If you are planning to go to Croatia for the first time, pay attention! Practical tips for traveling to Croatia
My first solo trip was to Croatia. Summer was approaching, I wanted the sea, the sun, the comfort of an ancient European city, but at the same time I didn’t want a long and stressful flight.
I have always believed that traveling on your own is very difficult, you need to know the language perfectly, be able to book hotels, buy tickets, and not get lost in a foreign country - so I went straight to a travel agency.
A lot of options were worked out with the manager - Cyprus, Greece, Spain, Montenegro, Croatia, etc. We settled on Croatia - the country fully corresponded to my ideas about a proper vacation, and was also attractive due to the lack of visas in the summer. The vacation criteria were as follows: Central Dalmatia, a small hotel without animation, as close as possible to the sea, as well as relative proximity to some city, because I don’t like exclusively beach holidays. To my surprise, my very modest desires could not be satisfied - either the hotel was too far away, or it was too big with animation and round-the-clock fun, or it simply did not satisfy my aesthetic ideas, or it was very expensive. That day I left with nothing and was terribly upset.
In the evening I went online and, once again, after reading reviews from independent travelers, I decided to act. On the sites I found information about airlines, special promotions and discounts on flights, and sites where hotels are booked. It took one evening to book tickets. In mid-May there were few special offers; the most profitable one turned out to be from a tour operator in Croatia, and tickets for the Moscow-Split flight of Transaero airlines were purchased from him. To purchase tickets, you didn’t even need a plastic card; the money was transferred using an instant bank transfer.
Next, the hotel selection began. Here everything was more complicated, not because it is not easy to book a hotel (this procedure takes only a few minutes), but because it is not easy to decide on a hotel due to the variety of options offered. This is where there is room for creativity! No agency is able to offer so many different options. In the end, the choice fell on a place called Podstrana, near the city Split and a small, cozy aparthotel with a kitchenette. I decided to book a hotel with a kitchen because there were very contradictory reviews about the village and, after reading them, I still didn’t understand how things were going with restaurants and cafes in the area. Later it turned out that I made my choice not in vain. I booked a hotel room on booking.com. There was a month and a half left before my trip, which was planned for the end of June.
Having arrived in Croatia, we decided to go to Podstrana by taxi. As usual, you can take a taxi at the exit from the airport, only unlike in our country, there you pay according to the meter and the taxi drivers are the nicest, polite people who help you carry your luggage and open the door for you. Contrary to my expectations, there were no mountain serpentines; the trip turned out to be comfortable on a good, flat road. I heard that there are still serpentines closer to Southern Dalmatia. But there was no opportunity to check. The trip took approximately 30 minutes and cost 60 euros. We were met at the hotel by the owner, who had been called in advance by a helpful taxi driver, and from that moment our holiday in Croatia began.
This is a wonderful country with clean air, azure sea, smiling and friendly people. The language barrier?! It was easy for me there, although, contrary to numerous reviews, the Croatian language is completely incomprehensible and I do not find the slightest similarity with the Russian language, it was easier to ask in English (although I know it very mediocrely), and sometimes in Russian.
Every day we went for a walk in nearby cities - Omiš, Split, Trogir, fortunately, buses go there every half hour, and some of them also have sea connections. For example, from Omis and Split you can sail on an excursion to the Islands.
Croatian cities are like a medieval fairy tale. They are very cozy and unhurried, lined with paving stones, and in the center in the heat of the day, thanks to the stone and proximity to the sea, there is a pleasant coolness - walking there is a real pleasure. Restaurants and cafes are everywhere, any street will definitely lead to one of them.
The prices are quite reasonable, for example, a portion of tuna or sea bream costs 500-600 rubles, salad 150-400 rubles, soup 100-300 rubles, coffee 100-120 rubles; The portions are huge, I had to take it with me several times or take it for two. All products are the freshest and not only in restaurants. Croatian kitchen- tasty, but very ordinary, with no pretensions to sophistication. If it is meat or fish, then it is simply grilled; salads are mostly without dressing, but there is always salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and olive oil on the table so that visitors can season the dishes to their liking.
