We knew once we got married, we wanted to take a big honeymoon. We went back-and-forth between Tahiti, Italy, Hawaii, etc... Finally, we landed on Croatia. I know weird, right? NOT.AT.ALL. This country is AMAZING. If you're reading this, you probably already know that and are looking for advice on where to stay, what to eat, etc. Well, I'm hoping our trip can be helpful to you.
ITINERARY: We stayed in Croatia for almost 2 weeks (drove from the top, to bottom, back to the top). We started by flying into Zagreb from the US and rented a car. Zagreb was not our favorite city, mostly because we had such a hard time driving and had major culture shock on the first day... but it gets better! From there, we drove to Dubrovnik and spent a night there (note: not enough time, you need at least 2 days). From there we drove up to Split for a night and caught a catamaran the next day to Hvar Island. We stayed in Hvar for 4 days, it was so amazing. We had a stressful few months leading up to the wedding, and Hvar Island was just what we needed. Sun, fresh sea food, amazing wine and a swim up bar at our hotel ;) From Hvar, our next stop was in Zadar. We didn't have many expectations for Zadar but it was amazing! We stayed in the old town square at a nice little hotel where we could look out into the busy street from our room. We could walk to the beach and also sit on the pier to watch the sunset and listen to the waves roll in... more on that later. We spent 2 nights in Zadar. Lastly, we ended up in Rovinj where we spent our last 2 nights.
To top it off, my cousin and her family live in the Netherlands, near Amsterdam. We intentionally had a 20 hour layover there so we could visit with family. It was the best ending to our trip!
As you plan for your Croatian trip, here are some tips:
Tip 1: Make sure to ask/book a sea view room. We made the mistake of not ensuring we had one in advance past Dubrovnik, and it was a little disappointing.
Tip 2: Book a hotel with breakfast included. The breakfasts buffets were amazing. We tended to eat later in the morning (partly because of the time change) and so didn't have to eat lunch most days (saved us some money! which we later used on wine...)
Tip 3: If you have a rental car, go to the supermarket and get bottles of Croatian wine. The exchange rate was really good, in our favor, so the wine is so cheap, but amazing!
Tip 4: take good walking shoes! You won't walk too much, if you don't want to (outside of Dubrovnik and Plitvice Lakes National Park) but in a lot of the old towns the streets are original stone which means they're super slippery now.
Tip 4: it's hot. We didn't have a day under 80 degrees and it rained for 2 minutes on our sunset cruise... take sunscreen, shorts and tanks. You may want a light rain jacket, but we didn't wear long sleeves the entire time.
Tip 5: get restaurant recommendations from the hotel staff/locals. We had the best luck this way - the ones we tried to google or look at travel books just didn't live up to the bar set by the new, smaller restaurants.
In an attempt to not make this post a picture overload... I think I'll split it up among a couple of posts. Lets start with Dubrovnik!
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is about a 5 hour drive from Zagreb. It's a beautiful drive, but long. You have to go through another country to get there, Bosnia, and contrary to popular belief, I would say that's the probably best part of the drive. It's beautiful!
Any Game of Thrones fans out there? If so, Dubrovnik is "Kings Landing" - we think we found the stairs that is often shown in the show when the royalty addresses the town (i.e. the epic Cersei scene from season 5...) see pic below and judge for yourself :)
We stayed at the Radison Blu Resort & Spa, Dubrovnik Sun Gardens. Oh my gosh, this hotel was amazing! We only stayed for one night, which we instantly regretted... we needed to stay for a lot longer! We had an amazing sea view, and once we got back from walking the city walls, we enjoyed the spa briefly and then walked down to their restaurant, Cilantro, and listened to the 2 man band while eating fresh sea food and sipping on Croatian wine.
Here are a couple of views from our room, we were pressed for time that day, so unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures in during the day. But they had an amazing spa and pool area.
Picture from our drive into Dubrovnik
Pictures from our walk along the wall of old town:
As you walked, they had these amazing "peep holes"; a cool way to see the city and sea from a different view!
It was my mission to find GOT spots as we went through Dubrovnik, so what do you think? Is this the GOT stairs? We think so and I was super pumped to find it!
After our long walk around the city, we just sat back and enjoyed people watching with a cold beer. This was my honey's first exposure to prosciutto, it was a hit.
Stay tuned for more... Next Post: Split and Hvar
Love and Travel,
Lynn
