Zagreb Cathedral

Reader’s email: Experiences on visiting Croatia in December!

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A few months ago, we were very happy to receive a lovely follow-up email from a traveller to Croatia (who we assisted in their travel plans via email), which told of their happy experiences whilst enjoying a summer holiday in the country.

Very recently, we were happy to receive another such email from a traveller (that we also assisted, pre-trip, via email) from Latin America who visited a number of towns and cities in Croatia. His comments are well worth reading as he provides a number of very useful tips on the places he visited, whilst it’s also interesting to note his experiences as he visited Croatia in December – and as Croatia is often considered a summer-only destination, it’s great to see an enjoyable visit during this particular month.

Zagreb Cathedral, Croatia

Zagreb’s Cathedral

So, here’s what our happy traveller had to say:

I’m back from my trip to Croatia and it was great in every sense including the weather. We were able to visit Zagreb and stayed at the Dream Hotel  near the airport on our first and last nights. The hotel is quite new and the furniture is custom made for the limited area of the rooms. The service was more than expected with buffet breakfast (I expected toast and coffee!) including fruit, juices and with eggs made to one’s request. The personnel was very helpful and even prepared breakfast at 5 a.m. before driving us to the airport for free as advertised!
We later visited Vukovar where some of my wife’s relatives live. A new museum of a prehistoric culture is being built. It will be inaugurated in 2013, so there’s an additional tourist attraction besides the war-related things. We visited it and it’s located next to the Danube River with an unobtrusive design on the hill.
From Zagreb we flew to Dubrovnik. It’s definitely one of the most beautiful cities I’ve seen, and I have seen quite a few in Europe and America (the continent). We stayed at the Excelsior because of the location on the beach and within walking distance to the Old Town. I followed your advice and drove the airport bus to Pile Gate and then took a taxi saving some kunas. This was offset by the taxi #91 back to the airport gave us some extra turns as what was supposed to cost 30-35K ended up being 45K with little traffic… The hotel is a 5* and the buffet breakfast has an extensive variety as expected. We paid for a room with seaview which was worth it. As you indicated, we didn’t need a tour guide and just wondered around with a map. Since this is the low season, it was great not to have too many tourists around. The food we had at a Konoba to the right of St. Blaise Church was excellent even if the waitress was not too happy doing her job. Walking on the walls was one of the highlights as it gives a different perspective of the town. Even though we stayed only 1 day, we were able to wonder around all of the Old Town and took many pictures. 🙂
From Dubrovnik we flew to Split (via Zagreb). We stayed at the Palace Judita per your recommendation and were fascinated with the hotel and it’s service. It was worth the looong walk with luggage from the bus station. After Dubrovnik, Split doesn’t seem as impressive or beautiful, but was worth visiting. It would be better to visit Split first. Too many graffiti on the walls give a bad impression. It’s rather difficult to determine where the Palace starts and ends and the shops outside the walls are not a nice sight although they do offer bargains. A map was more than enough and no tour is needed even on a 1 day rush visit. At the hotel, Marija, the manager, recommended Konoba Varos, and we were delighted with the good service and seafood which was fresh, tasty and well accompanied with a local wine. This is a restaurant we will remember for a long time!
Back in Zagreb, we visited the old part of the city. It’s too bad that new buildings are built along old ones because the city has very nice neo classical and gothic architecture in some places. The area near the cathedral is well kept and the cathedral is worth visiting even considering we had seen some impressive ones in Spain, particularly Toledo’s.
Lastly, the Croatian language lessons on your web page were most helpful. Although my pronunciation was not too accurate, the words helped to communicate (although many people speak English). I enjoyed trying to use the different words and phrases and most people were helpful. [Note: See Croatian for Travellers]
Thanks so much for your help in making this trip such a nice one and without ugly surprises! We’d like to return to Croatia although it’s expensive to fly from Guatemala.

Thanks very much, dear traveller, for taking the time to email us after your trip and for your kind comments as well! We’re very happy to hear you enjoyed visiting Croatia, and thanks for providing us (and other travellers) with some great tips!

