Croatia Holiday Help!

server_girl

Doing exams at the mo and the minute I finish I want to book and go to Croatia. Don't have time at the moment to do too much research. More than likely we'll book flights with aerlingus to dubrovnik direct and take it from there. will probably try to book own accomodation, hire car and explore ourselves.

Can anyone whose been recommend places to visit, good spots., accomodation - mainly interested in the coast line and islands. would like to find a beach that's not jammers for a day or two. Also. into water sports, canoeing, surfing, diving etc..

Also, if anyone does knows where I'd be likely to get a last minute deal ex Dublin - package or otherwise...

Cheers

ro1798

we did it the hard way flew to munich and got train to split then bus to dubrovnic stayed for a week then got the bus to bosnia. amazing place
it is the hottest place i have ever been in my life....... 2 of us got sun stroke through no fault of our own

ronan

Faltermyer

Pula is a nice, quiet-ish, reasonably small city/town in the northwest, near the border of Italy.

Has a kind of mini Colosseum thing which is cool.

Its got a kinda quaint square where they put on small concerts by orchestras at night and theres restaurants and bars around the square. Its fairly small though so it did retained an intimate feel and didnt just look tacky.

I was there in Jul '03 and at least then anyway, it was not over-run with tourists. Very helpful people in the tourist office too.

There are beaches near, which were not packed, though they will tend to be stoney -as will a lot of Croatia's beaches cos the sea there is so calm it it lacks the power to erode the stones into sandy beaches over the years.

Zagreb, the capital city is ok, there is some pretty high mountains near it I think,(could be mixing up cities) which you can get cable car up into.


Last summer I was in Rijecka and Cres Island(pronounced "Tsrez").

Dont bother with Rijecka, I wasnt too impressed with it.

Stay off Cres island if your looking for nightlife - it seems to be a holiday hotspot for German/Austrian families so the handful of bars that are on it are mostly frequented by 14-16year olds.

On the other hand its a beautiful island with some amazing views, and has some really peaceful/desolate parts that you can get to within 20mins on rented moped .
The mopeds were expensive enough, about €27 for the day I think it cost us each, but it was well worth it to be honest as the three of us got one each and explored the island for the day. And you have them from like 9am - 9pm so you can get your money's worth. Really is a beautiful island to explore. ANd the roads are absolutely amazing(perfectly smooth, properly cambered, winding through the hills), would have loved to have my car out there

Croatians are generally a friendly bunch, though I think some are getting a bit fed up with tourists who visit primarily for the cost. Some parts are chancing their arms with higher than right prices too.
Just make the basic effort of being able to meet and greet in their language - Hello, Goodbye, Please, Thanks, Excuse me, How are you, Im fine/good. Ive found thats all it tends to take - that you show a bit of effort.

server_girl

not looking for night life especially, really somewhere to explore and laze around in. Cres sounds good - will def check it out.

Culchie

Server Girl,

Makaraska Rivieria for you !

Stretch of coastline between Dubrovnik and Split, with beaches and the 'laze around' type atmosphere you are looking for. Good Restaurants etc... and ideal location to explore the islands of Brac, Hvar, Korcula etc....

Dubrovnik is cool, as is Cavtat, you can take in Mostar (recommended) and Medjegore as well (well worth visiting, regardless of religious beliefs) in Bosnia.

South of Split is Distinctly Italian, alot of Roman Architectural influence. The further North you go (around Pula, Istria) it has a more German, Austrian feel to it .... all legacies of bygone histoey and colonys.


Go to Croatia .... Best spot in Europe !!

RedorDead

Agree with all thats been mentioned here. Ive been twice and have island-hopped both times.

Spend at least 4/5 days doing the Split-Brac-Hvar-Korcula-Dubrovnik trip in some shape or form. There are multi ferry services that run between them.

Jadrolinija is the ferry company. http://www.jadrolinija.hr/

Instead of booking hotels on the island - simply get off a boat and locals will offer you hostel style accomadation for roughly 100 kuhunas a night (about 14euro) its a nice way to see how the croatian people live. Try haggling too, its very competitive amongst the locals.

The islands mentioned above get v busy in August. In my eyes - for pure relaxation - Korcula was the pick of them. For more lively nightlife - Hvar is the hotspot of the adriatic.

The heat is a joke alright - very hot. Just dont be expecting sandy beaches and youll have a ball. Cant recommend the country (esp the stunning adriatic coastline) highly enough.

