Overall impressions

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Travel itinerary overview

Due to the fact that we arrived in Zadar, around midnight, we thought it was best to rent a car from the airport, spend the night near the airport and then, first thing in the morning, to go straight to Dubrovnik. Although you can avoid toll rods to Dubrovnik, we strongly advice against it, as the highway is a faster and a stress free way of getting to probably the most beautiful city from Croatia. From this point on, we spend two nights in both Dubrovnik and Split, one night in Rastovača – nearby Pltivice lakes and one night in Zadar. When we said that at least two more days were ‘missing’ from our itinerary, we thought about one day to visit Hvar and one more for the beautiful island of Brač.

Travel itinerary in-depth

Day 1 – From Zadar to Dubvronik

There are almost 350 kilometers from Zadar to Dubrovnik, therefore, after grabbing a quick breakfast,  we headed straight to the most prominent tourist destination from Croatia. Although we visited quite a few walled cities, the city of Dubrovnik is just different – its history dates back to the 7th century and in 1979 was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. Being one of the world’s most magnificent walled cities, finding a parking spot in Dubrovnik is like finding water in dessert. Therefore, pick an accommodation with parking included, and, if possible, nearby the city center, so that you don’t get bored waiting for a taxi or tired because all the climbing up and down, involving a lot of stairs.

In our first day, in Dubrovnik, we decided that we just want to wander around the city, to go around every corner, without having any plan whatsoever. Despite the covid pandemic, it was such a pleasant experience, to see so many people were amazed by this beautiful city. Later, in the day, we hiked to the top of Mount Srd of Dubrovnik, to watch the sunset from the highest point in the area. If you don’t want to hike for thirty minutes, you can always take the cable car or a bus , but be aware that the cable car is quite expensive for a five minute ride. Well, come to think of it, everything is expensive in Dubrovnik, therefore be ready to spend ‘some’ money in this beautiful town.

Day 2 – Dubrovnik and Lokrum

Being a very walkable city, one of the main attractions of Dubrovnik is the City Walls – you can climb and walk a fortification system that was never breached in the Middle Age period. There are many entries for the City walls, that surround the old town and for a complete tour, you are going to walk around two kilometers. We started our tour at the main gate, the Pillar gate, where right at the beginning, you have beautiful views of the long promenade of the city and of the Lovrijenac fortress. Depending on how many photos you would like to take, you should plan between one hour and two hours – you can always have a break at on of the coffee shops located on the city walls. It goes without saying that you should start as early as possible, so that you avoid the ‘half a day’ tourists, brought by travel agencies. Last but not least bring sun protection and suitable footwear – you don’t want to not enjoy this experience. After the city walls, we visited the fortress Lovrijenac or often called Dubrovnik’s Gibraltar. It is a really impressive fort, famous for the defense of the city, against the attacks of the Venetians. If it is really crowded, you can always visit it later in the day, as there is not much to do inside the fort.

If you have more than half a day in Dubrovnik, please do not skip the Lokrum Island – it is a short ferry ride from Dubrovnik. We do recommend to take a local ferry company, that sails to Lokrum several times per hour, mainly because it is cheaper and, very important, in the passenger ticket, it is included both the admission to the island and the return ferry ticket.

Top reasons to visit Lokrum:

Day 3 – From Dubrovnik to Split

Unfortunately we had only two days for Dubrovnik, therefore we had to continue our trip, towards the beautiful city of Split. On our way back to Split, we made a small stop to Trsteno Arboretum , mainly because we enjoyed the GoT TV series. It is a nice botanical garden, with renaissance vibes, but honestly, if you did not see the GoT, most likely it won’t be anything special for you .

We don’t usually mention the places where we stay in our trips, but The Miraval Luxury Rooms is in our top five accommodations, of all time, for several reasons. Apart from the cleanliness and the location of the apartment, we were really impressed that the host, saved us a parking spot, on a Friday night and even paid for it. Now, finding a parking spot in Split is really, really difficult, therefore try as much as possible, to book something an accommodation with parking included. Another tip is to use the Split parking app or website – it is a nice digital solution for finding and paying for your parking spots in Split.