If you’d like any assistance in planning a visit to Croatia (this is a free service – and we don’t try and push any kind of company or service on you!), please do email us at webmaster@visit-croatia.co.uk. We’d be more than happy to help – and would love to hear your experiences of visiting Croatia!
Panorama of Pag, Pag Island, Croatia

Reader’s email: A follow-up to a visit to Croatia!

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We here at Visit Croatia field numerous emails every day about visiting Croatia – from places to visit, or suitable holiday destinations for particular travellers (families, older visitors, party-animals), to advice on travelling around (lots of questions about bus travel!), to reaching the country in the first place, to language queries…we’ve pretty much received and answered question about almost everything Croatia-related, over the years! (See the Travel Advice section on this blog for some more recent examples.)

Panorama of Pag city, the largest city on Pag island, Croatia

Pag Town on the island of Pag

Whilst we’re very happy to help everyone that emails in regarding planning their holiday to Croatia, very rarely do we get to hear the outcome of that holiday. Did they like it? What did they see? What did they like best? How much did they explore? It all honestly, it’s perfectly understandable – and I wouldn’t expect people to write to me telling me about everything they did!  I assume, however, that most people did enjoy their holiday, and hope that they have shared their experiences with friends and family and persuaded some of them to visit Croatia in the future.

This year, however, I’ve been conversing with a traveller who was looking for a quiet place on the Croatian coast for a twelve-day holiday for this month (August). He’d looked through the Visit Croatia site, and suggested that somewhere near Zadar, Sibenik or Split would be suitable for him. I gave him a few suggestions and after he did some additional research, he settled on the island of Pag – though fully intending to do some additional exploring in the nearby area.

The traveller also kindly promised that he’d let me know how it all went – and this week, I got a very lovely email! He wrote:

My holiday is over and I am back from Croatia. I am sorry for this because it was really very nice holiday. But this is the life, as we know, everything finishes.

I have really spent wonderful and great time in Croatia, on the otok Pag (and not only). We have visited many places. Of course we have explored all the island Pag – not only Pag, Novalja, Povljana, Metajna, but also almost all small villages like Vlasici, Kosljun, Simuni, Mandre, Lun and others. Besides this we have visited the towns of Zadar, Sibenik, Split and many small villages like Nin (very nice place), Sukosan, Filip i Jakov, Biograd na moru. Every place was wonderful. We have also made three excursions by boat – 1. around all the island Pag, 2. Kornati National park (we have seen many islands) and 3. islands Olib and Silba. Really excellent, splendid, magnificent and great places. Although we have seen only little part of Croatia I could say that it is very nice country.

Of course we ate Paski sir (delicious), roasted piggy and other specialities which we liked so much.

In two words it was very nice holiday and I am very sorry that the time passed so quickly.

I thank you very much once more because it was also your merit with your help and your advices.

Thank you very much for the follow-up email, dear traveller, and it’s wonderful to hear that you had such a nice time. We hope you have the opportunity to visit Croatia again!

Plitvice Lakes Photos - Greenery

Travel question: from Zadar to the Plitvice Lakes National Park by public transport

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We want to travel by bus or train from Zadar to Plitvice Lakes. We will arrive on in Zadar by plane – which bus should we have and where is the boarding point? Can we take the train? G.A.

Firstly, the easy answer, there is no train from Zadar to the Plitvice Lakes.

Zadar to Plitvice Lakes

Plitvice Lakes National Park

To travel from Zadar Airport to Plitvice, first you need to transfer from the airport to the main bus station in Zadar. You can see a timetable for this journey on the Zadar Airport website.

From Zadar bus station, here is the timetable for buses to Plitvice Lakes (taken from the Zadar Bus Terminal website. (All routes run daily, although may be subject to change – at least, that’s the disclaimer on the bus station website!)