In the markets you can buy seafood, excellent cheeses (I bought several varieties to take home), prosciutto- dried meat, which is one of the national Croatian dishes, various fruits, the price of which is much cheaper than ours, and buy black and white truffles as a delicacy. A large selection of souvenirs, as in any resort town - all kinds of stone crafts in Trogir, lace that Croatian old needlewomen weave right in the center of Split, local alcoholic drinks (travaritsa, slivovitz, etc.), silver jewelry (I was assured that jewelry with coral from local producers), bags and oil with lavender, olive oil (our store-bought one cannot be compared with the local one), natural soap and traditional magnets. In my opinion, prices in Omiš are slightly lower than in Split and Trogir.
Now a little more detail about Podstrana. The village is very quiet and calm, I had Villa Jercan apartments right by the sea, literally three steps to the water's edge. The hotel has its own beach, at the entrance to the sea the bottom is pebbly, and then there is sand - I am writing about this because this fact surprised me, I thought that in Croatia there are pebbles almost everywhere, at least in this place for sure. The disadvantage of this place is that in the surrounding area there are only two restaurants, approximately 500 m along the seashore, one grocery store, so in the village it is wiser to rent housing with at least a small kitchen for preparing the most necessary things.
Otherwise, everything is fine - proximity to Omis and Split, a stop near the house, absence of crowds of tourists. A bus ticket to Split and Omis costs 10-12 kunas, a minibus ticket is a little cheaper. The hotel owner organizes various excursions and extreme sports, car rental, and offers taxi services for a reasonable fee. You can independently go to the national Krka park, to oyster farms, as well as visit many other interesting places.
If you are interested not only in a beach holiday, then one week will not be enough to travel around Croatia; the best option is two weeks - time during which you can see the most popular attractions, walk around the cities, study the traditions and life of another country and have plenty of rest on the sea.
I would like to note that independent travel planning is not at all difficult, moreover, it is interesting, the process has captivated me so much that now I keep an eye on all the promotions offered by famous airlines, as well as discounts on hotels in various countries. And I will organize the next trip myself again, without travel agencies. After all, in addition to significant cost savings, it is also incredible pleasure.
When traveling to Croatia in 2019, Russians will need to obtain visa documents. Croatia is part of the European Union, but is not a Schengen country, so if you receive a national Croatian visa, you will not be able to enter other countries. However, if you have a double or multiple Schengen visa, you will be able to visit Croatia without completing additional documents.
Example of a national Croatian visa
For short-term entry or transit through Croatia, without leaving the airport transit area, a visa is not required.
If you have a double- or multiple-use Schengen visa category C, a long-stay visa category D or a residence permit in the Schengen countries, you can visit Croatia on the basis of these documents. The documents must be valid for the entire period of stay in the country.
From July 22, 2014, according to the decision posted on the website of the Croatian Consulate, if you have a two-entry (or more) national visa, or, you can enter with it.
Required documents for visa
Necessary documents for obtaining a visa to Croatia on your own:
Note! In case of visa refusal, fees are non-refundable.
Depending on the type of trip, you may need different documents to confirm the purpose of your stay and provide accommodation. The purpose of the visit may be tourism, visiting family and friends, cultural and sporting events, medical treatment, or a business trip. Please note that foreigners are not allowed to work in Croatia on the basis of a visa.
For example, if the purpose of your trip is for tourism, to confirm it, you will need a printout from the hotel booking site, a paid voucher, or documentary evidence of the availability of your accommodation or rental for the duration of the trip.
Gift 2100+1000 rubles for housing!
When registering using the link in AirBnB. you will receive 2100 rubles to your account. For this money you can rent a good apartment for 1 day abroad or in Russia. The bonus only works for new accounts.
When registering after your stay, you will receive a cashback of 1000 rubles.
If you are planning to make a private visit to relatives, then a marriage certificate, birth certificate or invitation will be suitable for confirmation (it must indicate the personal and contact information of both parties, the timing and purpose of the trip, the number of entries). Also, relatives and friends can make a letter of guarantee (), which must be certified by a notary.
Traveling with children
A visa for a minor is received by his legal representative (parent, guardian). To do this, you will need to provide the child’s birth certificate in addition to the standard package of documents.
If a minor travels abroad with only one of the parents, or with a third party, it is necessary to obtain a notarized permission from the parents for the child to travel abroad. It must indicate the personal data of the parent, the purpose and duration of stay in Croatia, the period of validity of the consent to leave and the signature.
