Split
There was only one practical means of getting from Mostar to Split, and that was bus. Sasha had noted in our Bible that we were looking at a 6pm bus to Split, but as time drew closer I mentioned we'd need to check whether that bus actually existed and also whether it made sense. In the end, it didn't exist - there was a 7am bus, a 11am bus or a 1pm bus. I definitely favoured the 11am bus and pushed for that, as it originated in Mostar while the 1pm bus started in Sarajevo and could run late and/or be full of people already. So we went with the 11am bus, which took us through the same border crossing I'd taken to Dubrovnik the previous time I left Bosnia - except no driving on the wrong side of the road to get past huge lines of traffic this time! Then it was fairly plain driving along the coast to Split, except this time between Omis and Split the bus took the coast route which I hadn't done - the bus I was in previously took us over the hill route. So that made for a nice change!
Originally we'd looked at one night in Split, then maybe staying in Krka or taking our stuff to Krka, swimming for the day and then making our way onwards to Ljubljana. Ljubljana is quite a hike so I suggested maybe 2 nights in Split, do Krka as a day trip between those nights and go to Ljubljana the next day. Thats what we ended up doing - getting a nice apartment near the bus and train terminal which would make getting to Krka and Ljubljana easy. It worked nicely as a base.
The whole reason for us going into Croatia was the Krka Waterfalls really. Putting the transport logistics aside of how to get from Mostar to Ljubljana, this was the only reason we were diving into Croatia - because Sasha wanted to swim here. We'd done Plitvice lakes before but you cant swim there, and we didn't know of Krka until after our last trip to Croatia.
We bought our bus ticket to go there the night before at the bus station and jumped on the bus, sitting in the seats specified on our tickets. Other people seemed to have bought tickets with Flixbus, and didnt have allocated seats - there was a bit of a conflict between the lady spread out in seats 3&4 with a Flixbus ticket trying to say there was no allocated seats, and the people who had been allocated seats 3&4 who apparently had chosen them especially. Even though the driver tried to say there was no seat allocation, those allocated 3&4 won out - with the lady moving across to join her friends who were spread out in seats 1&2, and 5&6!
We reach Krka and join tje people heading to the office to buy our tickets into the park, which also give us access to the ferry to get to the waterfall. The timetable for the ferry says they leave every hour, and we end up being the last two people permitted on the ferry that was at the dock when we arrived - but the lady behind us got told there would be another in 10 minutes. We travel maybe 20mins into the national park, hop off the ferry, walk a little way into the park and we reach the waterfall.
There are signs saying don't swim as its dangerous and you do it at your own risk - but everyone is swimming anyway and its roped off for swimming. We eventually find a spot to put our stuff down, get changed into our togs and hop in the water. Its a little cold, but not bad - much better once you're in for a while. We spend a bit of time in the water, go around up to some of the waterfalls, and then hop out having our picnic lunch.
After that, and our glass of wine plus the Mostar Rakia that we had (wasn't great) we went in for another swim, before getting dressed and then walking around more of the park. It was pretty scenic and we saw more of those iridescent blue dragonflies we'd seen at Plitvice. Near the end of the walk we saw three kittens playfighting in the garden, and Sasha got bitten by a flying something - she thinks it might have been a horsefly but we aren't certain. Its obviously not pleasant and hurts for a while.
Once we'd had our fill of Krka we caught the boat back, and made our way to the bus stop hoping we'd be in time for the 5pm bus. All manner of other buses come but not the one to Split - it does show up eventually, 40mins late and then there is a huge crowd waiting to board it. We get what must be the two last seats together, and about 6pm it manages to depart having completely filled up! It deposits us back in Split, after a pleasant day out.
In Split, the first night we visited a streetfood place for dinner, which was later followed by going and having a bottle of wine on the waterfront as we watched the sun set. Breakfast was from our muesli supplies, and lunch at Krka was a picnic we took. Dinner the last night in Split was at a waterfront restaurant, a nice place where we had risotto and a schnitzel, and was a bit pricier than we'd assumed but was still ok. That was about it - it wasn't exactly hugely exciting on the food and drink front!
