Grebastica in Croatia

Dalmatian town Grebastica

Grebastica is a small town or more precisely a town-type village by the sea some 15 kilometres from Croatian town Sibenik.

When it comes to Croatia, in general, especially about Dalmatia, most of the seaside settlements are villages, but the impression that it could be a city. It’s because the houses are very close to each other and these villages have relatively good infrastructure to serve tourists. They usually have several small shops and a lot of bars, restaurants and cafes located along the seaside. They also have many private hotels, some larger but a lot of small ones.

Grebastica is quite well-known tourist destination because of the sunny weather, the clean sea, which is actually a bay, and its beaches. The beaches, of course, as in most of Croatia, are with small stones but not rocky in Grebastica.

It should also be noted that this place is especially attractive to Germans, Swiss and Austrians and you will hear a lot of German language around.

Our final destination for this trip was even more remote seaside village of Sevid, but for all the above reasons we decided to spend a couple of nights in Grebastica. It is located on the way to Sevid as we arrived at Zadar airport. Grebastica is located about 60 kilometres from Zadar, so we were able to see many beautiful scenes on the way.

Getting there

Getting there is very easy. There is practically only one main road D8 along the coast and the main thing is not to miss the right turn. Actually, driving on the D8 is very slow. In rare parts you can drive at 80-90 kilometres per hour, but mostly all the time there are speed limits of 50, 40 and even 30 kilometres per hour, even in places where there is no apparent reason for it. In addition, speed limits tend to change every half a kilometre, so it requires additional attention all the time.

Speed cameras are often installed on the roadside, which makes driving even more nervous. In addition, Croatians have a habit of driving very close to the next car, no matter what speed you drive, and you can’t really enjoy the surrounding views without stopping. It must be said that there are quite a few places to stop on the side of the road and the uncomfortable driving is forgotten practically at the moment you reach your destination by the sea.

We had already booked apartments at Apartments Holidays Roko many months in advance. If you ever think of driving to this hotel, be aware that the hotel is marked in the wrong place on Google maps. This is not uncommon in Croatia, but the owners are usually very responsive and give all directions on how to get to their place.

Arrival

Our arrival coincided with the very beginning of the hot season, so if you want to find a good accommodation, it is practically impossible to do it a month in advance. Regardless of how much you are willing to pay for it – there are simply no vacancies.

Just being curious, we checked when this hotel would have free rooms and it turned out that it is only in November (we were in Grebastica in the middle of June). That’s a reason you need to plan all these things very early. We do it usually before or at least around New Year.

Accommodation in Grebastica

The owner welcomed us with white wine. He immediately understood that we needed wine after the exhausting journey (he didn’t ask to pay for it, it was complementary, although it’s a common thing in Croatia). When we had finished with the wine, we went to our apartments, the host showed around everything we needed.

The apartment was very good. Clean, renovated to the best standards (the house didn’t look new from the outside, but the interiors, including the staircase and corridors, were posh). Spacious bathroom, bedroom, large dining room with kitchenette and a terrace with sea view.

Food and joy

Since we liked everything very much, we also decided to go to the owner’s small restaurant for dinner; the restaurant is located on the other side of the street by the water. That’s another common thing in Croatia. We were not disappointed with our choice at all. Menu was with huge choice national dishes, fried and grilled seafood and many other things. The prices were good for what we ate.

Before our arrival, the weather was windy with thunderstorms, so the water in the sea was quite cold, even though we went there for a swim on the first day. For the next day we had originally planned to drive around the nearby area, but when the host showed us the pool on the roof terrace of the hotel, we quickly made the decision to stay. To relax on the roof terrace, sunbathing and soaking in the pool. It was planned to go to Sevid on the next day.