Writing about our incredible road trip through South Africa over the Easter holiday has reminded me that I haven’t posted about our week-long road trip through Croatia during Semana Santa (Easter) last year. We packed a lot in but hit some of the best spots in Croatia (sans islands), and I think it’s time I share that itinerary!

Itinerary

I arrived four days before Gareth, and spent them hanging around Zagreb. Zagreb is SUCH a gem of a city, it would be a huge mistake to skip it and only see the coast. Trust me, it’s worth spending some time there!

Unfortunately for Gareth, we didn’t know that at the time, so while I got to spend four days there, he landed at the airport and we immediately set off for the Plitvice lakes. Plan to spend a few hours walking around and taking pictures, the place is really incredible.

To break up the drive we spent a night in Zadar. We stayed in a really cute Airbnb only a short walk from the city centre. Zadar was cute but quite honestly, it was the least exciting of the places we stayed and I think skippable. If we were doing this again, we’d find a place to spend a night in the mountains or just drive straight down to Split.

The main reason we needed to break the drive up was so we could stop at Krka National Park, which was gorgeous (and would be even better during the summer months when you can swim!).

We spent two nights in Split and could have stayed much longer! The city was gorgeous and was full of great food (and such a great bar).

We couldn’t be so close to Mostar (another place I saw in a picture once and knew I had to go), without popping in, and luckily it was (pretty much) on the way. We only spent one night in magical Mostar, but the town in tiny and honestly this felt like enough. Mostar is definitely a can’t-miss part of this itinerary.

After some trouble getting back into Croatia (some border crossings are only for locals!), we arrived in Dubrovnik for our final three days in the country.

While we would have absolutely loved to spend more time in each place, and to visit some of the islands, given our one week time limit this was the perfect itinerary for us. We moved around a lot but the infrastructure was top notch and the drive one of the most beautiful I’ve ever been on!