- Travel dates: 14th May - 19th May 2012
- Flights: EasyJet
- Accommodation: booked apartments independently for Bol and Trogir
How to cram as much as possible into 6 days and still relax on the beach...
First-thing's-first: you need a car for this trip itinerary. This definitely works out as affordable if there are 4 of you travelling together, as splitting out the cost of rental and petrol makes it quite cheap.
We booked through Atlas Choice, which got us a car rented through Sixt. We picked up and dropped off at Split Airport and this worked out good as obviously you save on any airport transfers as well. The cost was approximately 106 Euros for the 5 days.
Our first task upon getting the car was to drive into Split centre towards the ferry port. We never actually had a map for Croatia - the designated driver associated passengers had familiarised themselves with our approximate route on Google Maps before leaving. We actually found the roads to be well sign-posted and easy to navigate.
As we had a car, our only choice for travel to Brac was to take the car ferry - it doesn't go directly to Bol (our desired destination) but instead docks at Supetar, approximately an hours drive (allowing for one or two stops).
We had some trouble finding information about the ferries leaving Split, but this website has good details of the timetables for both the car and foot passenger ferries leaving.
Our first task upon getting the car was to drive into Split centre towards the ferry port. We never actually had a map for Croatia - the designated driver associated passengers had familiarised themselves with our approximate route on Google Maps before leaving. We actually found the roads to be well sign-posted and easy to navigate.
As we had a car, our only choice for travel to Brac was to take the car ferry - it doesn't go directly to Bol (our desired destination) but instead docks at Supetar, approximately an hours drive (allowing for one or two stops).
We had some trouble finding information about the ferries leaving Split, but this website has good details of the timetables for both the car and foot passenger ferries leaving.
The setting was perfect, just a short walk into the centre of Bol, and easy to get to the super market and the local restaurants. We were also situated right on the seafront, although you'll see from the waves it wasn't for swimming - however we were told of a sandy beach just a short walk up the road which we unfortunately didn't get a chance to visit. The apartments had amazing gardens full of cacti and succulents. It's worth noting that the price of this apartment includes free, off-road parking.
Zlatni Rat beach was a 10 minute drive from the apartments, although it is walk-able and takes around 20-25 minutes depending on your walking speed. We visited twice and experienced drastically different weather on each occasion; first visit in the early evening was cold and windy, second visit in the early afternoon was hot enough to swim and sunbath.
Bol was a really relaxing,sleepy town but, bearing in mind we were there off-season, there wasn't a whole lot going on. We had hoped to arrange a fishing trip, but this was more expensive than we had budgeted for (around 50 Euros for half a day) and it was off season, so not much chance of landing any fish. Once you've done Zlatni Rat it's not really all that alluring, the beach is pebbly and the swimming ok (as it juts out from the land, the water gets deep very quickly - lots of treading water). We took the snorkling gear down as well, but the water was a bit too murky to see much. Again, this may very much be the season. We spent 3 days in Bol and then hit the road to the next destination.
Our next stop after Bol was back to the mainland to Trogir, mainly because we wanted to see these waterfalls but also because we had heard that Trogir was a picturesque town worth visiting.
The drive obviously involved getting the ferry back from Supetar and another hair-raising trip around some very tight hairpins. Not driving for the faint-hearted.
It took us around 4 hours to get from Bol to Trogir, allowing for ferry waiting times, crossing and drive either side. We also stopped in Split to top up on supplies at the amazing market there. This market sorted us for cheese, cured meats, vegetables, cheese, bread, oil and much more - at very reasonable prices. It worked out perfectly, because the apartments we booked both had kitchens and we often sorted lunch and breakfast ourselves.
InTrogir, we stayed at Apartment Orlic the other side of the river to the main town, but only a short walk. We were met in the harbour by the owner, a very friendly chap who appeared on his motorcycle and lead us the way up to the apartments. This also included parking.
Our rooms were reasonable, there was a slight smell of damp in the apartments and very little natural light. Still, they were clean and spacious and we had space on the balcony outside where we were given home made Croatian wine to sup in the evening sunshine.
We did head out for eats in Trogir, I feel like we were missing something as everywhere we went was pizza and pasta and nothing particularly interesting to be honest. We were really up for seafood, but this was seriously limited (probably, as above with the fishing trip, because it wasn't fishing season).
By far the best thing we did from staying in Trogir was heading to the Krka waterfalls. This was about an hour's drive from our apartment, we took the toll road which was a really easy drive; though we were told there was a scenic route along the coast which took a little longer. We'd already done coastal drives around Brac, so we were more interested in getting to the waterfalls.
It was a beautiful day there and was a superb way to spend our last full day in Croatia. We drove there and parked up; we paid up for our entrance and had the option to get the bus (which, if I remember rightly) ran every 20 minutes, or to walk down. We chose to walk down and then grabbed the bus back up.
That wraps up our trip, and
