November 8, 2019. Trip Oversight
“When I was young I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in a sock.
So I stopped wearing socks.”
― Albert Einstein
Top 12 Trip Picks
• Pyramids of Giza
• Parthenon – Athens, Greece
• Meteora, Greece (Kalabaka)
• Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia
• West Cork, Ireland
• Banks of the Seine, Paris, France
• London along the Thames
• Luxor, Egypt
• Dublin, Ireland
• Peloponnese, Greece
• Dubrovnik/Trogir/Zadar, Croatia
• Cappadocia, Turkey
Lesson Learned: Coming to Croatia just to visit the Dalmatian Coast is like visiting the Louvre just to see the Mona Lisa, take a selfie and then leave; or trekking up to Yellowstone National Park just to watch Old Faithful spew before darting out the exit, or going to Las Vegas because you heard it has a nice airport. There is so much more to this country than this coast (though it really is a nice coastline). If you come on a cruise, you are missing the best of Croatia.
So, if all you are going to do it day trip into Dubrovnik and then hit the beaches why don’t you go ahead and book a cruise, walk the wall and then go have a drink by the pool on the boat. That way it’ll be a little less crowded for the rest of us. Its your loss, and you truly can’t tell everyone you’ve been to Croatia if this is all you explore. You’ve just seen its Medieval Disneyland.
Alert 1. In Dubrovnik, everything is expensive. We had 4 cups of coffee at a café and it cost over $35. You can find reasonable prices (if you look), but you won’t find cheap.
Alert 2. Don’t bring a car to Dubrovnik. Parking is incredibly expensive and hard to find. We found a parking lot about 300 meters from our apartment and thought that was a real coup, until we found it was 50 kuna an hour. That makes it about (no it makes it exactly $7.60 an hour) or 1,200 kuna a day, which is $182.43 a day for parking. That’s a helluva lot more than we paid for our hotel room.
If ye Canna See the Bright Side o’ Life, Polish the Dull Side
Seven months on the road and countless sites seen, cities lived in (temporarily), countries visited, and cultures experienced leave you with countless memories. The experiences fill you with fresh opinions, unexpected thrills, new friendships, and real-life exposure to images and places we’ve dreamed about our entire lives, and twice as many more that we never expected. It also leaves you with a yearning to see more. Ellen and I were on the road for 213 days, eight countries (not counting Iceland, or Bosnia-Herzegovina), we slept in 51 different beds, visited 22 UNESCO World Heritage sites, and explored who knows how many towns and cities.
But we’ve also got a list of the things we’ve seen, and places we really enjoyed. Friends continually ask what we enjoyed the most on our journey. That’s tough to decide, or rank from first to last. That’s like asking “What’s your favorite food.” or “Who is your favorite child?”, give me a break. Our trip experience was cumulative, and difficult to separate the experience into discrete events. Much of what we did or saw built upon the events of the previous day or week, and blended over our travels to paint our memories. Here are a few of our favorite memories from our travels in 2019. You may have heard of these places before, but here’s a list of experiences we’d do again. Today I’ll review, the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia.
Exploring the Croatian Coast
Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of the Adriatic Sea, stretching from the island of Rab in the north to the Bay of Kotor in the south. It’s a shoreline of beautiful beaches, castles on every hillside, beautiful villages, amazing vistas, and some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet. The hinterland (Dalmatian Zagora) ranges in width from fifty kilometres in the north, to just a few kilometres in the south; it is mostly covered by the rugged Dinaric Mountains. Seventy-nine islands and a whole lot of islets dot the coastal waterways parallel to the shore. The largest city is Split (which is crowded, with horrible traffic, and a bit pricey), followed by Zadar, Dubrovnik, and Šibenik. This blog won’t identify spectacular, secret beaches on the coast, though there are a lot of them, including quite a few nude beaches. You see, we just aren’t beach people. Personally, I can sunburn under florescent lights, so you’ll have to look further for a beach review.
