Journeying in Croatia’s Old World
Road trip from Split to Zagreb shows off country’s radical range of diversions and cultures
The rushing torrent beneath my rustic room’s wooden floorboards is a surprisingly soothing way to wake up in Croatia’s ancient village of Slunj. My inn is actually built out over one of a web of streams that surges around a cluster of tiny islands — dotted with old stone mills and farmhouses — on their way toward cascading waterfalls just yards away.
Add the sound of songbirds and cowbells and it’s a magical, hobbitlike place, especially in early morning, as I make my way through dewy grass in wispy, knee-deep fog. “Dobro jutro,” a pigtailed blond teen wishes me good morning as she collects breakfast from a flock of chickens, to be served at the inn’s homey restaurant.
A ragged-shaped country along the eastern Adriatic coast, Croatia fought a brutal independence war after emerging from Communist Yugoslavia. By the time peace finally arrived in 1995, Croatians found themselves in a modern world, having missed out on the transition to all-things-fast — food and lifestyles. Suddenly, Croatia was so Old World it was trendy.
Though North Americans are only now discovering this seaside jewel, Europeans have long treasured the spectacular, affordable and friendly country as a destination with historic cosmopolitan cities, barely inhabited islands, wild parks, a rich culture, wineries and great cuisine in regions where farm and table never disconnected.
I’ve long wanted to putter into the past on a weeklong road trip along a less-traveled path from Croatia’s central Dalmatian coast along a rural inland route toward the capital of Zagreb.
And since I believe that every good road trip needs a mission, mine is to chase the ghost of charismatic Josef Tito — who famously rejected Stalinism for a lighter version of Communism — discovering traces of Yugoslavia’s former Communist president’s legendary love of women, plush villas and fine cuisine.
I deliberately bypass the “Game of Thrones” throngs besieging Dubrovnik to meet up with my rental car in the coastal city of Split, built as a retirement palace for Roman Emperor Diocletian in the fourth century A.D. The first of four UNESCO World Heritage Sites I’ll be encountering on this trip, the ancient walled city is an exquisite maze of narrow pedestrian cobblestone lanes to get lost in, among churches, cafes and boutiques where locals still inhabit ancient apartments upstairs.
A group of male a cappella singers uses their harmonic voices to show off the acoustics of the domed stone palace entranceway — even these traditional Dalmatian “Klapa” singers are UNESCO-protected, designated an “Intangible Cultural Heritage.”
Alongside, in the main marble
square, costumed Roman “soldiers” and “royalty” make appearances several times daily to the blasting of trumpets.
Romans from neighboring Italy were a big part of this coast’s past, and their ruins are everywhere. Just outside Split, at Salona, ruts have been worn into the cobblestones by 60,000 residents who once lived here among stone towers, temples and an amphitheater for 15,000 whose impressive remains now have a modern, industrial backdrop.
To beat the heat at Salona, I order a cold beer at a tiny cafe — a konoba — shaded by grapevines amid ruins partially engulfed by an olive grove.
“My family has been growing these here for 420 years,” owner Ivan Draskovic tells me, sliding a dish of plump olives toward me.
BBB Nearby Trogir, a 14th-century Venetian city, is in the midst of an annual medieval festival and fair, with costumed locals sword fighting in the narrow streets and main square. From there, I switchback slowly northward through mountain villages where goats amble across the narrow road lined in red poppies and smelling of rosemary and blossoming lavender.
Early evening, I’m dining on fresh seafood in Sibenik, on a patio-lined seaside promenade busy with sunset-watchers sipping Ozujsko beer. Sailboats and wild swans glide by, kids bolt past with ice cream cones, swallows swoop and screech. It could be 1940.
Elegant Sibenik may be the country’s oldest Croatian city — founded by Croats, not Greeks or Romans — but the Venetian empire that occupied coastal Croatia for six centuries still rules restaurant menus with their risottos, pastas and prosciutto.
The coastline between Sibenik and the walled coastal city of Zadar is sprinkled with islands, including those protected within Kornati National Park. Many are uninhabited, fringed in white sand and turquoise waters, some topped with Byzantine fortresses, perfect for sailing adventures with a stop for seafood lunches of fresh John Dory, lobster and octopus in fishing villages.
Inland are parks and nature reserves within the Velebit Mountains, Croatia’s tallest, wild regions popular for hiking, rock climbing, canyoning, paddling and heart-stopping four-wheel-drive excursions into rocky, windswept wilderness peaks, most inhabited only by summertime shepherds and remote war memorials.
BBB By sunrise the next day, I’m away from the coast at Krka National Park, a lush waterfall wonderland with cascades tumbling over limestone terraces, shooting through holes in the rocks and bubbling up from underground. The enchanting Franciscan Visovac Monastery from 1576 occupies an entire tiny island in one of the park’s lakes.
