After jumping from hostel to hotel for over a month while travelling through the Balkans, I was looking for an apartment rental in Split, Croatia, and then was offered an opportunity with Flipkey. It’s like TripAdvisor’s own accommodations-by-owner site. I had about four days to recuperate before heading out on The Yacht Week with my friends. I knew I needed the downtime, desperately, before a week of boozing and cruising the Adriatic Sea with myriads of inflatable devices began.

So I booked Ultra Cosy Apartment Split, and made it there a day before my friends started rolling in. I showed up at the bus stop, and Viktor (one of the owners) met me there. Maybe I should have been more ill at least about meeting a very tall stranger at a bus stop in a foreign city in a foreign country, but then he smiled a dazzling smile and all was well in the world.

Photo courtesy of Ultra Cosy Apartment Split

Viktor showed me around the apartment, set me up with the Internet, brewed me a cup of coffee, and sat down to make some personal recommendations on things to see and do.

The spacious apartment had three large bedrooms, with two bathrooms, and a massive living area. There was room for SO MANY ACTIVITIES. There was also a balcony. By the time I had dragged my bags of groceries back to the apartment, I was beside myself. (Literally – the place had a lot of mirrors.) It had been MONTHS since I had an apartment to myself, and the space was overwhelming. I danced around, made dinner, ran back and forth between the rooms, read a book on the patio, flaked out on the couch in my pajamas, did yoga. Maja, the other owner, had informed me that a welcome basket had been left out. With Nutella. NUTELLA.

 

By the time the rest of the gang showed up – Trish, Melissa, Nick, and James — things were in full swing. We made dinners together, drank beers, and started prepping for The Yacht Week. Most of the others had never met each other before, all being mutual friends of me. But we clicked so well, and that apartment was a great place to do it. Maja even showed up with a cot for us, for extra sleeping space, and didn’t even bat an eyelash at the mess of costumes, crafts, and beer bottles everywhere. (We cleaned up well, don’t worry.)

 

The whole unsuspecting gang, unaware of what’s to come

 

 

Trish hard at work painting my toenails. Earlier Nick had dropped a beer bottle which shattered and sliced open my calve. I still have that scar, srsly.

 

The location is fab: About a 20-minute walk from the city center, but also next to all amenities, including a massive Joker mall. Trish and I sought out a pubcrawl on our first night in Split, made some great new friends, and then proceeded to get lost for hours on the way home. Our sense of direction isn’t great. The tour leader even found us wandering the streets and picked us up to drive us home…then we got lost again outside the complex. I’m not kidding.

 

Split is beautiful.The best part? Viktor and Maja invited us to meet them for a beer one evening, and so we made our way to them in the Old Town. They took us up Marjan Hill, a sort of trail that led us to a small bar with comfortable outdoor seating and the best damned view of the city and the sea. I fell in love with Split at that point, I think. I much preferred it to Dubrovnik, especially for all the warm and hospitable people we met along the way. And our pubcrawl friends.

 

 

Myself with Trish and Melissa atop the hillFour nights at this place cost us just over $500USD for five people. That’s cheaper than most hostels, my friends. Book it here and you’ll thank me later.