As I mentioned in the past, we took our first trip to Dubrovnik at Easter and I was totally underwhelmed by it all. Okay, so the weather was not perfect, but all in all once we had enjoyed the Old Town and the views, I thought the rest of it was overpriced, the food was average and the service was terrible. I was in no rush to head back.
However, in retrospect, I may have been too hasty to write off the whole coast based on one short trip, to one small part.
Summer has been non-stop, with trips back to the UK, starting a new job, camping, rafting and generally enjoying lovely weather and being able to make plans for a BBQ at the weekend, knowing it is not going to be 15degrees and raining!! Recently my Mother came over for a week (her second time to Sarajevo) and we decided that rather than staying here, we should really take a trip back to the coast. Mum had mentioned a while ago about an article in The Daily Telegraph about a Croatian town called Zadar, located north of Spilt, South of Istria. So this was where we decided to go.
Leaving on Friday afternoon, the drive took us about 6hrs, 3hrs of which are taken simply getting out of Bosnia. We went via Mostar, Medjugorje, Citluk and then crossing the border at Crnvi Grm as this seems to be the quickest place to pick up the new motorway which runs up the coast toward Zagreb. Once on the motorway, it only took us 1.5hrs to get to Zadar. We had booked accommodation right in the centre of the Old Town. As with many of the Dalmatian towns, the old town (Stari Grad) is a pedestrian zone. The rooms (Tinel Rooms) were great, cool (it was just shy of 40 degrees outside), clean and comfortable. We immediately headed out for food and a beer. The city was packed, but we were expecting this as it was the first weekend in August. Our only requirement for food was that it has to be fish, and the beer had to be cold! We found both of these and it did not disappoint! I enjoyed a plate of mussels which were fantastic and the others has fresh tuna (locally sourced). The cost was also surprising, we were expecting costs to reflect those of Dubrovnik, but it was noticeably cheaper, around 70kn for the mussels (about 7.50GBP).
The next morning we were up early to move the car. There is free parking just outside the Old Town, so well worth making the effort to find it. We then spent the morning pottering around the town, enjoying breakfast, coffee, more coffee and eventually a beer! There is a lovely fruit and veg market within the walls, other highlights include a beautiful promenade around the Old Town, the famous Sea Organ which is quite incredible and offers a lovely swimming spot for those who don’t want to venture very far. Additionally, at the sea end of the promenade is the Sun Salutation. A large area of solar panels which light up at night, but create enough solar energy to power all the lights around the sea front.
It was then decided that time on the beach/swimming was needed and we discovered that only 30mins away by ferry there is a small island called Uglian. Jadrolina ferries run from the main port every hour from 5am - midnight to the town of Preko and it costs about 38kn per person, (4GBP) return. A short walk from the ferry terminal is Preko, a small coastal town (heading right from the ferry). There is a lovely coastal footpath which takes you round to a small, beautiful harbor town, with a number of restaurants, bars and shops. We found a perfect lunch stop, located just past the harbor in a little row of restaurants - Roko. A simple pizza grill, the food was fantastic; we had a selection of starters for the table including Dalmatian ham, octopus salad, caprese salad and it was all delicious, and again the prices were very reasonable. After a couple more beers and then a much needed comproses of a concrete promenade with steps and access into the sea, benches, showers and changing rooms - all in all perfect. The sea was a perfect temperature and there is a little island just off the coast which you can swim to and swim around. Following a couple of early evening beers, we made our way back to Zadar and had another great meal at a taverna style restaurant located in the Old Town. We enjoyed the fish platter which was fantastic!
Realising the town was small and that we didn’t really want to get in the car, the following day we joined an orgnised trip out to the Kornati Islands. Located about 3hrs (by boat) from Zadar, the archipelago is made up of 150 island, most of which are uninhabited. There are plenty of trips from Zadar, boats lining the harbor with salesmen pitching their best deal to you. We joined a boat for about 30Euros, which included breakfast, lunch (fresh fish), free drink (orange squash) and free wine (turned out to be dreadful red wine).! We left at 8:30, sadly the boat was packed leaving little room sunbathe and spread out, but it was a beautiful trip. Eventually we stopped when we reached the National Park, had some lunch and then had 3 hours to explore. A five minute walk from the harbor there is a salt lake, which is unique as it is about 150m above sea level, separated from the sea only by one set of cliffs, so it looks quite amazing (from the air). We enjoyed a swim here, although again, it was packed and as the name indicates, it was very salty! Whilst I am pleased we made this trip, it was slightly too organised and touristy for us all and given a little more planning, we probably could have found something slightly smaller, offering a less commercial route.
The remaining time was spent eating copious amounts of seafood: http://www.bruschetta.hr/en/, exploring a bit more of the town (there are plenty of churches, museums etc) and then another lunch (and evening meal) at Roko on Uglian. We don’t make a habit of eating in the same place not just twice, but three times in as many days, but it really was fantastic! And of course, enjoying more swimming and relaxing on the town beach - where there seemed to be only locals... very few tourists which made it even lovelier.
The journey home was easy; we broke it up by travelling via the coast road from Split to Makarska, where we joined the motorway again. The coast road is well worth a look as the views are amazing, but it is dreadfully slow, so once you have done it once, you won’t do it again and will stick firmly on the motorway!! By the time we got home, Team GB had won a dozen more gold medals; we had eaten as much fish as we could and enjoyed the clear waters of the Adriatic and I was already planning our next weekend away!
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