Where to apply for a visa to Croatia?
St. Petersburg, st. Bolshaya Raznochinnaya, 16A (entrance from Chkalovsky Prospekt, 7), 2nd floor Ekaterinburg, st. Kuibysheva 44D, 2nd floor, business hotel "Panorama" (entrance from Belinsky Street) Kaliningrad, 1812 Goda Street, 126 Murmansk, st. Karl Liebknechta, 13 Novosibirsk, st. Chelyuskintsev, 15b Omsk, st. Frunze, 1, koprus 4, room 713-713 A Vladivostok, st. Okeansky Avenue, 17, office 601 Khabarovsk, st. Istomina, 22A, 1st floor Ufa, st. Chernyshevsky, 82 Irkutsk, st. Sverdlova, 10, 2nd floor Krasnoyarsk, st. Maerchaka, 16 Moscow, st. Dubininskaya, 35 Moscow, st. Ostozhenka, 23 Moscow, st. Korobeinikov lane, 16 building 1
You need to apply for a visa no earlier than 3 months before your planned trip.
You can also obtain a tourist visa through any agency accredited by the embassy.
Conclusion
Citizens of the Russian Federation and Ukraine will be able to obtain a Croatian tourist multiple visa for six months, while their stay in Croatia is limited to 90 days. On average, standard paperwork takes 5-10 business days. In some cases, you may be required to provide additional documents or a personal visit to the embassy.
The other day I returned from a mini-trip around Croatia, which we went on with family and friends. Although in all previous years we preferred beach holidays in all-inclusive hotels, this time we decided to add variety and completely refused the services of various travel agencies, trying to organize the trip ourselves.
It didn’t take us long to choose a country; we had long wanted to visit Croatia, and the lack of need for a visa only strengthened our desire to go there.
As a result, a month and a half before the proposed trip, I started booking hotels, buying air tickets and renting a car, because... we wanted to go not only to the sea, but also to see the famous Plitvice Lakes and several large Croatian cities.
As a result, our route according to plan was as follows: we fly to Zagreb, take a car there and go to Plitvice Lakes. There we watch them for two days and move to the sea to the resort town of Makarska. We live at sea for 6 days, and we don’t just lie on the beach, but visit islands and interesting nearby cities. Then on the eighth day we go back to Zagreb and spend the whole day exploring this city. On the last day we return the car and fly home.
There is a plan, all that remains is to prepare everything so that this plan can be translated into reality.
The first thing I did was find out the availability of air tickets to Zagreb. Aeroflot found a suitable option. To be on the safe side, I went to the airline’s website, booked tickets and paid for them using a MasterCard.
There are three hotels and a car left to book. To book hotels, I used the website booking.com, where you can quickly book almost any hotel in any country. Having chosen suitable hotels, I made a reservation, entering the details of my MasterCard card to confirm my intentions. No money is usually charged at the booking stage. They can only be removed if you cancel within a few days of the booked date.
There are hotels, there are tickets, there is still a car.
I had no experience in booking a car, so after reading the reviews, I used the website rentalcars.com, which, as I understand, is a partner of all major car rental companies and allows you to find the best deal for a particular car.
Since we were 4 adults and one child, I needed a car that was roomy enough, so I settled on an Opel Astra with an automatic transmission, climate control, and also ordered a child seat as an option. I also entered my credit card details and confirmed my order. As a result, the next day I received confirmation that the car was booked with EuropCar.
At this point, the booking process was completed, and all that remained was to wait for the departure date. In terms of money at the moment it turned out to be 46,000 rubles. per person.
A month and a half flew by unnoticed, and now we were already on the plane on the way to Zagreb. We arrived normally, the weather was good, and the border guards were friendly and efficient.
We quickly found the EuropCar office, signed the necessary papers, left a deposit (they took it from my MasterCard) and hit the road. The only mistake we made at this stage was not inspecting the car before leaving for any “jambs” that could then be pinned on us when we return the car. And as it turned out later, there were such “shoals” there.
So we're on our way. The first thing we decided to do was find the nearest bank and exchange money for local currency. The navigator gave us the nearest bank, which turned out to be a local post office, where we successfully bought local currency.
