We ate at Fat Cats last evening and thought it very good. I was so tired of fish after over a month of eating it, the non fish choices on their menu was quite welcome. Excellent wine too. Thanks for the red.
How’s your weather? Hope it’s improved. Forecast have been wrong and we’ve had 3 beautiful days, fingers crossed it keeps up.

Four Nights in Split

After a wonderful morning exploring the lower lakes and falls at Plitvice we departed for our next destination, Split. Not to be repetitive in our comments, but Plitvice was mindbogglingly crowded when we left a little after 11:00.

Based on recommendations from other travelers, we planned to stop off in Zadar, a mere 90 minutes drive from Plitvice. It was raining as we approached the city, but thankfully stopped once we had arrived. Right outside Zadar we passed pig roast, our first since Slovenia. GT did a series of turnarounds to go back and have lunch. My heart aches to report that we absolutely couldn’t find parking anywhere, legal or illegal, within distances of not one, but two, establishments roasting pigs. Sadly we abandoned our planned lunch and drove on to the historic center. Parking, for once, proved to be no problem; we easily parked right outside the old town walls.

Old town Zadar was instantly likeable. The old town was a mash up of Roman and Venetian architecture encased in the old walls. The streets were wonderfully uncrowded. There was a real serenity about the town. We had a very nice seaside lunch at Restaurant Bruschetta, which we recommend. We did our usual wandering and after a an hour or two hit the road for Split with an intended stop at Sibenik. However it was turning into a long day for us slow travelers and it had begun raining again, so we decided to skip Sibenik.

The drive to Split was uneventful except for heavy downpours. We easily found our lodging at Sleep Split on the the edge of the largely pedestrian historic district. GT illegally stationed the car as close as he could get, half on the sidewalk and half in the street while I ran to check-in getting drenched in the intervening fifty feet. The check-in took an inordinate amount of time due to some confusion with our reservation on the part of an already confused young woman. Meanwhile, outside in the rain, GT was enduring the complaints and abuse of various passers-by who were taking umbrage at his unorthodox parking.

Eventually, I git the keys to a nice studio apartment with good views in the direction of Diocletian's Palace and the harbor in the distance. We dragged our luggage through the pouring rain, deposited in the apartment and went in search of the Nova Car Rental office down at the port. Once again, there was no parking and, in what was becoming something of a recurring theme, GT pulled the car up on the sidewalk, coming close to some diners in a café. Thankfully, the rain had finally stopped. I ran over to the rental office - which was locked with a note and phone number taped to the door. I did my best not to have a meltdown right there on the sidewalk - it had been a long day that had come to a frustrating denouement. I finally managed to get a call through to the rental guy who came running over, laughing at how GT had “parked” the car. After his quick inspection of the car, we were on our way. Thus ended our driving trip and began our carless four nights in Split.

We spent that evening and the next 3 days wandering around Split. We quickly learned to avoid the crowds by visiting top sites only in early morning or late afternoon. Our understanding was that Game of Thrones, some of which has been filmed in Split, vastly increased the number of tourists coming to Split. Most were concentrated in and around Diocletian’s Palace, which is not large. There didn’t seem to be much interest in other parts of town. They often seemed deserted.

We were within five minutes of the Palace and repeatedly explored it. The former palace of the Third Century Roman Emperor has become an active community of shops, apartments, restaurants, cafes and churches. Even so, the outline of the former palace is still discernible. We visited the synagogue and Saint Martins Chapel, the latter of which we especially liked. We passed on entering the Cathedral because we generally avoid religious institutions that charge admission.

Split is a treasure trove of art nouveau buildings scattered throughout the city. One particularly elegant building and its grounds is now the restaurant Perivoj. It’s a short stroll from the historic district and we had a nice lunch there. Another day we strolled along the waterfront and through some neighborhoods to visit The Galerija Ivan Meštrović. We loved this world renown sculptor’s house and grounds, as well as the extensive collection of his works on site. It was a highlight of our stay and we would definitely recommend a visit.

