Croatia - Jerolim

We decided to branch out a bit, and explore another island near to Hvar towards the end of our holiday, Jerolim. A 40 kuna (£4) return water-taxi ride away, it was my favourite place in Croatia. 

We also got a slight surprise... 

Nudism wasn't compulsory, don't worry! (Although there were a few fully nude fellows dotted around the rocks, and me and Lisa came very close to an old fully nude couple trying to take over our sea raft!) 

The island had roughly 20 people on the entire thing, and was serenely beautiful and unspoiled. There were two bars/restaurants on Jerolim, the first being a hippy shack complete with hammocks and homemade ships hanging from trees!

and the tiny beach was insanely beautiful, with the clearest, calmest water ever

In between lounging around on hammocks reading our books (I read The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris which was an amazing book, but made me constantly crave chocolate!) we discovered the other restaurant on the island - Amo. It happened to have the best massages i have ever had - I was sold even before trying their incredible food. 

We all booked a ridiculously cheap massage (£25 for an hour long full body massage?!) which was by an incredibly talented girl called Tina, to the sounds of the waves crashing against rocks and crickets buzzing around happily. 

Then we wolfed down our meals - we had tuna pasta, seafood risotto, spinach linguine, ribs - everything was amazing. The best meal I ate in Croatia. 

We eventually forced ourselves to get up off our sunloungers/hammocks/sea-rafts and head back to Hvar, relaxed, well fed and tanned from lounging around in the sun and swimming. A perfect couple of days on paradise island. 

Barbados 2

So we kicked off 2014 by learning how to surf... 

I stood up on the first go! however almost immediately got hit by a giant surfboard in my leg - surfing is pretty dangerous, even for me! I got back on though :) 

We went and saw some animals at the Barbados Wildlife Reserve, which was so nice as they were free to roam around a giant jungle with the benefit of being fed daily! 

ginormous tortoises!

then kicked off the boat trips... for some reason my dad decided to book two different catamaran trips! The first one was Cool Runnings - a really fun day where we swam with sea turtles, dove down to ship wrecks and watched a beautiful sunset. We ate some great food and ended with everybody dancing on the deck under the stars!

The second catamaran trip was with Calabaza (below). They were a little bit more informative and peaceful as there were less people to accommodate, and the catamaran was so luxurious! The people on the boat were really lovely and took lots of pictures (underwater too!) for us to (cry over) look at when we were back home. We did essentially the same things on this trip as the one before, but the whole experience was completely different! We were really lucky to be able to experience both! 

 

my brother feeding the fishes! 

 

Another day we went to Hunte's Gardens, down the road from our hotel. It was one of the most magical places I have ever been - built in 2 years, in a sink hole by a very eccentric man of about 70 who lives in a little hut overlooking the beauty. There was classical music playing and you could just sit and listen to the birds singing and the music, it was amazing. 

I took the opportunity to try and work out how to use the macro lens my boyfriend bought me for Christmas here - took a few goes but eventually worked out the (very) basics! 

And that concludes Barbados! Literally the best place I have ever been in my whole life, everybody was so lovely and caring and everything was so beautiful! The food and drink are all amazing - basically it is an unspoilt paradise, and I hope to go back there someday!