Dalmatia Coast in Croatia

-Cavtat was also touristy, and not a "working city" but it was small, relaxed, and pleasant, with a whole chunk of the pennuinsula undeveloped which made for relaxing walks. The restaurants there are slightly cheaper than Dubrovnik, which isn't saying much - Dalmatia is not a deal. It's not the "cheap Italy" or "cheap French Riveria" - prices are similar, at least for food and goods (hotels yeah, probably still a lot cheaper). Cavtat reminded me of Cassis in France. For me, that's a good thing. The water is amazing. I swam in mid October, not too shabby. Not much in the way of "sights" which was fine, we relaxed. Took the boat over to Dubrovnik one day, took the bus back. The entire town is full of British and German tourists. -Our Hotel was Villa Rozic, and I'd recommend it to non-wimps, that is, it's up 120 stairs. I live up 75 stairs, so it wasn't so bad for me, might be for some, with luggage it wasn't fun but you're only making that trip once. The hotel was clean, cheap, had great views, helpful and friendly owners, nothing bad to report, except maybe the lack of a shower curtain. -Have I mentioned how expensive food at those seaside restaurants in Croatia is? I am not a pizza fan but we got pizza several times because dropping 70 bucks for mediocre seafood seemed obnoxious. -That said, "Bugenvila" in Cavtat was genuinely great and cheaper than some other options. After chilling in Cavtat we took a 5 hour bus to Split. We almost decided to skip Split, but our flight was out of Zadar, and we had two nights we hadn't booked before leaving, so decided to break up the long trip. Good idea!

Sarah, I have been enjoying all of your trip reports very much. Wonderful tips on the hidden gems . It was somewhat surprising for me to hear the prices in Croatia were high. I was mistakenly under the impression that it would be cheaper to travel than Italy. Again, thanks for your well written reports. Linda

Thanks Linda! Picking up again where I left off - I was interrputed by my presence being required on a "bierbike" - a contraption that has to be seen to be believed. The horrors of living in Europe! -Split: We almost skipped this place as I mentioned before, but I'm so glad we didn't. While I loved the chill atmosphere of Cavtat, Split was fascinating and romantic. I didn't realize quite how obvious and cool the remains of the Roman Palace would be in the old city. When I booked at the Pension Sandra on Booking.com, within hours I had an email from the proprietor about meeting us at the bus or ferry terminal. This was great, as getting from transit point to our destination without being screwed by opportunistic cab drivers was an ongoing issue on this trip (on the last day I learned to negotiate the price in advance - why weren't we doing this before? When people don't' care about using meters, and you have a general idea of what the cost should be, that's your best bet!) Once we got off the bus, I realized why he wanted to meet us there - this was the first time we were met by the aggressive "Sobe! Sobe!" crowd looking to get us into their spare rooms. We found our host without a problem and walked 10 minutes to his charming traditional family home which had been obviously recently renovated to be a sort of inbetween a hotel and a sobe. En-suite bathrooms, but still a chill family atmosphere. We didn't do poorly with any hotel choice on this trip but this one stood out as another great value with atmosphere, even if it wasn't right in the old city, it was a short and atmospheric walk to it. $37/night. We explored the old roman basements, as it was late in the day and I knew we wouldn't have time for many museums. Because of that we missed the chance to see any of the churches on the inside, but hopefully we'll be back.

-We also had our best meal of the trip outside of Romania in Split - at the "NoStress Bistro" in the main square (across from a restaurant Rick recommends for the atmosphere but not the food - why not enjoy the exact same atmosphere with great food?) The prices were reasonable for coastal Croatia, and the food was outstanding. It wasn't recommended by any of our guidebooks or research, we just noticed drunk Croatian guys singing there and checked out the menu and it was clear the chef had a passion for food. I had a traditional Dalmatian beef stew with homemade dumplings and my husband had fried monkfish in champagne sauce with new potatoes. We got some free rakija on the house, too. Highly recommend. -We were sad to leave Split but we wanted to spend the night in our final departure destination of Zadar so we didn't have to deal with an early bus ride for our afternoon flight, so we took a 10:45 am bus out of Split and arrived in Zadar at 1pm, negotiated a reasonable taxi fare from the bus station, and got to our final hotel, the "Boutique Hostel Forum" in the old city right at check-in time. Another winner, although being a large hostel it was much more modern and design-y compared to the family-run places we'd been staying at. But we loved it. The room was small but cleverly laid out, the most comfortable bed of our stay, with the best location - literally a view of the sea and the Roman ruins at the city's most atmospheric square, with giant noise-blocking windows. $35/night, with en-suite bathroom as well. -That's the good part, the bad part was Zadar did not enchant the way Split did . The old town was perfectly nice, maybe just coming off of the highlights of Dubrovnik, Cavtat, and Split it's hard to compete. It's a fine place to spend a night before you fly out, but not really that interesting as a destination in itself, IMO, compared to other places.

