BarbaraF

We are planning a summer vacation to Croatia, although regretfully the only time we have is late July to early August, so will have to contend with crowds. Thankfully I was able to use frequent flyer miles, thereby saving an outrageous $3000 for airfare, but had to deal with less than desirable flight scheduling.

I have reviewed some books and comments on this site, and ask if those of you familiar with Croatia would comment on the proposed itinerary and recommend hotels:

July 22 -- after very long layover in Munich airport (will try to see the city) arrive Zagreb 7:30pm

July 23 -- drive to Pitlovice Lakes

July 24 -- after second day touring Pitlovice Lakes, drive to Zadar

July 25 -- drive to Trogir and tour; stay in Split (or Trogir?) (will the drive from Zadar to Trogir leave us enough time to see Trogir in the daylight?)

July 26 -- Diocletian's Place; ferry to Hvar

July 27 - 29 Hvar

July 30 - Korcula, then ferry to Dubrovnik (or should we just do Korcula as a day trip from Dubrovnik?)

July 31 - August 3 Dubrovnik with day trip to Mljet

August 4 depart Dubrovnik

Hotels (we would be looking at the 4 star level if available, and if not, we would be looking for the more upscale places available):

Zagreb -- Palace Hotel?

Pitlivice -- is the Jezero air conditioned? Do we need air conditioning there in the summer? Or should we stay outside the park, perhaps at the Grabovac Motel? I can't find any comments about the Grabovac

Zadar -- a stop-over only between Pitlivice and Trogir -- either the President, Novi Park or Adriana?

Split -- the Park hotel?

Hvar -- Adriatic or Podstine? Will we run into minimum stay requirements in the summertime?

Korcula -- Hotel Korcula

Dubrovnik -- the Argentina hotel, hopefully sea view (is the traditional hotel recommended or are some of the villas just as desireable?

Thank you in advance, Barbara

Wayne

You obviously like the island experience, as do I. However, I do believe you might enjoy it more if you drop one of the islands. It seems to me you don't really get enough time to enjoy them all, and you don't have a lot of time for Dubrovnik either. So you might consider the following suggestions;
1. Don't tour the Plitvice lakes on the second day you are there. IMO, half a day is enough. Just head for Zadar.
2. Driving the coastal route from Zadar to Trogir will take at least two hours, maybe more. It's a beautiful drive, but very wiggly and time-consuming. If you leave Zadar early enough, you should have plenty of time to see Trogir, which isn't very big.
3. Korcula and Hvar are both very good choices for the island experience. It's a shame you don't have time to spend at least one night in Korcula also. You might consider only one night on each island.
4. And of course, Dubrovnik is easily worth a couple of nights minimum. I would eliminate Mljet from the plan and just do Dubrovnik.

Sorry, I haven't stayed in any of the hotels you named, so I can't offer an opinion. I also assume I don't need to comment on your general itinerary as far as your chosen destinations. There are some other spots that are not on the coast that are quite interesting, but clearly your time is limited. Good luck.

BarbaraF

Thank you for your thoughts Wayne. That is good information re time at Plitvice Lakes, as I couldn't tell whether we would want to do more than one day.

I was also thinking of trying to fit in Paklenica Park. Are you familiar with that area? Do you think we can/should try to fit that in when we are in Zadar? That would push our stop at Trogir off one more day.

You also answered one of the questions I had about Korcula -- whether we should stay overnight or just take it as a day trip from Dubrovnik. I guess we should plan to stay one night.

dcdee

My wife and I took a somewhat similar trip in late Sept.-early Oct. I posted a partial trip report which you can find by clicking on my screen name.

We stayed at the Regent Esplanade in Zagreb. It is a terrific hotel and we were very happy with our choice but am not familiar with the Palace so can't make any comparative comment.

In Plitvice, we stayed at the Jezero. Because we were there in late Sept. we did not need A/C but as I recall there was an individual A/C unit in the room. As to your itinerary, we only spent one night at Plitvice. If you leave Zagreb by 9 or 10, you'll reach Plitvice in early to mid-afternoon and will have enough time to get a look at most of the upper lakes before dinner.

We drove from Plitvice to Trogir, leaving after breakfast and arriving mid-afternoon. Trogir is small but it is very pretty and I would suggest that you overnight here, rather than Split. If your ferry to Hvar leaves in the afternoon, you will have time to visit Diocletian's Palace in the morning. Not a big thing but traffic is very slow between Trogir and Split.

Unless you especially want to see Zadar, skipping it will give you an extra night for Korcula or another of your later stops(or Zagreb).

From your post, I assume you are driving. We skipped Korcula because Jadrolina had gone on a reduced schedule when we were there so we did not have the option of a car ferry from Hvar to Korcula.

In Hvar, we stayed at the Podstine after looking at the Adriatic. Check my trip report for comments on each.

In Dubrovnik, we stayed at the Excelsior and Villa Adriatica. Again, you can click on my screen name for prior posts about those places.

Whatever you decide, I'm sure you'll love Croatia.

Wayne

To answer one question, I don't know about Paklenica Park. I've really never even heard of it, and I thought I was pretty familiar with the country. But I agree with the comments from dcdee relative to other changes in your itinerary. Good luck.

BarbaraF

Thank you so much dcdee. Are you from DC? We are also (MD). I believe that I did take some of the hotels from your post. We've done some refinement of the proposal since I last posted, as we go back and forth and back and forth over things.

