October 24, 2017

Croatia: The Road to Krka Falls

When we were planning our trip to Croatia, I really wanted to see the waterfalls at Plitvice. Unfortunately, it was going to be roughly a 12-hour trip from just about anywhere we were going and I really didn't want to do that. Doing some research, I learned that Krka National Park also has beautiful waterfalls, and is only an hour and a half drive north of Trogir, where we were spending our last few days in Croatia!


We decided to rent a car in Dubrovnik and drive up to Krka and then turn around and head back toward Trogir. We left Dubrovnik around 10 am. Our first stop was on the Peljesac Peninsula, about 45 minutes outside Dubrovnik. All along the Peninsula, you could see the oyster farms in the water!

See all those black things in the water? That's the oyster farm!

We stopped in a village called Mali Ston for lunch right on the water at a restaurant called Bota Sare.  We had a pretty leisurely lunch - fish pate, oysters, and seafood risotto - which was incredible. This was easily my favorite meal in Croatia!


After lunch, we got back on the road. The drive from Dubrovnik to Krka is interesting because you have to cross the border into Bosnia and then cross the border back into Croatia about five minutes later. Crossing the border is really easy, it's like driving through a toll booth and having your passport inspected, but it was funny to have to do it twice in such a short period of time!


Once we were back in Croatia, we stopped at a rest stop, even though we didn't really need a rest. Why did we stop?


Yea. That was the rest stop! A vineyard dug into the side of the mountain! Perfect reason for stopping if you ask me! Croatia knows how to do rest stops!


We made it to Krka National Park shortly after 3:00. We were told that if we waited to enter until after 4, there would be a discount, but we didn't want to wait that long. I was a little disappointed that we did because I wanted to take a boat ride along the falls but they had all stopped for the day by the time we got there, so there really wasn't any advantage to paying more to get in a little bit earlier.


The waterfalls are everywhere. We spent a few hours wandering all of the paths and seeing different waterfalls from different areas. You're in the middle of this enormous, mountainous park, but it's a really easy walk since everything is paved.



There are a few areas where you can get out and swim, which we would have done but I didn't want to get back in the car soaking wet!


I had been worried that we wouldn't have enough time to see everything at Krka but since all of the boats had stopped running for the day, there wasn't much to do besides see the falls. It took us about 2  1/2 hours to do that, and once we did, we left.

Krka was beautiful. I can't say whether it's better than Plitvice but if you want to see waterfalls and don't want to trek 12 hours from the West Coast of Croatia to the Eastern border, I would definitely recommend Krka! It was well worth the trip, but I am disappointed that we missed out on a boat tour!

With a few more hours of daylight, we decided to stop off in Sibenica, another small town on the way back to Trogir. Sibenica is a sleepy little medieval town right on the water.



We stopped for gelato (I had lemon speculoos, which was to die for!) and wandered around, exploring. We went into the Cathedral of St. James - a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a lot of history, and explored the shops and laneways.



The sun was started to set so we decided to make our way back to our car, return our rental car, and head into Trogir for the night.


We checked into another Airbnb in Trogir and then headed to the Promenade for dinner. I loved the Promenade! It was full of boats and people and made you feel like you were on the beach! Truffles are used quite a bit in Croatian cuisine and I opted for a delicious truffle risotto for dinner that night.
We walked off our food by getting lost in and out of all of the wandering little alleys that make up the city of Trogir.


We had opted for Trogir for a few reasons. It's really close to Split but more off the beaten path and therefore a little quieter. I was worried what that might mean but I loved Trogir right away! It was mostly locals, rather than tourists, which definitely made me feel like we picked a good base for this part of our trip. Stay tuned for how we spent our time in Trogir!

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