Croatian Van Life Adventures: Exploring Different Paths

We made it to our campsite tonight. It's been a long day on the beautiful Croatian coast. We got another beautiful sunset over the olive trees this time. We're parked off of the highway right here but fortunately is a free spot. Just to the north there you can see there's a little church steeple with a little cemetery but what another gorgeous evening here. Time to hunker down, make some dinner, do some chillaxing. Nice view for our house for the night. We had a nice night's sleep there basically on the side of the road with that beautiful overlook. We are up and at them this morning and right now we are crossing a giant bridge. Now we are headed over to a peninsula but the peninsula is only attached at the very south end. So to get there from the north end of the peninsula because it's quite long, you have to take the bridge. Now there's a couple of unique things about this peninsula. One, this is the way that you can drive from Croatia to Montenegro without going through Bosnia. Bosnia has a little sliver of coastal land and if we wouldn't have popped over here on the peninsula we would have had to do a border crossing into Bosnia just for like a five mile stretch and then another border crossing into Montenegro. Do not worry, we are not skipping Bosnia. It just comes a little bit later in our travel plans. We are headed over to this peninsula now and there is a really cool town over here called Stone with some amazing history and we're going to take you there and tell you all about it. So we made about the 25 to 30 minute drive to the small town of Stone out here on the peninsula and as soon as we came around the curve and got our first glimpse of what makes this town so special it is really really a sight to see and don't worry we're about to show you but I'm going to tell you the little bit we've already learned from our internet research about this place. So way back in Roman times this is where they made salt. Now salt was a major commodity and made this area become wealthy and it needed to be protected. So in the 1300s they built a wall, the longest fortress wall in all of Europe and we think the second longest wall fortress wall ever built in the world second only to the Great Wall of China. Now when it was originally built I think it was over seven kilometers. Today over five and a half ish kilometers of this wall still exist with over 40 little fortress towers throughout the wall and what's cool about Stone is you can go up and walk on this wall. I think to know that a society way back in that that time took enough time and energy and resources to build a wall like this tells you that salt was an extremely important commodity probably back on the trade route in those days. You ready to go walk on it Kurt? Looks pretty cool. Let's go. You may also see in Kurt's camera backpack are walking sticks and that's because I'm afraid there's a lot of stairs to get up. It looks steep and a lot of stairs. Looks like a place where Kurt might get a little farther than me but I'll get as far as I can. Look at this thing going up the side of that mountain guys. So impressive. Oh I'm excited and we have beautiful weather. I think we're supposed to have a high in the low 60s today and so far not a cloud in the sky. So to get into the little city center area you cross over a moat. So I think now we're in the protected old timey area and the stairs begin. So when you first get to the wall you walk into a building that's a little bit modernized. You walk up to the top floor you pay for your tickets. Now it's winter time we got a discount. Both of us got our tickets for 10 euros so five euros a piece and we got a little lay of the land. Now I'm going to do the short route which means right up here I'm going to go to the left and try to make it up there and then probably spend a little time in the actual city. Kurt will do a little bit of that route with me but then he's going to backtrack and he's going to go to the right. He's going to take y'all on an hour-long walk of this wall. Yeah what happens is the wall sort of circles the whole entire mountain. There's a gorgeous up on top. I don't think we can get up there that's closed but there's also another town on the other way called Molly Stone that we can get to the wall. So the wall encloses this whole area. It's a huge wall and so are you kidding me? I get the opportunity to walk on this wall. I'm going to stretch it out and go as far as I can. All right let's get these steps underway. Oh it's time for the walking sticks Kurt. Let's bust those bad boys out. Now in past videos when we were in Brazil we have raved about having walking sticks especially as you start to elegantly grow in age right Kurt? So these have served us very very well. There will be a link to them in the description if they think if you think they're something you may want or maybe you get them for your parents but they're very good at helping with steps up and down just stabilizing you on wobbly ground. We highly recommend them and we have put these to the test right Kurt? Yes ma'am we have and they got some beautiful maps here of the pictures and beautiful maps you can see. All right let the climb begin and snow is taking the shorter of the two routes and you can kind of see the wall just over the rooftops as it wraps around wraps around and encloses the main little city area down here. She's got her walking sticks out and she's on the move. So this is our split up point unless Kurt decides to go up here a little ways with me but one thing I want to tell y'all before I forget is this thing was built in the 13th century so I believe the 1200s. I may have said the 1300s earlier but in 1996 Croatia had a massive earthquake and this wall had significant damage from that but the government and the the tourist places and those kind of things came in and they've done a big remodel on it which was good because people say it was really in need of it so it's had some rehab work and it sounds like there's a section getting some rehab right now that's closed that we can't get to so Croatia is doing a good job of maintaining this amazing history. Have fun, be careful. There she goes off and running. All right and this is our plate guys so it looks like her wall's a little fancier but ours is definitely gonna be longer steeper and it looks like it winds out and snakes through the forest. Now I'll just remind you as I get started that we haven't been doing many hikes since we've been in Europe so we're going to take our time we need to get back in shape but it's time to get back in shape because this winter's not going to last forever and there's some amazing hikes in Europe that we want to get into. I'm halfway up to the peak in the middle that I'm headed to getting a good overlook of the little city of