Well, then the first point of our journey awaited us - Plitvice Lakes, not far from which the first hotel was located. I gave all the coordinates and addresses of the hotel to Artem Basmanov, who went on this trip with me. He entered them into his navigator, which was pre-installed on his iPad.
After 200 km we realized that the navigator was taking us in the wrong direction...))
It turned out that Artyom had entered into the navigator a settlement very similar in name, but not at all ours. We turn around, enter the correct coordinates and drive another 300 km along the highway in the opposite direction.
Here we encounter a second interesting point. On the autobahn we run into some piece of metal at high speed and completely destroy the rear left tire!
We stopped, took out all the things from the trunk and began to change the wheel, thank God the spare wheel was in place, and we only punctured one wheel, although a piece of metal got under two wheels.
Here's how it went:
The adventure begins!
While they were changing the tire, a local policeman drove up to us and asked what happened and whether we needed help with anything. I said that we were tourists from Russia and just had a flat tire, so no help was needed.
Our mini-hotel was beautifully decorated with flowers, and it was located at the very entrance to the national park.
Almost all the paths in this national park are made of rounded wooden planks, which are carefully laid over the lakes.
Huge schools of fish swim right under your feet. Fishing is prohibited there, so they swim without fear)
I actually put this photo on my desktop. Just a fabulous view!
Airplane))
I trained a lot in photographing waterfalls, fortunately there are a lot of them there.
The largest of the local waterfalls, about 75 meters.
And here are greetings from the friendly Chinese (or Japanese), who were the most tourists there)
And although swimming there is also prohibited, there were comrades who violated this prohibition and enjoyed the local water. I caught one of these at the crime scene))
As for access to the Internet via Wi-Fi, in the first hotel there was a good signal only on the street terrace, so Artem and I occasionally went there with our laptops.
Then we moved towards the sea to the city of Makarska. This is where we decided to refuel for the first time. At a gas station, the system is like this - you drive up to the pump, fill up as much gasoline as you need and leave and go pay at the cash register. With our money, a liter of 95 gasoline cost us 56 rubles. It turns out exactly twice as expensive as in Russia.
The road to Makarska took us about 3 hours and 80% of it was on the toll highway.
With autobahns, the system is as follows: when entering the autobahn, there are automatic barriers. You need to drive up to him and take a special one. a coupon that records the place and time of entry onto the highway. When exiting the autobahn, there is also a barrier plus something like an ATM, where you need to insert your coupon received upon entry and your VISA or MasterCard card. Money is debited from the card depending on the length of the route traveled along the highway and the barrier opens. Sometimes, instead of an ATM, there is a booth where a kind guy sits and accepts cash.
On the autobahn, people travel at an average speed of 130-150 km/h. We decided not to stand out from the crowd and drove about the same, maybe a little faster. But comrades regularly “flew” past us, who were definitely driving well over 200)). There was even a Bentley Continental GT.
Unfortunately, I left my radar detector in the car at the airport, so I can’t say whether there are radars at all in Croatia, and how many speeding fines we collected there.
When we arrived in the city itself, we spent about an hour looking for the hotel where we were to live for the next 6 days. The navigator could not accurately indicate this place and gave only approximate points, so we had to resort to the help of local residents.
Checked in... Wi-Fi is available, the flight is normal))
There are a lot of people on the beach both during the day and in the evening, so it is best to go swimming early in the morning.
Learning to swim
Embankment
Every day, returning from the sea, we went to the market and bought fruit, took a large watermelon, melon, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries and many other tasty and healthy gifts of local nature.
Lots of all kinds of natural oils, lavender, honey, dried fruits...
With our money, a watermelon cost about 32 rubles. per kilogram. You can buy whole, half or quarter.
Once we rented a catamaran. We had a good time jumping from it...
In the evenings we walked along the embankment
These were the sunsets...
One day we sailed to the islands. I pretended to be the captain of our ship.
Several other ships sailed with us.
The famous Croatian beach "Golden Cape" on the island of Brac.
I'm testing the waters of the golden cape. The water was good that day.
One day we went to the city of Split. We arrived in the city, parked the car in a paid parking lot and went for a walk.
First of all, we climbed the tallest tower in the city.
This tower used to be a bell tower, but now tourists are allowed into it for a small fee. We took a lot of beautiful shots from the tower.
