We knew there would be historic cities and beautiful landscapes. But the truth is that we had no idea just how overwhelmingly stunning those landscapes in Croatia would be, or that we would be assaulted by mouth-wide-open views that simply never let up.

Possibly the biggest surprise was Croatian gastronomy. We really didn’t know what to expect. What we found was a culinary tradition that, for us, surpassed areas which normally have travel bloggers salivating over their keyboards (I’m especially thinking Morocco and France).

Croatia had it all, putting it right up there as one of our favourite gastro hike destinations

Walking in Dalmatia – A land of emerald lagoons and flamboyant insects
We’ve enjoyed more challenging walking and more dramatic terrain than we experienced in Croatia. However, often it felt like walking in an unspoilt paradise – a Garden of Eden. I’m not sure how much of a reputation Croatia has as a walking destination but in mostly perfect walking weather in May we rarely met any other hikers.

On Hvar, we strolled through olive groves and past tiny historic hamlets, mysterious stone mounds and fields of wild flowers where the scent of wild orange jasmine was borderline orgasmic. One trail emerged at a small farm by the perfect Adriatic Sea and we were treated to a home grown feast during an afternoon so idyllic, it will take some beating.

On Mljet our routes traversed dreamy lakes and dappled forest paths where a flighty army of butterflies and the most exquisite looking insects I’ve ever seen added explosions of colour to the rich green landscape. At one point we caught a boat to an island within an island. At another we emerged at Roman fort beside a picturesque lakeside town and listened to the woes of a woman tending a goat with anger management issues.

Each walk was full of beauty and interest. There was often a tangible feel of walking in the paths of people from great ancient civilisations.

We’re also big fans of city hiking and Dubrovnik and Zadar offered two destinations that were ripe for exploring on foot. Dubrovnik’s streets can be a bit manic, but an escape to the walls both acted as a breather and stole our breaths away. Captivating Zadar didn’t have the same level of tourists but was the huge surprise of the trip that we would have overlooked completely if wasn’t for the fact that Ryanair made it a cheap option to fly there.

Our memories of all those places are filled with warmth, big smiles and a sense of discovery.

Wining & Dining in Dalmatia
From our first meal in Zadar, a world-beating seafood risotto and sensationally savoury cheesy gnocchi, our tastebuds were whooping with joy throughout our time in Croatia (save for two truly bad meals in Dubrovnik).

We were constantly impressed with the diversity of what was on offer; from light Mediterranean pastas and fish and seafood dishes to rich stews (pasticadas) and herby sausages. Traditional Croatian konobas with rustic designs and cosy courtyards were our favourite places to enjoy a varied cuisine that should keep all palates satisfied. Even the accompaniments to the main dishes scored high marks; creamy polenta instead of potatoes or blitva (Swiss chard, potato and garlic), a seriously tasty side dish that’s good enough to eat on its own.

When it comes to wine, Croatia’s is still a bit overshadowed by other European countries. But it has been a wine producing country since Roman times and the peppery, fruity reds we downed enthusiastically were right up our street, especially the Plavac Mali.
What made Dalmatia and other areas of Croatia a dream destination was the huge generosity and infectious humour of the people who offered us drinks at the slightest opportunity. I’ve lost count of the number of free grappas we were plied with – usually a throat stripping one for me and a softer, sweeter variety for Andy. The grappa highlight was at Konoba Lambik on Hvar where they even had a grappa experimental lab.

We were totally smitten by Croatia; its people, landscapes, towns, cities, food and wine. It was one of those places that had all the ingredients that ring our travelling bell.
It is an extraordinary gastro hike destination and we can’t wait to return to explore, and eat, more.

Jack is co-owner, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to lots of other places. Follow Jack on Google+

But why not write about a destination because nothing much happens? Especially when that is precisely part of the charm. We walked a lot, we sighed a lot, we soaked up surroundings that were Garden of Eden beautiful.

It exists in my mind like a hazy dream.

The View

Our hotel, the Odisej, felt as though it was still a bit of a throwback to Eastern bloc days, a wee bit out of time. Not a disaster, but not as good as other places we’d stayed in Croatia. From our balcony we did, however, have this view across the little bay in Pomena.

Bobbing Boats

I visualise Mljet and I see lakes of clear, clear water with boats floating on them. Simple as that.

Forest Walks

Even walking in Mljet doesn’t seem to require much effort. Walk out of the hotel and into the forest where easy tracks lined by flowers weave through Aleppo pines to lakes and villages.

Golden Sunsets

As pretty as the sun sets as it is in daylight hours. Everything about Mljet just seems to say ‘slow down and enjoy the views’.

