked like something out of a horror movie. Just when we were about ten minutes from Koszalin the train suddenly stopped. And the lights went out. It was pitch black. Michal and I were the only ones in our train car. We were in the middle of nowhere. The horror story continued. In my mind someone had hijacked the train and we were about to die. It certainly didn’t help that I had read a murder mystery earlier in the day. This stop in the dark seemed to last forever. Thank goodness my cellphone has a flashlight. Finally, finally we arrived in Koszalin close to midnight.

We arrived at Michal’s parents house to find his mom waiting up for us with a hot meal of homemade stuffed peppers and golumpki. You know you are truly and deeply loved when someone has a homecoming like that prepared for you in the middle of the night. It was a perfect ending to a REALLY long day. It took us about 15 hours all together. When I looked at google maps, we could have driven the distance in about 20 hours…

Today we are recovering from a travel hangover. Somehow Croatia already feels like a distant dream.