Croatia July 2016
Both our Croatia visits, to the towns of Split and Dubrovnik, were made on a cruise. First impression was glorious warm sunshine (and a flying boat manouvering into a position outside the harbour ready to take off). Our initial impression was of a nation mostly based on the summer season of tourists but that`s not a criticism - they do it well. The boat moored quite close in to Split and it was a short amble into the centre, past an electric scooter rental base and a series of very colourful market stalls and eating establishments along the waterfront. Arriving at the walls of the old town you could see a big ancient tower in the middle and made a beeline for it but not before we had found a delightful outdoor cafe for mid morning refreshment (and made friends with a local tabby cat). The medieval tower turned out to be right in the centre and formed one side of a delightful central square of old buildings, some of which operated as cafes or restaurants. There was a nominal charge to climb the tower and looking at the height of it Gill decided to opt out and people watch sitting in the sun whilst I undertook the climb up the narrowing tower. It was challenging with foot traffic going in both directions but well worth the energy invested. The views across the town and across the harbour to our boat were amazing. Many photographs were taken - some of which feature below in the picture gallery. Then it was back down to the central square where we found a great cool restaurant/bar in an ancient build. There were ceiling frescoes but I don`t think they were particularly old! More importantly they had free Wi-Fi which is an essential part of life these days if you want to share even a tiny bit of your experiences.
And then back to the boat via all the nice little stalls and alleyways selling colourful `tourist junk` and onwatds down the Croatian coast to our second destination in the pleasant country - Dubrovnik - the capital. Here the boat mooring was out of town so we had to rely on a shuttle bus into the town. Well when I say `into` we were actually dropped just outside the old town with it`s huge castle ramparts. You would almost certainly recognise a lot of old Dubrovnik if you are a fan of George Martin`s Game of Thrones TV series as the castle was used for many of the outside scenes. It`s both amazing and huge. However our firt priority was the tourist tat shop outside the ramparts, followed by an excellent seafood lunch in a terraced restaurant just outside the main gateway. Suitably refreshed we headed in through the huge walls and found a beautifully preserved town within the castle walls. Plenty more promising looking eating places and a wonderful ice cream shop - check out my pictures below. Why can`t the UK have Ice creams that look like thes (and yes they did taste fabulous as well). All we seem to have is factory manufactured and `standardised` boring ice cream by comparison.
One thing that struck us quickly was the presence of nesting/roosting dovecotes for the multitude of swifts that were flying overhead with their characteristic screaming cries. Looking at them and how high they were told us that they had been there a long time. We wandered around the old town which was very picturesque and even though there were quite a few (other) tourists it wasn`t particularly crowded as the whole area inside the massive walls is pedestrianised and spaced out. The only time we really encountered a crowd was after going into the ice cream parlour because everyone saw us and our purchases and decided that ours was a good idea. After spending a good part of the aftrnoon wandering around and admiring the buildings we passed out through the main gateway and found a small alleyway that lead down to a delightful small cove with both boats and canoes available for rental and with a further part of the castle defences on the clifftop overlooking it. A perfect wind protected sun trap. Then back on the shuttle bus to the port area where we spotted a large row of bee hives and a stall selling lavender products. All in all we can highly recommend Croatia and we gather from other family members there are some good holiday hotels further south along the very long Adriatic coast.
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Browse through the picture galleries below relating to this page and you will get a much better idea than just reading my words! Each page has it`s own set of relevant images - where possible taken by us.