Annual Springett family holidays are pretty much this, books, sun, pool. That's it, that's all we do for a week and I've learnt from working full time how incredibly necessary this is, recharging the old batteries and all that.
It does unfortunately make blogging about said holiday particularly difficult and I'm rooting around to find something to say so I thought I'd do it in the form of a highlights section, lets see how this goes!
Our gorgeous view from the villa, looking across the sea to the next island and boats passing through constantly.
Fresh fish dinner.
Our villa was on the side of a mountain surrounded by locals in their homes, a small church and supermarket and pretty much nothing else. The local town to us Omis was about a 15 minute drive so when we heard about a local restaurant on the mountain we thought we'd better give it a go. I could tell you the name, it's Croatian I haven't a clue how to say the letter jumbled into 'words' there, but it was a lovely local restaurant run by a family who knew everyone on the little mountain. It started with a guy enjoying cooking the fish he caught and started selling plates of sardines for 10kn (about £1.20) and it all expanded from there. The menu has 4 fish options, mackerel, seabreem, seabass and sardines, you pick your fish and they pop it on their BBQ, cool it to perfection and place it on your table ready for you to pick and devour the flaky fish hiding inside the silvery wrapping. Along with some French fries it was a perfect simple meal, I had the seabass and loved finding more hiding spots with a flash a white fish waiting for me.
We discovered they like to dress up their cocktails quite a lot!
Dubrovnik Old Town.
On the last day we went to a hotel near the airport so we didn't have to wake up in the dead of night and travel to the airport in the morning. Family friends of ours had booked a holiday to the local city for the airport so we decided to meet up for food, wine and a catch up. The Old Town is beautiful, filled with beautiful boats moored for the night and surrounded by old walls which were used to protect the city during their war in 1991, the whole town was bombed and left to repair, you wouldn't notice this unless someone told you, the restoration has been done incredibly well. We sat outside near the bay and watched people wandering around, picking out outfits we liked and watched as large groups of Japanese tourists (do they have a rule to not travel in less than 20 at all times?!) danced with the locals. There were also two wedding parties taking pictures by the sea and getting in and out of boats to different islands, it's a truly beautiful place to get married. Our taxi home came along with our driver Joseph buying Lucy and I ice creams telling us his son was very special and that we should meet him at the hotel tomorrow, I think it might take more than an ice cream but was funny all the same!
I've never seen ice cream this blue!
Read-a-thons.
You know those books that have been hanging around for ages in your bookcase and you've promised yourself you will get round to them at some point but this was around 2007 and now they're just dusty? I brought those on holiday and it was so lovely to finally get through a few. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak was one of those, I bought it for my Dad years ago and after him reading it in a day a knew I had to catch up on it. It was exceptional, cleverly written and terribly sad, if you haven't read it yet go and see if Waterstones still have it somewhere in the back cupboards! I also read The Help by Katheryn Stockett which was a good light read, I can totally see why it was made into a film, loads of scope for some great acting and beautiful costumes, first thing I did when I got home to the UK was check it out. In the villa I found a copy of On Beauty by Zadie Smith, an author I'd wanted to try for ages, a character based novel, her knack for interesting descriptions hooked even me who shamefully only usually reads the talking bits in books after a while, no wonder I could never describe well at school!
If you like Pina Coladaaaassss
A gorgeous holiday spent relaxing by the pool, after a week of living in a bikini it feels odd having to think of an outfit to wear in the mornings now! Painfully I think I have got paler whilst out there though, curse the English Rose complexion! Croatia seems to be a place everyone I know is going to this summer, the islands are beautiful and if you/a lovely friend have a boat it's the perfect destination. They're doing more festivals around Croatia every year and I can see why, only 2 and half hours on the plane and the booze is cheap. However, on the 1st July they're joining the EU, they aren't taking on the Euro (the exchange rate for their kn currency, 8.5kn to the pound, makes you feel like you're flashing the cash at every bill, or playing with Monopoly money, you decide!) but I think we all know what happens when countries join the EU so hop skip over there now before everything gets expensive like the rest of Europe, you have been warned!
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