5 nights in Croatia

Day 1 - Trogir

We departed from Gatwick on an early morning flight arriving at Split airport around 10am.

We had pro booked a rental car through Auto Europe and used Top Cash Back taking  advantage of the 4.75% cashback. 

We had some trouble finding the car hire location. The booking confirmation had the address, PUT DIVULJA 47 which is not the airport parking but actually a 10 minute walk from the airport rental companies outside of the airport. If you use this company (Garage ) it's worth noting the address is incorrect and the actual address of the rental garage is PUT DIVULJA 46. If like me you use google maps to go to number 47 it takes you to an old incorrect address 5 minutes away over the road. Once you see goldcar you're in the right location. Garage is opposite the goldcar cabin. 

We stayed in the historic town of Trogir which is just a short drive (under 10 minutes) from Split airport. 

As our first day travelling we knew we would be tired and decided to spend the afternoon exploring Trogir and surrounding areas.

We booked our flights and accommodation through last minute and got a good deal on an apartment just a few minutes walk from Trogir old town. 

We stayed at Apartments & Rooms Villa Maslina. A studio apartment with a balcony and swimming pool. It had free parking in front of the apartment block also. 

The room was enough for our requirements. It featured a small kitchen area with fridge and a small bathroom with a double bed. 

The bathroom was quite small which meant  I struggled to manoeuvre around. The room as clean and tidy so was good enough for the time we spent there. 

Trogir old town is not very big so it didn't take long to explore. It is very picturesque with many photo points all over the town. 

They have a Small, fortified 15th-century castle at the end of the harbour called Kula Kamerlengo, translates to Kamerlengo Castle / tower.

It costs just 5 euros to enter and once inside you will get some stunning city & harbor views.

Majority of restaurants can  be found in the old town with some great spots overlooking the harbour. 

Day 2 - Dubrovnik

When we collected our hire car we was asked some questions.

1. Are we travelling over the border into Bosnia?

2. Are we travelling to Dubrovnik?

The answer to both questions was yes. The journey from Split actually passes through Bosnia along the E65 motorway. There is an alternative route if you detour onto the D8 but the extra time is not worth it.

We were warned by the rental company of the issues with parking in and around the Dubrovnik area.

Due to being classed as a world heritage site by UNESCO they are extremely strict and have harsh financial penalties for not parking in the correct areas and paying the correct charges. We was given a list of streets to avoid and advised to park elsewhere.

Parking in Dubrovnik

I did some research online and found a website offering travel advice that promoted free parking around 20 minutes away from the old town in the Babin Kuk District.

We took the advice and headed there but unfortunately the website is incorrect and there is no free parking. Instead we found local street parking near to Bus Stop 4. It costs around 1.30euro per hour, we thought it was a reasonable price to pay.  

Ul. Iva Dulčića, 20000, Dubrovnik, Croatia

Bus stop 4 is located over the road from President Hotel, Valamar Collection.

The best thing about Bus Stop 4?

Bus stop 4 is the first stop en- route into the old town. This bus drops you off  near Pile Gate (one of the entrances into the old town). The bus gets very busy and overcrowded so parking in the location we did gave us a seat on the bus, many people didn't even get on the bus due to it being full.  The bus cost a few euros each but if you're buying DubrovnikPass.com show your pass at the bus ticket booths and you will get free bus tickets for the return journey.

Dubrovnik Old town

The first thing to do in Dubrovnik is to get yourself the Dubrovnik Pass. One great benefit of the DubrovnikPass.com website is the ability to see the local attractions and see how busy they are. We used the website to see how busy the city walls were and decided to come back later in the day after visiting Lokrum Island to do the City Walls. 

Wherever you're going your first port of call should always be Get Your Guide as it has so many different tours and passes that will save you lots of time and money.

One of the many attractions, especially if you're a fan of Game of Thrones is the amount of tours they have here. For those that don't know the TV series Game of Thrones was filmed at multiple locations all over Croatia. Dubrovnik was the main set for all Kings Landing scenes. As you wonder through the city you may recognise many of the filming locations including the Red Keep, Qarth, Blackwater Bay and other areas of Kings Landing where scenes like the uprising or the walk of shame took place (see the last photo below). 

I'm a big Game of Thrones fan so visiting Dubrovnik is worth it for this alone but I'm also a massive fan of history and especially love the Medieval times & Roman era so a city like Dubrovnik is full of delights. 

The Dubrovnik City Walls are definitely a massive highlight for us both and the city views from all around the walls are simply breathtaking, one of the main attractions in the old town. 

Lokrum Island

We found lots of tours and information about Lokrum island, unfortunately all of the tours we found did not include the ferry over to the island, we purchased a ticket when we arrived at the port. There was a huge queue at the ticket office so we booked online at Lokrum Island ferry tickets skipping the queues.

The island of Lokrum is extremely fascinating, we needed more time to explore the island. Like the old town there are many areas on the island that was used for the film sets for Game of Thrones.

In the main area Benedictine Monastery of St. Mary you can take your pictures sitting in the formidable Iron Throne.