On our last evening after a delicious dinner at Nostromo we ran across a festival featuring domestic products including traditional folk dancing. It stretched many blocks along the waterfront. Gelato is everywhere and everyone seems to be eating it. I liked Luka the best. We also had a fun and delicious meal through Eatwith. I recommend checking it out if you like to meet locals.

As much as we liked Split we decided to switch our ferry to Korčula from the late afternoon to the early morning. This gave us the opportunity to walk through the Palace one last time and we had it all to ourselves as we walked to the ferry at 7:00 am.

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Split in the early am - Diocletian Palace
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Split in the early am- Diocletian Palace

Thank you! Glad it’s proving entertaining and useful. I have really enjoyed each and every place. Each unique and so much to see. We’re in Sarajevo now and it’s fascinating.
lunch when we return?

Split sounds very worthwhile although the crowds at the palace seem annoying. Did the crowds coincide with cruise ships?

Yes, most of the crowds were the cruisers. Game of Thrones fans apparently come also. You just plan your time to avoid the times the cruisers go to the palace. We found this strategy works in most places that cruise ships visit. I hate cruise ships so just their presence annoys me.

Karen- we did a very leisurely walk along the harbor and then into the neighborhoods when we went to the Galeria so I don’t know how long it took. We did take Uber back. I would just map it from wherever you are starting. It’s a very nice walk.

Split to Zadar is about 90 minutes. No, we didn’t go to Trogir. It was on my original list of places to visit, but it fell off. It seems to be one of those places people love or hate. Had to eliminate some places, you know how it is.

i agree with your friendsCroatia is beautiful. Some people had said it’s really a bunch of picturesque villages and how many can you visit? I disagree because I think our report shows the diversity.

Thanks for mentioning the photos. For some reason we have so much trouble getting pictures posted. I don’t know what we do wrong, but both of us have difficulty posting them.

How’s your rehab going? Did you decide to take a walking stick? The cobblestones in many places are quite difficult to walk on. I wish I had brought a walking stick.

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Kicking Back on Korčula

Korčula was the antidote to what had become a very busy trip. We took the early morning ferry from Split. The ride was uneventful but rather crowded by the time we reached Korčula. We arrived around 10:30 and took a taxi the couple miles to our apartment. Our apartment, part of Apartments Rafaela, had a killer view.

Korcula was perfection. Everywhere one looked there was something stunning, ranging from Venetian architecture to astounding views. Old town is a photographers dream - the cathedral gargoyles have to be seen to be believed. The old town itself is situated on a peninsula with one side facing a small harbor, the other side a walkway with numerous cafes and restaurants.

There’s not a lot to do, which was fine by us. You could stare at the horizon, enjoy spectacular sunsets, explore the small, steep old town or just kick back.

One day, feeling adventurous, we took the short ride on the local bus to Lumbarda. We walked on a small road through the fields to a nondescript beach and decided to have lunch at a nearby restaurant on Bili Beach. It was the second execrable meal of the trip, the first having been at Restaurant Planjak in Korčula town. On the return bus to Korčula, we went through the actual town of Lumbarda, we realized our mistake: We don’t do beaches anymore and should have spent our afternoon in the town.

On our second day we stumbled on a fantastic sunset viewing spot near our apartment, the church and the possibly abandoned convent Samastan Svetog Nikole. We enjoyed two back-to-back sunsets in the secluded grounds.

Overall, we had two and a half days of picture perfect weather and sublime indolence on the island of Korčula.

if you go off season which includes May, you need to look at the ferry schedule and figure out which meet your timeframe. Then I read about the various islands and threw a dart at a list..😊 I liked the size and sound of Korčula, but I imagine any would have been beautiful and we’d have been happy on them. We were looking for scenery, quiet and some downtime.

