Our way has begun Dubrovnik, in a southern part of the country, lay through all median part of the country - Dalmatia, having overcome mountain pass, we have reached Istria. The peninsula, "northern" part of the state, borders on Italy. We have spent in a way seven days, having overcome more than 2000 kilometres.
"The one who searches for paradise on the earth, should visit Dubrovnik". Slightly paraphrasing the classic of the Irish literature B.Shou, we would add from ourselves, and Croatia as a whole.
Let's try not to tyre you the popular information which can be gathered on the Internet. Only short personal sensations and the definitions of cities. As it seems to us, at us it has turned out to put into words our sensations and by that to seize their essence. From our point of view everything, that we saw, cities and national parks, is simple MUST for visiting. We result the local prices, in national currency-KuNe, will consider very easily as 1 grivnja it is practically equaled 1 kune. We Will emphasise on informativnosti and volume that is useful for the autotraveller.
Areda the car, a parking, gasoline
We rented for a week Toyota Yaris, Costs 50 EURO a day 2006. We did not do any additional payments. Have adjusted it to us with a full tank, in the same condition we should return the car. We filled the car with gasoline of stamp Euro Super 95. There Is one litre 1,15 EURO.
As to parkings in Croatia to be parked at once it will not turn out. All plotnenko. It was usually necessary to make some circles on quarters to find a crack for the car. In cities we did not pay for a parking never. For a place on the organised parking near national parks paid under the tariff. On the average 1 USD for 1 hour.
Where to stop on a lodging for the night
On all our way across Croatia our sight met tablets on houses/near of houses with inscriptions - SOBE-ROOMS-ZIMMER-APARTMANI. Last word is written so, not to confuse to English. Though the same sense. Rooms surrender.
Every day, throughout a week we spent the night in different cities. And here what most important conclusion have made for itself and I hope for others. If you can independently solve a question with the visa and tickets for the plane - without intermediaries, carelessly, dared rushajte to Croatia.
We always from the first calling, at random, found a place for a lodging for the night. Moreover, we chose the nearest house to the sea, sea view. We have never faced that there are no places. Always there were free rooms. If kitchen one and rooms two or three, we were never crossed with neighbours. They simply were not. Also it is all in most high season in the most cult places of mass tourist rest.
The lodging for the night for a two, without a food, will manage in 30 EURO. Compare to the prices of travel agencies. But the main thing! You stop there where your soul will wish. And it is exactly so much time, how much you define for yourselves, until it will not want yet new, other impressions. Yesterday in Dalmatia, tomorrow in Istria …
Conditions which are offered by private owners, in all honesty, a little than differ from minihotels. A tidy room, a double bed, pure linen, a per capita cabin, possibility to use kitchen where there is a ware complete set, a plate, a teapot, a refrigerator. Very important – the parking lot everywhere is provided, and for a parking additional payment do not take.
Restaurants and meal
The dinner/supper in Croatia, the big basic dish + salad, will manage at 65-70 kun on the person. A glass of local beer +15 kun. A breakfast. I do not know for what reasons, but the omelette from two-three eggs costs in all territory 25 kun. Less prices did not meet. A cup of coffee 1 USD.
The Croatian cuisine is typical Mediterranean kitchen with an abundance of seafood. Pleskavitsa (a cutlet from rublennogo meat) and chevapchichi, acquaintances much on regiments of supermarkets, fill a niche of meat products. Portions big.
Roads
Roads to Croatia good, the European quality. An ideal asphalt covering, an accurate marking, pertinent traffic signs, intelligent outcomes. Anything superfluous. All is reasonable and clear. To lose the way difficult.
On all extent of a way of policemen saw some times. Basically, the presence they reminded that they are and that it is necessary to observe the traffic regulation accepted in the country. In one of cases, on an old slavic habit, the policeman sat in an ambush with "headlight".
Movement rules on the car rigid, but absolutely justified. Others they cannot be in the country, where the basic road along coast "streamer". Road narrow, two-way. Passing is possible only on outcomes or separate sites of roads. Basically cars move peletonami led by "leader". Sometimes it is the lorry, sometimes the German pensioner piously following all manuals of traffic signs. The blessing, outcomes on which it is possible to overcome slow fellow travellers come across. If, God forbid, something happens, all coast costs in a stopper.
