10 days through Croatia

Hello, beautiful human beings of the internet!

Today I decided to share my experience travelling through Croatia, with a one day trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina and another one to Montenegro. Again, this is an old trip - we went there in 2016, so some of the things might not be relatable anymore, but the essence is all here!

Me and my boyfriend Sebastian had had our eye on Croatia for months and talked about going there since we met, and in May 2016 we decided to book our trip for that same year, in September - we heard this was the perfect time to go since it is not the peak of tourism but the weather is still great.

At this point we didn’t have our itinerary planned yet, so we decided to book the flights to and from Dubrovnik. We were searching for flights on Skyscanner, which is usually the platform we use since it gives you the possibility to have an overlook of the whole month and lets you choose based on that. We booked our flights for 230 EUR each, round trip, with a layover in Barcelona (I believe there are no direct flights from Lisbon to Croatia).

As we started planning our trip, we were talking about it with some of our friends who decided to join us, so we ended up being a total of 7 people going! Later on, we decided we wanted to start our trip by going to Split, which is about a 5 hour drive from Dubrovnik, so rookie mistake number 1 - don’t buy your flights without deciding where to go first, ahah. Split has an international airport and we could have booked our flights to arrive there first and come back from Dubrovnik, which is the last place we wanted to go. You might recognize it due to its Game Of Thrones scenarios. We saved two of our days there to make a day trip to Bosnia Herzegovina and Montenegro.

In between, we wanted to spend a couple of days in an island named Hvar - Croatia has a lot of beautiful islands and many of them have great feedback from other visitors, however we could only choose one since we were not staying that long. The highest rated ones were Brac, Korcula and Hvar. We heard that the first two ones were quite similar to Dubrovnik, so Hvar was the winner.

As a way to move, we decided to rent a car at the Dubrovnik airport, leave it in Split before we went to Hvar (since the island old town is quite small and you can easily walk everyone), and rent a new one when we arrived back in Split to make our way back to Dubrovnik.

So, let the trip begin!

Split

Split is the second-largest city in Croatia, and we read beautiful things about it! It’s about halfway across Croatia, by the sea, and it has a lovely old town. We noticed that Croatian old towns all have similar constructions - everything is built in light stone, with brick-red rooftops and all of them are super picturesque.

Although it is a large city, the old center is very small and easily visited in a couple of hours. We spent two full days there and absolutely made the most of it.

We rented an Airbnb for our stay in Split, which costed a total of 190 EUR for 3 nights. It had space for 7 people to sleep (one double bed room, one room with two single beds, a sofa bed in the living room and a mattress in the living room as well). Keep in mind we were all students at the time, so we didn’t want to spend much on accommodation. The place itself was nice and clean, however it was very small for 7 people and I like to treat myself better nowadays. It was also not close to the old center (15 minutes by car, so around 1 hour if we were walking), so you definitely need a car if you stay around here.

On our first day, we decided to visit the famous Plitvice lakes, which are almost 3 hours away from Split. If you are a travel junkie, you surely saw pictures of this beautiful place on the internet. The Plitvice lakes are located in a natural park, and are a UNESCO World Heritage site. They are mostly known for the color of their water, which is fluorescent blue due to the limestone floor, algae and other plants. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please search it on Google, you will be amazed by this.

We paid 180 HRK (about 24.15 EUR) to go in. Inside, you have unlimited time to enjoy it. Sadly, it is not allowed to swim in the lakes, which would have been perfect on a hot summer day like the one I went there!

On the next day, we also tried to go to Krka National Park, which is also known for amazing waterfalls and, in this one, you are free to swim! This is also about 1 hour from Split - unfortunately, it was pouring rain on this day, so we decided not to spend money going in if we were not enjoying it to the fullest. We decided to go walk around a small town on our way back that was called Šibenik, and stopped at a small restaurant by the sea named Konoba Kanela to enjoy some warm food. To be honest, I was not very impressed with this small town - it had a cold ambiance, it was quite empty but, either way, even the most magical place can lose its charm if it’s pouring rain, and I believe I would have a different opinion if we would have enjoyed it on a sunny day.

