kirk707

My wife and I would like to visit Croatia for 14 days in September 2020. Our preference would be to establish a base and take day trips out from our base. It is not our intention to see the entire country. Ideally there is an area that would enable us to visit different hilltop villages as well as some great site seeing close by. Any recommendations for our base would be greatly appropriated.

Moderator1

Moved to Europe Forum and tagged for Croatia

kja

A single base for the entire 2 weeks might not work well -- but that depends on your interests and preferred pace of travel.

Here are some places to consider:

• For hilltop towns, you might want to visit Istria with a base in Rovinj, Pula, or Porec.
• For great sightseeing options, including a particularly wide array of sights, consider basing in Split.
• For a combination of cities and castles, consider Zagreb.

If you don't already have it, the Rough Guide provides excellent coverage of Croatia.

KarenWoo

We spent 2 weeks in Croatia and Slovenia this past September. The weather was perfect! It's a great time of year to visit Croatia.

Croatia is a long skinny country that does not lend itself well to one base, unless you want to spend a lot of time at the beach. September will be warm enough to sunbathe and swim. With 2 weeks, I recommend 2 bases and an overnight stop at Plitvice Lakes National Park. This is a gorgeous park, and is one of the most beautiful places I have seen. I think it should be included in a Croatian trip.

One base could be Dubrovnik. After seeing the sights in Dubrovnik, you could take a day trip to the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro. We hired a private driver for this. Another day trip would be to visit Mostar in Bosnia. Other trips outside Dubrovnik could be Cavtat and Lokrum Island. There are beaches in and near Dubrovnik, so you could have some beach time here.

Split could be your second base. After sightseeing in Split, we took the ferry to Hvar Town on Hvar Island for a day. We also visited Trogir another day. Other side trips from Split would be Sibenik and Krka National Park.

And then I suggest one night at Plitvice Lakes National Park. I don't recommend 2 nights here because there isn't anything else to do in the region except for the park.

I know you don't want to move around, but we stayed in 5 different places during our 13-night stay. So you could see a few more places if you change your mind.

kja

I don't often disagree with KarenWoo, but in this case, I will. While I agree that Croatia does not lend itself well to one base, I think there are ways to manage such a trip even with little, if any, beach time. It just depends on what you want to do and at what pace. And personally, I would find Dubrovnik a poor choice for even one week. YMMV.

BDKR

Well, most Europeans travel to Croatia for summer holidays and most of them do excatly that: Stay at one place for 1-2 weeks.

We've been going on holidays to Croatia on and off since 1993.

1993 and 1994 it was the Istria(based near Porec and next time in Rovinj), because Dalmatia was still off limites due to the war.

1997 Brac(daytrips to Split and Hvar)

1998 Korcula(daytrips around the island and Peljesac, Mljet, Dubrovnik)

2000 Korcula again

2002 and 2004 Pag

yorkshire

It depends entirely on what you want to see and do and how leisurely you would like to do it. I'd consider two bases at least though.
Hilltop villages = Istria, but you might not need two entire weeks. You could explore the Kvarner islands close by, or fly open-jaw and head south.

JessicaBr

Hi, in my opinion, you should think about having 2 bases. Or maybe a week on a sailing boat? We went to Croatia on a cruise ship and I thought the sailing part was so beautiful. I heard they have small cruise boats going around that area. Maybe its something you might like.

isabel

Two weeks in one base would be fine if your objective is primarily beach time with maybe a few day trips. But if you were thinking of visiting various places almost daily then one base won't don't it. But two might.

One would be somewhere like Rovinj from which you would get the hill towns you mention plus several coastal towns. We were there six nights (five days really) and didn't get to anywhere near everything. You'd need a car for the hill towns.

Another would be Split. Day trips to Hvar, Korcula, Brac, Trogir, Sibenik, Plitvice Lakes. This could be done without a car.

KayF

We had about ten days in Croatia one year and had two bases - Rovinj and Opatija. Rovinj was gorgeous, loved it there and we did a couple of day trips from both bases, we had a hire car for the whole time. Opatija was interesting, with completely different architecture to Rovinj, we liked it but wouldn't rush back there. In general terms, Rovinj looked very Italian and Opatija looked very Austrian. Have a look at Google Images for both places to get a feel.

Kay

LancasterLad

Bosnia & Herzegovina.....so close-by, often ignored, totally worth a bit of a detour to visit Mostar, Sarajevo, and loads more, particularly if you have your own car.

Ardam

People are more inclined to help if you reply to your posts.

AirBalloon

We spent a week just outside Dubrovnik in early September and we had a fabulous time. The weather was warm and sunny and the sea temperature was perfect. We had a rental car so we were able to do day trips and we are planning soon to go back to Croatia and soon.