Of Croatia’s 3,600 miles of coastline, the most famous and the most crowded section is its southernmost region. In recent years, Croatia has emerged as one of Europe’s hottest new destinations (especially to Germans and Russians), and Dubrovnik and the Dalmatian Coast have become two of the country’s most visited locals. If you don’t believe me, just follow the cruise ships. Dubrovnik’s marble streets and historic 16th-century battlements that guests can still walk, are a picturesque example of why Hollywood movies and HBO fantasy series directors choose this city for location shoots. Every Game of Throne follower knows Dubrovnik as the fabled King’s Landing.
Dubrovnik, Walk the Walls
Dubrovnik is way on the south end of the country on the Adriatic Sea. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Mediterranean Sea. It has about 42,000 full-time residents which I think all work in the cafés and curio shops in Dubrovnik old town. In 1979, the old city of Dubrovnik joined the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites.
Dubrovnik has got to be one of the world’s finest, and most perfectly preserved medieval cities in the world. For centuries, Dubrovnik rivaled Venice as a trading port, with its huge sturdy stone walls, built between the 11th and 17th centuries affording protection to this city. In spite of the fortress walls, it still took a lot of political maneuvering to keep Dubrovnik independent of the big boy countries on the Mediterranean block.
Today, those walls still enclose Dubrovnik’s historic center and it is possible to walk along them to enjoy the best views of the ‘Pearl of the Adriatic’ and the surrounding islands. Greece and Croatia have an embarrassing wealth of beautiful islands. Dubrovnik’s ornate Baroque churches, monasteries, palaces, and Renaissance fountains are all clustered on the lower end of the city gilded with gleaming wide marble-paved squares, limestone streets and tiny row houses which have remained unchanged for centuries.
Dubrovnik worked hard to earn UNESCO World Heritage listing, especially after the earthquake of 1667, World War II, Soviet occupation, and the civil war of the early 1990s. We stayed just inside the city walls. It was a basically (nothing fancy) appointed apartment, close to a city gate, but the stairway was a steep, long walk down to the Stradun, with no hand-rails on the stairs which made it difficult to get in and out. But, you can’t pass up the feeling of staying within the walls.
The NUMBER ONE thing you MUST do in Dubrovnik is walk the walls. This is a phenomenal experience! Get up early and get on the walls. They open the gates at 8 AM. Be the first in line. It will cost you 100 kuna for the walls, but that will be the best money you spend in Dubrovnik. Just pay for the wall walk. I think that was 100 kuna, but the Dubrovnik pass costs 250 kuna, but I’m not sure there’s anything else (but the fortress) worth the price. Warning. Even if you buy a 3-day pass, you only get one trip up to the wall.
Next, go to Tower Lovrijenac also known as St. Lawrence Fortress (50 kuna). It is located on a large cliff just outside the western edge of Dubrovnik’s city walls. We had a great time here, and it really is magnificent. We found the crowds from the cruise ships to be oppressive, prices excessive, and once you walk the walls and tour the old town there really isn’t much to do unless you want to go to the beach, hop a boat for an island, or rent a kayak. You need to do it, but I’m not sure how long you might want to stay.
Everyone should see this city. It really is stunning, but a little also goes a long way. It’s not large, one day (perhaps two) will be plenty to see this city.
Trogir, Don’t Overlook This Place
Trogir is a city, port and a well-known Dalmatian resort that nobody outside of Croatia or Germany has ever heard of. It’s 25 km north of Split and well worth the drive. It sits on a small islet in the narrow sea passage between the mainland and the island of Čiovo. It’s an absolutely charming little town with the flavor of a Venetian settlement without the crowds you find in Zadar and Split. It’s very small (I mean smaller than an Ikea store), and easy to walk and see in a single afternoon. The islet itself is just 500 m long and 250 m wide. In the summer, its packed, but in May during the week days its pleasant and low key. Trogir has around 13,000 permanent residents, but the town swells to well over double that during the peak season (if you count the population of Čiovo).