The island isn't just about GoT though, the peaceful area called the dead sea is a small saltwater pool connected to the Adriatic sea through a network of underground channels. Known to the locals as "Mrtvo more" (Dean Sea) it is calm and warm and apparently more salty than normal. 

Continue exploring the island and follow the The Path of Paradise for a steep hill climb (hike) and at the top of the hill you will find Fort Royal "Utvrda Royal" a 19th century fort built by the French. The fort is another unique piece of history and although the hike was pretty loose underfoot at times the views from the top and the fort are worth the steep trek. 

Unfortunately this is where our Lokrum Island experience ended, we never got to see the rest of the island which was a great shame but we needed to get back to the port in time for the next ferry as we still had sights to see in Dubrovnik before heading home. 

Lovrjenac Fortress - St. Lawrence Fortress

A short walk from Pile Gate is the Lovrjenac Fortress, also known as St. Lawrence Fortress. Another great fortress with spectacular views that was also used in several scenes of GoT. Access to the fort is included in your Dubrovnik Pass.

The fort is 37m above sea level, (121ft!!!) that means the fort is only accessible by climbing almost 200 steps. If climbing the steps to enter isn't enough there is more steps once inside to get to the higher floors. 

The views from the fort are worth it though.

Walking back down the steps from the fortress is a lot easier! Once back at Pile Gate the queues for the buses were long so we decided to head back into the old town and get some food and refuel before heading back.

Day 3 - Island hopping

We booked a adventurous 5 island tour on a speedboat via Get your Guide.com.

We had a notification the evening before changing our meeting time from 7am to 8am which we welcomed following our previous day in Dubrovnik. 

The disappointing thing with the tour is the Blue Caves because I read often they are closed due to weather conditions and today they were closed. This was the one thing on this particular tour I was looking forward to the most. 

Onboard the speedboat we were offered some coats to wear. The coat was to big for Jo and didn't fit me but luckily we had taken our own ponchos in preparation for getting a little wet during the ride.

As the blue caves were closed we was given some free time to wonder around the small town of Milna located on Brac.

After Brac we headed for the blue lagoon found on Otok Drvenik Veli. We wasn't feeling the swimming and hadn't taken any costumes so we opted to explore the island a little. We had over an hour so we walked to the other side to the marina and then back up to the top of the island where we had some great views of the Adriatic and surrounding islands. 

The next stop is the biggest Island in Croatia called Hvar where we was given a little longer to explore. 

Our legs having not forgiven us from the previous days walking had to endure more steps when we walked to Španjola Fortress.

Španjola Fortress, also known as Fortica, is a historic fortress in Hvar built in the 16th century to protect the town from invasions. The walk from the harbour can take around 20-30 minutes depending on the route you take. It's a long steep uphill route incorporating some steps along the lower parts. The views from the Fortress are fantastic and again the hike up the hill was well worth it. Once back down in the harbour we sat and enjoyed a few drinks taking in the sun people watching.

As the caves were closed our captain told us he was taking us to a surprise location to make up for it. 

We stopped on the island of Solta for around an hour. It's pretty quiet with not a lot going on. Lots of bars and restaurants were closed and the handful that are open are busy so we struggled to find a seat. We wondered around for a while and on our return we was lucky to find a table available at one of the bars.

Once our time was up we headed back to Trogir and it was the end of our tour. 

The tour was advertised as a blue cave, momma mia 5 island tour but the caves were closed and there was no mention of momma mia and we did not stop at 5 islands.

If you're only going on this tour for the blue caves then you're potentially going to be disappointed. If you're relying on the tour guides to give you a traditional guided tour then sadly you will be disappointed again.

If however you would like to explore several of Croatia's finest islands and take in the views etc then this tour won't disappoint. 

Day 4 - Split

The weather on day 4 was forecast to be wet. Very wet. We had originally planned to visit the national park today but we swapped the day around and took a drive to Split. From Trogir it took around 30 minutes. We managed to find a free car park around 10-15 mins walk from the old town / harbour. 

Once parked up we walked the short distance into Split. Split is a historic town and is the 2nd largest according to resources but the old town I felt was small.

In comparison to Dubrovnik it felt very small but in fairness after around an hour exploring the old town the heavens opened and we experienced some horrific weather for a few hours. 

During this time we booked some tickets and headed for the Game of Thrones museum. I checked the reviews online and this place has got some pretty bad reviews and in my opinion they are not justified. Yes it's a small museum but if you are a GoT fan then you will love the museum. Included in the entrance fee is a free photo on the Iron Throne over the street in the store also. I personally thought the museum was very interesting and enjoyed the time we spent there. 

With the rain still lashing down we then purchased some tickets for the museum of illusions which was a short distance away. With heavy rain outside we made the most of a dry area and I think lots of others in Split had the same idea. The museum was very busy. 
This place I think it geared up more for the younger generation and if you have young children I can see you spending lots of time here.

The rain wasn't letting up and we had walked around the old town several times. Maybe the rain had stumped our exploration of Split but I felt the town to be a little disappointed in comparison to Dubrovnik. 

Day 5 - KRKA National Park

We've saved the best until last so if you have managed to get this far then we really do hope you have learnt something from this page and will take something away that will help you with your future travel plans.

