Going to Croatia and Slovenia next week for a two weeks trip. My first landing is Dubrovnik, fitting.
So we had an amazing time in Croatia and Slovenia. Two very similar countries in terms of culture but very different in terms of landscape, and both are gorgeous in their own way. So they make for great trip companions. We did Dubrovnik, Hvar, Split, Zadar, Plitvice Lakes, and Zagreb from Croatia. And Ljubljana, Lake Bled, and Skojkcan Caves from Slovenia. Not one place I didn't love one way or another, but the highlights were Škocjan Caves, Plitvice Lakes, and Dubrovnik. Lake Bled and Hvar were stunning too.
I will never get tired of recommending Škocjan Caves. It was the most stunning and magnificent place I have ever been. You do a 1.5 km hike through two different parts of a cave system. In the first part (the silent part), you go through some tunnels full of stunning stalagmites all around, until you reach an immense hall, the size of a football pitch. In the second part, you walk all around a beautiful lid underground canyon on some carved stairs, overlooking The River Rika, until you reach a steel bridge. You cross the bridge to reach the exit of the cave, and from there (if you choose the longer path) you walk all through the beautiful valley that surrounds the cave to the starting point, and even go through another cave on your way out.
You can't take pictures inside the main cave, or so you're told (I saw many fuckers shamelessly taking pictures). So there aren't many pictures around, and none that do them justice. The best way to describe being there, for anyone who has seen the LotR movies, is like being in the Moria Mines in the Fellowship of the Rings movie. These are some of the best pictures I found on Google, for anyone who's interested.
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Dubrovnik was as stunning as led to believe. Most people just walk around the historical center, but I found the whole city to be completely beautiful. We stayed very close to Bellevue Beach, which is a very nice beach where you don't even need swimming shoes to go in the water. Not much shade though. There's also a pretty decent and cheap (for Dubrovnik standards) restaurant called "El Toro" very close by. So if you're traveling on a budget (like we were), it might save you a couple of bucks.
We also bought the Dubrovnik pass and walked the walls with a stunning sunset. Plus we did some museums and Fort Lovrijenac on the next day, which is all included in the pass. The pass is the same price as the entry to the walls, so there's no reason not to buy it. Drank some beers at the Buza Bar, and slipped like an asshole on my way up. We also did a half-day trip to Lokrum Island, which was great and had some great places to go for a swim.
The only thing I wouldn't recommend doing in Dubrovnik is riding the cable car to Mount Srd. We ended up paying like 58 euros for a 3-minute ride, where we couldn't see much on the way up as the cable cars get packed, when we could have (as we later found out) paid 5 times less for an Uber to take us there. The view from Mount Srd is stunning though, and a must-do, especially if you can go a bit before sunset and stay till the night falls, so you can see the city light up. I took these two photos on my phone.
