Dalmatian Coast, Croatia

Dubrovnik’s Old Town and City Walls

Dalmatian Coast Part 1 - Split, Croatia

Luckily, Melissa's food poisoning had mostly passed after 24 hours, and we took a bus from Plitvice Lakes to Split, Croatia on the Dalmatian Coast the following day. The bus took us through the rest of the green forest to a dry mountainous area near Zadar. As we continued our descent into the city of Split, we got our first glimpse of the sea and the Croatian islands, and we knew we were going to love it here. We arrived into the main Split bus terminal, but the hostel we stayed at was actually about 15 km (~40 minute drive with traffic) south of Split in Jesenice, a small fishing village, which we got to via local bus service. Our hostel, Hostel Adria, was incredible, and definitely one of the best hostels we stayed at. It had quiet small town charm, private sea access, free breach chairs, paddleboards, and snorkel equipment. It also had a really relaxed and social vibe, and we ended up meeting a lot of wonderful people during our stay. We booked five nights here to relax, and it was the perfect place for it.

On our first day, we bussed into Split to explore the city. The day started out pretty rough when our bus ride into Split, which we expected to take about 40 minutes, took nearly 2 hours due to all of the traffic. We were already kind of grumpy after that, and then we found Split itself to be large, hot, and exceptionally crowded. The old town was roasting with heat due to the cobblestone, similar to what we experienced in Rome. The city was still beautiful, but there wasn't a lot in the old town that really wowed us. To be fair, we'd walked around a lot of old town centers at this point, and we were pretty oversaturated with them. A couple of positive experiences in Split were hiking up to Marjan Park and getting some shade and a nice aerial view of the city. We also found a Nikon camera store with a really friendly and helpful guy working there, and we purchased a sensor cleaning kit. We had a real runaround trying to get our sensors cleaned/find a kit in Zagreb, so we were grateful to have found this.

Altogether, we only spent about half a day in Split, and when we got back to our hostel that afternoon (luckily the bus back did not take 2 hours!) we both agreed that the hostel had everything we wanted, and we elected not to venture far away again during our stay. There was a nearby grocery store, but not very many restaurants in our small town, so we cooked, swam, paddle boarded, made new friends, read, and slept on repeat. It was so relaxing, and a perfect break from all of the moving around and sightseeing we had been doing for the last 5 weeks. We did venture out one more time to the closer "big" town of Omis, about 30 minutes south of the hostel. Melissa woke up early and hiked up to a fortress above Omis with some hostel friends and Carson (who slept in) met them later at the beach. Omis is also surrounded by mountains, and had a large sandy beach with shallow water for quite a ways out. It also had a cute old town and was very nice to walk around. We ended up liking it more that Split- it had similar charm, but far fewer crowds.

We originally thought we might do a boat tour to visit some of the islands off the coast while we were in Split, but we loved relaxing at our hostel so much that we didn't do it. We're sure it would have been fun, it just wasn't what we felt like we wanted at the time. We've heard amazing things about the islands, though, and would love to visit them some day!

All in all, our time in this part of Dalmatia was perfect, and if we come back, we would definitely stay in the smaller towns around Split or on the islands which we think are more our speed than Split itself.

Our hostel’s private beach at sunset located south of Split

Fun nights with new friends!

Cats will continue to be a theme

Old Town of Split

Hostel gang hanging out

The twisting roads in southern Croatia

Overlook of Split

Melissa did not want to get off the water

Best way to get exercise was to paddle

Omis fortress hike views

Shadows of the fortress in the morning light

Dalmatian Coast Part 2 - Dubrovnik, Croatia

After our time in Split, we actually went into Bosnia and Herzegovina before we came back to Croatia to visit Dubrovnik. We'll have another post about Bosnia and the misadventure we had getting from Split to Sarajevo, but for now we're skipping ahead to our time in Dubrovnik to close out our time on the Croatian coast. We stayed in a small apartment on the Lapad peninsula, which was about a 10 minute bus ride to the old town of Dubrovnik. Lapad was really nice; it felt much more residential, and was about a 15 minute walk to a beach with beautiful sunsets (appropriately named "Sunset Beach" on Google maps).