Now onto our last full day in Croatia where we took a drive to the KRKA national park.

First off, save yourself some money but more importantly some time on arrival by buying tickets in advance. You can purchase them here: KRKA National park entrance tickets.

The day before we were undecided between krka national park vs plitvice lakes national park. We watched some videos and the conclusion was we wanted to go to both but didn't have enough time in our last day to do both parks. krka national park was approximately 1 hour away from Trogir and plitvice lakes according to the sat nav was 2.5hrs. That was the deciding factor and it proved to be the right choice as we had an absolutely brilliant day at krka national park. 

Some of you will know there are several entrances and several sections of the park. krka national park is 109 square km (approximately 42sqm) so getting around the park was never going to be a quick and easy task but the closest entrance to us from Trogir is Lozovac entrance.

We parked up, scanned our tickets and then we had a decision to make. Get the free shuttle bus or walk the track down. We decided to take the gravel track down and realised we probably had the wrong footwear on for this track but we persevered. The gravel is quite loose, the hill is quite steep and the distance is further than we thought. (The official distance is 875m but I think it was longer!) The walk took us around 20 minutes to reach the bottom at the same place as the bus drops you off. We decided to take the bus back up when we returned.

KRKA National Park covers a large area, it's mainly split into three popular areas. 

The south near Skradin you will find the popular waterfalls called Skradinski buk. Skradinski buk waterfall is the longest, best known and most visited waterfall on the Krka River. 

The middle of the park you will find the popular waterfall Roški slap, the second most popular waterfall in the park. In this area you will also find Visovac Monastery on Visovac Island.

Towards the north of the park you will find Burnum (Burnum Municipium). Burnum was a Roman Legionary fortress dating back to 27 BC-14 AD. Over the years the area became forgotten and buried until the 10th century when Croatian archaeologists Austrian archaeologists took an interest. You can still see today the remains of the excavation areas around the historic site. Your park entrance tickets will get you access to all of these areas. 

In the north you will also find Manojlovački slapovi, the highest waterfall in the park. 

We visited the park in October following a long hot summer so the water level of the krka river was at a low point. The flourishing waterfalls do not look their best during this time of year but the park is very quiet in comparison. Not to mention a lot cheaper as it's classed as out of season. 

Skradinski buk

We started at Skradinski buk. In this area there is a wooden bridge trail running 3400m around the park. It is a one way system, if you follow the signposts you will do a big loop back to the start. 

In this area we stopped for a drink. I think the food and drink prices inside the park are quite reasonable. 

We eventually completed the trail and following a short wait we got the free bus back up to the car park. 

As we had driven up from Trogir we made the decision to go from the south to the north of the park and then make our way back down so the drive home later in the day wasn't so long. 

The drive was around 45-50 minutes from Lozovac to the car park for Manojlovački slapovi. 

Manojlovački slapovi

This is where you could probably do with some better footwear. The trails in this area are quite tough going.

There are two trails. The shorter trail takes you to a viewpoint from the top of the mountain. This is the easier tail. 

The second trail is a lot more challenging but offers a closer experience down at the bottom near the waterfalls.

The second route I would only recommend to people that are fit and healthy. 

Burnum

Burnum dates from the middle of the reign of Augustus (27 BC-14 AD). Without getting into to much history several Roman legions were located there. Several legions came and went and when the last of the Roman legions left the camp it became an urban settlement. It was later destroyed in the 6th century.

The military Amphitheatre at Burnum is estimated to have been able to accommodate 6,000 spectators.

It had four entrances and used the natural terrain, being cut into the bedrock of the karst by soldiers from Legio XI, but it was later turned over to civilian use. Coins found there enable parts to be dated to the reign of the Emperor Claudius. The Amphitheatre eventually collapsed through disuse and neglect.

The Amphitheatre for me was one of the highlights. During October tourism is low and we had the whole Amphitheatre to ourselves for the entire time we was there. 

Roški slap

We eventually headed out to Roški slap which took around 25-30 minutes. 

Roški slap is where the hiking boots are needed if you are to follow some of the trails on offer. 

Firstly, the waterfalls at Roški slap are known as the necklaces but as mentioned due to the dryer period and the lower water levels the view of the necklaces was not as impressive as many would expect. Still they were a great sight. 

Located at Roški slap is the Oziđana pećina cave. The cave has evidence dating back to the stone age and prehistoric men. To get access to the cave you need to climb over 500 steps as the cave is located over 220m up above. On the day we visited the cave was actually closed which is extremely frustrating having spent so long climbing 517 steps. 517 steep steps!

Still the views from the top are amazing so it's worth the climb just to sit and relax a while taking in the quiet peaceful views. 

Back down towards the car park is another challenging hike that takes you to the top of the peak but again it is a challenging hike and not for the faint hearted. Once you get so far up the safety hand rail stops and it's continue at your own risk. 

From Roški slap it took around 1.5 hours to get back to Trogir. 

The following day we travelled back home flying from Split back to the UK. We was disappointed to be leaving such a beautiful country as we really needed more time to explore. 

There is so much more to Croatia and we will 100% be returning in the future.