🐸 What Happens In Frogglyand 🐸

...stays in Froggyland

Hello from Lancashire

For weeks I've been promising to tell you all about the most bizarre tourist experience I've ever come across, and now seems as good a time as any.

So, without further ado, I give you Froggyland, in Split, Croatia.

People visit Croatia for all manner of reasons. The weather, the beaches, the mountains, the history and culture, the food. Split alone has the extraordinary Diocletian's Palace, where, as far as I can tell, the entire population of Texas piles off a cruise ship every day at noon to squeeze through the narrow alleyways to the magnificent central courtyard and pose for photographs.

It's a shame, then, that so many of them miss Froggyland, quite possibly the most remarkable experience in Europe. 

You don't have take my word for it. Below, I've grabbed some excerpts from other travellers' reviews of the place. Not everyone loved it, that's true. It isn't cheap, and you're banned from taking photographs - the images I've used here are taken from Froggyland's own website.

But for the overwhelming majority, Froggland is an experience to be treasured.

Let's start with the basics.

Q: Does this place contain frogs?

A: Only dead ones.

Don't pretend you're horrified by this. You read books about murder to relax.

Shall we continue? 

Coomber, on Tripadviser, probably sums the place up as well as anyone else:

I can honestly say I've never seen anything like this. Froggyland consists of 21 glass cases filled with, in total, 507 stuffed real frogs which have been set up to recreate humans in various situations. Each case has signs explaining what is going on in each scene. These range from the mundane (rowing a boat or cutting logs for example) to the utterly bizarre. Examples from this side of the scale include a married couple sitting on a bench, the husband unaware his wife is doing something rather rude to the gentleman standing behind them. I wish I could show you a photo but Froggyland bans photography. And it's possible I'd be breaking some sort of decency law. 

What happens in Froggyland, stays in Froggyland.

TH puts it more succinctly:

You think you can live without this experience...

You are wrong.

I'll leave the last word on Froggyland to Eden H, whose taste in puns feels really quite appropriate to the place. 

We pond-ered whether to go or not but it was definitely worth it. We caught a fly-t all the way to Split just for froggyland. Ri-bet you will have the best time. All I will say is, you have to go and experience the froggy goodness for yourself. Leap at the chance. There’s nothing quite like it. Hop to be back soon! It was unfrogettable. Toadally awesome!

Anyway, that's enough about Dead Frogs in an email that's supposed to be about Dead Humans and the Nasty People Who Killed Them.

I've spent the last couple of weeks travelling up and down the country, visiting family. But before I drove down to London last Saturday, I took the opportunity to nip up to Cumbria and check out the murder scene I'd been heading to when I was stung by the evil wasp from hell back in the summer. 

There's a photo above, showing a pond big enough to squeeze in the entire population of Froggyland many thousands of times over. And one below, a more familiar shot that I've completely failed to do justice to, but my wife assures me that if you squint in just the right way and tilt your head, the famous skull is indeed visible.

Can you see it? Or is she just humouring me? More importantly, do you recognise the spot?

It'll form the backdrop for the climax of book 2 in the Whaley & Gaskill series.

And I don't want to give away too much, but it's possible someone'll croak.

In the meantime, I'll leave the buttons for The Boatyard right here, because there's no point worrying about book 2 if you haven't read book 1.

Kindle UK

Paperback UK

Kindle US

I’ll be in touch again soon, with more about assassination and arson, and less about amphibians. 

In the meantime, happy reading,

Joel