The current thinking now is that we will not stay over night at Plitvice, but rather drive directly to Zadar, but I had no idea how to estimate driving times from Zagreb to Plitvice and then to Zadar. The stop in Zadar was essentially to break up the drive to Split, and so we thought stopping at the Paklenica to hike also seemed like a great thing to do.

If we leave Zagreb at 9am and stop on the way for lunch, will we have enough time to see some of the beauty of Plitvice, or are we giving it short shrift? and then, if we hit the road at dusk, is that a foolish thing to do, if we are driving to Zadar to stay for the night. Is it too long a drive or is it do-able?

Further revisions to this itinerary: After Zadar, 2 nights Trogir, thinking of 2 nights Brac, 3 nights Hvar, 1 night Korcula, 3 nights Dubrovnik. Are we trying to fit in too much and not leaving enough time for Dubrovnik proper? If we stick to the amended plan, we will not do any day trips from Dubrovnik. I see that many people recommend spending a long time in Dubrovnik but it also seems that they do day trips using Dubrovnik as a base, but we would not venture out of the city once we arrive, having done the islands before we get to Dubrovnik.

Any further thoughts? We generally favor towns over cities, love beaches, hiking and biking (easy trips, not strenous or treacherous climbing or very hilly riding), and favor local sights over museums.

Grasshopper

Sounds great to me. I loved the Villa Argentina. The only city is Zagreb so don't worry about Dubrovnik being too big. It's going to be your favorite on the trip, so I like that you saved it for last.

You might consider one of Atlas' excursions from Dubrovnik. I really really enjoyed the trip to Montenegro. The wine tour was fun too.

BarbaraF

Thanks Grasshopper, I used a lot of the information in your postings in making up the itinerary.

I also sent an email to Atlas based upon comments from this site, asking about Montenegro and Mljet excursions from Dubrovnik. I just sent it this morning, so will look forward to receiving their reply. But with all the island hopping we've got planned, we're down to three days in Dubrovnik. I don't know if we want to do a day trip from Dubrovnik with only 3 days left. Especially by that time in our trip, I'm sure I could spend 3 days just sitting at a cafe sipping (gulping) a drink and staring at the sights.

dcdee

BarbraF-- Yes, we are from Md (Eastern Shore).

Re Plitvive: You could probably go from Zagreb to Zadar and see Plitvice all in one day but I think you would be short changing yourself.

As I recall, we left Zagreb at about 10 am, had a leisurely lunch in Slunj and arrived at the Jezero Hotel about 2 pm. I hiked around some of the upper lakes for about 3 hours. By then the light was fading. You will have the advantage of longer hours of sunlight.

Nevertheless, I'm glad we spent the night there . When we left the next morning, about 9:30, we did not pick up the dual lane toll highway for about 90 minutes. Until then we were on a curvy single lane road, initially thru forest, that I would much prefer to drive in daylight.

I don't know how long it will take you to reach Zadar. Trogir is considerably farther and we arrived there about 3pm, again after a leisurely lunch and walk thru of the old town area of Sibenak. The new sections of tollroad are too new to appear on my maps, so I don't know how close it runs to Zadar. When we were there it was open to within about 35 miles of Sibenak.

Re Dubrovnik, we spent 5 nights there and took only one sidetrip--to the arboretum at Trsteno and on to the villages of Ston and Mali Ston. However, one of those days we did something we never do on a trip--sit, read and relax, on the terrace at Villa Adriatica overlooking the Old Town harbor. We had also been to Dubrovnik previously on a short visit on a cruise.

Everyone's taste is different but in MHO Dubrovnik deserves more time than Hvar.

Grasshopper

If you stay at the Argentina you'll have a hard time dragging yourself away from the hotel (pool, outdoor bar and restaurant, swimming in the sea)! It's so lovely.

Jonas

Barbara, I think it shouldn't be more than 2 hours Zagreb-Plitvice. You have to exit Zagreb-Split toll motorway at Karlovac (there are signs to Plitvice). After Karlovac it's just 2-lane road to Plitvice, but it is a good road. You can have lunch in Plitvice.
From Plitvice to Zadar again no more than 2 hours. After Plitvice you have about 50 miles of good 2-lane highway to reach toll 4-lanes motorway which then continues all the way to Zadar.
Zagreb - Plitvice - Zadar is doable in one day. If you leave Plitvice in dusk you shouldn't be worried about driving at night.
Toll 4-lanes motorway from Zadar to Split is partly finished at this time but it should be completed by the time you'll be there.

Carta_Pisana

regarding Zadar - you may want to consider staying at the Kolovare. It's the closest hotel to the hisoric center - most hotels are in the tourist zone which is some distance form the historic center. There are no hotels in the historic center.

http://www.hotel-kolovare-zadar.htnet.hr/

The Kolovare is a updated modern hotel, done in the 70's style - it's about a 10 minute walk to the historic center.

Try to have lunch or dinner at Kornat - located on the tip of the historic center, near the ferries - contemporary Croatian cuisine

I found In Your Pocket's Zadar guide really helpful:
http://www.inyourpocket.com/croatia/zadar/en/

BarbaraF

Thanks again to all. I think we will go back to the drawing board re Plitvice overnight. Perhaps with all the island hopping, we can take one night away from Hvar or Brac. Oh, the stress of crafting an itinerary!