It’s no news that I’m a huge fan of short travel trips. I already did several like:
- One day in the Netherlands
- Christmas Time in Paris
- What happened on my one-day trip to Bibione Italy
- Christmas Dresden for the third time ever
- First Post-Covid trip
- Carnevale di Venezia 2017 – My experience
This way I can visit more places in a short time and I truly get to see only the best that place has to offer. There is literally no time to waste. Now I got to spend one day in Croatia’s Porec and here is how it went.
Croatia was not my original go-to destination.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the country. But for Slovak or Czech people, Croatia is the number one mainstream holiday destination. Me and my family spent at least a week in Croatia almost every summer since my sisters were born. It’s not that special for me anymore as you can literally meet your neighbor on the beach there.
Originally I booked a trip to Milan for that weekend, but as it was through a travel agency, there was a minimum passengers requirement that hasn’t been met. Milan trip was canceled so me and my friend switched to the next best thing- one day in Porec Croatia.
Traveling among European countries is quite simple.
Mostly you need to be fully vaccinated or have a fresh covid test done. Plus everyone needs to fill out forms upon arrival to the country.
Both me and my friend are fully vaccinated so we just filled out the Croatian form and that was it.
It was quite complicated thought as they required a name of a hotel/apartment we would be staying at- but we weren’t planning on staying anywhere as it was just a one-day trip. So we just filled out the name of the bus we would be sleeping in and hoped for the best.
Long-distance trips like this are no longer an issue for me as it was even quicker than getting to my hometown now. Besides the long-distance train or bus rides has a very calming effect on me. It’s so much time you get to just sit, be, chill, sleep, watch something, search social media and no one can tell you shit cuz what else are you supposed to do? You’re traveling. Everything else is forgiven.
Ever since I started using CBD oils I have had no problem sleeping wherever. (20% off your first order after registration)
All around the media you see scary messages about how thorough are the controls on the borders.
How they’re checking all of the papers you’re supposed to have when crossing the borders. How do you need to count on a delay because of those thorough controls and how they could deny you access to the country altogether.
So naturally, we were stressed even though we did everything we were supposed to.
We boarded in Prague around 7:30 pm and went through Austria and Slovenia to Croatia.
Actual control on the Croatian border was quite ridiculous and it took us 2 minutes altogether.
There was this Slovenian policeman who just asked our Czech driver how many people are on the bus. He replied with 37. Or more like he showed him the number with his fingers.
Both still speaking their native languages but still understanding each other somehow.
The cop then asked if all people on the bus are from Czechia to which our driver replied yes and we were free to go.
That particular information wasn’t quite true as both I and my friend are Slovak nationalities even though we live in Czechia now. No one was bothered about that though. We were already cleared to go.
It was around 8 am when we arrived at our destination- Porec- the part called Zelena laguna. It’s a popular camping spot with several hotels, beaches, and plenty of water sports options with spectacular nature all around it.
As we arrived at the beach and were looking for the best spot to stay for a while, I tripped quite badly and fell on the ground full of little fucking stones.
No idea if I was just too sleepy from the bus, too distracted by the beautiful view, or just being my usual level of clumsy but it hurt like a bitch. It was scraped all over, bleeding, and got infected after a while.
That was literally my first 5 minutes in the Porec and I was already hurt.
But as a proper pharmacist, I had some first aid supplies with me but it still stung terribly and each contact with salty seawater brought tears to my eyes.
So because of that, I did not enjoy the water at all.
Another reason why I barely went to the water was the fact that Croatia has mostly pebble beaches, Porec being no expectation and I truly hate it.
I don’t get it. I can’t work it with my poor balance. It hurts my feet. I’m constantly afraid I’m gonna crash into a huge underwater rock and my whole walk on the pebbles is just ridiculous.
It’s ok if you’re wearing those crazy water shoes like THESE HERE and you don’t mind the weird tan you’re gonna get from wearing them. But I didn’t have them and there were no small shops where I could get one.
So no water joy for me.
I was wearing a swimsuit from Shein- Top and Bottom. The bottoms were amazing but the top was quite a disappointment. Even though they looked so cute, but the underwires on both sides started to sick out after a while and it was super uncomfortable.
So far my knee is bleeding and my bra is stabbing my boobs.
