The Croatian Coast

Over the recent years, Croatia has become a massive tourist destination and deservedly so. With over 1700km of coastline and over a thousand islands dotting the turquoise waters of the Adriatic, there truly aren’t many places that can compete with it.

We started our last day in Dubrovnik with a 4:30am wakeup and were greeted by a gorgeous morning. The streets of the Old Town were deserted. Seagulls and pigeons were fighting over various crumbs and leftovers that had been dropped from the numerous cafes and restaurants lining the main street the night before. They had to make quick work of it as by 7am everything was cleaned up and polished by the garbage man that came out in force. The swallows danced in the hundreds in the sky above us, chasing one another between the buildings and along the red shingled rooftops. Aside for their chatter the city was quite, all its inhabitants still asleep and all the tourists still safely cuddled up in their beds.

At 6am a few of the café staff began to appear and slowly begin to open up their premises, pulling out the tables and chairs. By 7am the garbage man were wrapping up their work and some of the local market vendors were beginning to haul in their goods. By 8am a few adventurous tourists began to appear, some with suitcases, clearly just having arrived, others with their cameras, hoping to get some early morning shots.

At 8am we were the first to get our tickets for the fortification walls and to climb to the top of them. These walls are deservedly Dubrovnik’s main claim to fame. Overall they are over 2km in length and offer stunning views into the city as well as over the water. They hug the cliff’s edge then proceed inland with giant defense towers encircling the entire town. We spent over an hour exploring their length snapping endless shots in every direction.

From Dubrovnik we caught a 3 hour bus to the Island of Korcula (via a short ferry ride). Korcula is a relatively small town with an even smaller Old Town. We found accommodations in the heart of the Old Town in a little three story apartment. From here there are endless options in terms of occupying your time: you can rent a sail boat, you can go kayaking, you can head on an excursion to one of the nearby islands, there are mountain biking trails, vineyards to visits, cafes to sit in or beaches to lounge around. If you want something more extreme they can arrange diving trips, donkey safaris or trekking excursions. We opted for a semi relaxed combination of beach bumming and hiking (or rather walking along the coast to the beach where the rest of the day was spent alternating between cooling oneself off in the amazing waters of the Adriatic and lying on the beach like a pancake that is slowly being melted away).

Tomorrow morning will hopefully entail some more beach bumming followed by a 4 ½ hour ferry ride to Split.