My wife and I are flying out of Thunder Bay, Ontario to Zagreb on April 20 for two weeks in Croatia and surroundings. We will be renting a car for the duration and returning back through Zagreb. We tend to be pretty active travelers and love to hike, bike and kayak with a healthy dose of cafe sitting on the side. We are both a bit gimpy for this trip (my newly repaired foot, her soon to be repaired hip) so it may involve more cafe sitting than usual.
Sidebar for Americans living close to the Canadian Border: We live in Duluth, MN and we saved $400 on each ticket by taking the far more scenic drive up the North Shore of Lake Superior vs. the equdistant run down I-35 to Minneapolis.<
In developing a workable itinerary for a trip like this, I know that the first thing that one must do is to backwardly prioritize the things that one is willing to give up. Often the first thing that I am willing to give up is the big juicy chunk that looks worth saving for another trip. I love to sail and intend to come back to the Adriatic for a sailing adventure some time so we have decided to skip any island without a bridge or a causeway. Slovenia also looks well worth its own trip so we are just going for a taste, probably spending the last two days in Ljubljana before heading home from Zagreb. We aren't so much city travelers but as a guy who has spent most of his adult life building stuff, I need to visit a city whose cultural hero is an architect. As we aren't so much city travelers, Split and Zadar probably won't make the cut outside of possible stops in route.
After making a couple of easy eliminations, this exercise always gets more difficult and I find myself switching to prioritizing the must do side of the equation. Even though I am a bit queasy about what the cruise ship economy has done to Dubrovnik, it appears on the top of pretty much everyone's "must do" list and makes it to ours as well. Although the allure of the Dalmatian coast is obvious, Istria has at least as strong a draw for both of us so Rovinj with side trips into the hills is near the top of the list. I stated my reasons above for Ljubljana making the cut and Zagreb gets there by default, being our point of arrival and departure.
This is where it gets really hard. It's not just including other things that are important but allocating time to what is most important. There are some blanks but here is what I am thinking:
Day 1, April 21: Arrive in Zagreb at 2pm, stroll the old town and recover from jet lag.
Day 2: Leave early to visit the Plitvice Lakes on the way to Sibenik. Not enough time for the Plitvice Lakes, you say? We own a cabin on a lake just outside of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and our house overlooks Lake Superior. Frankly, we are lake snobs. It has to be pretty darn special to get a rise out of us. These lakes do look that special so they rate the detour. Why Sibenek, you ask? Poking around on Google Street View and such, it looks like our Goldilocks and the Three Bears kind of town, not too big, not too small, a good introduction and a reasonable drive.
Day 3: Sibenik again to actually recover from jet lag.
Day 4: Travel either on the expressway or down the coast to Dubrovnik. We'll see how it shakes out but we plan on using the expressway in one direction and the coastal route for the other.
Day 5: More of Dubrovnik
Days 6-8: Unallocated
Days 9-10:Rovinj with side trips
Days 11-12: Ljubljana
Day 13: Back to Zagreb and home the next morning, May 4.
So, what do you think? Help us fill in the unallocated time (Kotor? Mostar? more of the Dalmatian coast? more time in any of our other stops?) and critique the rest. I have cancelable reservations everywhere but I am wondering how badly I really need them at this time of year. I am tempted to cancel all of them except for Zagreb and Ljubljana. Freedom is great but lining everything up on the fly can be pesky and potentially disappointing. Thoughts?
Jim