In those 14 hours we spend in Porec Zelena Laguna we switched between 5 different beach locations.
We started in front of a bar where we paid around 75 kuna for the chairs and umbrella, got some drinks, chilled out, and tanned a lot. For the whole day in Porec, I was using my La Roche-Posay SPF50 oil and thankfully I didn’t get sunburned. A hurt leg was enough misery.
As it was lunchtime, we went on a hunt for a good restaurant. We found the perfect one even though it was like 7 minutes from our beach spot.
We found a beach club called Saint&Sinner and we fell head over heels for it.
It was like being transferred to a very different city. Definatelly didn’t look like Croatia anymore- more like Ibiza, Miami, or other party beach destinations.
It was spectacular.
Huge place with plenty of places to sit, eat, drink and vibe to the great music played by the club’s DJ.
We got ourselves a vegan burger with a lemonade among cushions and swings. There were actual swings to sit on all along the bar and the menu was not only in paper form but you could look it up through QRcode on a table.
A simply higher level from the rest of the Zelena laguna.
After a delicious lunch, we noticed an empty beach bed and decided to take that instead of our previous chairs.
So we hopped in on a beautiful bed among big palm trees and white hang-ups next to a DJ and it was bliss.
We figured a waiter would come and ask us to pay for it and take our order as usual. That did not happen.
Instead, an older guy came to us saying we’re in his bed and he paid for it this morning. It was quite embarrassing, cuz we apologized for jumping on his bed but he insisted we stay there with him. He was really creepy and we quickly got out of there but at least we got good 10 minutes on a fancy bed.
We switched positions again and took chairs that belonged to the Saint&Sinner club. Again, expecting someone would come and ask for money. No one came for like 1-2 hours we were laying there, chilling to the music.
So again we didn’t pay anything for it. But we really wanted to as we wanted some drinks but I guess we haven’t figured out how it works. The waiter would walk straight past us every time.
In the end, we went to get ice cream ourselves and my dreamed up frappuccino- but I naively assumed that a frappuccino would contain caffeine. I was mistaken and got cold sweet milk. Still good thought but not what I was expecting.
We truly lucked out on the weather.
It was 30°C, sunny with a light breeze so just perfect.
But after a whole day in the Croatian sun, we wanted to move to a place with a bit more shade. And we found an ideal one- leather chairs among the trees for like 30 kuna.
I personally liked this spot the most. It was comfy, in a close distance of a DJ but not that close you’re gonna get a headache, in a shade with occasional sun and just so peaceful. But it closed up at 6 pm.
So we moved to our last spot- on our own beach towel among the pebbles.
We spend our evening watching the sun go down while eating french fries from a local fast food place and just relaxing to the fullest. In the pictures below, you can see both the size of the pebbles and my ugly knee that still hurts like hell to this day.
Somehow the day was coming to its end so we slowly changed from the swimsuits and went to find the best spot to watch the sunset. Honesty the day went by so fast.
We were on hour 12 of our trip to Porec Croatia.
We spend the last couple of moments in Porec watching a beautiful sunset over the sea and I missed doing stuff like that so freaking much. Even though it was just a day trip I was so grateful to finally be able to do such things again.
Oh yeah, BTW I had a bunch of face masks and respirators with me but I used them only on gas stations along the way. I haven’t experienced any form of restrictions for the whole day there. It was like covid never happened.
Our bus was supposed to pick us up at 9 pm at the same spot it left us. But of course, it had over an hour delay as it wasn’t just us on the bus. The travel agency organized several trips over Croatia and was leaving and picking people up all over the country.
That’s understandable for most people- but not for this super annoying group of Czechs that traveled with us from Prague already.
They were bitching about literally everything and it blows my mind how can someone be this unpleasant.
I mean they booked a bus trip and then bitched that they have to go by bus and they would rather fly. They were criticizing the driver’s abilities, organization, weather, place itself, or even whole tourism as a concept. It’s been a while since I met such ungrateful miserable people who could never possibly be satisfied.
Besides their constant bitching the ride home was smooth, or at least I guess as I slept for most of it. There was no control on the border whatsoever again. It’s quite frustrating for me as I always have all of the documents needed but I haven’t shown it to anyone yet. Maybe soon.
This Porec trip was a great way to slowly ease into my old traveling days.
Hopely covid won’t shut it down again.