Hello dear Hive community!
Continuing from our previous post about our trip in Istria, we were now headed south on the Croatian famous road called the Adriatic Highway (Serbo-Croatian: Jadranska magistrala).
This road stretches along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea and is part of the European route E65. The road passes through Croatia, with smaller stretches through Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro and ends at the Montenegro-Albania border.
[Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriatic_Highway]
On the way we passed and stopped in many cities like Rijeka, Senj, Starigrad, Šibenik, Trogir and Split. Croatian coastal cities in general all look quite similar, as they also were made the same time - around Greek, Roman times. City centers are big squares with tall churches dedicated to the Saint protecting the town. Mostly streets are very narrow and floors are made from stones. Around or closeby normally we can spot a fortress or ruins of old castle. The architecture was precise with many details and ornaments in doors or entrance portals.
First bigger stop on our way was Senj, where we visited the castle and museum on the hill looking down on all the small town. There were some remaining tops, a reminder on the world war I and II, which were happening also in this area.
Next day we were driving for many kilometres and hours of nothingness, no cities or stops. There was just a nice view on the islands. The light was nice to take some pictures and we took a break to prepare ourselves some nice coffee.
After a while we finally reached Starigrad. It's the smaller city with not much to see besides famous Velebit for hiking and exploring more inland. There the sea was already much warmer and we were swimming most of the time. Steffen made a new friend - a big crab greet him by biting him in his finger on the leg.
From all the cities we were most impressed with Šibenik. The architecture and city center was astonishing. Maybe we enjoyed it the most also because we visited early in the morning, before all the tourist and had every corner for ourselves.
Interesting fact we found out later on is that unlike other cities along the Adriatic coast, which were established by Greeks, Illyrians and Romans, Šibenik was founded by Slavs.
[Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ibenik]
Around Trogir we found the best swimming spots and water was the clearest! Old and original city center is very interestingly positioned in a small island. From there you can reach many islands, closest one is Ciovo. There we met two of our friends with which we spent two amazing days - catching up, swimming, walking around and enjoying the delicious food.
Split is the second largest Croatian city after the capital Zagreb and we must admit that it was quite challenging to find our way with a lot of traffic, lack of parking places and generally a lot of tourists walking everywhere. We needed really a lot of time to even come closer to the older part with all the sightseeings. From there many people are taking ferries and boats to the islands, where see is even more warm and pleasant. The city center itself was looking very rich and you can easily imagine how even more magnificent it looked on the peak of their development.
Initially we planed to reach and see the famous Dubrovnik with it's famous fortress representing King's Landing in Game of Thrones. But since our travel was slow we unfortunately didn't have enoug time and reached only Split. Nevertheless we were very happy with how the trip turned out.
On the way back we stopped at some other smaller towns and lastly in Rijeka. We were surprised about this city as it has so many Italian tourists and also gave us a feeling of being rather somewhere in Italy. There were many shops with more luxurious brands, gelaterias and fancy bars. We could not resit and had the last ice cream before finishing our late summer holidays.
As always thank you for reading.
Wish you a nice day!
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