Padraig Mor

Croatia - beautiful country. One tip - if booking a package holiday, avoid Concorde Travel - probably the most incompetent firm I have ever dealt with.

egan007

http://www.croatiatours.ie/

Culchie

RedorDead wrote:

The heat is a joke alright - very hot. Just dont be expecting sandy beaches and youll have a ball. Cant recommend the country (esp the stunning adriatic coastline) highly enough.

Most places have air-conditioning as standard, even small B&B's ... as the locals live in the houses as well.

One of the main reasons the adriatic is so pristine, is because of the pebble beaches, it constantly cleanses and purifies water, rather than sand beaches.

server_girl

thanks for all the info guys

Faltermyer

Culchie wrote:

One of the main reasons the adriatic is so pristine, is because of the pebble beaches, it constantly cleanses and purifies water, rather than sand beaches.

Arent the stoney/pebbley beaches a result of the lack of strong current and therefore lack of errosion??

Funny one on that - while exploring Cres Island, we came across a camp site with its own pier/beach, well half a beach - they were still making the other half!! They had a JCB dumping piles of stones at the shore and dragging back over them to smooth them out!! Dont think I have a photo unfortunately!!

Culchie

Faltermyer wrote:

Arent the stoney/pebbley beaches a result of the lack of strong current and therefore lack of errosion??

Dunno ... is there a marine biologist in the house?

Faltermyer wrote:

Funny one on that - while exploring Cres Island, we came across a camp site with its own pier/beach, well half a beach - they were still making the other half!! They had a JCB dumping piles of stones at the shore and dragging back over them to smooth them out!! Dont think I have a photo unfortunately!!

I believe you, I know a guy who made a beach as well !! ... down around Ston, near the Peljesac peninsula.

kasintahan

server_girl wrote:

not looking for night life especially, really somewhere to explore and laze around in. Cres sounds good - will def check it out.

Good! They're not the friendliest people on earth (actually the older generations are, just not the sub 30's). They seem... I don't know... slightly pissed off all the time.

However, the country is BEAUTIFUL. Spectacular. Not many sandy beaches but that just means less mess at the seaside.

Watersports can be had for cheap money (Croatia in general is not cheap) in lots of places.

The women are universally gorgeous (until they hit 35). Pity they won't talk to north europeans.

Culchie

'Cheap' is hard to define.

I find Croatia extremely reasonable compared to Ireland, and compared to other countries in Europe ... getting more expensive but still very reasonable.
€15-€20 B&B, €1.75-€2 beer €1-€1.40 coffee, typical 3 course meal & wine €17-€25 ..... reasonable for me.


Compare it to Vietnam, Thailand, or Afghanistan... then I'm sure it's not 'cheap'.

Faltermyer

@Culchie - do you find large variations in price depending where you go?? Or is it just increasing a lot each year?

July '03 - Zagreb - ~€1 for a 500ml bottle of Erdinger in a nice bar. I think about 90cent for pints of Stella etc. Similar in Pula.

July '04 - Rijecka/Cres - ~€1.50-€2 for pint of Stella etc

Is it just the different places or is inflation running amock over there??

That said, prices seemed to have jumped in most of the countries I was in both years
- Prague - ~50% increase in price of pints in one bar - €1 to €1.50.
- Bratislava - '03 - ~70cent/pint, '04 - cheapest €1.50!!

Granted it will depend on the bars you go to but those a frightening increases all the same...(yes, i know its still v cheap compared to home)

Culchie

It's no different to anywhere else, wherever the tourists are, that's the most expensive place.

Croatia, as popular as it is now, still only gets about 50% of the tourists they had before the war.
Hence, the tourism infrastructure is there (beds, cafes, restaurants etc...) ....what they need to do is refurbish and upgrade their facilities (10 years with no tourists hit businesses very hard).

Of course that will mean borrowing money, interest rates are high there 8%+, so inevitably it will get passed onto tourists, as always happems.

Property up about 50% in some parts of Dalmatia, look at tourist stats into Dubrovnik airport http://www.airport-dubrovnik.hr/statistika_gl_eng.htm .... the place is beginning to boom, so prices will go up, but only to a certain level.

Dubrovnik is more expensive than Istria, Split cheaper than both.


Check out www.visit-croatia.co.uk for lots of good info on Croatia

kasintahan

They don't have many hostels (very very few).
Campsites are rare (ish).

2004 prices.

Accomodation ran at €20 a night in somebodys spare room (shared toilet usually).
These are called "sobe" and the most common form of accom.
Prices fall universally in off peak (by 30% or more).

Meals cost €10-12 (main course and drink in cheapest restaurants) though standard was genearally good.

Drinks were €2 or thereabouts for 500ml of 5.5%.

Swedish girls came free