High-speed mode: in settlements – 50 km/h, in the country – 80 km/h, high-speed road – 100 km/h, on an autobath – 130 km/h.
avtoban and Tunnels
Split-pool and Split-Zagreb. For quality are expensive it is necessary to pay. Payment depends on the chosen distance. So we, have paid 138 kun for a site from Pools to Split, it about 400 km.
If you think, that Croatian avtoban are direct four strips (Kiev-Odessa), you are mistaken. The first unexpectedness occurs, when avtoban passes in «road of the first category», is narrowed to two strips, accordingly there is a delay of movement to 100-90 km/h. Such transitions are constant throughout all avtobana.
Tunnels were the second unexpectedness. Long (more than 6 km), hooting, well shined, equipped with all necessary light signs, depressive. In Croatia the sense of expression about light in the end of a tunnel becomes clear. Tunnels extinguish speed to 60-70 km/h.
Tunnels are very often the reason of mass stoppers, it was the most unpleasant unexpectedness. On a return way from Istria to Split we have got to a huge 17 kilometre stopper in comparison with which all Moscow dams grow dim. Have driven, have tormented it for three hours. While trudged, listened to local radio which everyone a floor of hour gave monitoring of roads and jams on all territory of the country on local and the European languages. Our stopper was only one of 8 mass jams. From what we have drawn a conclusion, that the similar phenomena in Croatia have system character. If we hurried up aboard the plane to Split, we precisely would fly by". Consider this force majeure.
Night avtoban was last unexpectedness. In the afternoon when all is obvious to move easily. With approach of twilight and nights all varies. avtoban often it is narrowed in two-strip road, or passes in tunnels. Svetootrazhajushchaja the marking prompts about it to the driver. Moreover, the clever marking speaks and winks at you, that the road naooborot again extends. And so time seven. On eighth time you start to be lost in space from infinite narrowings-expansions, and, the most awful, start to lose the lane.
Very unpleasant sensation to appear on vstrechke. After that we have decided not to hurry up and not to tempt destiny. Having curtailed into the first turned up congress with avtobana, we have stopped on a lodging for the night in mountains. Our council - do not risk in vain, do not leave on night avtoban.
Cities and national parks of Croatia
We will arrange the Croatian cities in chronological sequence of our movement on the country.
Dubrovnik. We have begun with Dubrovnik, following words of the great Irish. To us has not carried, in paradise there was a Hell. ZHarennoe the sun. On the sun was over 50 degrees of heat. Curve small streets gave a saving shade, but for a short while. It would be desirable one - to get into a city fountain and to drink water with ice. Dubrovnik - live. Of a city have not made «a dead city» for tourists. It we live, in him there live people. They conduct the measured, slow, southern life, dry linen (images of the Moldavian), drive children in school, have supper in court yard, and are indifferent to curious sights of tourists. We for them - something like an integral part of their life, every day new thousand eyes peer at their houses, windows, striving to miss nothing, intrusion into their private life, privacy, they accept stoically, as something inevitable, inevitable, as a reality, as a payment for a life in Paradise. When you rise on the higher point of a review of a city, on a serf tower, before you the sea of tile roofs opens. All spectrum Yellow: from gently cream to ohry. There there are tile roofs for all tastes, and there on one of them simply there should live Carlson. At least, at least in the summer when it in holiday also does not rescue the Kid from loneliness. I do not know, whether there was in Dubrovnik a director of a cartoon film «the Kid and Carlson». If was, then it is clear, what city has inspired him to draw the City in which there lives Carlson.
Omish – the former piracy capital, nowadays small town on a way from Dubrovnik to Split. Pirates corrected in him more than 500 years. A simple, piracy city infrastructure - bank, church, a brothel. Anything superfluous. Even now it is visible, that all has been ground"under a piracy life when it was necessary to curtail business for 30 minutes and to run from a city.
Split – the city of Diokletiana. A pearl of a city - palace Diokletiana, a city its frame. Black-and-white, it is twisted, installed in a city. There is its part, its sense and secret. At a palace the roof, literally words, above the sky, to which is taken down 2000.
