We are planning a 2 week summer vacation to Croatia. We will stay 2 nights in Korcula and 2 nights either in Trogir or Split. I cannot get an email or fax through to the Hotel Korcula, and don't know what is the problem, but thought I would try to get other recommendations for nice hotels in KOrcula. Also, we have a reservation at the Vila Sikaa hotel in Trogir, but were told that we should stay in Split rather than Trogir. Any comments on that? The Park Hotel in Split is booked for our time period, so if we stay in Split, can you recommend another nice hotel? We are generally looking at 4 star hotels, to the extent they are available.

I can't help you with Korcula but I can with your other question.

In May of last year we had planned on staying in Split for a couple of day. After we had stayed in some great small towns on our way down to Split we decided to stay in Trogir. We were so glad we made that decision! You can easily take a day trip into Split to see Diocletian's Palace and the market. Trogir is a wonderful little island with just enough to do and see.

We didn't stay at the Vila Sikaa because it was full when we arrived. We did, however, take a look at a couple of rooms. it looks very nice and the people were very friendly. They referred us to a wonderful place right up the street, Apartment Bakica. It was a wonderful place to stay!

I fell in love with Croatia and I am sure you will too!

Enjoy!


Tamara

Personally, I wouldn't bother with a hotel in Korcula-there are so many nice sobes right in the center of town. My experience with hotels vs. sobe in Croatia is that the hotels aren't worth the money-you can get a nice apartment cheaper. Check out www.visit-croatia.co/uk for accommodations info.

Hi Barbara
Totally agree with Eurotraveller and Steff.We stayed in Trogir and did a day trip to Split. Just loved Trogir (fascinating little medieval town)and were so pleased that we hadn't stayed in Split.
We had an apartment in Korcula and again were very happy with our choice. We stayed at Pecotic apartments....comfortable but not luxurious. Lovely setting within close walking distance to Korcula town. There are lots of options.Look at this website.
http://www.korculainfo.com/
We really enjoyed Korcula. Did a wonderful walk one day along the coast and then inland to a divine little village.Nice to get away from the heavily touristed areas now and again.
Croatia was absolutely wonderful. We cant wait to return.
Have a great trip.

Thank you for your replies. Since I posted this question, our itinerary has undergone multiple changes for a variety of reason, but hopefully it is now in final form. Rather than stay in Korcula, we will use Hvar as a base to travel to other islands for day trips:
Fly into Zagreb (Palace Hotel), next morning drive to Plitvice; overnight at Plitvice, drive to Trogir (Vila Sikaa); 2 nights Trogir; ferry to Hvar; 5 nights Hvar (Hotel Podstine) from which we will visit Brac, Bol, and/or Korcula; 4 nights Dubrovnik (Hotel Argentina), from which we will visit Mjlet.

Now, we are renting a car in Zagreb and dropping it off in Dubrovnik. I didn't ever consider until I read a very recent post that we may not want to have the car in Hvar. Why not? We would either use the car to drive around Hvar's beaches, or we will leave it at the hotel. Won't that work?

Your itinerary looks good!

5 nights on Hvar is quite a bit but since you will use it as a base to explore other islands it makes sense.

I think I may have posted somewhere that I would leave the car in Split rather than take it to Hvar. I still don't see why you would want to take it to Hvar, especially since you are exploring other islands. Unless, of course, you are going to take the car to the other islands? Hmmm... Hvar is a nice island to drive around but you could see many places in one day by renting a car and cruising around the island. The cost was about $60 USD for the day.

I highly recommend a restaurant called Top Balloon on Trogir (I am 99% sure it was on Trogir, at least). One of the best meals on our trip!

A great casual restaurant in Dubrovnik is Cafe Komenica. Great seafood platters! Yummy!

Have a fabulous trip!

