The Dalmatian coast, Croatia

Yeah I have been to Hvar Island about 5 times, indeed it is beautiful, my father is Croatian (from Jelsa, Hvar) but I was raised in New Zealand and since my first visit I have wanted to cycle & island hop on the ferries. Will have a good read of your blog posts tonight.

OP has probably come back by now, but for the record...

Envious - I'd love to do this. I've spent time in Split/Dubrovnik/Montenegro and on the islands and it's just my favourite part of the world, beautiful, good weather, good food and great wild swimming to be had. The size of some of the yachts is just silly!

Coaches in this part of the world are very good, guess that's what comes from having your rail network mostly destroyed.

Personally Dubrovnik is worth a visit but don't spend long there - it's just an expensive tourist trap. Swimming off the city walls is a great experience though. Split is so much cooler, a real town with stuff going on because of the university etc.

The Dalmation Coat, Cruella.

Check out the island of Mljet if you can, not far from Drubovnik by boat

http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=Mljet&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi

-bump-

I'm off to cycle down the Croatian coast for a couple of weeks this summer, has anyone got any experience of wild camping in this area? or using campsites? want to keep costs down as low as possible. Internet tells me that wild camping is either (a) totally illegal and you will get in trouble, or (b) totally fine (normal sensible approach obviously)...

Thanks all.

Savvy, I'm cycling from Bosnia, up the Croatian coast and up to Germany in six weeks. I'll be wild camping the whole way in a hammock. If you find any interesting links, bung them up here? I'll do the same? When are you going?

Savvy, I'm cycling from Bosnia, up the Croatian coast and up to Germany in six weeks. I'll be wild camping the whole way in a hammock. If you find any interesting links, bung them up here? I'll do the same? When are you going?

Sounds good!

Here are two links which have been useful/inspirational so far:

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/life_and_style/27259/

http://www.ecf.com/3205_1

and the blog linked further up this thread is really good as well.

I'm going the first two weeks of August, cycling from Pula in north Croatia to Bar in Montenegro, then getting the train to belgrade to spend a night or two and then fly home from there. Can't wait.

I'll dig out the info on camping again over the weekend, don't have the links saved anywhere.

:-)

We camped wild on Bol and Hvar and had no problems at all. There's also a nice campsite in the grounds of a monestary on Bol.

In Croatia they do these big round filo pasty things. They seem to do them in either delicious sweet creamy apple sauce, or sour vinegary crumbly cheese. My advice is to learn the words for apple and for cheese, because you don't want to wake up one morning with a terrible hangover and buy the wrong one and take a huge bite out of it.

If you see 'Split is shit' written on stand 12 of the bus station, that was me. I had a pretty rubbish time to be honest. Zadar, Dubrovnik and Zagreb were much better, for me at least.

In other news, it's now three weeks until I leave. Bivi bag is waiting at the depot, bike needs some work and I need to pack.

Have three days off now, then ten consecutive days at work, then a weekend, then five days work, then I'm off. Cannot wait.

Some of those links are great, by the way. Going to read up more this weekend.

Also, I got this translated on Reddit; http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/capt2/any_bosnians_or_croats_on_here_who_can_help_me_out/

Hopefully that will help to find me a few places to lay my weary head at night. Or get me killed, depending on whether they're pulling my leg with the translation or not...

oh Croatia! great! I was there two years ago but hitch hiking.. I heard a story from friend, who went there by bike and he said it was awesome, and also he was hitch hiking with bike there a bit and it was good :) but generallly be carefull in more touristic places - the prices of food and everything are sometimes two times higher then normally..(everyone wants to make business these days;))
this year we are planning to go to serbia (we wanted bulgaria, but some of us (belarus citizens) need to make visas, and for visas invitations are needed, and finally it is expensive and time consuming with this visas) and maybe further. balkans are great...

Having just been to Split (again) Hvar and Vis it's all about Vis for down time - hardly any tourists, whole island has population of 5000 and is really unspoilt due to military history. Really clean sea for swimming - saw whole shoals of massive fish about 20ft down, impressive.

Serious advice - do not let the 'banana cats' brush up against your legs =(

One did this to me and I got bitten by a flea in three places, bites are now infected and my leg fucking kills - can only just walk on it sometimes. Really need antibiotics but am currently in Sarajevo and have no idea how I am going to get proper medical treatment...Skinny cats are not cute!

go to the hospital?

That sounds rough. Slightly worried about beasties coming up to me in the night as I'm bivying. Why are they called banana cats?

I'm off to Pag in a few weeks for the second time, normally end up in Split/Brac/Hvar which are all amazing.

I did think of that! But they are still not good in Bosnia I'm afraid - plus they love the old suppositories for some reason. They do in France, which has arguably the best healthcare system in the world, the same can't be said for Bosnia unfortunately.

Last time I checked embassy advice is to go to the German army base but that was miles away...

I HTFUd and used a cocktail of over the counter stuff which surprisingly did the trick (although you can get antibiotic cream over the counter there, which helped a lot).

go to the hospital?

I had plenty of bites in the night but nothing too bad and insects seem to like the taste of my blood. Antihistamines help a lot if you get an allergic reaction. Get some of those ones that act in 15 minutes and take as required.

I've never had a reaction to insect bites like that before, but then as far as I know I've never been bitten by a cat flea...

The joint between my foot and the bottom of my leg swelled up like it was retaining water or something, foot went red and the bottom of my leg felt like it was on fire.

Cos they're skinny like bananas! Just those skinny cats with big heads you get all over the Med. I don't think it's an official phrase though =)

That sounds rough. Slightly worried about beasties coming up to me in the night as I'm bivying. Why are they called banana cats?

Im off to Split Croatia this week (and you try searching the word split!!!)

Is it worth hiring a bike there? Im in Split for 2 days effectively before i move off.

Are there things that warrant having a bicycle? Or am i being silly?

Split's gorgeous, head in any direction, it's beautiful...

worth hiring a bike though?

Saw shit bikes for hire

don't think they'd cost much, why the hell not?