Hello everyone! After a very long time, Fiona and I are back to write about our recent reunion vacation to Croatia in October, which we thoroughly enjoyed! As with our Morocco series, we plan to share our trip with you through a series of conversations covering the places we visited. To begin with, we thought of giving a general overview of our trip. We also want to take this opportunity to wish our readers a very happy and safe Diwali!
Juhi: So Fiona, why Croatia?
Fiona: Honestly, I just enjoy travelling anywhere, particularly a new place – and Croatia was one of the (many) European countries I hadn’t been to. Key for me as well, being an Australian living in London, was to try and go somewhere warm and sunny. For a while, we had discussed going to Jordan (more below) – it’s still on my list! But Croatia ultimately ended up making sense (at least for me!) practically. Also, although it wasn’t really intentional (and I wouldn’t call myself a mega-fan), Croatia had a Game of Thrones link – with various Croatian cities featuring in the TV series. Essaouira on our Morocco itinerary had a GoT link too, as does Belfast (which I visited on a solo long weekend trip only a few weeks before the Croatia trip and intend to write about at some point…). Finally, the Croatian coastline looked so beautiful from others’ pictures and videos, and I enjoy taking (too many) photos of pretty landscapes with water, as well as generally admiring such views. What about for you?
Juhi: I actually didn’t do much research or speak to people before we settled on Croatia – it had been on my list for very long because it used to look gorgeous in pictures (no Game of Thrones attraction for me, haha). I also recall finding Dubrovnik fascinatingly beautiful in a Shah Rukh Khan movie called ‘Fan’, which had released in 2016. October seemed like a perfect time to visit with pleasant weather and lesser tourist rush. It also helped that Croatia was one of the few countries in Europe that neither of us had visited. I am so happy our trip worked out – it’s one of my best ever holidays and I was also very happy to be back in Europe after 7 long years!
Fiona: Was there anything in the trip planning that was surprising or difficult?
Juhi: Well, my heart was set on Croatia even though I knew I had a HUGE challenge to overcome – namely, getting the Schengen visa! This was also why we had discussed having Jordan as a backup in case my visa didn’t work out. I am not going to get into the details of how I went about the Schengen visa as that can be a whole other post and to be fair, there is enough information on the internet – if one looks hard enough :p Just briefly, I applied to the Croatian embassy itself and it took around 30 calendar days for the visa to come through, which I got for only a month. The documentation required remains painful as ever! I only booked my Delhi-Croatia flights after I got my visa – which is honestly when I really got into trip planning mode because I was too weary until then and didn’t want to get invested in the holiday given what happened last year (TLDR: I couldn’t make it to an Italy trip with Fiona as I didn’t get my Schengen visa in time – I got it just 2 business days after I was supposed to leave!). So yes, nothing about the Schengen process was surprising as such but it is, of course, consuming and uncertain.
I think we were able to plan our broad itinerary fairly easily. We did some basic research to figure out how many nights we would want in each place. In order to do this though, since we were going to completely rely on public transport (buses), we had to factor the bus timetables, which was very sensible. I also remember us having to spend some time figuring out how we want to do the Plitvice National Park – namely, whether or not we spend a night there and if yes, do we get there the night before or stay the night after visiting the Park. For this, I actually found Trip Advisor reviews quite helpful. We will, of course, talk about our experience and give useful tips in our Plitvice post! What I will say is that it is absolutely viable to do Croatia using public transport (with a bit of planning) but just keep in mind that Croatia is a decently long country – so distances can be large. For eg, the fastest bus from Plitvice to Split took around 3.5 hours.
In case helpful for anyone – and also because who knows how long it will take us to complete the entire series – we ‘split’ our 10 days as follows: 1 night in Zagreb – which I am very glad we did!; 1 night in Plitvice; 4 nights in Split and 3 nights (4 for me, although that was just because my return flight to Delhi was early next morning) in Dubrovnik. We did day trips to a couple of islands/towns from both, Split and Dubrovnik. While planning, we had a broad sense of which islands/towns we may want to visit but we didn’t make any ferry or bus bookings for these trips in advance – we did everything on the go or one day prior. Having said this, I don’t know what the scene is like in the tourist-packed summer months (July and August).
