Hotels and Driving in Croatia

voodoo

Im looking at going to Croatia in the summer and want to just fly there so that I can travel around and not be restricted to one spot! Does anyone know of any good sites that I can visit to review hotel prices?

Also, anyone ever driven over there before? Do you know what you need to drive over there - full licence, anything else?

Ro-76

Driving in Croatia is fine. I hired a car in Trieste (Italy) and drove through northern Croatia. It's probably a bit ambitious to travel the entire length of the country by car unless you are staying for at least 2 weeks, and can break up the journeys a bit. The roads are probably a bit better than here on the whole. It's meand that you are a lot more independent than if you're depending on the bus service.

I would strongly dissuade you from the hotels, though. My girlfriend and I booked a couple of hotels on www.adriatica.net . They were universally awful. They're mainly huge "communist-looking" holiday complexes, which look like they've been idle for a number of years (the war presumably) and are in dire need of refurbishment. They look a lot different that the nice photos on the website. Orange and other 70's style decor seem popular.

We stayed in 2 different hotels, both of them fitting the above description. Most of the hotels seemed similar. Private rooms are probably a better option. They are generally very comfortable, and have most modern facilities (en suite, cable TV etc) at a very reasonable price. The lonely planet summed it up well when they said that unless you are going to shell out lots of cash for top of the range hotels, it's not worth the extra expense.

Ronan

seamus

I was in Croatia last September. Wonderful Country.

I'm not old enough yet to rent a car, so we were using their superb bus service. Superb in that we left Trieste (Italy) at exactly the right time, and arrived in Dubrovnik (South Croatia) 13 hours later, within 2 minutes of the scheduled time. Puts every service in Ireland to shame. The roads are brilliant, better than Irish, but drivers, especially young people, are crazy. Try not to drive at night, unless you're accustomed to driving on the wrong side of the road , as vast expanses of road are narrow, unlit roads across the sides of mountains (ie cliffs).

There's airports in Dubrovnik and Zagreb. You could easily take two weeks in Croatia, fly into Dubrovnik (best booked early, as it's only charter flights or irregular flights that go here easily). Then drive to Zagreb. Take two or three days for this, as it's a 10-hour drive. Stay in Zagreb for a few days. Then drive back and finish your stay in Dubrovnik. I'm usually 'Home Sweet Home' regardless of where I've been, but this time I was dying to get back to Dubrovnik the day I arrived home.

Almost everyone runs their own little B&B's, and you'll see signs for 'rooms' everywhere. There's no need to book anything. Most of these rooms are actually unbelievably good, and reasonably priced. And you can go in and inspect the room, and haggle over a price, and the owner will never try force you to take it or anything. It's unbelievable.

My advice is to get the lonely planet book on Croatia and read it cover to cover. It has everything you need to know about Croatia. And Bon Voyage!

hudson806

If you don't have time to drive the entire country, it might be worth flying into and spending some time around Dubrovnik, then flying to Zagreb and renting a car again. Its not well known that flights between Dubrovnik and Zagreb are only EUR45 for under 26s...

IMHO, the best places in Croatia, with the exception of Split, are in the north-east and the south, which are separated by a 10 hour drive, or 13 hour bus journey, so a cheap flight is just perfect

voodoo

Guys, thanks for this information!

I had actually never thought of flying into Trieste and taking a bus/train trip to Croatia from there. Just checked on Ryanair.com and I can get a flight from London Stansted to Trieste for €230 return each and from Dublin to Standsted for €16 each return! Thats a total of 246 as apposed to 450 direct flights! I know we still have to get from Trieste to Split or Zagreb, but that would be even more fun!

With regards to the hotels! thanks again for that. I had found www.adriatic.net and was in communication with some of them! Got some quotes back from 3 star hotels of €300 per night! Will probably just get there and find places to stay. Might keep looking though, but wouldn't mind staying in B&B's either though...

hudson806

Originally posted by voodoo
I know we still have to get from Trieste to Split or Zagreb, but that would be even more fun!

There's a couple of direct trains from Trieste to Zagreb each day, if that helps. Its only about a 2 hour journey, AFAIR. Or you could go via Ljubljana in Slovenia, which is a really beautiful city and only about 1.5 hours from Trieste by train. Trains from there to Zagreb are very regular too.