The remaining time we were in this city we enjoyed the old town of Split. As I said, its environment has a lot more life and we were lucky enough to catch some evenings without any rain. We visited the Diocletian's Palace, Peristil Square, passed by Campanile (which is an iconic bell tower) and had dinner at a super nice restaurant called Konoba Favola.

My favorite place to walk by was by Riva, which is the massive sidewalk by the sea - the view is incredibly and this street is decorated with tons of palm trees. They sometimes have markets that you can visit free of charge.

Hvar

This beautiful island left me breathless! From Split, we took a ferry boat to Hvar Stari Grad. We booked with Jadrolinija, and we paid around 110 HRK for a round trip, and the ferry ride lasts about 1 hour and a few minutes.

First thing we did was find our Airbnb so we could drop off our bags. Let’s just say this little apartment was one of the best Airbnb’s I’ve ever stayed in! The view was amazing, the house was spotless and walking distance from the town center. We paid 345 EUR for two nights, which is a lot more expensive than the previous Airbnb, however it was very worth it.

The highlight of our stay in Hvar was a small beach named Pokonji dol Beach. Curious thing about Croatian beaches, they don’t have sand. They’re all rocks, so we recommend bringing some nice shoes to take to the water with you. Either way, in order to reach this beach you need to go through a small trail, and at one point you are able to see the beach at the bottom of the hill, and it is a beautiful sight. The water is crystal clear, and they have a small restaurant nearby where we enjoyed a very tasty lunch.

The Hvar old town is, again, very small, beautiful and the houses are all made of stone, which gives it a very historical look. We wandered around for hours just enjoying the place, before we went for drinks ar a bar called Hula Hula, by the sea, and had dinner at a restaurant in the old town main square.

We saved a full day in Hvar to go on a boat ride to visit the surrounding islands. Our main purpose with this was to visit the Blue Cave, which is know for having a bright dark blue colored water, however it was closed due to bad weather. Either way, we were able to enjoy the Green Cave, visited Stiniva, Palmizana, the blue lagoon and a few other really nice spots.

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik has so much to offer, and the main thing is its views! It is also sea-side, and the old town is surrounded by beautiful stone walls.

Since the launch of the series Game Of Thrones, the city has been receiving more and more visitors each year, and then even more due to it also being a scenario for Robin Hood: Origins and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

We stayed at another Airbnb that was not far away from the city center, however we did not have a good experience. When we arrived, the place was not very cleaned (used tissues on the floor and food in the sink were some of the issues we found). However, we didn’t plan on staying much in the Airbnb, so we simply asked the host to come and clean the place and we stayed there anyway. We paid around 390 EUR for 6 nights, so it is in fact student friendly. It had two bedrooms (one twin bed and the other room had two double beds and a single bed). After around 10 minutes walking we were inside the old center walls.

It is a very nice place to walk around, visiting the local shops and checking every little corner, as you can find some really cool places around there. One of them was a bar named BARD, which is right by the sea in the old town. The tables are set on top of the coastal rocks, and there is a little stairway that will lead you right into the Adriatic sea, which is what we did the second we got there. We also visited the Porat, which is the port, and some view points such as Lovrijenac and Kolorina.

We took the opportunity to walk on the city walls, and we paid around 200 HRK (29 EUR) to do so. It is a long walk since the walls are really long, but this offers some of the best views of the city.

We only visited one beach in Dubrovnik, the Copacabana beach - again, this is not a sand beach, so we recommend taking nice shoes to protect your feet from the stones.

While in Dubrovnik, we visited two different islands: Lokrum and Koločep.

To visit Lokrum, we took a boat from Dubrovnik’s old town port that cost around 150 HRK (approximately 20 EUR roundtrip) for a 10 minute ride, and in this island you can find huge gardens, lots of rabbits and peacocks and some really amazing spots to jump into the water. We did some snorkeling - and as I haven’t mentioned this before, although the water is super clear in Croatia, the sea doesn’t have a lot of life. You will be able to find some fish and take a look at the rocks, but don’t expect to find a lot of biodiversity.