Our welcome to Dubrovnik was wonderful thanks to our apartment host, Ante, an older gentleman who grew up in a town nearby and who has lived in Dubrovnik for a long time. He welcomed us, sat us down in our private patio, and offered us welcome cookies and drinks. For Carson, he offered a strong local whiskey-like spirit, and for Melissa, he offered a homemade spirit that was made with local kiwi. It was pretty funny, because Melissa's drink was much smoother and easier to drink (and we both knew Carson would like that one better- see earlier mention of his preference for Aperol spritz), but we didn't want to offend any local customs, so we took what we were given! Ante was super friendly and talked us through things to see and do, and gave us the rundown of the local bus system. It was a very hospitable welcome.

On our first evening, we just walked around Lapad and watched sunset from the nearby beach. We also picked up some groceries to cook in our apartment because we had some serious sticker shock in Dubrovnik (especially after living very cheaply in Bosnia). The next day, we took a bus into old town and walked the city walls when they opened in the morning. It cost 35 euros to visit the walls (I told you we had sticker shock!), but we had to do it, and we'll (grudgingly) admit it was worth it. Dubrovnik really is as beautiful as it looks in photos, and seeing the orange roofed buildings surrounded by the high city walls and white mountains juxtaposed by the deep blue sea looks like something out of a story book (literally- it's easy to see why they chose this city as the location for King's Landing in Game of Thrones!). We spent a few hours walking along the walls and taking a ton of photos, and then we met up for a free city walking tour in the old town later in the morning. The tour was led by a younger guy who was a Dubrovnik native, and we learned some interesting things about the city's history, including its strong past role as a republic and trade stronghold, its rivalry with Venice, a devastating earthquake that rocked the city in 1667 (and the reason you don't see many balconies in the old town anymore- they weren't allowed to be built after the earthquake because their collapse caused so much damage and loss of life), its more recent history during the war of independence with Serbia and the bombing of the city, and of course Game of Thrones' impact on the city.

Our entry ticket to the city walls also got us access to a few other things, and we visited a pharmacy in the Franciscan Monastery which is one of the oldest pharmacies in Europe; it has been continuously operated since 1317. It's a modern pharmacy now, but there is a museum component of it showcasing some of the historic medicines and tools that were used by the monks. We also visited Fort Lovrijenac, just across the bay (Blackwater Bay, for you GOT fans), from the old city. This fortress was another filming location, and provided some of our favorite views of the walled city.

The next day, we wanted to get yet another unique view of the old town, so we woke up early to beat the heat and hike up Mount Srđ. The hike wasn't too bad, but it was steep and didn't offer much shade. Honestly, we probably had just as much elevation gain walking up endless stairs to get out of the city and reach the trailhead as we did on the actual trail. The views were awesome, and we thought it was worth it. Carson was able to spot a new bird, a Sardinian Warbler, so he was pumped about that for most of the day. If we come back without such a strict budget, though, we'd probably opt for the cable car next time :).

After the hike, we wanted to have a more relaxing afternoon and get some beach time in, so we took the quick ferry over to Lokrum Island, an uninhabited island just off the old town. We spent the afternoon walking around most of the small but lush, green island, visiting the monastery, watching the peacocks, and playing in the Adriatic Sea. The island is said to be cursed by the monks who were eventually forced to leave the island when it was put up for sale in the late 1700s, and all future owners of the island have met some sort of bad luck. We didn't feel any bad vibes on the island when we were there, but I wouldn't buy it....just in case.

We enjoyed our time in Dubrovnik, and felt like 2.5 days was perfect for us. It's arguably one of the most beautiful cities we visited; it just really looks like it was built for a movie set! It's hard not to be charmed by the old town, city walls, and Lokrum Island. We were less charmed by the prices of food and activities in Dubrovnik, but it was definitely still worth it!