Split is the largest city from the region of Dalmatia and the second largest city from Croatia, therefore you have plenty of things to do in here. The main attraction of the city is the Diocletian’s Palace, an ancient palace build for the roman emperor Diocletian, in the fourth century AD. Its architecture is largely intact and you can easily ‘get lost’, while wandering around the old city town. Being a coastal city, Split has an amazing promenade – the Riva promenade. Located nearby the old town, Riva is a good place to grab a coffee, have a beautiful and romantic dinner with your significant one, or just to hit the clubs. From Split you have two islands worth visiting, that you can reach via the ferry – Hvar and Brač. Due to lack of time, we only visited the Brač island, but we definitely were a little bit sad that we could not visit Hvar as well.

Day 4 – Brač Island

Despite the fact that the Brač island is the largest and the most elevated island from the entire Dalmatia, to our surprise, it is not as much popular as the islands of Hvar or Korcula. However, we picked the Brač island for our one day trip, as we wanted to spend some time at the beach, but also to enjoy some spectacular views of the Adriatic sea – nevertheless to say that we enjoyed every minute on the island. You might ask yourself why didn’t we spend half a day in Hvar and the other day in Brač – The main reason for that, is that there is no connecting ferry between these two islands, that includes car transportation as well.

Getting to Brač island by ferry and with a car, can be somehow a frustrating experience, especially if you did not do your research beforehand. If you are traveling in high peak, do book a ticket in advance, from the Croatia ferries company, as there is a limited number of tickets with car included. When arriving at the ferry location do ask the locals or any employee what is the exact location for the Supetar ferry, the main entry point of the Brač island – also, when waiting for the ferry, try to park you car in the lowest available row number, as they are going to allow cars from the first row to go to the ferry, then from second row etc. You can do a lot of things while in Brač, but for one day, a safe bet would be to visit the Zlatni Rat or Golden Horn Beach, Vidova Gora – at 778meters is the highest peak on the Adriatic islands, and last but not least, this oil museum (see the embedded google map for the exact locations).

A friendly advice if you travel by car is to do your research about the parking lots, nearby the Zlatni Rat beach. Some of them can be even twice as expensive as others, even though the walking distance to the beach is almost the same. The Golden Horn Beach is probably the most beautiful beach from the entire Croatia, not only because of its unique shape of a white tongue stretched into the sea, but also for its overall environment – clear blue water, gentle breeze sounds, the mountains. It is a popular destination for windsurfing, parachute rides and there are a lot restaurants, coffee places where you can enjoy a quite afternoon.

Although we wanted to spend more beach time, after a couple of hours we headed to the Vidova Gora. The ascent to the peak, by car, can be a little bit tricky if it is crowded – there are some narrow portions where you might have to steer the car in reverse (of course that it is easier if you drive an automatic car). The view from the top is simply amazing – you can see the entire southern coast of the island, the village of Bol and last but not least, the Zlatni Rat beach.

Well, after enjoying best of both worlds, we had to do one more thing in Brač – visit an oil museum. Our choice for this visit was the amazing Olive Oil Museum Škrip, a museum that shows you the traditional process of olive oil production. Another important aspect is that the guided tour also includes a tasteful Mediterranean menu, from local products – a good choice before your two hour return travel by ferry, to Split. Not only that we advice you to buy the local olive oil, but also try and buy local food products(e.g. the figs).

Day 5 – Split, Trogir to Plitvice lakes

Before reaching the Plitivice lakes, we wanted to take a walk in the beautiful forest park, Marjan, located in the western part of Split. Although there are multiple entry points to the park, we recommend the entrance “Spinut Door” (Spinutska Vrata) ,in the street Šetalište Marina Tartagile, as it is good for both walking and cycling. Entrance to the park is free and if you have good stamina, after reaching the top of Marjan hill, you can admire a nice cross, build in 2013 and the beautiful and calm Kasjuni beach.

Although the distance between Split and the Plitvice lakes is around three hours by car, we could not skip from our itinerary, the historic center of Trogir, a UNESCO World Heritage site, with amazing Venetian architecture. Trogir is a tiny place, therefore two hours are more than enough to enjoy beautiful places like the the cathedral, the bell tower or the Kamerlengo Fortress. Last but not least, the central square of Trogir is a good place to have lunch or a drink, before your next destination.