yestravel i thought your pic from the restaurant in Zadar had looked familiar. I now see It WAS Bruschetta, the same place we had eaten a great dinner. Glad you enjoyed it too. And as usual all your pics are stunning!! And Korcula sounds wonderful. Brac was not nearly as interesting for our island respite, but it had the advantage (for us) of the charming Hotel Lemongarden and the one-hour ferry ride from Split. If we had chosen to ferry on to Dubrovnik we would have stopped at Korcula instead.
Oh, and thanks or the new word “execrable.” Had to look it up. Which one of you responsible for that? ;-)
And heartily agree that in a city filled with ice cream, Luka’s was by far the best. I think we had it 3 out of 4 days and maybe even twice one day. Superb.
KarenWoo take another look at my Dalmatian Coast TR from last year about day trips to Zadar and Hvar. I’m embarrassed I never finished it but the Split portion and day trips are there. We were very happy with a late afternoon/evening in Zadar so we could experience the famous sunset, great dinner and the sea organ. We did a 6 pm walking tour as well. It was a long round trip, however, closer to 2 hrs each way if I recall correctly. It could be combined with Krka for a very long day.
We only spent half a day in Hvar but loved it. We did buy the 2 pm ferry tix in advance as they were so cheap (that particular ferry was apparently subsidized) we could throw the tix away if the date/time didn’t work. We had no trouble getting the return tix the day before. We just walked around a bit, took the hike up to see the incredible view from the fortress and had dinner and returned to Split. To explore the island further you would need longer. Be on the lookout for the September ferry schedules.

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Another pic of beautiful Korčula.
Alison- you can thank GT for the addition to your vocabulary. I told him that many people will not know the meaning. Your memory is good, the ferry to Zadar was about 2 hours. The ferry to Korcula was 2+ hours. All of the islands sound really nice. There is truly an abundance of riches with Croatia. Our ferry ticket was also inexpensive. I don’t remember the specifics but we had decided to toss it if need be. The line we used refunds 50% if you cancel. If you reschedule they will apply 75% to your changed ticket.

karen- I agree with your friends, some towns had awful cobblestones and some towns had many steps which is why I keep mentioning a walking stick.

Montenegro in the Rain

Our trip from Korčula to Muo just past Kotor, had more legs than a centipede. Firstly, we were driven by the owner from Rafaela Apartments to the waterfront where the ferries docked. Then there was the ferry ride to Dubrovnik. Then rolling our suitcases to the taxi stand. Then taking the taxi through hellish traffic to Nova car rental on the far side of the Old Town and finally the drive to Muo. And the trip was not without road bumps. Nova had decided to “upgrade” us. Immediately, upon hearing that dreaded word in a European car rental office, my heart skipped a beat. I feared they were going to try and stick us with a larger car than what I had reserved. My fear was correct; they wanted to give us an SUV, not a huge one, but Opel SUV which I imagined would be impracticably large. I objected, but GT, being the congenial soul that he can be, said, “No problem, we’ll be fine.” I shot him one of my “keep quiet, I’ll handle this looks,” but he didn’t see it. I figured, he’s the driver, he can live with his choice. HA! We threw our luggage in the trunk and were ready for our next country and whatever adventures awaited us. We did have lots of room in the trunk for our two carry-on size suitcases and backpacks. [GT: I just wanted to get moving; it had been the better part of five hours since we’d left our apartment. The car turned out to be both impractical size-wise and to have a temperamental automatic transmission that frequently balked at leaving Park, requiring me to restart the car. A smaller car with standard transmission would have been infinitely preferable.]

It was a fairly easy drive and we made it to the border quickly. We had a short wait with immigration and customs. Soon, we were on a secondary road and were making our first stop to view the gorgeous coast and scenery of Montenegro. After being in spotless Croatia and Slovenia for the past several weeks, we were astounded by the amount of trash by the side of the road! After hastily taking a few shots we jumped back in the car - we kept noticing nastier and nastier roadside debris on the overlook.

