Independent travel
Independent travel gives you the freedom to move on when you are ready and not tied to a single hotel. Its fun fending for yourself and finding accommodation when you arrive at a new destination. It enables you to travel off the beaten track and away from the crowds, it is a liberating kind of travel. Mingling with the locals, eating their food, learning about their culture is an important part of travel. Travelling independently ensures that your money goes directly into the local economy and not to national or international businesses. The easiest way to experience independent travel is in Greek Islands where it is easy to travel between Islands
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Croatian Islands: Korčula
It’s only 6.20am in sleepy Stari Grad but there’s drama at the bus station as we await our early morning ride. An irate elderly couple pull up in their car and accost two females waiting for the same bus as us; a row ensues, money changes hands and the couple speed off. We can only conclude that the two females have exited their guest house without settling their debts: how incredibly rude, if we are right. Drama over, it’s breakfast at Hvar Town port and then the early catamaran to our next island destination, Korčula, where we are met by our next host Tonci and taken to our seventh home…
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Croatia Island Hopping: On To Hvar
Our departure from Bol is so cool that we can’t stop smiling. The only boat service from Brac to Hvar is a catamaran which sails in the evening, a bit later than we would like, and with no outside deck to enjoy. But our wonderfully helpful hosts tip us off that one of the excursion boats, the Andrija, is skippered by a guy who lives on Hvar, and so, each afternoon when his excursions for the day are done, he heads home with his boat. If we can catch him, he’ll give us a lift. And so it is that we find the Andrija, cadge a cheap lift on a…
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Croatia, COVID and other tips
Entering our fourth week of this Croatia odyssey, we feel qualified to offer some advice to anyone thinking of heading out here, so here goes… COVID If you think you’d feel threatened or vulnerable due to a lack of COVID rules, then it’s probably best you stay at home. If however you feel there is some overblown mass hysteria afoot, or just want to escape the “new normal” for a while, then Croatia is for you. It’s masks on buses and trains, and inside shops and public buildings, but otherwise life is absolutely normal. Locals do have a tendency to wear the mask only over the mouth, and leave the…
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Island Hopping Croatia: Brač
Some of the inter island ferry services have been scaled back due to an expected drop in visitor numbers during COVID, so to hop from Šolta to Brač we have to go back to Split and on again from there. So it’s an early alarm, the 7:20 bus from Maslinica and the 8am ferry, breakfast in Split harbour and then a second ferry over to Supetar on the island of Brač. Brač a much bigger and more mountainous island than Šolta, in fact the third largest Adriatic island; our next billet means travelling some distance to the south of the island, and we’ve been recommended that the best option for…
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Croatia: Leaving The Mainland
Day 14 of this trip is significant, as we say goodbye to both the hire car and the mainland, and head off to indulge in a bit of island hopping for the next few weeks. So it’s our first early start in quite a while, completing the 90-minute drive back to Split before breakfast. Once again we follow the E8 road, hugging the coast alongside pretty coastal towns, sumptuous bays and alluring marinas, but there’s no time to stop and stare this morning, we have a target. Consequently it’s only a little after 9am when we pull in to Split harbour, hand back the keys to the Clio, and take…
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First Taste Of The Islands
Island hopping is going to make up most of the rest of our time here, but the island wanderlust kicks in early, and for our last day at our Šibenik base we take a Jadrolinija ferry to Zlarin, just a 30-minute boat trip away. All we can say is, if the remaining islands on this trip are as good as Zlarin then we are in for a treat. With only an afternoon to enjoy it, we don’t venture beyond the eponymous port town, a pretty collection of old stone houses clustered around a horseshoe harbour with five or so seafront restaurants. Crystal clear water laps the pebble beaches, both the…
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Krka National Park
As well as the many attributes of its own, the city of Šibenik is also a gateway to the Krka National Park, another spectacular series of waterfalls as the Krka river crashes down the mountains towards the Adriatic. To access the park, we drive to the small town of Skradin, from where we take a river boat to the falls: a wise decision, as Skradin turns out to be a charming and peaceful place in its own right. Krka is markedly different from Plitvice. Plitvice was largely unspoilt, and clearly less popular, perhaps due to its more remote location. Around the sixteen lakes there were only three modest cafes, spaced…
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From Plitvice To The Wonders Of Šibenik
The time will soon come when we run out of superlatives for this country, such is its propensity to thrill, surprise and charm. Day 9, and we leave Mukinje, Plitvice and our host Kristina with heavy heart and head westwards towards the Adriatic and the Dalmatian coast. The lush and dramatic Lake District scenery soon gives way to a spectacular mountainside drive as our road perches on a ledge way above the land below, dropping eventually to the outskirts of Zadar. From here the E8 turns south, now hugging the beautiful coastline for a different type of incredible scenery. We pause for lunch at the ridiculously quaint seaside town of…
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Plitvice Reflections
By the time we reach our last night in Mukinje, we are 8 days into our tour of Croatia: over those 8 days we have walked, according to Fitbit, a total of 73.19 miles, an average of 9.15 miles per day. Michaela captured some impressive wildlife shots along the way:-
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Plitvice: Deep Gorges and Gorgeous Villages
About a 40 minute drive north of Mukinje is the incredibly picturesque village of Rastoke, which is so utterly charming that it’s difficult to know where to start to describe it in words. But we’ll give it a go…. Two rivers converge in the village, but one, the Slunjcica, enters at high level from the mountains; the other, the Korana, flows in from the bottom of the deep gorge and therefore at a much lower level. Consequently, the waters of the Slunjcica cascade down a series of waterfalls and rapids, flowing into the larger Korana in multiple places throughout the village. In fact, much of Rastoke is effectively built on…