We also bought a Croatian flag there for our collection. We bring a flag and a mug from each country.
The city of Split in the rays of the setting sun.
On the penultimate day we returned to Zagreb and walked around it. There are no special attractions there, but it was still interesting.
Local tram
Local yogis who sit right on the street in front of a crowd of passers-by.
One of the angels near the main temple of Zagreb
This is how our trip turned out, full of adventures, new sensations and different emotions. With a child, of course, it’s hard, especially for mom, but in any case, in general, this trip left all of us with unforgettable impressions and a positive experience of independent travel, in which we made almost no mistakes.
Our "rakes" that may be useful to you:
1. Inspect the car together with a representative of the rental company and write down on a special sheet all the chips, scratches, and damage that you notice. In the future, this will save you from disputes over whether you or not are to blame for this or that scratch on your car.
2. Start booking hotels 3-4 months before your trip (if it happens during the holiday season). We booked 1.5 months in advance, and by this time all the “delicious” options had already been taken away. Although we also more or less successfully got through all the hotels, but if we had done everything in advance, it would have been even better.
3. Enter your destination into the navigator using the digital longitude and latitude coordinates, which are always indicated for the hotel when booking it.
I will be glad to see your comments.
P.S. All photos were taken with our Canon EOS 5D Mark II camera. I learned to take photographs, am learning and will continue to learn at our
I talked about my first trip to Croatia and how I had a dream to travel around Croatia by car.
Dreams come true - this is not only Gazprom’s slogan, but mine too, may they forgive me for plagiarism. And in most cases, we ourselves take certain steps to implement them.
A few years later, a whole chain of events brought me here again, and... with a loved one, who also had a driver’s license (honestly, this was not a determining criterion, rather a pleasant bonus!).
Implement road trip around Croatia can be done in two ways:
- By your car. If you can easily endure long journeys and are not limited by travel time (or not very limited), you can go in your own car. The advantages are obvious - you travel in a car that you know well and are used to, and you save the cost of rental and air travel, although you spend more on gasoline. Travel time, if you count from Moscow, will take you on average 3 days one way, but you have the opportunity to see several countries along the way: Belarus, Poland, and then, depending on the route, Germany, Austria, Hungary.
An example of a route from Moscow to Croatia by car:
Sometimes Google Maps also offers a third option - through Germany. It’s a little longer, but if you switch to it, you’ll see that there’s a little less road work on it, which means there’s less risk of getting stuck in a traffic jam, and with this option you’ll also be able to see Germany and stay overnight, for example, in Dresden.
You can vary your routes - no one is stopping you from heading to Prague after Dresden and staying there for a day, then stopping in Salzburg or Vienna of your choice, and then heading to Croatia. When traveling by car, you can also stop in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, and also explore the Plitvice Lakes– in terms of travel logistics, it will be more convenient than then going to the lakes from the coast and returning back. Or you can plan Plitvice on the way back, many write that they are well worth two days, so you can plan to spend the night there and have a good time walking around the reserve - in my personal rating, this is perhaps one of the most beautiful places I have seen.
But still, this option, in my opinion, can be chosen if the vacation lasts at least three weeks, which is not always possible.
Therefore, the most common way is to fly to your destination country by plane and rent a car.
This time we were able to escape to Croatia for only 10 days, so we rented a car on the spot. In addition, I managed to buy a ticket to Split on a special offer from S7 airlines for only 9 thousand rubles round trip. My companion (it just so happened that we took tickets separately) cost 15 thousand roundtrip, but, as it turned out, he got business class as part of the promotion.
There were no problems getting a car at the airport, and soon after landing we were driving along the beautiful road along the Adriatic Sea from Split to the village of Baska Voda, which I had fallen in love with from a previous visit.
The famous Vrulja Bay at the entrance to the village of Brela Since this article is dedicated specifically to road trips, I will not dwell on the details of booking apartments in Croatia (you can read about this in), but will simply tell you where we went.
Our routine was mostly like this: day - beach, day - trips. First of all, we went to the nearest town – Makarska. From Baska Voda it’s 15 minutes away, we can say, if we draw parallels with our urban planning, that Makarska is something like a regional center. Accordingly, there are more large shops and hotels, and a greater choice of evening entertainment.
