Road trips, mountain walks and holidays

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 ...

Dalmatian city Split Split is the second largest city in Croatia and you can see it from far away as you approach the city. It is also the largest city in Dalmatia and the largest Croatian city on the Adriatic coast. The city has become popular with tourists, especially in recent years after episodes of the well-known TV series ‘Game of Thrones’ were filmed in the city. Split was founded by the Greeks several centuries before Christ, but a Roman imperial palace was built in the city already a few centuries AD. Around the middle of the first millennium AD, Split became the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia. In the following period, the city passed from the Byzantines to Venetians, but also existed as an independent city-state, so its cultural heritage is impressive. Today, more than 160 thousand inhabitants live in Split, but together with the suburbs, the number of inhabitants reaches almost 350 thousand. Places to see Most of the sights are located in the old town near the se...

Croatian town Sevid Sevid was our destination for a summer vacation on the Adriatic coast in Croatia. I already wrote before that we arrived at Zadar airport and spent a couple of days in a small town Grebastica and on the way to Sevid we stopped in Dalmatian town Primosten. Sevid is great place for quiet vacation, the nearest town with an active tourist life is Trogir, which is about 20 kilometres away. The beaches of Sevid, of course, have many people like everywhere else in Croatia, but they are not overcrowded. People go there with their private cars, because the village is located a short but not walking distance from the D8 road, there is no motorway nearby, and it is difficult or even impossible for tourist buses to pass through narrow local roads. Another peculiarity, why there are no bigger hotels in Sevid is that the village does not have a central water supply. Houses use their own boreholes for water, but in many places water is even supplied by vehicles in water tanks. We...

Primosten After spending almost two days in Grebastica, we went to our final destination in Croatia , Sevid, but on the way there was another stop – Primosten. Primosten is another picturesque town on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, right next to the D8 highway mentioned in the previous description, some 15 kilometres south of Grebastica. The town’s name is associated with a drawbridge that was once built for defence purposes, but is no longer there; part of the city is on an island now connected to the mainland. The city beach is considered one of the ten best beaches (depending on source) in Croatia and even has stationary sun umbrellas for holidaymakers (such thing is not very common in Croatia). The surrounding region is famous for its wine, and there is a vineyard right near the town. which is even included in the UNESCO world cultural heritage list. Just outside the city on the other side of the bay is another interesting sight, the statue of Our Lady of Loreto, which can be seen ...

Seaside town Omis Omis is a small town in Croatia at the estuary of the Cetina River into the sea, about 25 kilometres (30 minutes) south of Split. Omis is known for being used by pirates around the fourteenth century. The river is surrounded by mountains and was a good place to hide to rob the sea-going merchant ships that operated between Dubrovnik , Venice and Naples. Not only the ability to hide played a role, but also the fact that sea vessels could not navigate the river. The pirates had even built a fortress and concluded an agreement with the surrounding villages on non-aggression and ‘cooperation’. There isn’t much to do in the town itself, although it has its own charm and a large parking lot, which is essential when traveling by car. However, we did not go to Omis to look for pirates – the purpose of the trip was to ride one of the longest zipline tracks in Europe. The track consists of seven descents of different lengths with a total cableway length of more than two kilomet...

Istrian Peninsula The Istrian peninsula is one of Croatia’s many peninsulas, but it differs from many others because it is located in the north of the country. It borders Slovenia and Italy. In general, the territory of the peninsula is shared by these three countries, but the majority (almost 90%) belongs to Croatia. Italians call the peninsula Istria. The Istrian peninsula is the largest peninsula on the Adriatic Sea. In order to understand more about its dimensions, I will just mention the distance from Pula to the Slovenian border is around 60 kilometres, and to the Italian border 80 kilometres in a straight line (it will definitely be much more when driving on the road). Istria is also known for the fact that truffles grow there – mushrooms that are used as an addition to food, especially pasta dishes. The largest city in the Croatian part is Pula, located in the very south of the peninsula, but the Slovenian city of Koper and the Italian city of Trieste are even larger. Pula has...

