It's gotten very expensive to travel the normal way of renting a car and staying in hotels so we're trying something new. We're traveling around Eastern Europe by train and staying in apartments. Later we'll join a tour group. It's definately cheaper but does it work? Join us and find out.
After a buffet breakfast with a wide variety of offerings in a cavernous dining room (space for three hundred and probably almost that many there having breakfast), we walked around the hotel waterfront before boarding our tour bus.
The waterfront was the best part of the hotel.It had a huge pool, a nice beach with concession stand, water slide, etc.My opinion of the hotel has risen due to the beautiful waterfront and having had a really nice shower with lots of hot water this morning.I hate showers that are converted bathtubs that dribble tepid water on you or showers that are vast expanses of chilly marble and uncontrollable torrents of water from many directions.The Hotel Ivan is looking better and better.
The first tour stop today is KrkaNational Park, a 42 square mile park along the KrkaRiver with 7 waterfalls.The area has an old watermill and raised walkways along the water.We wandered through a small part of the park and took a boat ride down the river without seeing much in the way of wildlife.A few bored swans showed up to hassle some ducks but not much else was visible under the cliffs.To be fair, we were there about noon in the most visited part of the park.The park stretches much further upstream than we went so the famous Krka wildlife diversity is probably more evident in that area.The waterfalls however were beautiful and easily accessible.
If you want to travel cheaply, and stay in apartments i could reccomend you to www.couchsurfing.com . There you can find people to stay with in any town in Europe. A good way to see something behind the tourist track too!
