This blog comes one day later than intended because Bine and I unexpectedly went to the Croatian coast for the weekend 😊. Hence a blog about this because it is certainly a fun part of our life here, the fact that we live less than 2 hours away from the Adriatic Sea. We regularly drive up there for a day, and not just in the summer. We both love and enjoy spending time on the coast.
I was never really a fan of the sea when I lived in the Netherlands. I don’t even remember ever swimming in the North Sea. As children, we sometimes went there for a day with our parents. Take a walk on the beach, get a breath of fresh air, bathe your feet. I don’t think we ever got any further. It never appealed to me anyway, swimming in the sea. I found it to be scary and dirty. That is, until Bine first took me to Croatia, to the sea.
Wow! How beautiful it is there! Gorgeous towns and small villages with beautiful old buildings, rough rocks, cute little bays with pebbles, and first and foremost, the clearest water I have ever seen. You can swim meters and meters away from the coast and you can still see the bottom, even if it is already very deep.
From the first moment, I was hooked, and we have already pretty much explored the entire Croatian coast, all the way to Dubrovnik. It is beautiful everywhere. We ourselves are not very enthusiastic about Istria because it is where most of the tourism is located and it is not always as clean as we would like. We prefer Dalmatia, especially the island of Pag. But the mainland is also great: Zadar, Šibenik, Split. All beautifully beautiful places with a lot of history.
On Thursday Bine had picked up the idea to go to the sea again on Saturday. Because of Corona we had not been this year, so it was about time. In addition, we heard stories from friends and via television that it was not at all busy in Croatia because of the crisis. As Slovenes we can still cross the border without measures, so we decided to go for it. Because we wanted to try something different we went through the island of Krk, where we usually go, this time continuing with the ferry to the island of Cres and then over a bridge to the next island of Mali Lošinj, because we had never been there before.
Due to circumstances we arrived later than expected and the plans we had for Sunday unexpectedly fell through, so we decided on the spot to stay overnight and make it a weekend. We didn’t have anything with us, but you don’t need much at the sea anyway 😊. I quickly bought a toothbrush, toothpaste, shower gel and a comb from a local drugstore and then we went looking for a room. Fortunately, it was found fairly quickly because they usually do not like to rent out rooms for just one night. It turned out to be much busier than we had thought. Tourists enough!
Fortunately, we found a nice spot at a cozy beach bar where it was not very busy and we could enjoy the water. In the evening we had dinner at a nice restaurant on the boulevard and at 11 o’clock pm we took a lovely dip under the almost full moon. How romantic is that? We had our electric cooler with us so the next morning we could eat a sandwich with a cup of milk on the terrace of our room and then we quickly went out to sea again. Early in the afternoon, we drove back to the ferry and then stopped in Malinska, on the island of Krk, for a walk along the sea and a nice dinner, before driving back home.
Unfortunately, it was about 12 degrees cooler when we got home than on the coast and even today it is cloudy with showers 🙁. Fortunately, the end of the week will be warm and sunny again because today I would prefer to drive back to Krk asap!
In Istria, I have heard that some people speak a kind romace language, not slavic, is it true?
Istria is not in Slovenia but in Croatia, but it is true, yes. It’s a mix of a Croatian dialect and some Italian words.
What has been your experience in the Adriatic towns of Slovenia–Koper, Izola, Piran, for instance? We are planning a four-week-long, first-time visit to Slovenia for next April/May and are considering spending two weeks in the Ljubljana area and two weeks in the hills overlooking the Slovenian Adriatic. We plan to rent a car for three out of the four weeks to make day trips to the Julian Alps, Bled, etc. Because we are residents of San Diego, California, where we have the Pacific Ocean and lots of beaches within a 15-minute drive from home, we won’t be seeking places to sunbathe or swim in Slovenia. We will want to spend our time experiencing its culture, learning about its history, and soaking up its natural beauty. We also would like to avoid the tourist crowds in Croatia. I would welcome your suggestions about how to best spend our time in Slovenia. Thanks so much!! I love your blog!!
The coast is beautiful but only 46 km long and therefore very crowded in the summer. Maybe consider to visit it for just a day? The old city center of Koper is really nice to see. Everything is close by and small so you can see Koper, Izola and Piran all in one day ;). Look for stays in small villages and from there, drive around for one-day trips to, for instance, Ljubljana, Kranjska gora, Bled and Bohinj. That way you can come back to the peace and quite of nature in the evening. If you want to visit our little village (and me ;)) please have a look at https://slovenievakantie.jimdofree.com/. You can check the pictures of the 4 holiday houses I manage. The site is in Dutch but I’m sure you will understand if you translate it. It’s just a 45 minute drive from Ljubjana and half an hour to Novo mesto. If you have any other questions you can also send me a pm :). Wishing you a great weekend!
Thank you very much for these suggestions! Your holiday houses are lovely!
Now that I understand how small Slovenia is and how easy it will be to see the entire country by car from one home-base, I am wondering whether three weeks would be plenty (instead of four). We will begin the two-month-long vacation in Greece, where I’m thinking we could use an extra week–thus, 5 weeks in Greece and 3 weeks in Slovenia.
I probably should search for a home-base near a good road network. If I am not mistaken, that would be in the Ljubljana area??
I think you can see a lot in 3 weeks, yes, but I would suggest moving around and not stay in the same place for three weeks. Why not find a different “home base” every week? It will be more interesting to experience the different regions that way. For instance, take one week in the Alps region (If you were to stay somewhere around Kranjska Gora you can go both ways, to Bled-Bohinj region and to Bovec area-Soča valley), one week around our region (Kočevje-Novo mesto) and one week in somewhere between Maribor and Ptuj (visit the Jeruzalem wine area). You will not regret it ;).