Chanctonbury Ring, England

I lay here on my bed watching fluffy clouds move against the clear blue sky following the direction of the wind. This side of my room is a glass wall looking over the South Downs in the distance. So when I lie here in my bed, I get the illusion of lying under the open blue sky and over the horizon, in the distance, the bushy top of Chanctonbury ring plays peek-a-boo. 

It was a warm sunny day. We went to Carat’s café (https://www.caratscafebar.com/) for a full cooked English breakfast in the beach, went paddling in the sea in Shoreham (Blog Post on Shoreham-by-Sea) and then drove up to the top of Steyning Bostal. From this top, you get a panoramic view of the Downs along the South coast of England followed by the sea. If you further strain your eyes on a clear day like this, you might be able to see the white cliffs of Rottingdean following the coastal curve to Eastbourne. The Brighton eye with its dome like structure (I refer to it as the Brighton doughnut) stands tall in the distance.

From here, a narrow bridleway takes you up the hill following a gradual but steady climb. We come to a cross-road where the road markers show three different ways. We chose the path marked as ‘The South Downs Way’ (SDW) and make our way through blackberry-bushes that line up the narrow lanes, occasionally opening up to open green farmlands trodden by horses, sheep and cows – a typical English countryside. This time of the year – August-September, the country side in England is full of sweet bitter blackberries. We picked some and continued our walk munching these fresh fruity snacks. Following the SDW for about 3-4 KM, we come on to a big open hill. The climb gets steeper and steadier now and then it finally opens up to this rolling hilly land with what looks like a bunch of trees on top of a mound.

It is a sort of circular hill top full of tall shady trees (Warning- There are lots of stinging nettles. Got bitterly stung by a bush while trying to role-play an ancient Saxon king on top a rock) with a ditch cut out around it. It is supposed to be a pre-historic fort dating from late Bronze Age or early Iron Age. The story goes – after the fort was abandoned in some fourth century AD, this hill fort remained un-used except for grazing cattle until around 18^th century lots of beech trees were planted around the ditch shaped like a ring for beautification. (Ref: Wiki on Chanctonbury_Ring) The local story also says, after the Great Storm of 1987, trees have been re-planted on several occasions to acknowledge the beauty and the history of this site.

What I personally loved is the peace and quiet that the place offers along with some incredible views of many of my known hills of the South Downs hill range, including my favorite Wolstonbury Hill (Blog Post on Sussex South Downs).

After a good stroll and some relaxing time, you can follow the same way down or if you are stupidly adventurous like us, you can follow down a longer winding path through the downs. But whatever you do, definitely climb up to this ancient Chanctonbury Ring if you get a chance and if you love nature and hiking and hate crowd J

Trip to Croatia

Imagine you are resting on the turquoise blue water of the Adriatic ocean, your back on the water, bobbing up and down, your toes hitting a few mossy rocks along the coast and then you floating in midst of nothingness but overhanging rocks on the sides and the clear blue sky above you. It’s the best feeling ever! 

No, I am not saying you have to go Croatia to get this feeling. But this was one of my most treasured experiences which happened to be during this Croatia trip. We were in the Lokrum Island which is about 20mins ferry from the old town of Dubrovnik where we had started our trip from. The Lokrum Island is a small island full of olive groves, rocky coasts, little coves and sandy beach, a dead sea, an old monastery, a nice shady café trotted by peacocks and rabbits who run around in the open without a care for anyone. The peacocks are at times so bolshie I had to walk away from my table in the café as the peacock was trying to steal the food literally from my grasp. We knew that Lokrum is a lovely place for swimming and snorkelling, etc. But we somehow hesitated and didn’t carry our swimming gear with us. But when we reached this little cove by the Triton cross, we couldn’t resist the temptation. We went in the water anyway and I had the float of my life :D It was amazing. We sat on the rocks after coming out of the water until the strong sun scorched our clothes dry, salty and crispy. We set off on our foot again to conquer the rest of the island.