Thank you Eurotraveller. 5 nights on Hvar seems like a lot. At first we were going to do 3 Hvar, 2 Korcula. When we had difficulty securing the accommodations in Korcula that we wanted, we thought we would stay on Brac instead for 2 nights. Then I didn't receive any response from Brac! Wanting to secure the hotels since we are travelling at very high season, and because the people at the Podstine were so nice and helpful to us with suggestions, we decided to stay with them for 5 nights and visit the islands from there instead. Now not sure what to do with the car. I think we will want it in Dubrovnik so we can drive around to various places there -- is that reasonable or not? I wonder if it makes sense to return the car before Hvar and then rent again after Hvar?

I am writing from Spain (and I am Basque Spanish)and my likings may not match yours, but let me tell you what we did two years ago on our 15 day visit to Croatia:

We arrived at Zagreb by plane, stayed there two days (more than enough), rented a car (Europcar was the cheapest option and we were even upgraded to a bigger vehicle) and drove down the road on our way to Dubrovnik, final destination. Important: hotels are (utterly)expensive and a four star hotel has nothing to to with our standard idea of this category.

We stayed mostly at rooms and hotels offered by www.adriatica.net, an excellent way to get accommodation in Croatia, very safe and effective. We also used other internet sites for accomodation (for instance, www.hotelscroatia.com, or www.hrvaska.net).

Plitvice: stayed at a nice and clean room, went out for dinner and visited the (awesome) lakes. Huge traffic jams in August, though. Then visited Zadar, you can´t miss it, what a WONDERFUL and interesting town, can´t remember the name of the hotel, though. Down to Split, stayed at Hotel Kolovare (don´t recommend it), loved the city, the strolls, Diocletian palace, the people,...Next visit, Sibenik, a must see, for a couple of hours. Trogir, BEAUTIFUL, small, convenient, but I think I would stay in Split and visit Trogir. Did not visit any of the islands, though. Then we stayed 4 nights at a very small town called Igrane, near Makarska (very touristic), at the house of a very nice family (no ac, though, but we enjoyed a lot our stay). BEACHES: no sand in most of them, very rocky and narrow. Finally, down to Dubrovnik, our hotel was almost on top of the mountain, so we stayed at a widow´s house, rented a room for 30 euros including breakfast, close to the beach and a 5´drive to downtown Dubrovnik. Very nice people and very satisfying experience.

Returned the car at Dubrovnik and took the bus to the airport, plane to Zagreb and then Spain.

Wonderful holidays (despite all the frequent minor problems we encountered due to the special situation of the country, rapidly recovering from the war).

Hi Barbara
Can really appreciate your dilemma.
We stayed in an apartment on Hvar.....few minutes walk to the town centre. We walked to the Podstine area one day along a delightful path next to the sea...stopping for swims as we went. I'm not sure if the Hotel Podstine offers transport into the town centre and back. If not, I would want to have a car. It's a fair distance to walk and if you're going to be backwards and forwards on daytrips then presumably you're going to need to get to and from the ferry.Also, if you're like us, then you'll want to try different restaurants each night. Most are in the town.
Am not sure when you are going but September was still hot...didn't wear a sweater once. Not even at night. We LOVED Hvar. Went to a wonderful concert in the Franciscan monastery one evening.
Also recommend that if it's swimming weather you take a little water taxi over to the Pakleni islands....lovely.
Can recommend a super restaurant called FARIA. I cant remember the name of the street but if you stand in the town square facing the cathedral, it's the little side street just to the left of the cathedral. Will post the address if I came across it.
As for Trogir, we also visited Top Balloon, like Eurotraveller. In fact, probably because of a recommendation on this forum and it was excellent.
You mention a daytrip to Mljet.
We are very independent travellers and very seldom go on organised tours but decided to do a daytrip from Dubrovnik to Mljet because there seemed to be no way of getting there ourselves without overnighting. Maybe we were unlucky but it was expensive and we felt we wasted many hours lining up and waiting endlessly. The fact that there were 70 people in the English speaking group didnt help matters.
Nothing much to see on Mljet but it is very beautiful so if you do go be sure to take bathing gear and we were pleased we'd packed a picnic lunch.
Quite honestly, we enjoyed the islands closer to Dubrovnik just as much.
Hope some of this helps.