SEA VIEWS AND VIVID VILLAGES
Tourism booming in Croatia
If you’re trying to figure out why Croatia is on the travel wish list of just about everyone you know, all you have to do is crunch the numbers — it has more than 1,200 islands and about 1,750 kilometres of coastline on the mainland.
That makes the country a magnet for visitors whose idea of an Instagram-perfect holiday involves sea views and charming coastal villages. Throw in a few centuriesold UNESCO World Heritage sites with churches, ramparts and cobbled streets and you’ll understand why the country’s tourism industry is booming.
For Croatia, which has been an independent country only since 1991, that has caused a few problems. The mayor of Dubrovnik, a major destination for cruise ships plying the Adriatic, is now looking at ways to limit the number of summer visitors in order to prevent pedestrian logjams in its old town centre.
Looking for ways to bypass the crowds? Visit Croatia in the shoulder seasons, spring and fall, when temperatures are more tolerable and the bulk of tourists are at home. In early October, when I was there, the weather was ideal (in the low to mid 20s, with only half a day of rain in a week), and the tourist crowds were either negligible or manageable.
I decided to steer clear of the huge cruise ships and booked a trip with Peregrine Adventures that covered both the mainland and a few of Croatia’s islands by minibus and ferry, starting in Split and ending in Dubrovnik.
Those two cities have a lot in common. Both have old towns that date back to Roman times, where the bulk of their tourist-worthy sites are located.
Split is by far the larger of the two cities, with a population of 176,000 compared to Dubrovnik’s 28,000. Its stari grad, or old town, is a maze of narrow cobblestone streets in which you can get delightfully lost.
Of Split’s four gates, the Golden Gate, on its north wall, is the most photogenic because of the enormous bronze statue of Grgur Ninski, a.k.a. Bishop Gregory of Nin, by famed Croatian artist Ivan Mestrovic.
Touch the statue’s big toe for luck, a local custom, on the way in.
Keep walking in a more-or-less straight line and you’ll reach the Bronze Gate, which faces the sea and a promenade lined with shops and restaurants. Outside the western Iron Gate is the city’s fish market and a small shopping district, while outside the east’s Silver Gate is a daily produce market, and stalls selling inexpensive clothing and jewelry.
But you’ll want to spend most of your time inside the walls of the old town, built at the turn of the 4th century as a retirement home for the Roman emperor Diocletian, with fortified walls and space to house guards to protect him from his enemies. Fans of Game of Thrones might recognize it as a location for the show’s fourth season.
A guide took us a walking tour of some of the old town’s most impressive sights, including the extravagantly ornate and gilded Cathedral of St. Domnius, which dates back to the 3rd century. Its bell tower, which can be climbed by those who aren’t claustrophobic (so, not me), was a 12th-century addition.
An interesting counterpoint to the cathedral is the far more austere Temple of Jupiter, dedicated to the Roman god and said to be the best-preserved pagan temple in the world.
Don’t miss the old town’s Ethnographic Museum, which features displays of traditional Dalmatian folk costumes, as well as furniture, jewelry and tools. And try to catch a free a cappella performance by a traditional Dalmatian folk group in the open-air vestibule nearby — a member of the group will gladly sell you a CD to take home.
Other souvenirs you might want to make room for in your suitcase are olive oil (Uje is a good place to find it) and chocolate made with olive oil (from a tiny shop called Nadalina). As you might have figured out, Croatia’s climate is ideal for growing olives.
From Split, we took a half-day trip to see the 16th-century Kastel Luksic, one of what used to be 17 castles built along the Adriatic waterfront north of the city, and the charming seaside town of Trogir.
Then Croatia’s islands beckoned. Hvar is fourth-largest island in the Adriatic and its eastern tip sits just six kilometres from the mainland, but its atmosphere is worlds away. Like Split, the island has an old town, but instead of being walled and warren-like, it’s wide open to the sea.
A pedestrian promenade winds its way past the shops and restaurants of the town, then continues to a sheltered bay that’s ideal for a picnic or a dip.
In the middle of the island is the slightly larger town of Jelsa, built in the 10th to 11th centuries with a pretty harbour. Wander the quiet streets and you’ll find a smattering of shops and seaside stands selling local products like fig jam and lavender sachets.
The town of Hvar is a lot more animated — its many bars and restaurants were buzzing with visitors in early October. The Hotel Amfora sits above the town and offers lovely views over the harbour, but you’ll get even better ones if you hike up to the medieval fortress that once guarded the town.
Sleepy Mljet Island was our next stop, and another contrast. About a third of the island is preserved as a national park, and much of the rest of it is forested. There’s only one hotel and a smattering of private accommodations on the island, so don’t expect a lot of nightlife. It’s all about nature here, and the best way to see it is by renting a bike or kayak.
We opted for the former, taking a spin around the well-kept paths that circumnavigate two small lakes in the centre of the island. In the middle of the larger lake is the tiny Island of St. Mary, which you can reach via a passenger ferry. The monastery that dominates the island is undergoing a lengthy renovation, but you can have lunch at the restaurant just outside it and visit the small church and the ruins behind it.
Our final stop was Dubrovnik. Its old town shares the same cobbled streets and walled fortifications as Split’s, but the comparisons largely end there. Dubrovnik’s stari grad wasn’t completed until the 13th century and it was heavily damaged by an earthquake in 1667 and the Croatian War of Independence in the 1990s.
It’s also considerably smaller than Split’s, with one main pedestrian boulevard along which most of its important buildings are located and smaller streets that radiate off it. Well worth seeing are the 14th-century Franciscan monastery and a gallery with a collection of photographs showing the city under siege in the 1990s conflict.
Walking the town walls is also a must — they offer a stunning view over the red-clay roofs to the sea. Get there early in the morning to beat the crowds and midday heat.
You might also want to plan a side trip, via a passenger ferry just outside the town walls, to Lokrum Island, an oasis of calm where peacocks and rabbits nibble the grass alongside pedestrian trails. There are a few buildings to explore, including an old monastery that was also a Game of Thrones location — you can take a selfie on the Iron Throne there — and a handful of restaurants where you can get lunch.
The ideal end to our weeklong adventure was a dinner with the Laptalo family, in the little town of Gromaca, high in the hills above Dubrovnik. There, Zeljka Laptalo and her husband Zeljko prepared a traditional dinner of lamb and chicken cooked under a metal dome in an outdoor kitchen, washed down with local wine and walnut liqueur — some of which came home in my suitcase alongside the chocolate and olive oil.