To Koločep, we took a boat from Port Gruž, which is a big port further away from the old center. This is where all the cruises and bigger transportation boats are located. We paid around 20 HRK (between 2 and 3 EUR) for a 30 minutes trip. Koločep is a very green island. We didn’t visit anything is particular, we simple found a nice spot to stay and enjoy some free diving.

A bad thing about Dubrovnik is that parking is paid almost everywhere, and it can be quite expensive.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

We took a one day trip to Mostar, which is one of the biggest cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was named after the bridge keepers mostari who guarded the Stari Most, the old bridge, in the medieval times. This bridge is one of the main attractions of the city, and this was were we headed after we arrived.

I had a bittersweet feeling about Mostar. The city is beautiful, however it has kind of a dark vibe to it. The country was at war recently, so you can see thousands of bullet holes in most of the buildings you pass by. We were also warned about the pickpockets around the city, and we even saw a scene of a young child that was taking wallets from tourists and the police had to get involved - apparently, it is common for children here to be “trained” to pickpocket, and this is one of the main factors that causes this city to be quite dark.

However, the architecture of the old center is beautiful and the bridge is amazing. During the war, in 1993, the bridge was destroyed and collapsed into the river Neretva. After the war ended, the bridge was reconstructed as it is as you can see it today. The city views with the river and bridge are some of the most beautiful I have seen.

Diving from the bridge into the river is a traditional activity in Mostar, and we had the change to watch some brave people doing so. We were told that there is a jumping annual competition that gathers hundreds of people in Mostar.

One of my favorite things in Mostar was its commerce. They have a lot of local shops and traditional souvenirs, such as metal goods like boxes and vases, plates and platters and so many other beautiful things. Since the city was recently at war, many of the souvenirs are war-related, such as bullet key-chains - I would advise being careful with this since the airport took them from us when we were leaving. It looks like they are not airport-security friendly, ahah.

Montenegro

Montenegro was one of the things I was more excited to visit during this trip! We started by making a pit stop in Kotor, which is a coastal town. We parked the car and wandered around the old town center, saw the cathedral, passed through the Plazza of the Arms, admired the clock tower and visited the local shops. We’ve heard that going all the way up to Church of Our Lady of Remedy offers you one of the most beautiful views of the city, however it was a really hot day so we didn’t want to climb all the way up there.

My favorite part to visit of this small town was the port. By a restaurant named Galerija, you will find a small sidewalk along the sea, with tons of artists painting the beautiful city of Kotor, and this is actually a wonderful thing to see.

Afterwards, we made our way to Budva, which is about 25 minutes away from Kotor by car. This is also another sea-side town, and one of my favorite stops of the whole trip. Budva is well known for preserving its medieval walled city and nightlife (which we didn’t enjoy since we went back to Dubrovnik). Our first stop was a beach called Old Town Beach which, surprise surprise, is right by the old town. We enjoyed a few swims and then had a snack at a bar right by the beach called Astoria Beach Budva.

Since we wanted to explore the medieval architecture, we wandered around the old town, bought some of the coolest local handmade souvenirs and visited the old Roman Villa Remains.

The last thing we visited in Budva was the Ballet Dancer Statue, which is a famous statue that was inserted on the rocks facing the sea. This is one of the most visited statues in Montenegro. It is said that it is related to a legend, however many legends are associated to this statue and none of them are confirmed to be true. This web page has a few examples that are super interesting to read, so check it out!

In the evening, before leaving, we had dinner at an Italian restaurant by the marina called PastaBar.

All in all, we greatly enjoyed our time in Croatia! It was a little ruined by the bad weather, and I’m sure we would have enjoyed it a lot more if it was sunny and warm. Locals said that we went during the worst time of the summer, which are the first two weeks of September. Next time, we will know and hopefully can have a nicer trip!