But Zadar still is interesting, and also packed full of Roman Ruins. We were across the street from the former pagan temple, that became a pre-Romanesque church in 900 AD, and toured that, as well as the archaeological museum, which was OK but not stunning. We then enjoyed sunset on Zadar's limestone steps near the famous "wave organ", a permanent art installation in the steps that uses the power of air pushed by the waves to create an eerie, discordant, yet somehow relaxing stream of constant chords. The "Sun Salutation" light exhibit is nearby, but 75% of it wasn't working, although that didn't stop the hippies from having a lot of fun doing cartwheels on it excitedly. For dinner, we took a chance on a traditional Dalmatian seafood restaurant recommended by the "In Your Pocket" brochure guide, despite them steering us astray in Romania. It was good, but not great, and not cheap, but it was our last night and didn't fuss too much about price. The seafood was frseh and the service was good. The name is escaping me right now, and unlike everything else, I didn't write it down, but if you're dying to know send me a PM and I'll look it up. We didn't experience much of Split's nightlife, with it being a Monday night in October, but Zadar was more lively, probably because a football game was on where Croatia's national team was playing. We had a drink at a nearby bar and watched stray kittens, then on our way back to the hotel found another bar serving impossibly cheap Rakija and stopped in, where we made friends with some very friendly young (and drunk) Croatian girls, who were very funny and entertaining - my new facebook friends! They were very happy to meet Americans and for once the conversation steered clear of Balkan politics (a first!)

In the morning we enjoyed a good free breakfast at the hostel, after sleeping in, and then took our luggage through the old city to the taxi stand, to the bus station, to the airport. That all went smoothly. The Zadar airport is very small but very new with the nicest outdoor cafe area. The weather was perfect (as it was most of our trip) and we hated to be leaving the coast when it was a balmy 73 out. We also budgeted 2 hours at the airport which was ridiculous for such a small place, even though we were checking luggage. I feel pretty confident that you could arrive an hour before your flight and still have time to kill. We flew back on RyanAir, my first time. It was quite nice. Yes, the advertising was ridiculous, but we'd read all the rules beforehand, pre-paid for our checked luggage (mine was 15.1 kilos and they didn't give me any guff over the 0.1 over!) and the flight was not just on time but departed early and arrived 25 minutes early. I would fly again, except for the fact that we flew into Karlsruhe, Germany, or so I thought, but it was really located in Baden-Baden, so we had to take a bus to the Baden-Baden Bahnhof, then transfer to Karlsruhe Hbf, then on to Stuttgart. When you consider the cost of the train ticket, the airfare isn't so cheap anymore. But I would still fly out of that airport again if we were able to score a ride or found reasonable prices for airport transfer from/to Stuttgart.

Croatia takeaways: We spent the most time in Croatia of any country, and I'm really ambivalent about it. It is very charming in places with great sights and amazing water/scenery/swimming. On the other hand, the Dalmatian coast is very touristy and not a bargain anymore. I want to return, but if I did I'd probably get an apartment in one location (a smaller town, Cavtat or something similar) and enjoy a relaxing beach/nature trip and self-cater to save money. The long bus rides in Croatia are less than ideal. Moving around the country isn't hard but it is time-consuming for such a small place. One of our bus rides (Dubrovnik to Split) was driven insanely fast with so much bouncing around that I have internal bruising, seriously, my ribs still hurt. Purses were flying around. Another reason I'd fly somewhere in Croatia and just get to my destination and hunker down and not try to move around so much. On the other hand the country is beautiful. I really hope to return in the summer, yet I'm also consider Montenegro, for the facets I like about Croatia (beach/water/characterful coastal towns) with hopefully better pricing. That said, hotels are still cheaper than most of what you'll find in coastal Italy or France, with a similar atmosphere, although the food in the touristy areas leaves a lot to be desired. I'm so mixed! But I really can't recommend Split enough, and since it's a travel hub there is no reason not to spend a night, or better yet two, to really enjoy that charming and beautiful city.

Sarah, I appreciate all of the effort you put into this trip report and your others. We have not yet been to that part of Croatia and it's good to get the perspective of someone who has traveled extensively. It's on my list of places to get to soon, and when I do, I'll consider following your advice on time spent in Dubrovnik.

I agree with you about Cavtat and have been recommending it on this board for years. We've been there twice. Glad to hear someone else sees its virtues. A great alternative to staying in Dubrovnik. We would watch the Dubrovnik harbor each morning (one day there were 5 huge cruise ships!). When there were none (or only one) we would hop on the boat or bus and go visit. Most Cavtat hotels do have lots of steps. There's one ... Villa Andros ... with no steps and a wonderful location near the harbor. #1 B&B in Cavtat on Trip Advisor. It was fully booked the last time we went, but if we return to Cavtat, we'll try to plan far enough ahead in order to stay there. Too bad you didn't get into Montenegro. It gets less expensive as you go south. We loved Kotor and Budva. We too enjoyed Split. We stayed at Base Rooms inside the palace. For an inexpensive, laid-back island experience, we loved Vis, accessible via ferry from Split.