by Justin
The first stop on our recent trip was Prague, a city overflowing with fun and history. Both of our days were super-fun private walking tours around the city. Our guide Lucka made sure that we had a great time on both of our tours and …
I just went on a completely super terrifically incredible trip to Austria and the Czech Republic! On this trip, I went to Prague, Cesky Krumlov, Salzburgerland, and last but not least, Vienna. In my upcoming posts you will hear about all of the incredible things …
The island of Lokrum is packed with peacocks, salt water pools, ancient monasteries, and fun! We came here on a ferry boat leaving the Old Port of Dubrovnik. When you get there, you will find that the island is infested with peacocks! There are also some adorable bunny rabbits (no feeding them or the peacocks, if you can help it because the peacocks love trying to steal your food). At the island’s salt water lake, a peacock ate someone’s hot dog in three bites (its neck looked like it was going to expand like a balloon)! Here is what happened: we were just coming around the corner to the Dead Sea (aka the salt water lake) and after a few minutes, someone sat down to eat their hot dog… and wham, the peacock took it right our of her hand and swallowed it. One perk about when we were on Lokrum was… the baby peacocks! They were tiny brownish balls of cuteness and fluff! The only way to tell if a peacock chick is a male is if it has a tiny mohawk of black feathers sticking out of its head.
The Dead Sea was a small salt water lake in the southwest corner of Lokrum, packed with peacocks and swimmers. The hardest part of swimming here is getting in without poking your feet on the rocks lining the shore or the band of urchins further out. A good place to climb in is at the small rock peninsula pointing at the cave on the other side of the lake. One thing I think you will need to know is that you should save lunch for after your swim (the peacocks will get your lunch if you leave it on shore). To avoid the trouble of the rocks and urchins on the shore, without using the rock point, use water shoes and enter wherever you want (try not to kill any urchins by stepping on them). One of the coolest things that we saw in the lake was a blueish-orangish starfish clinging to a large pointy rock close to the shore. Another interesting thing on Lokrum was the old monastery ruins. These ruins are the only easily accessible ancient building on the island (I didn’t know this until after the trip, but this is probably the reason that they used it for the Game of Thrones final episode, not that I watched it). I do not know who owned it when it was still in use in medieval times, but now it is completely overrun and owned by peacocks (who use it as a sheltered nesting ground). Back in the time it was built, it must have been spectacular with its ornate marble pillars and breathtaking spires with domed red-tiled roofs. Even though they are completely different, the peacocks, monetary, and dead sea were all spectacular parts of the trip.
Our private boat tour let us snorkel all around Dubrovnik to places that we chose. We were on this tour for the whole day, speeding around the islands in our guide Loren’s Cap Camarat. We went to three different islands: Šipan, Lopud, and Koločep. On …
The walled city of Dubrovnik is a must-visit for travelers going to Croatia. The walls around the city are huge (6,365 feet long by 83 feet high) and were built in the 13th century! Dubrovnik is entirely enclosed by these huge stone walls. You can …
Korčula is one of my favorite places to be. It is actually thought to be Marco Polo’s birthplace. Korčula is an island located off the Dalmatian Coast. By the way, we got there on an express catamaran ferry from Split. This place has ancient origins, which created a tradition, the Moreška sword dance. The Moreška was probably my favorite part of Korčula because of its amazing moves and scenes with lots of action. I definitely recommend that you go to see it.
Korčula is a place rich in history and flavors. I tried my first prawn pizza here (btw: I loved it). Prawn pizza is very delicious and has both the flavor of shrimp and a regular cheese pizza, creating a very amazing combo. Another scrumptious meal was our red scorpionfish (a.k.a. sculpin). Sculpin is incredibly hard to catch because of its poisonous spines, but its meat is super juicy and tender. Oddly enough, no restaurants served urchins: the most common seafood around. A restaurant further inland on the island was also very good. My Mom and Dad tried goat peka for the first time here, and they loved it. At that restaurant I had saffron prawn penne pasta, which I loved as well. The two restaurants that I especially recommend are Konoba Marco Polo (where I had sculpin) and Konoba Mate (where my Mom and Dad had goat peka to share).
