As a general rule, I will always choose my own transportation over taking a guided bus tour, if for no other reason as I like to manage my own time. The Plitvice tour I went on Sunday was at a much faster pace, and a lot more physical, than I had planned on. In the case of the Dubrovnik tours, it was a 12 hour day and it was strongly recommended that you book an overnight stay and come back on a regular bus the next day. I decided I’d just book round trip on a bus to Dubrovnik for 60 Euro, which required two 4 hour trips and allowed me three hours of sightseeing in between. There were multiple bus lines and I chose FlixBus, which I’ve always had good experiences with. FlixBus is a German company and until this particular trip, I’d loved their modern sleek buses that were always on time. FlixBus Croatia definitely has a different take on both customer experience and schedule adherence.
The bus arrived promptly at 8:25am and for a mere 3 Euros more, I had assigned myself a window seat just a few rows behind the driver. My preferred front row seat had already been booked but I’ve learned that if I get a seat behind the driver on the way, and the opposite side of the bus on the return, and it’s a coastal journey, I will always get a great view.
About 20 minutes after we left the station, I realized our bus was going to break down. Right after grad school, I had taken a job as a Regional Operations Manager with Crucero Bus Lines, a joint venture between Greyhound Bus Lines in the States and Estrella Blanca in Mexico. This was a very hands-on position and one of the first things I learned was how to drive the bus from the depot to the loading bay and a few of the safety checks. Based on how the Croatian bus shifted gears at the first hill and the black smoke I saw sputtering out the back, we were on a dud that had not been safety checked that morning. A few minutes later, the driver announced a 10 minute rest stop at a tiny hamlet that consisted of one coffee bar (we are in Croatia) and two closed businesses with a tiny portable toilet about 50 meters closer to the road. The 10 minute stop turned into 30 minutes before another passenger told the passengers that our bus was broken down and the driver was waiting for a new bus. I had only scheduled 3 hours between when we arrived and the return bus, so I jumped on the Flixbus chat to see if I could move my confirmed 2:55pm ticket to one slightly later. Unfortunately, the only other bus that day was at 6pm, which would have gotten me back to Split well after 11pm. I asked chat if I could get a taxi ride from the station back to my apartment reimbursed because of the delay and was given a flat no. Given the bus station is in the seedier part of Split, I opted to keep what I had and cut my sightseeing short.
Every time I checked in with the bilingual passenger who was translating for the driver, I was given conflicting information, so I would go back to the FlixBus chat and ask what my options were. At one point, for example, when a bus from Zagreb was taking a rest stop before their final stop of Split, the same passenger said we could take that bus back. As soon as I asked the driver which seat was open, he just laughed and said it wasn’t even a possibility to board.
Two hours and one chewable coffee later, our new bus arrived and we all piled in. The second bus did not have working AC against the mid – 70s temperature and incredibly sunny day, and to add joy to the trip, the heat was on full blast and could not be turned off. It was easily high 80s onboard within the first 20 minutes without any chance to open a window and no roof vent was available. At this point I realized that my chances of sightseeing once we got to Dubrovnik was down to less than 45 minutes, if I was lucky. I decided I’d take some pictures from the bus as we sped along and then share pictures of old town Dubrovnik that a German friend had sent me the week before, and make this a two part blog post.
One of the selling points of taking the bus, vs the ferry which is the same travel time, is the bus trip is supposed to be more scenic and you see a different side of Croatia vs the touristy noise that is Split. What was interesting is the farms had homes clustered against a small road and then residents used boats to navigate down canals to get from one end to the other.
The hot bus chugged into the orange-growing region of Croatia as soon as we passed Makarska.
Unlike other farming communities I had seen, the orange groves are set up on little islands with significant water in between. A little further we entered an area with farm stands at the edge of the highway, that offered the large bags of oranges I had seen everywhere in Split that fed the orange juice machines. In addition to oranges, the stands sold various syrups and jams and it would have been amazing to have another rest stop to peruse.
Next came vineyards. I had tried Bosnian wine and the white was much heartier than I’m used to. Signs on the highway promised tastings and tours, but our bus chugged on.
Some of the vineyards stretched the full length of these hills and looked like they could almost drop into the sea, but from a speeding bus, it was hard to take a good picture.
A little farther on, we entered mussel and oyster farming areas. I’m not sure if the tourists paying top dollar for mussels in Split realize they are farm-raised.
There were quite a few suspension bridges peppered closer to Dubrovnik, which linked some of the larger islands.
As we entered the very edge of Dubrovnik, a large bridge linked the highway with the smaller two way roads that are the norm inside city limits.
Passengers were visibly relieved when we arrived at the bus station at 2:20, which gave me exactly 35 minutes before my return bus. I opted for lunch at a gastro pub with an ice cold beer over two 10 minute taxi rides to Old Town and back and 15 minutes of sightseeing.
The truffle fries I ordered with my cheeseburger came with a decadent freshly made aioli literally buried under generous shavings of truffle. Given how the day had gone so far, I made the right call to get something to eat, cool off and decompress.
With 10 minutes to spare, I hurried back to the bus station to find that the same bus, with heat blasting, was my return to Split. I spied a small open window on the driver’s side so I took advantage of the assigned seats being moot on the alternate bus, and sat in the front row, directly in the path of the breezes coming through the driver’s window. We made it back to Split with no further problems by 7pm.