Island Hopping in Croatia

So I'm not long back from a 10 day island hopping holiday in Croatia, and of course I'm here to fill you in on everything. First, the basics - we booked our return flights to Split ourselves through Aer Lingus and paid about €200 per person (incl. one checked bag per couple).

From a bit of research we found out that while Split is on the coast, it's not very beachy so 10 full days there might be a bit long. We decided to explore the nearby islands and settled on four days in Split, two days on Brac, two days on Hvar and then back to Split for two days.

Our fabulous accommodation - link here

So let me start off with how we got on in Split. It's a huge busy town built around the ruins of an ancient Roman emperors palace. The streets are stoney and narrow....if you're tall you'll want to mind your head! You'll be ducking and diving in and out of streets, going through tunnels and walking and up and down many many steps!! Tiny corridors opened up to huge squares, bursting with tourists gawking up at the amazing architecture. There's also a beautiful modern promenade along the harbour, lined with white benches, palm trees and any number of fabulous bars and restaurants.

The whole town is just amazing to look at and we weren't there long before we were viewing the city from the top of the Cathedral St Dominus.
It's an ancient city but so so modern. Every bar and restaurant had something different to offer, and if you are into your wine - Split is the place to go! The food is quite similar to Italian and black risotto is the dish you will see on every menu! Price wise you'll be looking at €15 for a decent main meal.

Restaurants to visit: Pizzeria Portas, Uje Oil Bar, Sexy Cow, Brasserie No.7

Exploring the cathedral.

View from the top!

Black Risotto

While we were there (early June) it was pretty warm so a dip in the sea was a must. Bacvice Beach is the main tourist spot but we ventured a bit further a field to go to Bene Beach. This is a small stoney beach on the outskirts of Marjan Park. There's sun loungers available to rent, the water is crystal clear, there's a deadly pier to jump off and the views on the beach and throughout the park are just spectacular.

Marjan Park/Bene Beach

Top tip: Rent a bike at the entrance to Marjan Park as getting to Bene Beach is a bit of a walk.

By night, Split is busy but tame-ish. There was a few groups offering pub crawls but we just kept to ourselves and did our own pub crawl :) We certainly made our way around a good few of the bars anyway! In the smaller more local bars you could get a bottle of wine for in and around €13. While the more modern ones, closer to the main stretch would charge about €25.

Bars to check out: Uje Wine Bar, Bokeria, Marvlvs Library Jazz Bar

After an amazing four days in Split we made our way to the island of Brac. I had booked all our catamaran transfers online before we left Ireland and had the tickets printed and ready to go for each trip. The journey from Split to Brac was about an hour if even, on a huge, very smooth catamaran.

This island of Brac was probably my favourite part of the holiday, our hotel was fantastic (Boutique Hotel Bol) and the island itself was just stunning.

We decided to stay in the small town of Bol, which was definitely a quiet part of the island but so beautiful and relaxing. The promenade which is lined with about 20 restaurants, loops around a small harbour where the locals park their fishing boats, or visitors park their yachts for the night. We ate in the same restaurant both nights, Taverna Riva, one night in the fancy upstairs terrace and the second night in the street level pizzeria.

Bol is famous for it's Zlatni Rat (Golden Cape) beach. Another stoney beach but well worth the visit. The waters are crystal clear so I'd suggest packing a pair of goggles so you can catch a glimpse of a few fish. If you're more comfortable staying above water there's plenty of yacht watching to do some very luxurious beach bars to relax in.

We pretty much spent our two days on Brac at this beach because we couldn't get enough of it. We also tried our hand at paddle boarding (€7 for one hour) while we were there, which is a lot harder than it looks but great fun!

If I was to do it all over again, I'd definitely spend a bit more time on the island of Brac, two days was not enough!

Our next destination was Hvar, which was just as picturesque as Brac but a lot wilder! It's quite a large town and much busier than Brac. From the short (but hilly) walk from the catamaran to our hotel we could see wedding parties, group holidays, hen parties and pub crawls pouring out of the bars, soaking up the last of the sunshine.

Our hotel - link here

Hvar was also a bit more expensive than the other places. I found most restaurants and bars were quite up market, which seemed fitting for most of the tourists there. We did find two amazing places there though that I have to recommend. Firstly the restaurant Fig, a tiny casual place with amazing food! Then another small wine bar called Tri Prusta. The staff there knew so much about the wines they were suggesting for us, we were connoisseurs by the time we left!

One our one full day in Hvar we hired a private boat and took off for the day to explore the nearby caves and beaches. We paid about €60 per person (8 of us in total) to hire a boat and a skipper for the day. We visited stunning caves and secluded beaches, the skipper also took some of us cave diving (not me, I chickened out). But the whole family had an brilliant day jumping off the boat, swimming up to nearby beaches and into caves.