Calm Water

As well as being pure and clear, the water in Veliko Jezero and Mali Jezera is the most mesmerizing shade of green.

More Bobbing Boats

The woodland path from Pomena to Polace skirts Mali Jezera, dropping down to the lake where there are benches, coves and, of course, bobbing boats.

Simplicity

There are Roman ruins on one side, an idyllic inlet on another and a goat with attitude on yet another. But I liked the simple beauty of this tin pot in Polace.

The Island on a Lake

An island on a lake with a 12th century monastery on it. Boats run regularly to SV Marija where there is a little café to enjoy a sandwich and a beer before a stroll around the island, which doesn’t take very long.

A Bug’s Life

As well as a lot of bobbing boats, there are also some pretty impressive bugs on Mljet. Not creepy crawlie ones, more ones that would look good as loveable main characters in a Pixar movie.

Picturesque Polace

And finally Polace – a quaint village with Roman ruins surrounded by lush forest and lapped by emerald water. I couldn’t really talk about such a scenic spot as Polace and then only show a picture of flower in a tin pot.

Jack is co-editor, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to online travel sites and travel magazines. Follow Jack on Google+

There are a handful of restaurants in Pomena on Mljet. Most have full frontal views of a too-pretty-to-be-true emerald lake.

One doesn’t; it’s set slightly off to one side – just out of ‘well, wasn’t that a stunning sunset?’ range. We feel sorry for it. It’s going to be last in line when visitors choose where to dine.

That should mean the owners have to work a little bit harder to bring people into their konoba. Ergo, the food will be cheaper and better than its lakeside counterparts… so Andy figures. They also have a huge wood burning stove. Anything cooked on that is going to taste of summer nights in a fragrance-filled forest.

The logic definitely seems sound.

Then we meet the Slovenian waitress.

The Slovenian waitress has character, that’s clear. She looks like Lisbeth Salander… a significantly heftier version maybe, but she’s definitely got that Lisbeth thing going on.

She’s got attitude. That’s not a problem. We like attitude. Although a disinterested shrug of the shoulders when asked about things on the menu isn’t really endearing in a waitress.

We order the house red and a bottle of still water as we peruse a menu that doesn’t look as interesting as we’d thought.

Lisbeth brings us the wine… and a bottle of sparkling water. The water isn’t a deal breaker; the wine is. It’s corked. It’s seriously unpleasant.

Andy tells the waitress. She shrugs and walks away. We’re not too sure she understood.

A few yards away, in the kitchen, we hear her laughing and telling an unseen person (in English for some reason) : “They say it’s corked. I don’t know that means,” She laughs again; there’s a sneer in the way she does it.

It’s good to know she enjoys her job – she won’t be getting a tip.

A surly, burly man comes to the table.

“It’s good wine,” he insists. “It’s local wine.”

“We’ve had lots of local wine,” we aren’t backing down. “It’s bad. Taste it.”

I hold a glass up to the waitress and the burly man.

The man harrumphs and, without tasting the wine, disappears. He returns a few minutes later with a clear plastic flagon full of red liquid; our replacement wine. It won’t win any awards but it isn’t corked and is drinkable.

By this time we realise our logic is flawed.

We order a couple of unexciting meat dishes, nervous about what will actually appear at the table.

A young British couple sit at the table behind us. Lisbeth hands them menus.

“What’s the soup of the day?” The woman enquires, pointing to the entry on the menu.

“I don’t know,” Lisbeth shrugs and continues to look at the woman. The woman stares back, flummoxed. The silence creaks the night air. The woman breaks first.

“Err, could you find out?”

The waitress sighs loudly and stomps off.

Even if it’s the Slovenian girl’s first night, she must be in contention for the title of the most clueless waitress in the history of waitressdom.

She returns and tells the woman the secret that is soup of the day. The couple give her their order and the man also asks for a bottle of red wine for himself; she’s pregnant and not drinking alcohol.

Our meals arrive on tin platters. Andy’s shy fillet is covered in gelatinous mushrooms whereas mine is on the rocks. Given the waitress’s performance so far it could have been worse, although Andy is pretty sure there was no mention of mushroom sauce on the menu. The food is edible.

Behind us Lisbeth has brought the couple a bottle of white wine instead of red. The man doesn’t notice till she leaves the table.

“It’ll be okay, I’ll drink this instead,” the man insists.

“Send it back,” the woman hisses quietly.

“Honestly, it’ll be fine,” he doesn’t want to make a fuss.

We’re British, but we’re not as British as he is.

An awkward silence descends on the table.

