10 places that you can't miss out on visiting in Croatia

Hi, everyone!

Today I am bringing you the second part of the post about 10 places that you can't miss out on if you visit Croatia. You will probably have heard of more places in this post since I have included some of the most touristy and well-known ones. I have to say that this is my favourite part, I hope that you will like it.

Split

Split is probably, along with Dubrovnik of course, the most famous city in Croatia. It is famous for its nightlife, its Roman past and its maritime port.

Also, it is a very well connected city with the biggest tourists attractions in Dalmatia. In fact, it is only 30 minutes away from Trogir and an hour from Sibenik.

During my visit to Split, I thought that maybe a day would not be enough to see the whole city well, but I was wrong. You can see everything perfectly well in a day, or even in an afternoon I would say!

Firstly, I will talk to you about, with no contest, the Diocletian's Palace.

It is, at least for me, the most special place in the city. Not just for its beauty, that it looks more like a fort than a palace, but for its charm in general.

During the day it is quite full of people as you can see in the photo, but during the evening the atmosphere changes completely. There is a bar in the palace square and on the stairs where they put several cushions, which people sit down on and have a drink. It is very common that right there, there will be some kind of show; that night I saw a concert of a boy playing the guitar with another singing. This along with the place, the atmosphere, the incredible acoustics of the square and the lighting... Well you can imagine.

You can also access a kind of basement through some stairs, where there is a market with souvenir shops and typical products.

As a fact, this is another one of the locations where they filmed the Game of Thrones, as you can see, lots of Croatian cities have been a setting for this famous TV show.

You can access the palace through four different doors, which are maintained as entrances to the historic quarter. The main door is called the gold door, and the others are called the silver, bronze and copper doors respectively. I don't know why they are called that since in reality, they are all made out of stone.

In the palace, they still have the famous Jupiter Temple.

You also cannot miss out on the Saint Domnius Cathedral and its tower, from which you can enjoy unbeatable views of the city. You have to pay 6 euros to access the cathedral and tower.

Another must visit in the city is walking along its maritime promenade. In this area it is very common to come across people offering boat trips to the famous Hvar, Brac or Vis islands. If you're good at haggling, it won't be difficult for you to get the cost down. We tried and we managed to knock down the price a lot by telling them that another company had offered us a better price.

I also recommend visiting the Marjan hill viewpoint. You have to walk quite a lot and the slope is a bit steep but it is worthwhile. As well as the great views, there are some historic attractions to visit in the area and a couple of bars to have a drink whilst enjoying the landscape.

Another very well-known place is the Republic Square which reminds me a bit of the San Marco Square in Venice. Here they have several shows outside, the most well known one being the Split Festival, at the beginning of July.

Another thing that you have to do in Split is visit the street "let me pass", a really narrow and interesting street.

Omis

Now I am going to talk to you about one of my favourite cities in Croatia. It is located at the mouth of the Cetina river and this is what makes this little city so special.

It forms a canyon where you can do activities in the fresh air such as rafting, kayaking, canoeing, climbing, canyoning, paragliding... In fact, the city is famous for doing these adventure sports and for active tourism, in the centre there is practically an agency offering these kinds of activities on every corner.

As well as walking through the charming historic quarter and relaxing on the popular Omis beach, to admire the beauty of the city you need to go up to one of its forts.

We intended to climb up to the tallest one, the Starigrad fort, which is located at the top of the hill above Omis and in the past it served as a guard post to located the pirates who wanted to access the city and prevent their entry. This is why Omis is known as the Pirate city.

However, we didn't go up to this fort but to the Mirabel fort instead, which is only 200metres high. It was a shame as the views from the Starigrad are unbeatable, but all of us Erasmus students travelled together, it was really hot and a lot of us were really tired from the trip which we had been undertaking for a couple of days.

However, the Mirabel fort is beautiful as well, and its views are too. The price to go up is around 2 euros per person, if I remember rightly. From here, you can see the hole city, the river, the canyon, the sea... It's priceless!

Makarska

My visit to Makarska was a bit spontaneous and quite brief. However, I was able to enjoy its historic quarter and its port.

But this is not the only interesting thing in the city: Makarska is famous for their incredible beaches like the Buba beach, or the Nugal beach which is popular with nudists. It is also known for its nightlife and the amount of activities that they offer: such as hiking, mountain biking or windsurfing.

You can't miss out on visiting their Franco monastery and the Biokovo botanical garden.

Ston

Another one of my favourite places (although it is true that the 10 places I have put in this post are incredible).

The strange thing is that Ston isn't one of the most well known cities in Croatia and in general tourists see it more as a pass-through stop than a must-visit place for their trip. From my experience, I definitely recommend that you visit it, it is different from the rest of the places that you will visit in the country.

Stop is around 60km from Dubrovnik and around 100km from Makarska. It is known for its walls which is over 5km. Currently you can go around about 3km of it (the rest of it is under construction, so maybe in a couple of years you will be able to go around the whole thing), paying an entry of 40 kunas, so around 5 to 6 euros.

This wall was built with the aim of protecting its huge salt production. It is known as the "European Wall of China", it is even considered the second biggest one in the world.

I have to say that going along the wall is not simple and even more so with the heat in the high season, but once you have gotten past the hardest bits of the steep slopes, you will contemplate the views and you will forget about it.

Ston is also known for its famous oysters. There are lots of restaurants in the historic quarter where you can try them for a decent price. In March they celebrate a food festival called "The Day of the Oyster. "

Dubrovnik, the pearl of the Adriatic sea.

I couldn't miss out the most visited city in Croatia on this list and which has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It is known as the "pear of the Adriatic sea. "

Its extraordinary historic quarter surrounded by defensive walls is something that is hard to forget. Nor is it strange that this city has played a main role in the successful series Game of Thrones since they have filmed key scenes of the "Kings Landing", specifically in the Lovrjenac Fort, the sea walls and the Trsteno Arboretum.

Firstly, a little bit of history. In 1991, the city suffered various attacks from the Serbian army that left the city practically in ruins, therefore most of the historic buildings are reconstructions.

However, walking through the city most certainly doesn't give you the impression that it is a new or reconstructed city, quite the contrary. In general all of the reconstructions that took place in Slovakia during the Yugoslavia war are breathtaking, you would barely realise if you didn't know the history behind them.

We were hesitant about going to the walls to see the city from another perspective since the entry cost to access it was around 18 euros, but in the end we decided it was worth it and that we should make the most of the opportunity. Our suprise was that if you have the European Young Persons Card or like in our case, a Croatian University card, the price was 10 euros.

Without a doubt, they were 10 euros well spent since we experienced some very different views of the city. If you are a fan of Game of Thrones, you have to go up to the wall and even if you're not you still should, because the views are mesmerising.

The stretch is almost 2km long and it is not hard until you have to go up to the Revelin Fuerte which isn't attached to the walls. But equally, I would encourage you to finish off your route here however tired you are, since you can enjoy some views like the ones in this photo. There is no better way to say goodbye to the city.

And that is all for now! I hope that once again you have enjoyed this post and thank you everyone for reading.

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