After more than 5 weeks in Italy, and the mishap that I talked about in the last post, we finally arrived in Croatia. We had never been to Croatia before, so we both were looking forward to the visit. We started our trip in Dubrovnik, which is the most popular destination in all of Croatia. There we met with my cousin and his wife who came from Hamburg to stay a few days with us. This was an amazing experience, as not only we had a great time together, but they got to take care of us a bit too!

Dubrovnik gets the lion’s share of Croatia’s tourists, and for good reasons. Dubrovnik has a picture-perfect old town with well-preserved fortification from medieval times. Dubrovnik is also famous for being a primary shooting location for HBO’s Game Of Throne. Dubrovnik was repeatedly used as King’s Landing in GOT, and fans flood here to see the exact shooting location for many scenes (you see tons of merchandises and tours around GOT). Dubrovnik is a great place for photography, and I certainly enjoyed shooting there. Waking up at sunrise, and finding the old town empty with that early soft light was an amazing photography experience. Despite all that, we found Dubrovnik to be too touristy, and not unlike a Disneyland, or something. As my wife put it, it is basically like they put all the tourists in the old town, and they put a wall around them. The whole old town is catered towards tourists. And prices surely reflect that as well. For example, the entrance fee of the famous wall of old town is a hefty $35. I have rarely paid anything near that for any other attraction anywhere in the world. There are also a lot of marketing for doing boat tours, and we did a 45-minute-long “panorama” boat ride around the old town, but it was nothing to write home about. Overall, as much as I enjoyed doing photography in Dubrovnik, I would probably never visit again.

Korcula is a long island with a namesake town. We stayed in Korcula town only for a couple of nights, but we thoroughly enjoyed the visit. The old town is small, and cute, and there are certainly some tourists around (and sometimes cruise ships visitors), but it doesn’t feel as touristy as Dubrovnik. You actually get to see locals hanging out, and going about their life, unlike Dubrovnik that most locals are just there to provide a service or have a business. Korcula also has amazingly clear waters (Dubrovnik’s was pretty clear too, but not as beautiful as Korcula). It was perfect for taking a swim, but unfortunately we didn’t get to do it. I also think the island has a lot to offer, but in order to get around, you need to have a bike/car.

We are continuing our Croatia trip by visiting Split and Plitvice National Park. Stay tuned!

Per usual, here is a link to my instagram account:

https://www.instagram.com/photopensieve/

Follow me to see the latest photos of the trip. I’ll end the post with an FAQ.

FAQ

What are your first impressions of Croatia?

Disclaimer: The region we have visited so far is called Dalmatia, and it has long been associated with Rome and later Italy, so it is quite different from other regions of Croatia. Language-wise, Croatian is totally different from Italian though, as it is a Slavic language, though written with Latin alphabet. For that reason, though you can (try to) read Croatian words, it’s generally not possible to make sense of them, unless they come from English, or Latin-based languages. As for the people, they have been really nice, and enjoy having small discussions with the tourists. Surprisingly almost everyone speaks some English (unlike Italy), which has been great. The architecture of all towns and cities we’ve been to so far follows similar colors and patterns, which is nice. Price-wise, we found Croatia to be more expensive than expected. Grocery can easily cost around the same as the US, and restaurants are a bit cheaper than the US, but more expensive than Italy. However, Uber rides costs around 1/3 of the US, which basically shows how much people earn. Oh, speaking of, having Uber has been nice to, though we’ve just used it a handful of times.

How did you get from Dubrovnik to Korcula?

Croatia has a great ferry system, with world-class ferries that connect many coastal towns. We took a ferry from Dubrovnik to Korcula, taking around 2 hours. Figuring out how to buy tickets wasn’t straightforward though. There is not a ton of information online about the process. What I ended up doing was to find a time that worked for us from croatiaferries.com, find the ferry company that provides the ride, and buy the ticket directly from their website. I wish there was a more streamlined option (or maybe there is, and I didn’t find it).

How has COVID impacted your travels so far?

What COVID? No, but honestly, knock on the wood, we seem to be out of the woods with COVID (for now at least). We certainly didn’t have any issues with COVID restrictions. There was a time that if a tourist got COVID in some countries, they had to be quarantined in a special hotel, and they didn’t let them out for days, etc. But now Croatia has scrapped all restrictions or guidances related to COVID, including mask mandates. You don’t even need to show a negative test, or proof of vaccination to enter the country. No one wears a mask in Croatia these days. It’s as if there was no COVID. Let’s hope it stays this way, and we can all get back to normal.

How are your accommodations?

So far, we have mostly stayed in Airbnbs, and it has been great. We try to avoid hotels, because we need to cook not only for ourselves, but also for our son. It’s not only more economical, and more healthy, but also sometimes you are just sick of restaurant food, and want to have something at home. Airbnbs are also typically much larger than a hotel room, with multiple rooms, which is key when having an active baby that runs around all the times. This way, once he sleeps or naps, we get to do whatever, without disturbing him. I typically book the places a couple of weeks in advance - and sometimes just days before. They seem to have added the “crib” filter option recently, which is great.