stone behind us. There's a lot of stairs but the view is up here and we could not have asked for better weather. Now in the distance you'll see those it looks like a lake from here but there's a little dividers in there and that is what used to be called the salt pans. It's more of a tourist attraction now but that is what made this area so valuable that it needed to be protected with this great giant wall and the little city protected with its moat and its wall and then this giant fortress wall around this mountain protecting it from all angles. All right this wall is in really good shape there's handrails all the way up and the steps are all in good shape and now we're up to a spot where it's definitely steeper and you can even see there's a couple switchbacks here but the reality is I believe we're getting kind of close to where we kind of creep over top of the mountain and we can look down on stone but our third tower is right here at the break and you can see a couple others below us. Keep on going guys keep on going. Almost to the highest peak for me where we'll take a nice little rest and enjoy this view. Got my heart pumping for sure guys which is a good thing don't worry I'm supposed to push it and I always monitor my heart rate don't worry but this is an amazing morning walk. So there's a nice little sitting area up here and there's stairs that go down and there's stairs that go up. I think we should go up. So over there we can still see a little section of the wall that Kurt was walking to. Look at this view I could imagine back centuries and centuries ago. Lots of strategy discussions happened up here. Can you all see snow down there down by the flag? I'm trying to get her to wave her arms. There she goes. She's looking at me and I'm looking at her. And here we get our first glimpse of the other little town on the other side of the wall and you can see into this bay right here all those buoys are just mussel and oyster farms and we've seen them all kind of as we've driven down the coast in various spots but it's just loaded up with them and as we pulled in the billboards for the restaurants of course specialized in mussels and oysters and other seafoods from the sea. But as we come up here we're really kind of getting into sort of a main structure at the top of the wall it looks like and the big flags are flying and you can see another structure and I believe this staircase that we just came up is sort of a walk around from what was the old stone wall. You can see it there and you can kind of see the steps on there eroded away and as we come up here towards the top another tower and maybe we can well let's see look at this guys beautiful. So you can notice the two different types of peep holes carved in this lookout tower. I think that one was probably for a gun barrel and this one may be more as a lookout. It's a little bit protected or who knows maybe archers the way it's tall like that they could shoot through there and they alternate so they can see out and protect from behind. From up here you can see the hustle and bustle of this little town and there's little cars on the outskirts where they've built roads modern day roads. Over here there's a playground and a park off in the distance there's a soccer field and I can hear the kids playing so somewhere beyond the soccer field there's a school and then there's a little marina where the van is parked over there and you can see boats coming and going. A bustling little community but if you back up to the 1100s 1200s and 1300s everything would be different. Everybody would be living within these walls it would not have gone to the outskirts of the walls and of course there'd be no cars. I do believe boats would probably still be coming and going because that's where the salt flats and factories and stuff probably were but you uh you'd have wheelbarrows and people carrying stuff on their backs and hand carts. All right we made it to the intersection of the walls that encompass the mountaintop and so if you can see here up to the left up over the mountain the other side back to where snow all the way down back to where snow went this wall goes all the way around there. Now I think snow already told you a lot of this was destroyed in earthquakes and so that part is no longer passable but there is kind of a tower structure up here and we can see down into this other city right here a milestone. Look at the beautiful water here wow and you can see that wall that goes all the way up to the left over to the top of the mountain and I really don't understand why like a wall on top of the mountain would be of such importance to this territory since the cities are down below. It's been told to me that if you control the high ground then you control the region or the area and maybe that makes sense to some of you war historians or war buffs maybe you guys can explain it to us but in any event they went to a lot of effort a lot of materials to construct and build this wall and it is just a stunning feat. I think it's second only to the Great Wall of China which coincidentally we've been there as well we've walked on the Great Wall of China and some of you who've been around for a while know that this journey that we're on right now around the world in our van was inspired by a three-week trip a vacation to Japan and China. Now I'm not sure if Kurtz mentioned this but before we started our van life journey we visited the Great Wall of China and we walked on It was snowing so it was slippery but one thing is for sure it was wider. I don't remember exactly how wide I'll try to find a picture. The width of this wall is definitely just for people to run up and down people only path and I need to look up and see how long the Great Wall is. Now this is supposed to be the second longest in the world but I have a feeling just from what I remember of visiting that wall that it is significantly bigger than this one but that is not to take away from this wall at all. I just wanted to make sure y'all understood that. I'll try to put on the screen how long the Great Wall of China was in kilometers but this is an engineering feat not to be discounted for sure. All right let's keep heading down. All right looks like we made it to the end and on this end they do have some sort of fortress that's definitely big time under reconstruction but it doesn't look like we're gonna get to go in that but we are gonna go down and check out this town. As we get down into this little village you can see more examples of what I'm talking about in terms of all the stonework. It's just everywhere. So a lot of these houses the old houses are abandoned and you can just see the ruins but some of the windows are still there the floors are rotted out some of it's down there on the floor some are cleaned out a little more than others but just offers a