Solin – the city-companion of Split, is located directly on departure from it. Find time to wander on archeological excavations, ruins of early Christian settlement and is more scarlet the reconstructed ancient Roman garden. I do not know why, but time there slows down the run. There there is no vanity, everything, that should happen, has already occurred.
Klis – the fortress between Mountains and the Sky - is located on departure from Split towards Zagreb. We have encountered a fortress have casually, simply seen it, having gone astray. It is a fortress, it not the lock. All is functional, strict, any excesses. The main task - to protect Split. Cling imagination huge, the fortifications leaving in the sky. Unapproachable defensive works. It is possible to take such fortress only by means of treachery, or scientific and technical progress. German bombers during the second the world. We swarmed up a fortress two hours, would remain still, but the downpour has dispersed our plans.
Trogir – the sliding bridge, connects the City and island. Quay with palm trees and low, white buildings with columns, southern, classical, colonial style. A city of Somerset of Maugham. The historical centre of small town, is paved by white stone plates which travleny the sun and a wind, are polished by thousand feet and years. Improbably charming city.
SHibennik – was our first experience of an evening city. Lanterns, medieval curve small streets of an evening city. With what incomparable sensation. Easier to wander and taste life. We have tasted at local small restaurant, remarkable plov with seafood of the first freshness. Along all coast farms on cultivation of oysters and mussels are visible.
Primoshten – a city-island, a city Dream. Breaks a roof at once. The City-snob. But in him it would be desirable to remain. The island is surrounded by bays in which water contains all shades green, passing in the azure. With open years we have counted not less than 10 shades and colours. At home on island, a-lja Venice, having made some steps, on steps you go down in the sea.
National park of Krk. Almost RKKA. To tell the truth, if you plan to visit Plitvitsky lakes, you can safely pass park visiting.
National park «Plitvitsky lakes». Inexhaustible natural resources. The sample of tourist manufacture. Powerful tractor "Mersedes" drags uphill a chain of trailers with three hundreds tourists. And so each fifteen minutes. Throughout all route of thousand the tourists, stretched along coast of lakes, follow on strictly laid tracks, as on marks. From finds, that very much was pleasant. Wooden shodni are laid over water and falls. You almost go on water. Without a miracle. The mad, cultivated trout, are fed from hands. But even the Industry, does not eclipse inhuman beauty and cleanliness of lakes.
Pool – the Amphitheater city. The Bowl-amphitheatre. More precisely splinters of a bowl, great Empire which cannot be stuck together. Nearby to an Amphitheater, James Joyce who has fallen asleep in bronze, the author "Ulissa" drinks a coffee cup.
Rovin – a city-island, affable, romantic, without snobbery, which oshchushaetsja in Primoshtene. We have got on island top where there is a Cathedral. Near it a small, local cemetery. Full life cycle. A self-sufficient city. The city in which ZHjul Vern, the imagination, has lodged the captain Mutely.
What to bring from Croatia?
To tell the truth, anything acceptable we have not looked after. Have chosen dalmatinsky Prshut, it familiar to much Italian Prоshutо. We do not advise to buy an integral piece. Buy only slajsy. The thought that our person can cut a pork piece, in this case, does not work.
Words without vowels
I do not know, how language in Croatia correctly is called. During Soviet time us accustomed to thought about indestructible serbsko-Croatian, it is similar on Russian-Ukrainian.
The Croatian language, as well as other South slavic languages, swallows of public letters. So are born the duke Krk from the city of TRST.
Beaches and coast
All coast of Croatia is protected by islands. Them more than 1500. Thanks to islands the sea very quiet. There is no almost a storm. The best beaches begin in and come to an end in Dalmatia. Though even in Dalmatia we would not name a beach pebble of the friendly. All coast upwards from Dalmatia to border with Italy kamenisto. To come into the sea, it is better to buy special tapki on a strong sole.
We would recommend beaches around Brely. It is average Dalmatia. Knowingly dark blue flags of UNESCO there flutter. And one of beaches, on one of versions is recognised the most beautiful and by pure in Europe.
Safety
On our personal sensations, absolutely safe country for stay.
Lacks of Croatia
The basic lack – absence of the sensible information on the country.