Trogir’s old city center has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s also an impressive marina that attracts pleasure boaters from all over Europe. The Trogir archipelago includes a lot of islands and islets which simply take your breath away. Get here quick though if you want to build your retirement home, because judging by the number of construction cranes sprouting all over the hillsides, and countless cement trucks rumbling over the bridge to Čiovo this place will be completely developed in a few years and it will become Split II. The town is close to the Split airport and you really don’t need a car if this is your final destination. But, its easy access means a car could be your gateway to the rest of the Dalmatian coast with Trogir as your home base. Trogir is sometimes called a city-museum because of its rich cultural heritage and the amount of intact authentic architecture lets you experience remnants of ancient times without needing to go indoors.
A Day at the Salona
The remarkable and surprising to find Roman ruins of Salona are just outside Solin, a sleepy suburb just 5km northeast of Split where Ellen and I found an amazing Air BNB (in Solin) for nine days with Ivan & his lovely wife Ivana (https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/17587824?guests=1&adults=1&source_impression_id=p3_1556811606_wdxP3Lh%2BOpqq9bf7).
There was a small archaeological park down the street from us (with no entrance fee). The ruins at Salona are amazingly un-encroached upon by the growing little town, extensive, and easy to visit. The extensive ruin testifies to the importance this colony held under Roman rule, but also to how unknown they are to the general public. You’ll surely find them empty as all the casual tourists and tours are down in the mad-house that is the old city of Split.
It takes no more than a couple of hours to visit the main sights. There are info panels in English, German, Croatian and French along the well-marked paths (they would be even better marked if the fields had been mowed). From the entrance it’s about a 15-minute unshaded walk to the Amphitheatre at the park’s farthest reaches but you’ll find it’s a very pleasant walk past olive groves, orchards, vineyards, bee hives and flowering shrubs. There are plenty of places that make the perfect picnic spot. You may have to back track a bit because some of the paths have sights and info columns in both directions. The area is so small we didn’t find this to be a problem at all.
Salona was an ancient city and the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia. It was founded in the 7th century BCE as an Illyrian settlement near the spring of river Jadro. After the conquest by the Romans, Salona became the capital. You probably won’t find another Roman ruin to explore for free, and at your leisure anywhere else in Croatia. It was fortunate for us that it was only a 3-minute walk down the street from our apartment.
When to go: The region enjoys a mild Mediterranean climate so you can make your Dalmatian Coast travel plans for any time of the year. Tourist season in Croatia begins around Easter and peaks in the summer, when warm, dry, sunny weather prevails. We found the shoulder season around Easter to be the perfect time to visit. Our biggest problem was the weather was mild but many tourist areas were slow with limits on eateries open during the week (everything shuts down on Sundays in this country). Even then, the popular spots were packed (Dubrovnik, Split, Plitvice Lakes National Park), but other locations such as Zadar, Trogir and most of the islands were accessible with accommodations easy to snag.
How long should you stay: At a minimum, one day per town you visit, though you could easily spend a week or two without getting bored.
Where to stay: Trogir would be my first recommendation. This ancient town is in the center of the Dalmatian coast that offers day trip opportunities to the north and south, lots of cafés, wonderful beach rentals, and it’s so easy to get around the old city, mainly because it is so small. They pack a lot within a small footprint. Zadar is a charming city with lots to offer the visitor, and finally you need to spend at least one night inside the walls of Dubrovnik (two nights max).
What to see:
• Trogir
• The Cathedral of St. Lawrence – Trogir
• The City Cathedral Portal – Trogir
• Fortress Kamerlengo – Trogir
• The Kastilac Fortress (Nun’s Fort) – Trogir
• Krka National Park
• Fortress Starigrad
• Omis
• Fortress Mirabela
• Zadar
• Split/Solin
• Diocletian’s Palace – Split
• The city walls of Dubrovnik
• The War Photo Limited gallery- Dubrovnik
• The Dubrovnik cable car (was closed)
• The Franciscan Monastery and Museum- Dubrovnik
• The Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin- Dubrovnik
• Rector’s Palace- Dubrovnik
• St. Lawrence Fortress – Dubrovnik
• Sponza Palace – Dubrovnik
• Pile Gate – Dubrovnik
• Fortress Klis – Solin
• Biskupska krstionica (Roman ruins of Salana)
Next Up: Cappadocia, Turkey