Fiona: I second what you said about being glad to stay a night in Zagreb – I really liked the chilled, cool vibe of the city – and it definitely was cheaper than the other places where we went to. Although it felt like a constraint initially, it actually worked out well that we had to coordinate our itinerary in accordance with what flights and buses were available.
- We knew we would have to start in Zagreb (the capital), as the flights were more convenient for Juhi with her (much) longer journey from India.
- Also, although it was initially a little bit difficult to try and figure out (as you said), I appreciated the fact that the bus times meant we opted to stay a night at Plitvice. The chill evening that we had outside our b&b, sitting outside with a pretty mountain (or mini-mountain, I guess?) view with a bit of a sunset too, was nice. As we were pretty efficient walkers (although maybe it was just because we got there early when it was quiet), we ended up seeing the national park and lakes much quicker than expected. But I liked the fact that it gave us more time to go and enjoy a long lunch at one of the restaurants next to the park entrance, which was one of my favourite restaurants on the trip.
- There was also a nice sense of logic to our trip itinerary (working from north to south). Although we didn’t stay overnight on any of the islands (and therefore probably missed out on some of the places being a bit quieter and more chill in the evening, post-day trippers), it was also quite convenient. We could keep all of our luggage at our accommodation in Split and Dubrovnik, and it was nice to use those cities as a base for day trips. It also gave us a few evenings to explore Split and Dubrovnik, which was good for generally walking around the beautiful old parts of town and trying out restaurants.
Juhi: One thing I found a little surprising – which was also because of my lack of knowledge at the time – was the lack of budget friendly hotels to choose from in Split and Dubrovnik. If I remember correctly, we were mostly choosing from amongst Airbnbs, and these were more on the expensive side, especially in Dubrovnik.
Fiona: I agree – Split and Dubrovnik were more expensive on the accommodation side – so we stayed in an Airbnb in Dubrovnik, and although not booked via Airbnb in Split, it was an apartment rather than a hotel. Having said that, we prioritised being close to the old town in both places – for Split, we were under 5 minutes away; in Dubrovnik, we were living in the old town itself – so that definitely affected price. Everyone will have their own preference, but we got to see a lot of the historic centre and found it convenient to spend time there, particularly in the evenings – knowing that we would then be super close to get back to our accommodation.
Juhi: Overall, what did you think about the public transport?
Fiona: Overall, very efficient – in terms of both, the booking and getting on the bus, as well as the bus journeys themselves. The bus stops were pretty easy to find, the roads were nice and smooth (so easy to doze on the bus journeys, which I took advantage of) and the drivers generally were quite good at communicating with non-Croatian speaking tourists, such as ourselves, for directions etc.
Juhi: I echo what you said. I found the public transport and the roads very impressive. In fact, as I often told you on the trip, I would love to drive in Croatia! We used the intercity buses between Zagreb and Plitvice, Plitvice and Split, and Split and Dubrovnik. I found all three buses punctual, clean and comfortable. The Split-Dubrovnik bus (Promet was the company) had free wifi as well. One thing to flag is that this company charged a EUR 2 fees per luggage piece whereas the other two buses (operated by Flixbus) didn’t. Also, the Plitvice-Split and the Split-Dubrovnik buses made one quick stop for people to use the washroom / stretch their legs. One more bonus, at least on the Plitvice-Split bus, was the excellent choice of music (which was the radio, I think). I didn’t have any complaints either with the local buses, which we used for our day trips to Trogir from Split, to Bol from Supetar (on the Brac island) and to Cavtat from Dubrovnik. We can share any specific details/tips for these buses in our subsequent posts!
While we had booked tickets online for all three buses in advance, I think you can buy tickets on the spot as well (although this would, of course, be subject to availability). Usually, the buses leave from a big station / terminus in the city, where they have ticket desks where you can ask questions at in addition to buying tickets. Having said this, I would recommend buying tickets in advance to the extent you can, also because it takes care of a key component of the trip expenses. Also, reach the bus stop 15-20 mins in advance. Fi, since you very helpfully booked all the bus tickets, do you want to say a bit about the booking process?