Makarska, mountains and pine trees 
Square in Makarska Among the attractions in Makarska, the Franciscan monastery of the 15th century stands out.
Like most Croatian cities, it has its own old town with its narrow shady streets, sandwiched between traditional Croatian stone houses, with clotheslines stretched between the windows of the upper floors, cobblestones on the pavement, shutters made of old dark wood.
As Wikipedia tells us, Cape St. Petra divides the coast within the city of Makarska into two bays. In the eastern bay, from Cape St. Petra to Cape Osejava there is a port and yacht piers, while the western one is a resort recreation area with beaches, along which stretches the long promenade Marineta with hotels, cafes and shops.
I like Makarska, it’s really good to stroll there, look at the yachts, go shopping, but for relaxation, so to speak, basic accommodation, if we consider Central Dalmatia, I would still choose Baska Voda or its neighboring Brela, with their long promenade ( one village smoothly flows into another, so it’s difficult to understand where one ends and the other begins, so there are more than enough options for walking), lush pine trees hanging over the very edge of the sea, surrounded by bright flowering bushes, neat villas with orange tiled roofs and beautiful beaches, marked with the Blue Flag.
Baska Voda at sunset 
The second foray was further away - to Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is a fairy tale city, a city of legend. For those in the know, this is where most of “Game of Thrones” was filmed; there are indeed landscapes and architecture there that seem to have come straight out of the pictures of a medieval novel, smoothly turning into fantasy. Dubrovnik is included by UNESCO in the top three most beautiful cities - monuments of Renaissance Europe, along with Venice and Amsterdam.
Rooftops of Dubrovnik 
You need to plan a whole day for Dubrovnik, since you can spend quite a lot of time there, plus travel time.
And don’t forget to take your international passport with you when you go to Dubrovnik - after all, the route runs through Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is, you will first have to leave Croatia, and then enter again. Those. in one round trip you cross the state border four times. As a rule, no problems arise with this. In a number of cases, we simply waved our passports in front of the border guard, and once or twice our passports were picked up for a quick look. Entry into Bosnia and Herzegovina is currently visa-free for residents of the Russian Federation. The road, as can be seen on the map, runs along the sea, and the views will always be such that it is impossible to resist the desire to stop and take photos. In addition, from time to time on your way there will be secluded bays with clear water of extraordinary beauty, so that from the road you can see every pebble on the bottom, so, most likely, you will want to stop and swim, at least once during the journey. Take this into account when calculating your travel time. For example, we stopped at such a stunning place with clear water and refreshed ourselves there before continuing our journey.
Closer to Dubrovnik, you will be able to see an interesting picture - a lot of barrels floating in the water, not floating chaotically, but in orderly rows, that is, clearly fixed in one place. This is the famous oyster farm in the town of Stone, and you can definitely go there to enjoy some fresh oysters.
We also passed such an interesting valley, dug out by obviously artificial canals filled with water - we couldn’t help but stop to take a photo.
In Dubrovnik, leave your car in a parking lot, as close to the Old Town as possible. We chose the first one we came across, simply followed the “P” signs, focusing on the map in the navigator, and then continued on foot. Be sure to stroll through the streets of the Old Town and climb the fortress wall that surrounds it. It will take about an hour to completely go through the entire wall, according to my feelings, they definitely didn’t time it. From the wall you will look at the city, admire the beautiful panorama of the sea and the harbor with many different types of water transport: boats, beautiful yachts, sailboats, cruise ships... the view of the harbor definitely resembles an illustration from a book about pirates, and in general the feeling that you are somewhere... then in a fairy tale, it didn’t let me go the whole time I walked.
Back to reality: don’t forget hats and protective cream when planning to walk along the fortress wall.
We didn’t spend the night in Dubrovnik, but I think it would be nice: I can imagine how beautiful the city is in the evening, when the crowds of tourists have left. But we, having walked around to our heart’s content and taken photographs, decided to return to our almost native Baska Voda.
On the way to Dubrovnik or back, you can stop by the beautiful city of Mostar, located in Bosnia and Herzegovina, or you can plan a separate trip there.
