The drive south through Croatia was just stunning. Most countries you see beautiful vistas mixed in with a bit of industry and less than spectacular views but not Croatia. You are just treated to mile after mile of stunning scenery from towering mountains, quaint villages to breathtaking sea views.
We arrived at our next stop and were greeted by the splendid entrance to the belvedere holiday camp. It certainly felt luxurious and the type of place you’d want to hang out for a few days. We had 4 nights by the sea booked with a perfect view of the bay.
The site was great, a lovely pool, a small pebble beach, playground, swimming pool, water park, plenty of places to eat, a deli and some evening entertainment but more the live band gently playing than the usual holiday camp fare, so generally a great place to relax.
We pottered around the park, alternating between the sea and the pool, chilling & relaxing. One excursion to the famous blue lagoon. Bit of communication error, Si & Tom claimed to have booked a morning boat trip with 3 stops to explore a lagoon, a little village and a secret beach. Sounded perfect and perfectly suited to our non existent attention spans. So it was a bit of a surprise when at the first stop the boat pilot said ‘see you at 2.00’, oh 3 hours on one beach? We could have done that back at base but hey it was a nice beach and the boys loved the boat ride.
We ended up staying an extra night so we could fit in split, seemed crazy to come this far down Croatia and not take in the beautiful split.
So glad we did, it’s unbelievably beautiful, so unusual and the way the city has weaved its way into the old structure is fabulous. Mysterious little alleyways open out into grand squares with sneaky peeks of the brilliant blue med.
It was seriously hot so we didn’t hang around too long, easily 40 degrees.
A load of pics that try to capture how fab it all is. Spot the GOT money shot and which boy is having good luck for touching big Ninski’s toe…
After the heat of split we decided to head up into the mountains to Kliss fortress to cool down. Another location for Game of Thrones but it’s hard to avoid that from what we could gather. Stunning view regardless of the GOT ref. It was cash only to get into the fortress & we’ve been a bit useless with having cash so we enjoyed the view, which was incredible enough to make the drive worth it.
After a lazy few days and some great little trips we headed north. Making up for the mess up with Plitvic we headed for Krka national park and wow, so glad we did. Beats any other park we’ve been to, just unbelievably beautiful. Apparently Plitvic is quite rigid about where you can walk and you definitely can’t swim in the lakes. Krka is pretty relaxed and although there are wooden paths to follow you can go where you like. I imagine that will change, it can’t be good for the place to have 000’s of tourists trampling all over it every day.
You could easily spend a day or more exploring different areas of the park, there’s so much to see and do. We had someone with tired little legs so stayed on the gentle tourist trail, though that was a bit taxing in parts, again 40+ degrees so dripping with sweat!
A picture paints a thousand words so here’s some…
One more night in Croatia in a lovely little site, near the Slovenia border. Even here at a random stop we discover we’re staying in the hometown of Croatia’s Beatrix Potter, Ivana Brlić-MaĹľuranić, and had a view of Mount Klek which inspired her stories of mythical creatures.
(And no we didn’t pinch that corn from the field next door, as tempting as that may be!)
Finally the temperature dropped as we moved north and even a bit of rain before heading off to Italy.
Our travels, mostly in the van 