Fiona: We were a bit confused at first about how to book buses, as it was a bit hard to parse out what were ‘legit’ links for bus tickets rather than scams or non-ideal platforms to book on. Post our Morocco trip (particularly Essaouira), we learnt our lesson about pre-booking bus tickets… A colleague of mine helpfully suggested that getbybus was a central source of information about bus timetables and tickets across different providers and routes. From there, you can then either book tickets on the website directly, or you can go to the provider’s website. I took an approach of either booking on the getbybus website (that was helpful on some routes, where we went with a Croatian bus provider, as their websites didn’t work as well for a non-Croatian speaker) or then going onto the bus provider’s website directly (which is what I did for Flixbus, where – because of the number of European routes they do – they have a robust website to navigate in English). With either approach, we found no issues with our tickets (we used either printed tickets or mobile QR codes to show the bus driver).
Fiona: How did you find the accommodation options we chose in Croatia?
Juhi: I think they were largely fine. They did the job and the location of all was great. All had some stairs to navigate to get to the apartment but that was manageable and I was lucky to get some unexpected help almost everywhere. My least favourite one was the Split apartment – I found it cramped. I overall liked the Zagreb one the most and found it cool that there was zero human interface there! What about you?
Fiona: Unlike Morocco, where I found the riads really pretty and an attraction in themselves, I was perhaps less impressed by the accommodation in Croatia. Also, as you mentioned (particularly Split and Dubrovnik), it was very pricey. Having said that, I agree with you that the apartments did do the job – even if the Split one felt cramped, particularly as it had no outside-facing windows (as another guest commented on too – seems like it was a property-wide approach)! Also agree that the Zagreb accommodation was the nicest – and the cheapest as well on our trip – it was recently renovated and was quite trendy and colourful in its decor.
Juhi: And did you find we had issues with language or communication?
Fiona: No issues on that front – I usually try to learn at least some local vocabulary for hello, thanks etc. before travelling somewhere, but I dropped the ball on Croatian… And I also struggled a bit more given the Slavic roots of the language too. It was all smooth despite my complete lack of Croatian knowledge, and the English language capacity in the tourist areas that we went to was high. I gather it’s not the case in all parts of Croatia (e.g. in Slavonia in the eastern part of Croatia, which isn’t as traditionally tourist-y) but as with many places in the world now, Google Translate does a reasonable job! One observation that I would make, particularly for museums / historic sites / galleries, is that written signage in English is less common. So that did mean more Wikipedia / online research during or post visits to try and learn more about the history and background. But, to be fair, there wasn’t necessarily written signage in Croatian or other languages too – and instead, it seemed more popular to have separate written or audio guidebooks for places instead.
Juhi: Yup, completely agree. I don’t recall facing issues as well, except for perhaps that one souvenir shop in Dubrovnik from where we wanted to buy coasters…
Fiona: Any last tips or thoughts for this intro post (perhaps on insect repellent…)?
Juhi: Hahaha, yes I would recommend carrying insect/mosquito repellant. I still remember the bites in Zagreb and Split…Apart from this, some other points coming to my mind are:
- Croatia is not particularly cheap. It is also not outlandishly expensive, except for (to a certain extent) Dubrovnik!
- Free WiFi is available in many of the public spaces – this is what I got by. Of course, if you or your travel companion(s) have mobile data, that is helpful – thank you Fiona!
- There are generally lots of stairs…everywhere…which I definitely want to highlight since this could be an impediment for some. This is especially true for Dubrovnik where the alleys in the old city have steep stairs, which are tough to avoid to get to your accommodation (so be prepared to sweat a little with a heavy suitcase). Also, most of the places we visited had beautiful forts with breath-taking views BUT you have to first make your way through relatively steep inclines and/or steep steps – completely worth it though each and every time to soak in the amazing Adriatic Sea.
- So, carry a good pair of walking shoes (in case that was not obvious).