Korčula is rich in aquatic life as well. Here was one of my favorite ways to see it. The Korčula semi-submarine was one of the coolest things we did in Korčula! On this attraction we saw fish, fish, and more fish. It was nighttime, so Mom thought that it would not be cool, but it was a lot better than she thought! The lights on the viewing ports attracted fish in enormous quantities. One of the more unusual fish that we saw was the ropefish (a.k.a. eelfish). They look like eels with fins. We also saw three bat squids floating around by the semi-sub. There were also urchins by the dozen! Even the semi-sub captain said that going on it at night was a ton better.
Our snorkeling tour took us to the small islands around Korčula. At one of the islands, a wild deer tried to eat someone’s lunch rolls (and succeeded in doing just that). That same island, Badija, had lots of green tube coral in the water around it. As I cruised along the seafloor colorful fish swam by me and urchins sat on the rocks like purple pincushions. Sea cucumbers sat around like squishy aquatic croissants. No, I am serious, one was folded into the shape of a croissant (it was the right size too… although I bet that it would taste terrible). Snorkeling in Korčula is super awesome.
An Aerial View of Kauai We took an incredible helicopter tour over Kauai. This was my first ever helicopter ride, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I got a lot more than I expected. The scenery was amazing! Amazing waterfalls crested the cliffs …
Hawk Watch is an incredible place to see spectacular birds of prey. Hawk Watch has been a subject of one of my previous posts: http://travelandtweets.com/2018/03/31/hawk-a-palooza/. One of my favorite birds this year (I didn’t have a single favorite because they are all so cool) was …
Spouting Horn is a natural formation of lava tubes that forces water to explode out of its natural pipelines. It also kind of sounds like a whale when it shoots water out (it also kind of looks like a whale spouting). This place has become quite a tourist attraction in Kauai and is close to a beach with good snorkeling and a reef on the south shore. It is also very frequented by Red Jungle Fowl (aka Moa). This place also has the possibility to see sea turtles (we saw two of them). It also has some side caverns that shoot out water like dragons attacking a castle (no sandcastles here). My favorite time to come here was at sunset, because of the incredible views and awesome orange colors.
Kilauea Lighthouse was the best place to bird watch on the north shore because the lighthouse, the cliffs, and the peninsula around it were crawling with birds. The coolest bird that we saw there was the Laysan Albatross. Laysan Albatross are less known than their cousin, the Wandering Albatross, but are still quite impressive. Their wingspan is enormous and they are incredibly graceful (in fact, the Wandering Albatross has the longest wingspan in the world). The Nēnē is an endangered Hawaiian goose, but it seems to be making quite a comeback, although they need to get a little bit smarter to stay out of the roads on the way to the lighthouse. Their babies also looked quite a bit like walking grey cotton balls. One of the more challenging birds to photograph was the skittish, often moving, red crested cardinal. I only managed to get a photo of one when we stopped on the side of the road and one was sitting close to the road (although I had to use full zoom on my camera so that I did not scare it away). Another very interesting bird that we saw was the White-tailed Tropicbird. They have quite striking black and grey wing bars on the topside of their wings. That isn’t even the coolest thing about them; I think that the coolest thing about them is the incredibly thin, delicate, and beautiful white tail streamers. another bird that we saw was the Wedge-tailed Shearwater that nested in borrows around the lighthouse (you could quite often find this bird underfoot creating just another reason to fence off the area around the lighthouse (so that you don’t step on it))! Great Frigatebirds have well earned their nickname “The Pirate Bird” by stealing fish from other birds in the air.
To find out more about the birds of Kilauea Lighthouse click: https://www.fws.gov/refuge/kilauea_point/wildlife_and_habitat/birds.html
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Snorkeling in Kauai was like getting dropped into a saltwater aquarium. All Photos in this Post Taken by Z-Tourz I just recently went to Kauai and would like to talk about my Kauai trip while it is fresh in my mind. Snorkeling was a major …
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