Though the region’s olive trees survived the Croatian War, vineyards that produced some of Europe’s best Shiraz were destroyed, and the Dalmatians looked to Californians to help re-establish their industry. At MasVin, a cooperative that produces olive oil and wine in the village of Polaca, guide Angela explains how the Mines to Vines nonprofit, in collaboration with Californians like Miljenko Grgich — the Croatianborn owner of Napa’s Grgich Hills Estates — first helped demine the war-torn vineyards.
“Then, in 2001, Carole Meredith of (UC) Davis did DNA analyses and discovered that the world’s original, longlost ancestor of Zinfandel — long considered America’s only ‘native’ grape — is actually a local Dalmatian grape called Crljenak,” she says. (In Croatia it’s also known as Tribidrag, the name that Meredith uses now.)
The region’s wineries are still in their infancy, many of them small, family affairs. In Polaca, I sip red Plavac Mali in a stone Turkish armory that is part of a reconstructed 1307 farm complex, then travel on to Bencovac, where locals have gathered beneath a massive chestnut tree in the courtyard of their 15th-century castle for a tasting to the music of a stringed quartet.
In the tranquil village of Smilcic, I’m invited to sample homemade wines, herb schnapps and cherry wine made with Maraschinos in the home of the Crljenko family. The wife has made walnut and lemon cakes, and I’m tempted to linger for the night in their nostalgic rental suite just 5 miles from the busy seaside.
BBB Busy is on my mind as I continue toward Plitvice Lakes National Park, one of the country’s most-visited sites. It’s a surreal setting where hundreds of streams tumble over limestone and chalk that have, over millennia, deposited barriers, creating natural dams that constantly alter the liquid landscape. As luck would have it, torrential rains have kept crowds at bay, and I have spectacularly flooded Plitvice almost to myself.
Drying out afterward over a traditional lamb stew simmered in a hearth fireplace at nearby Licka Kuca Restaurant, I meet a couple setting out to hike into the remains of Izvor, one of President Tito’s villas nearby. Having run across traces of Tito at his wartime island base of Vis Island and his many villas-turned-hotelsor-private-mansions throughout Slovenia and Croatia, I jump at the chance to join them.
A charming Communist jet-setter with a circle of glamorous friends, including Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, and Gina Lollobrigida who visited frequently, Tito was even gifted a 1950s Cadillac by President Dwight Eisenhower.
In pouring rain, we make our way along a trail toward a deserted medieval-castle-styled mansion with stone walls. Inside is a grand interior with a curving marble staircase. Water drips into the former cinema, buckles the single-lane bowling alley and forms pools in the billiard room. Deserted, the villa was ransacked by Serbs who used it as a base during the Croatian War.
BBB The sun pokes out as I arrive in Slunj, an unusual watermill village at the confluence of two rivers, where streams and waterfalls cascade through lush fields between tile-roofed farmhouses. I check into Slovin Unique Rastoke inn then stroll over narrow wooden bridges to visit the 18th-century mill — there were once 30 — and a 19th-century stone military magazine built during Napoleon’s invasion.
Over an evening glass of Croatian Pošip white wine in the inn’s tavern, I order fresh trout from the island’s own pond, stuffed with local bacon and wild mushrooms foraged from surrounding forests. For dessert, the waitress suggests Palachinken Diplomat — Diplomat’s Pancake.
When I ask about the diplomat’s identity, she answers, “Tito.” “It was one of his favorite desserts, and he would request it when he visited. But the recipe is secret.”
So I make mental cooking notes as I tuck into a fluffy souffle dusted with sugar perched in a puddle of rum with spoonfuls of peach and chokeberry jams on the side. The man had good taste.
On my last day, I continue toward my evening flight out of Zagreb through villages where buildings still bear the scars of bullet holes and shrapnel, some houses torn apart or burnt out during a war that was fought house to house in this area. Just outside Karlovac I come upon an excellent open-air Homeland War Museum with an interesting collection of vehicles and armor from the ’90s conflict alongside barrack ruins from Croatia’s 200-year AustroHungarian occupation.
My final stop on Zagreb’s outskirts is for a forest hike to a 15thcentury hilltop castle with views across the forests and mountains surrounding Samobor, a whimsical old spa town where the aromas of coffee and warm pastries drift through the main square. At a sidewalk cafe, I order the town specialty, a decadent millefeuillelike pastry called kremšnita.
“Delicious,” I tell the waitress.
“Everybody loves it,” she says, leaning closer and winking. “It was even a special favorite of Marshal Tito.”