Back in the mainland, the old town of Dubrovnik is pretty amazing as well. The town is surrounded by high city walls and the floors are all stony. From the central area, you can climb up few steps on all directions to get to the next upper level and so on and this structure circumvents the town along the walls. We walked all along the city walls in the scorching heat of midday. When we climbed down into the shade of the centre, we soothed ourselves with some ice creams. The ice creams in Croatia are really good and so are the chocolates, especially the dark chocolates with dried figs and almonds. I got box of that from the Croatia airport with the leftover kunas (or kumuknus as my friend calls them :D) and it all just vanished in one evening L We sat in the port and watched the little fish fidgeting around in the water. The sea water is very clear in this area.

The evenings in the old town was really rice with a soft warm breeze, dim lights against the stony town, the bands playing randomly at some corner or in some restaurant. Not sure why, but we chose to dine in one of the most expensive restaurants by the port. The location was pretty cool. You sit outside in the open, looking at the boats and ferries go by, the city walls lit up by your side and the pianist in the restaurant then entertain you with nice tippy-tappy music for the entire evening. Pizza and Sea food is Croatia’s speciality. And when I have that tempting option to try fish, my Bong antenna goes zing! So there I was having a sea bass and a red scorpion fish! I must say, even though costly, the fish was just superb!

From one old town to the next, we went from Dubrovnik to Split by bus. Both me and my friend hate long bus journeys but surprisingly the coach journeys in Croatia is not that bad. We went to Plitvice lakes by bus as well and that journey was equally good. Though it’s another question whether the journey was worth it or not. I really wanted to go to Plitvice lakes as I have read so much about it in Google and it is one of the most featured places to go in the country. But I was disappointed. Plitvice is nice with its waterfalls and green and blue water around the country park but it felt artificial. There was nothing natural about the place and it felt like a forced man-made effort to draw tourists and make money. My friend funnily called it a procession as there were so many people, we were literally walking in a line to get from one place to the other. Not recommended if you hate crowd.

The old town in Split was more appealing to me. Both the places are very touristy but the Old Town in Split seemed less commercial, more yeldy oldy than that in Dubrovnik. It has numerous very narrow lanes that take you to the main squares. The narrow lanes are laid with tables to eat in various places, making them even narrower and you would have to squeeze yourself along the way. In some places, you would find a sudden open area, mostly again laid with tables or little shops. My favorite was a juice shop just by one of the gates. It had every possible fruit forming a wall for the shop. And the juices were very refreshing as well.

My favourite evening in the Old Town in Split was the one when we had a few drinks in one open courtyard in the town (discussing world problems I think!!!), strolled down the lanes to find a place to eat and then after dinner, walked to one of the main squares to find some open live music being played by one of the pubs. They had thrown a few cushions around and people sat in the steps listening to the musicians, sipping their drinks. As the ambience got better and better, people got up and walked into middle of the square and started dancing causally with their partners and friends. No pressure, No hype, a simple free-flowing evening. Just the way I like it.

Apart from the Old Town, Split also has a really nice seafront. You can walk all along the coast by the docked boats and the harbour. They have lots of palm trees lined up along with benches to sit on. We sat their every morning having a cup of really bitter coffee (that’s how the Croatians like it) and a version of pain au chocolat (can’t remember what it’s called in Croatian). We strolled along the seafront right to the extreme end where a smallish hill waves a flag on top.

We climbed that hill up (it had around 320 steps towards the end, it mentioned) and found ourselves pleasantly surprised with the beautiful views of the city, of the sea around us and of the big Croatian mountains in the distance. I’m so glad we did this instead of getting lost amidst tourists again.

There is never a shortage of place to go and you can never experience a country or even a city within a week. But you do the best you can. So did us. And the week went by in a flash in the old towns of Dubrovnik & Split, in the little coves and under the shady plants of Lokrum Island, along the seafront of Split and port of Dubrovnik, the hilltop of Split and so on.