- The Croatia episode in the Netflix show, ‘Somebody Feed Phil’ (season 6) offers a great snapshot of the country and offers solid recommendations, many of which we tried and will talk about in subsequent posts. (Thank you to my friend, Vikram, for reminding me about this episode, which I brushed up on while on the bus from Trogir to Split!).
- Tap water is drinkable everywhere in Croatia. At least, this is what we were told. However, not all restaurants give tap water so safer to carry your own (or just have any of the amazing Croatian wines to quench your thirst).
- I won’t say Croatia is not vegetarian friendly but I certainly do think that non-vegetarians or at least, pescatarians get a better bang for their buck. Also, the seafood is spectacular – fresh, delicious and diverse.
- Don’t forget to look at the appetisers section in restaurant menus – you will often find pastas / risottos as well as some other dishes that you would ordinarily associate with main course.
- Croatia is pretty big on gelato – which makes sense given the proximity to Italy and the Venetian influence in Croatia (particularly as parts of the Dalmatian coast were part of the Venetian empire). Also, I guess generally Italian food is a big thing worldwide anywhere foreigners and tourists might go…
- Restaurants did not charge any service charge. However, we could not figure out if tipping is a custom/expected. We didn’t tip…
- ‘Discover Croatia’ is a nice shop for souvenir shopping. We found the one in Split to have a better collection than the one in Dubrovnik – but unfortunately, we did not do any shopping until we got to Dubrovnik!
- Since Dubrovnik is expensive, it is probably better to do your souvenir and/or any other shopping elsewhere.
- Most vendors/restaurants accept card. Some places took either only cash or card but these were exceptions.
- At the risk of making a strange observation, the bathrooms in Croatia don’t have health faucets.
Fiona: My main reflection is your first point above – price! I wonder (but not sure how big a difference this made versus general inflation and tourism popularity) if the shift to Euro in 2023 in Croatia (from the previous local currency, kuna) made a difference. In addition to your tip above about good walking shoes, I’d also strongly recommend a good pair of water shoes. I really should have known this (given one of my favourite travel bloggers mentioned this about Croatia), but a lot of the beaches are pebble beaches rather than sand beaches – so pretty uncomfortable (and sometimes dangerous) to walk on bare feet. The prevalence of pebble (rather than sand) beaches would also be one of my key observations (and perhaps a slight complaint) about Croatia… I second the comment about insect repellent! And also, as ever in a sunny place, don’t forget the sunscreen (I forgot to re-apply on some days during / after swimming, and a few weeks on I still have the tan lines…).
Juhi: Oh yes, the pebbles were quite a challenge! I am interested to know your views on how the Dalmatian coast compares with the Amalfi coast.
Fiona: Well, one immediate difference is you were sorely missed! (this is the trip that Juhi couldn’t make last year). FYI (as I wasn’t sure about this until I checked for this post), the Dalmatian coast (Dalmatia) refers to the part of the Croatian coastline that begins with Rab in the north to the bay of Kotor in the south – the key cities on the Dalmatian coast are Split, Zadar, Sibenik and Dubrovnik.
Ultimately, both coasts are really beautiful in terms of the beaches and the views – I’m not sure I could distinguish them on that front. Personally, I preferred the food on the Amalfi coast (particularly the lemons and pizza) a bit more – but hard to compete on that front perhaps! And – although perhaps counterintuitive, and maybe driven by the fact that whilst I visited the Amalfi coast, I stayed technically not on the coast but in Sorrento instead, and had most of our big meals / drinks – it actually felt like a slightly cheaper trip…
The Dalmatian coast, I think, has the upper hand as against the Amalfi coast in terms of public transport – although Croatia’s train network isn’t particularly developed (compared to Italy and many other European countries), the Amalfi coast isn’t really connected by trains. And Croatian roads and driving were way more peaceful and pleasant – some of the bus rides on the Amalfi coast were amongst the most scary of my life. Also, although we didn’t really do this on our trip for practicality / preference / seasonal reasons, the Dalmatian coast has some incredible island-hopping opportunities. The Amalfi coast doesn’t have that on offer, even though there might be some islands nearby (e.g. Capri, Istria).
FORUM HOPPING 
One Comment Add yours