I have already written quite a lot about traveling to Croatia , but here I will summarize how to get there by car from Latvia. Even though we have been flying everywhere for the last decade, we have mostly driven by our car to Croatia. We have also seen other cars with Baltic and Polish license plates in Croatia, so we are by no means the only ones and this information may be useful to someone else. The usual route is as follows: Riga – Warsaw (Poland) – Bratislava (Slovakia) – Graz (Austria) – Maribor (Slovenia) – Zagreb (Croatia). This is also the option offered by Google Maps. What happens after arrival to Zagreb is entirely up to you, depending on where else you have decided to go. There are people who prefer to drive through the Czech Republic, but staying overnight in the Czech Republic (not to mention Austria) can be quite expensive. If you are going to relax by the sea, then you should take into account that it is practically impossible to visit all the regions of Croatia at on...

Sunny beaches in February It’s a fantastic feeling – after the darkest winter months, in February to enjoy the sun and ocean waves! In the second half of February, we went with friends to one of the islands of the Canary Archipelago – Tenerife. Tenerife – this holiday destination is chosen by more than 5 million tourists every year, so our choice was not accidental. Although the hot season in Tenerife does not start in February, it has its positive side – the island is not crowded with tourists. Although, some attractions, such as tastings and visiting banana fields are not open to visitors that early. The good news is that the Canary Islands are the European Union because they belong to Spain. Another benefit – in Tenerife, due to its mild climate, a lot of Brits spend winter months and you may be able to freely communicate in English, which makes holidays even more enjoyable. Arrival to Tenerife Just before we arrived in Tenerife, several Atlantic cyclones had blustered in northern T...

When we were planning our trip to Tenerife, we already knew that around this time there was an annual Tenerife Carnival, which is the second largest in the world after the Rio de Janeiro Carnival. After visiting Loro Park, we went to the centre of Puerto de la Cruz to see what was going on there. And it was really impressive! The city streets were full of people in carnival costumes; fun, joy and music were all around. So, we also joined the crowd and enjoyed this fantastic atmosphere until midnight when we had to go back to the hotel. Sightseeing The next day, we went to the northwest of the island. When we found out that the attractions we were planning to visit were not open for tourists, we went to La Laguna (full name: San Cristobal de La Laguna); the historic centre of this city has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999 and we decided it should be worth to visit it. La Laguna has long been the capital of the Canary Islands, but today it has merged with the recent capital o...

This is the first post from the series about our trip to Morocco in 2020. It was planned as a ten-day long holiday, however, we ended up being under lockdown for almost three months due to COVID first-wave restrictions. We could have stayed there even longer but fortunately British Embassy in Morocco helped us to get back to the UK on one of their organised rescue flights early in June. Arrival to Morocco We arrived at Agadir Al-Massira International Airport just before midnight in the middle of March. Later on, it appeared to be the last international flight allowed to land there for quite a while, although nobody was expecting this at that time – we had booked a return flight with EasyJet, which never happened after at least five cancellations we had the patience to go for. Agadir airport is located about 15 miles (20 kilometres) away from the city centre; to get there we booked a private taxi service in advance. The flight was slightly delayed, so we had to get in touch with the co...

A real paradise on earth This was a very short and exciting trip in June 2010. The trip to Sardinia island, the second-largest island in the Mediterranean, lasted only 4 days. However, considering that the sun is shining all day long in Sardinia, the sea is beautiful, and nature pampers everybody with warm evenings – even two weeks may be too short to enjoy all this beauty. Sardinia could be a place to return to again and again. Arrival to Sardinia We arrived at Alghero Airport on a Ryanair flight from Frankfurt. At the airport, we immediately picked up a pre-booked car to continue our journey to the opposite part of Sardinia Island. This time we hired the car from myCarHire.co.uk, which offered good prices (for a 3-day rental we had to pay £84). This company has a large network of partners throughout mainland Europe and on many islands, so there is a lot to choose from. Costa Smeralda Late in the afternoon, we arrived at Al Saraceno Residence, located in the famous Costa Smeralda reso...

One of our most loved destinations – Iceland So far, we have only been in Iceland during the winter. And we love all about it – snow, ice, glaciers, wind, lava fields, geysers and especially sunny days and Northern Lights, which we have been lucky enough to enjoy. Along with Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark, Iceland belongs to Europe’s Nordic region. Iceland is a volcanic island and lies on the border between Eurasian and North American Tectonic Plates; that makes Iceland a hotspot of many active volcanos. The total area of Iceland is 102,775 square kilometres (39,682 square miles) making it No. 106 on the list of world’s countries by territory. The population of Iceland is around 346 thousand people and it is 176th in the world with a very low density of population – only 3.5 people per square kilometre. Getting around If you travel to Iceland, you may recognise that many tourist attractions are located almost like bus stops on your route. Of course, getting ther...