Kotor lays at the end of a long bay with a series of twists and turns. We eventually found our way to our apartment, which was very modern, spacious and nice, and sat right on the waterfront road with a view of Kotor on the other side of the narrow bay. On the drive around the bay our first inkling of the issues with the size of our upgraded car came to fruition. The road sometimes narrowed to a size only slightly larger than our car. At its best, it barely permitted our car and an oncoming vehicle to pass. Coupled with the reckless attitude towards driving common to the Balkans, it made for frequent hair-raising moments on the bayside road. Further, on almost the entire stretch between Kotor and Muo, there was absolutely nothing standing between the roadside and a drop-off into the bay. GT frequently would stop to allow an oncoming car to barrel by with two inches to spare, provoking loud indignation in the cars behind us. We also had some multiple car jams when we and another car inched past each other only to have the following cars plunge into the gap at a narrower impassable section of the road. (We were to have similar problems on mountain roads, where the culprits were enormous tour busses that plowed down the poorly maintained roads with a brazen impunity born of an inability to judge spatial relationships. Nonetheless, we somehow managed to return the car with nary a scratch.)

That first night, we drove back to Kotor for dinner and some preliminary exploration of the town. We parked in an inexpensive waterfront parking lot and entered the town on foot through an old gate. The town was busy and festive, both with tourists and with locals wearing their best Saturday night track suits. We walked through the medieval streets, checking out the restored buildings. In a small plaza towards the back, we had our first, somewhat unimpressive meal in Kotor. After an hour or two, we left and made the death-defying return to our apartment. It had been a long day.

The next morning was sunny and warm and we enjoyed our breakfast al fresco before we took off for our exploration for the day. We drove past Budva on the sparkling coast stopping for photo ops. Fortunately the roadside here was cleaner. We stopped in a small town a little past Sveti Stefan and I went into the tiny tourist office for a local map. The woman was treasure trove of information and suggested a route that would take us high into the mountains and provide spectacular views of the coast. I was in and tried my best to understand her directions. It wasn’t easy. After false starts we decided upon a route into the mountains...whether it was her route or not, it didn’t matter.

First we followed the signs for the Duljevo Monastery. It took us a while to find the exit to the tiny road that went up and up and up to the Monastery. We stopped at a couple scenic spots in route that provided spectacular views of the coast. We were almost ready to give up on finding the Monastery when we ran across it. The friendly nun at the monastery took us into the grounds and showed us the ongoing work in the chapel. They were doing modern additions next to the original 14th Century frescoes. We admired them, thanked our hostess and hit the road after turning down an offer of fruit juice. We went back down to coastal road drove a few miles then headed up a high mountain road to Cetinje, the original Montenegrin capital. It turned out to be an unremarkable town and we exited following the sign to Loćven Park. Our route took us through some spectacular countryside and the smoked prosciutto-making town of Njegusi. GT insisted on stopping and bought what looked like half a kilo of ham for four euros. Lovćen is both a park and a mountain with stunning views of Kotor 5,000 or so feet below. We could easily make out the two enormous cruise ships in the harbor. We drove down the mountain on the infamous road with 25 (I think - who’s counting?) serpentine switchbacks. It was scary every time an enormous tour bus came barreling around at curve at us, forcing us to either stop or back up. [GT - Ever try to back up while on a downhill slope? No fun.] But the views were gorgeous worth every moment. They overlooked the entire bay.

We eventually made it down the mountain alive, rolled into Kotor and headed to our apartment for some rest. That evening, we had dinner at Restaurant Galion which sat next to the harbor - excellent meal, one of the best of the trip

We awoke to rain showers and waited them out to begin our day. Unfortunately as we drove down our side of the bay through a series of stone villages lining the shore it rained on and off. We continued down the until we could see Our Lady of the Rocks. At that point we turned around and headed back to Kotor. The highlight of the visit was Kotor’s Cats Museum, probably worth the 1€ admission. As the rain continued we wandered through the medieval town. Tried of being wet, we decided to return to our apartment after eating lunch. This was a good decision as the skies opened up and we sat watching the storm all evening. At this point I was getting really annoyed about the drippy and dreary weather that seemed to be following us.

The next morning the rain had stopped but it continued to be dreary and gray. We took off for our return to Croatia. We made one ill-advised stop to see Perast. It was a crowded nightmare. It took us 45 minutes to slowly drive thru the tourist-filled waterfront town that serves as the ferry-staging area to the artificial island of Our Lady of the Rocks. We breathed matching sighs of relief when we finally escaped the tiny town.

Our final thought on Montenegro is rain or shine, it’s a beautifuk country.