little glimpse back into history if you can use your imagination a little bit and you can see the wall here that just lines the city. I just came out of that little tunnel and out here there's a big tower as we walk kind of around the outside towards the sea in search of a restaurant and down by the bay where they harvest and farm all the oysters and mussels and things. So we've made it back down to the town just within the walls and they've turned this area into a nice little park. That was quite a few stairs up and down guys. Pretty good workout for me but I'm sure Kurt's getting a good one for him too. We'll try to take a little stroll through some of this town before we head back to the van and I think we might be able to go into this big fortress we'll see when we get up there if not we'll get a good look at it from the outside. All right so we are inside the fortress big open room here it's probably some sort of a drinking a water well we could take those stairs it looks like up into those rooms but I think we'll try these stairs first to see if we can get to the top of this thing. Halfway up the stairs but we're not quite to the top we got a little bit more to go but we're close don't mind the breathing guys look at this. All right I'm not taking the wall back that was probably about an hour walk maybe a little bit more not sure it wasn't time myself but this little road right here is supposed to be a 15-20 minute rock obviously we don't have to climb and go up over the mountain we're kind of going around in between here amongst the olive fields and the little forest and of course there's some bus routes along here so we're just gonna enjoy this short little walk before we catch back up with snow. I think Kurt's almost back let's go see if we can spot him. All right so we have a nice view of the town and I spotted our Kurtie Kurt he looks wore out I'm gonna meet him at a restaurant over there he's gonna go scope it out but if I pan up with the camera you can see the wall up on that mountain from up here and it's just a really nice view what an amazing little town. All right let's head down get some lunch. Well we have reunited we went our separate ways this morning but we were back together and we are going to have some lunch before going back to the van what'd you get Kurt? Well I saw the menu for this restaurant you guys know we were looking down over the oysters and the clams and the mussels farms and so we definitely had to have some of that so I'm getting the seafood platter with some vegetables what are you getting snow? I got pork chops with some grilled onions so we'll see how it turns out. So they've brought us out a homemade house specialty fish spread to go on this bread now I'm not a big fish fan so Kurt's gonna give it a try and see what he thinks. I generally like fish bread so we'll see. Now I do like a smoked mullet so we'll have to see. It's like a tuna salad all right just like a typical tuna salad Smear it on there real thin. All right snow's getting brave. We're gonna put a carrot on there and and a little lemon juice. I like tuna fish it's a little fishy for me though I'm not gonna eat any more of this and you knew that All right three cheers for adventure snow hip hip hooray All right I got grilled pork chops some french fries some sort of a red saucy stuff we'll have to tell y'all what that is after we try it some little purple onions mine's looking tasty we got a side of grilled vegetables to share onions zucchini tomato what's that on your side it's some kind of yellow pepper I believe yeah like a bell pepper all right so I can smell the garlic roaring off of these things looks like I have some little like kind of clams little cherry stone clams some mussels and then these things she said we got to pry open and they are the meatiest and the biggest daddies of them all gonna just start there well it's a big chunk in there I don't think you're supposed to reach in there with your fingers but but you did you guys know me nice shot how was it game on game on here goes kirk guys I'm gonna make quick work of these these are good and the key to this you get all this bread you got this sauce down here this garlic broth sauce you gotta sop that stuff up and that stuff is so good time to dig in that's the magic all right guys we're gonna dive in I'll tell you about mine in a minute chocolate we all know what that tastes like I gotta see what this is though this red something another oh is it good it's um it's like a ragu yeah but it's cold it's almost like a tomato paste but there's peppers and other stuff in there too that is tasty got some zucchinis this is that funny looking pepper thing that's exactly what it is it's just a white bell pepper like a bell pepper mine's good but the star of the show is we're gonna dive in eat our meal we'll see y'all in a minute I think kirk cleaned this plate guys and he's licking his fingers job well done lunch was delicious our day here in the town of stone was amazing it was really nice to have zero people on the wall with us but yet still have a couple of little restaurants and cafes open and some people mingling around in the city itself but we're gonna make the short walk back to our van and I think we may settle in and this may be where we camp for the night good morning we had a nice sleep here at this camp in stone right underneath the giant wall that kurt walked yesterday but uh before we wind this video down we just kind of want to remind you guys that the way the visa stuff works for us over here in europe is there's an area called the schengen zone and it covers 26 countries kurt I think it's 27 26 or 27 countries almost the identical countries as the eu there are a few differences but we are only allowed to stay in those countries combined for 90 days at a time and then we have to leave for 90 days time's running out and our time is at an end and we have to leave now when we got here we've been here basically three months just under three months we shipped the van into belgium we flew into paris we drove through france did the beautiful christmas villages zigzagged over saw some cave paintings and then we headed to the coast of france we drove through monaco we've done a northern section of italy of course there's a this coast this coast looks amazing but we need the weather to be warmer so but with that guys we have to leave so it is going to be the first time in a long time that we've had to do an official border crossing around the clock around the clock so that's where we're headed so with that guys we will see you in a few days for a border crossing video cheers if you like this video be sure to subscribe to our channel and hit that notification bell so you guys know when we put out new videos and don't forget you can always follow us over on instagram to see what's going on cheers guys