Dep. 8.30 Arr. 10.25
Company: Prijevoz Knezevic
Line: Zadar – Udbina – Plitvice Lakes

Dep. 9.00 Arr. 11.00
Company: Autotransport Sibenik
Line: Split – Zagreb

Dep. 12.00 Arr. 14.15
Company: Croatia Bus
Line: Split – Zagreb

Dep. 14.30 Arr. 16.45
Company: Croatia Bus
Line: Vir – Zagreb

Dep. 15.10 Arr. 17.50
Company: AP Varazdin
Line: Split – Varazdin

Dep. 6pm Arr. 19.55
Company: Prijevoz Knezevic
Line: Zadar – Udbina – Plitvice Lakes

Dep. 23.00 Arr. 01.50
Company: Imotski – Panturist
Line: Imotski – Osijek

You can also look up timetables on the websites of some of the bus companies that are listed on our Travelling Around – By Bus page.

Travel advice: Holiday resorts in Croatia with beaches suitable for young children

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Hallo, I have an unusual request – please recommend beaches for a small baby (2 years).

I would like to  sandy beaches  or small pebbles beaches from gently sloping to the sea that is shallow. I would also like to have restaurants, bars, shops, swimming pools. Two years ago I was in Zaton Holiday Resort and I’m looking something like this in Istria, Kvarner or Dalmatia – north or central.

I am grateful for the help. A.G.

The first thing to say is that Croatia is not that well known for its sandy beaches. By far the majority of beaches are of the pebble variety. However, I understand that for some people (especially those with young children!), sandy beaches are important.

Of course, if you don’t mind pebble beaches than you will have a lot more choice – as I said, the vast majority of beaches in Croatia are pebble-y. I would say that many would also be gently sloping with quite a bit of shallow water – it would be quite rare to have anything that would be quite deep quite suddenly.

Based on the place you mentioned you stayed in before (Zaton Holiday Resort), you might want to take a look at CampingIN Park Umag in Istria, which is very suitable for families with its various facilities (including pool) and features both Mobile Homes and Premium Homes.

Alternatively, you could also consider Camping Park Soline (again, with mobile homes) that is in Biograd na moru, North Dalmatia. It is close to both a pebble and a sandy beach.

The Solaris Camping Beach Resort near Sibenik, also in North Dalmatia is again very family-friendly, although perhaps the pebble beach area is quite small – but the resort does say the beach area is child friendly.

If you’d prefer to be a bit further south – between Split and Makarska – then you could consider Kamp Galeb. This is located in Omis, which is about 25-30km south (along the coast) of Split. The Omis Riviera is one of the places in Croatia that does have sandy beaches.

Kamp Galeb itself is located alongside a sandy beach, and its mobile homes are situated directly on the beach.

In fact, the camp itself says that the beach is very suitable for families with small children.

Again, the camp has a range of facilities – a few shops (bakery, also supermarket close by), a restaurant, a playground for children and an aqua park.

All of the above resorts have been included on the Croatian Camping Union’s best camping resorts list.

Travel question: How to travel from Tisno to Split

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I need information about hiring a car in Tisno, one way, and dropping off in Split? My boyfriend and I need to get to Split one way or another and i’ve heard the bus is a nightmare and takes 5 hours? Is this true? Please let me know if you have any ideas as to how we can do this. Many thanks. K.D.

I’m afraid it would be very unlikely that you would be able to rent a car in Tisno and drop it off in Split – Tisno is too small a place to have proper car rental companies, and any local agencies that would possibly provide car hire would only provide it for you to explore the local area (and bring the car back to them!), in the same way you could hire a bike or scooter for a few hours.

The scheduled bus from Tisno to Split should take around the two hour mark, not five. I’m not necessarily sure why the bus would be considered a nightmare – possible reasons might be that, as it’s the height of summer, traffic may be slow along the coastal road with lots of other holidaymakers who’ve come down to Croatia by car clogging things up. However, if you were to rent a car, you wouldn’t be able to escape this!

Even if the roads were slow, I would say that your bus shouldn’t be that delayed…possibly by one extra hour (so, a three hour journey in total). Obviously, things depend on the day of the week (weekends would be busier), time of day etc.

Other reasons might be that the bus might be very full, so there’s not enough seats and you have to stand. In some cases, the bus might be even so full that they wouldn’t let you on, and you might have to wait for the next one.

However, saying all this, there are a number of buses per day on this route. You can look up timetables at the Split Bus Terminal website. Select Tisno R as the starting point (not Tisno M).

