Help with Croatia - Paging Grasshopper
 

I am thinking about going to Croatia at the end of August and would like to know for those of you that have gone if it's better to do trips through a travel agency such as Atlas or to do it on my own. What cities besides Zagreb and Dubrovnik are absolutely not to miss? I will have about 10 days there. Thanks.

ttt

can anyone else help?

I think you should add Split, built inside a Roman palace. I see no call for a travel agent. You use a guide book to select hotels, use Google to find their web sites and e-mail, and book. Again, your guide book tells you what you might see. I do like a group tour, on foot for two hours on the first morning in each city: it gives me the lay-out and an idea of the shapes of buildings, ready to come back alone to see them closely, visit museums, and so on. To hear what music is on I ask the tourist office in the city centre.

[email protected]

I usually don't use a travel agency, but am just wondering it's it's best to just fly from Zagreb to Dubrovnik and then tour from there or make my way down the coast. Atlas offers a best of Croatia package that seems to include a lot of places I might otherwise miss on my own. Anymore Croatia experts out there? Thanks.

I stayed in Dubrovnik and used Atlas Tours to go to Korcula. I had wanted to do a couple other tours but the days got away from me. There are a couple islands near Dubrovnik that are easily visited - Lopud, Mijet (sp? - you might consider staying over night). I went to relax so I wasn't keen on constantly moving form place to place.

Grasshopper, are you back?

Crazymina are you back?

Can you help me?

Hi Deborah,

You are going to love Croatia. I know that August is the high season, so I'm sure you will find things differently than I did, but I bet it won't be any hotter. It was well into the 90's the entire 10 days I was there.

10 days was hardly enough to scratch the surface and I know I will be back. I didn't have reservations for anything in advance and had no problem finding places to stay. But again, August will be completely different. I started in Rovinj on the Istrian Peninsula. I stayed there 5 nights and took day trips on boat excursions and to Pula where the old Roman Amphitheater is.

From Rovinj I took a bus to Rijeka where I took the ferry to Dubrovnik. You can (especially in August, when the ferry runs 7 days a week) get off at a number of islands for a day or two and then hop back on to continue to Dubrovnik. Consider Split, Hvar or Korcula.

Dubrovnik was incredible, the most amazing place I have seen in Europe so far. I stayed at the Hotel Villa Argentina and I can't rave enough about it. My room had a balcony that looked over the entire coastline and the wonderful old city of Dubrovnik.

I flew from Dubrovnik (booked my ticket about a week in advance and paid the equivalent of $44 US) to Zagreb. When I got there it was hot and I was in no mood for a big city so I took the train to Slovenia and Lake Bled. If I had it to do over again, I would have stayed another 4 or more days in Dubrovnik. Unfortunately, Il Papa was on his way and there was "no room at the inn".

Another thing I will definitely do next time is visit Plitvice (I know I spelled that wrong) but it is tricky to get there.

Each town has a number of travel agencies where you can book your next "step". I bought both my ferry and plane tickets that way. You have a wide variety of accommodation choices; small hotels, big hotels and "sobe" (countless private rooms and apartments rented by individuals). I did use Atlas to go on two great excursions from Dubrovnik; a long day to Montenegro (fantastic!) and a wine tour of the Pelocec peninsula (also fun).

A good place to find lots of info is www.virtualtourist.com. There are some people there who live in Croatia who were very helpful to me.

Have a great trip! Croatia, it's people, it's food, it's scenery are incredibly special. If you would like, feel free to email me at [email protected]

Trying again...freakin' thing ate my first reply.

I went to Split, Hvar Island and Dubrovnik, in that order. Was glad to see it in that order because Dubrovnik was the most visually spectacular, and it was nice to end the trip with that highlight.

On Hvar Island, I stayed in Starigrad instead of Hvar Town (where the bulk of the tourists go) because that's where the ferry docks, and we got picked up by a nice man who lived in Starigrad. Our sobe was wonderful, and our hosts said in August, it's nearly impossible to get a room from one side of the island to the other if you don't book advance (so make sure you do). We were supposed to go to Korcula, but didn't since we enjoyed our stint in Starigrad so much. We did dock at Korcula for a little while on the way to Dubrovnik, and it seemed lovely.

As Grasshopper says, you can take a ferry to Dubrovnik with a stop off somewhere else (for up to seven days, I believe). I think you are only allowed one stop. If we had known we weren't going to Korcula, we could have saved a few kuna doing the Hvar "stopover" on the way to Dubrovnik.

If you can, do see split. It has a different feel from Dubrovnik, in my opinion. The ruins aren't roped off or anything...and cafes, shops, etc are integrated right into it. You just get to hang out in the ruins, which is neat.

Whatever you decide to do, enjoy!

Grasshopper, are you home yet? if so, welcome home! So glad to hear you enjoyed Croatia...it was one of my favorite places too. :)

Thanks Grasshopper & Crazymina!! Glad you two made it home safe & sound. I really am interested in doing this trip. I will most likely be going near the beginning of Sept., so hopefully all the Europeans will have gone back home from their holidays. I will e-mail you Grasshopper because I do have a couple of questions for you. Thank you both for your help.