A Week in Croatia

An itinerary across a country of incredible beauty.

When I moved to Europe last summer, I made a mental list of all the places I wanted to visit. Italy, Spain, Greece, Austria, France, etc.

Croatia was not on that list.

However, when I began looking for destinations for our honeymoon, I settled on Croatia and Italy.

It mainly came from looking at maps. When we decided to go to Italy, I realized that Dubrovnik was right across the sea.

I knew about Dubrovnik mainly from it being a filming location for Game of Thrones. I was intrigued and it seemed like a shame to waste an opportunity to visit what seemed like a beautiful city.

So I spent some time researching Croatia. I discovered other places that seemed worth exploring. So we ended up spending a week in Croatia.

And we discovered an incredible country where we wished we could have spent much more time.

Here is our itinerary.

Zagreb

We started our trip in Zagreb. Initially, we had planned on staying mostly on the coast. However, when I saw pictures of Plitvice Lakes National Park, I knew we had to stop there and Zagreb was the most logical starting point for that.

We flew from Paris to Zagreb on August 9, 2022.

While Zagreb we were mainly stopping in Zagreb on our way to other destinations, we still took the time to explore the city and ended up falling in love with it.

Our hotel, Rooms Zagreb 17, was lovely and very well situated.

We toured the city, stopping at some emblematic sights of Zagreb, such as Trg Bana Jelacica, the Dolac Market, the Stone Gate, St Mark’s Church, and Lotrscak Tower.

A highlight was the Museum of Broken Relationships, a really fascinating little museum collecting objects from broken relationships.

We also had some incredible food, trying traditional strukli at La Struk, indulging in Croatian food at Lanterna na Dolcu, and ending the night with incredible gelato from Melt.

Overall, we were really glad to have started our trip in the relaxed atmosphere of Zagreb and to have discovered this lovely capital.

Plitvice Lakes National Park

If you had to do only one thing in Croatia, make it Plitvice Lakes National Park.

About 150km from Zagreb, this Unesco World Heritage Sight is unlike anything we had ever seen.

We rented a car from Zagreb and drove about 2 hours and a half to reach the park. We then spent the whole day walking around the incredible turquoise lakes, hundreds of waterfalls, and lush greenery.

The park extends over 18km of wooden walkways that take you around the gem-coloured lakes and in front of the most dramatic waterfalls.

Pictures do not do it justice.

We had been told that this was an incredible place by several people and I was afraid to be disappointed because I had very high expectations. However, my expectations were met and exceeded.

Top tips:

• If possible, avoid going in August. The park gets incredibly crowded and you have to wait in long lines to enter the park, see the top sights, and take the free boats and buses.
• If you don’t want to do the 18km of walkways (which can take over 6 hours), there are free boats and buses to cut part of the loops. However, as mentioned above, the wait is long during peak periods.
• Make sure to look at the maps and plan your itinerary through the park carefully. We ended up taking a wrong turn that made us walk much longer than we had anticipated.
• Bring food and water. You can’t buy food inside the park and the options are fairly limited outside the park.

Driving from Zagreb, we spent the day at the park, ate at the cafe just outside (which I do not recommend), and slept at House Zupan in the nearby town of Rakovica, which was a lovely guesthouse with a generous breakfast.

Krka National Park

In order to cut our drive from Plitvice National Park to Dubrovnik in half, we chose to spend a night in Split.

On the way there, we stopped at Krka National Park. From Skradin, we took a boat through the Krka canyon all the way to Skradinski Buk, a beautiful 800m-long and 46m-high waterfall.

I had read online that it was possible to swim in the water in front of the waterfall. I figured it would be a refreshing stop after spending a few days visiting Zagreb and Plitvice.

However, when we got there, we realize it was not possible to swim in the lake anymore.

Despite that disappointment, we still had a lovely time. We followed an hour-long loop around emerald lakes and waterfalls before spending some time admiring the massive waterfall.

After the majesty of Plitvice, Krka didn’t seem as impressive. But it is still a beautiful place and was worth the stop.

The area around Skradinski Buk was busy and filled with souvenir shops and eateries, however, we found that the quality was lacking.

Split

Split is aptly named in that it sits about halfway down the Croatian coast.

We spent one night in this incredible historical city and would definitely have spent a lot longer there.

The main attraction is the Diocletian’s Palace, a Unesco World Heritage Site and one of the largest and best-preserved Roman monuments in the world. We were lucky to sleep within the Diocletian’s Palace, at the beautiful Villa Split Heritage Hotel.

It was incredibly to see life thrive in this preserved historical palace, where museums and Roman buildings were present alongside cafes, restaurants and shops.

Compared with Dubrovnik, Split had a more “lived-in” feel and it made it all the more incredible.

We had an exceptional meal at Sug, just outside the palace.

Another highlight of our short stay in Split was walking to a viewpoint in Marjan Forest Park for incredible views of the city.

One day was enough time to explore the main parts of Split. However, Split is home to some incredible beaches such as Kasjuni and Firule, that we didn’t have the time to explore.

It is also a great central location from which to take the ferry to the beautiful islands of the Adriatic Sea, including Brac Island and Vis Island. If we regret one thing from this trip, it is not taking the time to explore the surrounding islands. However, that is only an excuse to come back.

Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik was the original reason we wanted to visit Croatia. We loved the journey we took to get there and Dubrovnik was also a highlight of our trip.

Driving from Split to Dubrovnik along the Adriatic Coast was beautiful. However, there were very few stops along the way and we struggled to find a place to have lunch on our drive down.

The Old Town and the City Walls of Dubrovnik were beyond anything we could have imagined. We understood right away why this place was selected as a filming location for Game of Thrones. Walking through the Old Town was like being transported back to medieval times.

Another thing we loved visiting near Dubrovnik was Lokrum Island, a short ferry ride away. It is home to beautiful botanical gardens, a Benedictine Monastery, and incredible swimming spots.

Swimming in the sea with the city of Dubrovnik looming behind me was one of my favourite experiences. We also loved spending time in the small saltwater lake called the Dead Sea near the monastery.

Top tips:

• The walk along the City Walls is definitely worth it however, it gets very warm and busy during the summer. I would recommend going early to beat the crowds and the heat or visiting in the off-season
• While Dubrovnik is surrounded by water, there are very few proper beaches near the Old Town. There are some beautiful beaches, such as Sveti Janov Beach, Lapad Bay, or Dance Beach, but they require going a bit further out of the historical part of the city. If you are coming to Dubrovnik to spend time on the beach, I recommend getting a hotel away from the historical town.

We spent a couple of days in Dubrovnik at a nice little hotel just outside the old city walls, MirO Studio Appartments, which was perfect for us.

Overall, we loved Croatia much more than we had anticipated. The glittering turquoise water of the Adriatic sea, the old towns, the mountains, all of it contribute to the incredible beauty of this country.

We would gladly have spent much more time exploring Croatia.

The food was delicious, the people were incredibly nice, and the cultural heritage is unlike anything we had ever experienced before.

If I were to change anything, I would plan more downtime to simply go to the beach and relax. But we loved every second of our trip and I would recommend Croatia to anyone visiting Europe.