Day 6 – Plitvice lakes, then back to Zadar

Before telling you how amazing are the Plitivice Lakes, there are two things you need to do, in order to enjoy your visit: book a ticket for the earliest hour available and choose an accommodation closer to the entrance of your booked ticket, with parking included (there is no free parking on site ). Now, there are two entries to the Park, with two ‘catchy’ names: Entrance 1 and Entrance2. It does matter which entrance  you are going to use, because the most rewarding one, with the most postcards views, is, without any questions, the Entrance 1. There are multiple trails, that can be combined accordingly to how much time you have for your visit. We followed the trail C from the Entrance 1, but instead of taking back the bus, we walked until the boat dock and took the boat again, to the other side of the lake – please take a look at the official lakes map, for a better mapping of the trail.

I don’t think that hiking shoes are mandatory for the visit, however it can be quite cold in the morning, due to the fact that the Plitvice Lakes are located in a mountain area, halfway between the capital of country Zagreb and our starting point city, Zadar. Plitvice, pronouned as Pleet-veet-sa, lakes is it not only the most visited national park in Croatia, but also the oldest one. It is an almost 300 sq.-km forest reserve, with a chain of 16 lakes, joined by waterfalls, that  became a Unesco World Heritage Site in the year of 1979.

Entrance 1 is going to take you from the lower lakes to the upper lakes and the first view you are going to see, as you make your way down the trail, is the big waterfall – Veliki Slap. As you walk along the wooden plank walkway towards the waterfall,  there is an intersection in order to take a detour from the trail, to get closer to the waterfall and grab some nice photos. The C trail won’t head back to this intersection again, so now is the time for you to take a decision.

There are a lot of signs with the trails directing you which route to follow, but after this interesection you just need to continue on the C trail and follow the path to the P3 sign – where you have to take a free electrical boat ride and get off to the P2 (the second stop) , so that you keep walking on the C trail. It is a twenty minute boat ride and from P2 you need to follow the ST3 signs and walk your way up, towards the Entrance 2. For us, this was the most beautiful part of the trail, as you are rewarded with clear green lakes and unbelievably photogenic places: we do think that the waterfalls from the upper lakes are nicer than the ones fro the lower lakes.

Once arrived at the Entrance 2, you can refill your energy with some snacks or sandwiches – if you did not bring food or water, this is the only place from where you can buy all of them. Because we felt that we did not see all the corners of the upper lakes, we did not take the bus back to Entrance 1, but headed back on a parallel route, towards the lower lake and P2 sign. From P2, we took the boat ride to the P1 (it is a five minute ride) and kept going towards the Entrance 1. Although you may be feeling tired after all this walking, keep pushing your limits, as you won’t be dissappointed by the views. When we arrived back at the Entrance 1, we are so happy that we could experience the natural beauty of Plitvice Lakes Park, but at the same time, we knew that is time to get back to Zadar, for our final day in Croatia.

Day 7 – Krka national park and Šibenik

If you are having seconds thoughts if you should visit or not Krka National Park, sorry to disappoint you, but you should probably skip it. Don’t get us wrong, it is definitely not a tourist trap, but compared to the Plitvice Park, it doesn’t justify at all the price. If in Plitvice you could spend an entire day to admire the beautiful nature, in Krka, probably two hours are more than enough. However, if you decide to visit it, do not make the mistake to go by foot, from the ticket office to the actual park entrance – do take the shuttle bus, because you won’t miss any mind blowing view.

After the not to fruitful visit to the Krka Park, we had to visit one more place, before taking of flight back to home – the historic city of Šibenik. If towns like Split or Dubrovnik were founded by other nations, Šibenik is the only coastal city, completely build by Croats. The main points of interests are the Sibenik Cathedral, St. John’s Fortress, the Old Town and last but not least the Koka pizza restaurant . The crispy and homemade dough, combined with amazing toppings, are the key ingredients of the best pizza we have ever had in Croatia and probably in all our trips around the world. Do not miss it!

“It is strange how little it takes to be happy, and even weirder how often we miss that little bit…” – Ivo Andric