Zagreb
We had put aside an entire day to get from Split to Ljubljana as we knew it was going to be a long travel segment, and probably would have to be done across a couple of buses. There are trains but we'd discounted them because we had looked up the costs and they were expensive. We hoped there may be a direct bus from Split to Ljubljana - but everything said there would need to be a change in Zagreb. On our way to buy bus tickets to Krka we passed the train station and noticed an advertised deal for train tickets, so we thought we'd check it out. It sounded at first like the deal was only for the overnight train to Zagreb (which is just compartments with seats, no lie-down beds) but for 8 Kuna more you could get tickets on the day time train to Zagreb with compulsory reservation - cheaper than for the bus, even though the train might take longer it was going to be more pleasant so we bought them. Doing the sums, we knew we'd end up with a few hours in Zagreb before we could catch another train on to Ljubljana.
The train was a tilt-train railcar - I've ridden the same type of train in Germany but I never experienced the German ones tilting and wobbling around so much. We'd hoped to spend time working on blogs or photos on our laptops, something we can do on trains that you can't easily do on a bus but the motion of this train precluded us doing that. Also, while the carriage was mostly empty, we had been given seats at one of the 4-seat tables - with our neighbouring seats allocated to a group of teenage girls who also occupied the 4-seat table area across from us, so we didn't have a lot of room to spill out! The train coursed its way through very hilly and mountainous terrain for the first half, not exactly at an overly fast speed either and later on in the trip the terrain was mostly flat, and fairly unremarkable. We were a little late into the station but that wasn't much of a problem - it might not have been the best train journey but it was surely far from the worst!
After depositing our bags into a locker at the station so we wouldn't have to carry them around, Sasha then asked me a few questions about exploring Zagreb. I'd been to Zagreb once before - the first time I visited Croatia, when Dion and I flew into Zagreb late at night, and then departed for Sarajevo on the train early the next morning. Therefore my explore of Zagreb was limited to looking around the park area and a few shops outside of the station - but Sasha had somehow gained the impression that I'd spent longer in Zagreb and seen much more of the city than that! So in us going beyond the park area in front of the station, we were both exploring things for the first time. We had a big wander around various streets, looked at a little market, also wandered through an area where some kind of University sign-up day was going on, and after a big loop around the main parts of the city we went to a beer bar and sat outside to have refreshments in the heat. The number and scope of these refreshments was limited to our remaining Kuna cash we had, but we both tried a local white wine which turned out to be a half-wine and half-sparking water mix (a common local kind of drink apparently!), followed by Sasha getting that local white wine by itself with no sparkling water and I got a local red. After this there was not anything more we wanted to do, so we wandered back to the train station early, bought ourselves some pastries and soft drinks to have as dinner on the next train, found our train carriage, hopped on and settled in - our few-hour foray into Zagreb over!
Summing Up
As for Zagreb - I got a better impression of it this time, having actually gotten to see the inner city more thoroughly. But it still strikes me as a rather bland, featureless city - it feels like a fairly plain capital city and that's because, well, it is one. If you know of, and love coastal Croatia then Zagreb is going to be a huge disappointment. There doesn't seem to be a lot to do there, yet its Croatia's largest city. Its interesting for what it is, but I wouldn't go out of my way to visit it again!
As for Croatia as a whole - I feel like I've covered as much of Croatia as I would care to, but I do think I'd go back again one day. That jaw-dropping coastline of Croatia's is not unique to Croatia though and so I'd be more keen to check out some of the neighbouring countries which share it and spend more time there. I do think I will visit Dubrovnik again sometime in the future, which would be the main appeal for me now but for the nearer future there would be other priorities to visit in Europe. As a whole, it seems to be a country which has got itself together rather well on the tourism front and doing good for itself - whether it keeps that up to a point where it gets way over-touristed or whether it manages to strike a good balance, will be an interesting question to see for the future!