When you’re actually in Tisno, I would confirm locally to make sure you know where the bus stop is. You could also enquire about purchasing your tickets, say, a day or two in advance, but as it’s a small place you might not be able to.

If you get stuck (for whatever reason – I don’t think you will, but good to keep these things in mind) I would consider taking a taxi (or local bus, if you can find the information when there) to another local town and get a bus from there. For example, Pirovac is close to Tisno (6 miles/15 mins) and there are more buses from there to Split.

Another alternative would be to take a local bus from Tisno to Sibenik (about half an hour away), which is the nearest large town. Then from here, there shouldn’t be any issues getting a bus to Split. Not only are there even more buses from here to Split (about 36 a day), but some routes start in Sibenik, so you wouldn’t have any issues about not being able to get on a bus because it’s too full.

Travel question: Train from Zagreb to Dubrovnik?

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I want to know that if I come from Budapest to Zagreb by flight and want to catch a train to Dubrovnik the same day is it possible? My flight reaches at around 12 noon and there is a train at 2pm , how far is the airport from the station? Thanks. A.M.

I’m afraid that you’ve been wrongly informed – there are no trains from Zagreb to Dubrovnik as Dubrovnik has no train station. The closest to Dubrovnik that you could travel to is a town called Ploce, but this is still 2 hours north of Dubrovnik. If you did take a train here from Zagreb, you could change here for a bus to continue your journey; however, a train to here from Zagreb is still a long journey, 13 hours.

You could travel from Zagreb to Dubrovnik by bus. Firstly, take an airport bus (from outside the terminal building) to the main bus station in Zagreb. The journey time is approximately half an hour. Then, from here there are a number of buses per day to Dubrovnik (see timetables at www.akz.hr). Journey is long, however! (About 11-12 hours.)

If you need to reach Dubrovnik quickly, then flying is obviously the best method. There are several flights per day (in summer) with Croatia Airlines. Tickets aren’t always even that expensive, but it depends how far in advance you book.

Travel question: Caravanning in Croatia

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As we receive numerous travel questions about Croatia via email week in, week out, I thought I’d start a new series on this blog sharing some of these questions – and my replies, of course! Hopefully sharing travel queries and responses will help others who may be searching for similar information on a variety of subjects to do with travelling to Croatia. If anyone would like to add anything to my replies, please do use the comments section on this blog. Don’t forget – if you do have any travel queries about Croatia, I would be more than happy to answer them! Simply email me on webmaster@visit-croatia.co.uk.

Question
I should be grateful for information on caravan sites, road conditions and general cost of living. We are considering a three week trip along the coast or to places of special interest inland  which are  readily accessible with a touring caravan in tow. We are planning a visit in May 2011.
B.D., UK

Answer:
Thanks for getting in touch. As we’re a privately-run website, we don’t actually produce any printed material – in which case, I would suggest you get in touch with the Croatian National Tourist Office in London (info@croatia-london.co.uk) and I am sure they will be able to send you an information pack, in particular on caravanning/driving.

However, there are some websites that might also help. The Croatian Camping Union (www.camping.hr) has a useful website that lists all campsites in Croatia, ones that would be suitable for caravans as well as just ordinary sites. (Sorry – I know what a caravan actually is, but not 100% sure if they work on the same principle as motorhomes in terms of space needed, pitches and so on – so I hope this Camping Union website is still useful!)

Roads in Croatia are of good quality. There are some motorways in the country (e.g. Zagreb to Rijeka and on to parts of Istria; Zagreb to Sibenik/Zadar/Split) although other roads are also in good condition. As you’ll be travelling in May, you’ll avoid the peak of summer (July/August) when the roads can get quite crowded as tourists from neighbouring countries, as well as domestic tourists, stock up their cars and head to the coast! You may find the Croatian Motorways and Croatian Auto Club websites useful. Via Michelin is also a great website for route planning.

Croatia is cheaper than the UK in terms of eating out, going to cafes, bars and so on, but you will probably make the biggest savings if you stock up at local supermarkets or – better still – get some produce at local markets!