Mostar (the name of the city translates as “Old Bridge”) is located on both banks of the Neretva River. Its main attraction is the Old Bridge over the Neretva, which connects the two parts of the city, and, in fact, gave it its name. The bridge was built by the Ottoman Turks in 1566 and is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. But during the war in 1993, it was completely destroyed (and the entire city was seriously damaged; many houses, as a memory of those tragic events, still have traces of firefights and bombings) and restored in 2004, and during the restoration they tried to use the original material as much as possible, for which many blocks of the destroyed bridge were raised from the bottom of the Neretva. Now it is a symbol of the country's return to peaceful life. Also noteworthy in the city are ancient houses in the Ottoman style, Plaza de España (city center), an ancient mosque, a Franciscan church and an Orthodox cathedral, which was also damaged during the war, but is to be restored in the near future (perhaps some work is already underway) .
My next stories will be about what other cities and attractions we visited while traveling around Croatia by car - subscribe to updates on the site using the “subscribe” button on the main page of the site or our
We had been planning to go to the seaside in Croatia for a long time and never had enough time.
And yesterday I just went and bought tickets to Split for 3,000 rubles - I searched and bought and there’s no getting around it.
We have 2 weeks in September before the start of our canal cruise in Germany and this time is allocated to Croatia (mostly) and a little to Italy (we will get there from Split by ferry to Ancona).
The return flight to Moscow will be from Italy, but tickets have not yet been purchased.
Vacation plans in Croatia
This is not my first trip to Croatia, but Ikrinka’s first time getting to know this Balkan country.
We have mainland and island beaches in our plans for Croatia - we will need to draw up a map of good beaches for the next season.
Filming beautiful coastal cities from the air with a drone also greatly popularizes this destination compared to neighboring Montenegro.
Evenings in coastal restaurants with grilled fish and octopus.
Maybe: I was there, although there were a lot of people there - I liked it, but Ikrinka wasn’t
What you need for a trip to Croatia
We don’t need a visa to Croatia - we have permanent residence in one of the Schengen countries, but anyone who has a Schengen visa can safely go to Croatia: I wrote about this in the article
I’ll just add that Greece is now handing out three-year Schengen visas left and right – so what’s the point of fooling around with local visas?
Car rent At this price, it's the best option to explore more in a short period of time.
True, you will have to use car ferries many times, and they tend to run less frequently than regular passenger ferries, but they definitely happen at least twice a day.
Where to stay in Croatia
This is not a problem at all: we are going to Croatia in early September and the bulk of vacationers have left the Adriatic coast and are now getting their children ready for school or getting up for work on the alarm clock.
The housing stock in Croatia is huge, so in September there is no problem coming to the place, seeing the apartments in person, and if you like them, immediately book cheaper on booking using the mobile Internet.
We ordered internet for the car, but in general we’ll probably just buy a Tele-2 card with a 2 GB package for $10 and one of the iPhones will distribute wifi.
The best type of housing in the Balkans is apartments.
This is a kitchen, this is the absence of standard corridors and standard doors, not to mention standard neighbors - I’m talking about good apartments, not the Crimean-Anapa version.
The best way to book an apartment is to find and make a reservation in advance on the AirBNB website, but we have a very mobile trip that is not tied to either place or time.
If we want, we’ll leave the car at the port and move to Italy.
Currency exchange in Croatia
In Croatia, like in Europe, plastic is accepted everywhere: you can pay in shops, gas stations, restaurants, hotels.
Cash - well, perhaps at the market or on the road to buy fruits or seeds.
You can change any hard currency (that is, not rubles) at a bank or right at the airport - $100 will be enough.
The difference between the exchange rate at the airport and somewhere in the bank, to which it costs 20 euros by taxi, will be a pittance.
Restaurants, cuisine in Croatia
The cuisine in Croatia is very similar to Italian - there is a strong influence, and most of the tourists here are from Italy.
Compared to Montenegro, which is more similar to Turkey (both in appearance and behavior of the locals, and in cuisine), in Croatia there is more seafood on the tables than meat.
Fish, shellfish, octopus, which is generally a big specialty here and is well prepared.
Croatians make good white wine, and of course red wine. In general, white wine is more difficult to make.
Italian ice cream (probably the best in the world) and desserts are very popular. In general, eating here is okay.
Well, in general, that’s probably all.
As usual, I will keep an online travel diary on the forum -.