By the time we finish our food and gulp down the last of the wine, the couple still haven’t uttered another word to each other. There is the unmistakeable aroma of a ruined meal hanging heavily over the table… and the starters haven’t even arrived.

Although we’re tempted to linger to see what further disaster Lisbeth can wreak, escape is the more attractive option.

We pay the bill and leave, vowing never again to try to apply logic when choosing restaurants in a location we don’t know.

Jack is co-owner, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to lots of other places. Follow Jack on Google+

Croatia just happens to be one of those places that is beautiful whatever the light is doing.

Chilling in Hvar Town

Some folks are divided about Hvar Town’s charms. It does cater for the yachting scene but in May at least there’s quite a laid back sophisticated vibe going on… even if Sex Bomb is blasting out of a seafront bar. Its overwhelming prettiness acts as an antidote to dodgy music.

Cool Korcula

We didn’t have the best weather in Korcula and Vela Luka didn’t seduce us in the same way as the other places we visited in Croatia. But the sunset was hypnotic, turning everything an aloof metallic silver before softening into midnight blue.

Golden Krk

Krk Town at night looked as though Midas had touched it; the old town is a maze of enticing narrow alleys and cobbled streets.

Being Seen in Zadar’s Bar Scene

Being a university city, Zadar has a great bar scene set around a network of narrow old streets. It’s clear from the position of the seats and benches that they’re ideal for people watching… or even dog watching by the looks of it. And if anyone is wondering why no mention of the famous sunset, it’s because sunset in Zadar deserved a blog to itself.

Magnificent Mljet

Simply one of those locations that has you sighing blissfully whatever the time of day or night it is.

Dubrovnik After Dark

Relax, after nightfall you don’t have to breathe in to squeeze through the cruise excursions who storm the old town during the day. When it comes to appearance Dubrovnik by night is like Dubrovnik by day – exquisite looking.

Jack is co-owner, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to lots of other places. Follow Jack on Google+

I mean what exactly is Croatian cuisine?

When I asked for recommendations on facebook about about where to eat, the first reply suggested a pizza restaurant.

A pizza restaurant!

Give me a break, I thought. I like pizzas, no I love pizzas but when I head to pastures new I want to try the local nosh. Pizzas are what people with unadventurous palates eat when they go anywhere.

As it turns out I had to eat my thoughts… as well as the occasional pizza. Pizzas are the local nosh in Dalmatia and they make pretty damn good ones at that.

The thing about the gastronomy in Croatia is that it has multiple personalities. This is drawn from the fact that Croatia lies where southern and central Europe meet. So whilst you get full-on hearty fare (stews, roasted meats, chunky sausages, cheeses etc.) from northern parts you also get a huge serving of lighter Mediterranean influences (fish and seafood, pastas and salads) from southern ones.

These contrasting influences became apparent the first time we opened a menu and were faced with a motley crew of dishes including fish and shellfish, pastas and pizzas, roasted cuts of meat, frogs legs and snails.

It was, in many ways, a typical Croatian menu.

We spent most of our time in the Dalmatia area with brief periods in Kvarner and Karlovac. It would be fair to say Mediterranean influenced food dominated, which suited us right down to the ground.

As fans of fish and seafood we were in marine cuisine heaven. Our first introduction to a Croatian risotto saw us faced with a plate populated by mussels, shellfish and oversized langoustines (scampi on Croatian menus). We sipped and slurped a few bowls of fish soup that were all different but were also all light and delicately flavoured with the essence of the sea.

The first taste of Croatian pasta, a four cheese gnocchi in Zadar, was as good a pasta dish as I’ve tasted, savoury and lying snugly on the right side of rich, until it was ousted by a ‘bloody hell that’s fab’ goats’ cheese spaghetti in Mljet.

Similarly, an everyday margherita pizza on Krk made me realise too many pizzas I’ve munched have been substandard.

Slabs of meat wouldn’t normally be my first choice from a menu but a rich and beefy pasticada (beef marinated in lemon and herbs before being cooked in a sauce) at the Hotel Podstine on Hvar reminded that when done well they pack a flavour-filled punch. This one came with a polenta mash that was so good it had me seriously thinking of dumping the tatties in future and beginning an affair with polenta instead.

As a Scot, I like anything enclosed in pastry so sampling the Croatian version of sausage rolls and eating breakfasts of curd cheese or apple strudels was no hardship.

Talking about snacking, in my ‘stupid but saveable’ period (i.e. the first couple of days in Croatia) I kept trying to find out what a particularly enticing ‘eat me now’ snack was. It looked like stuffed pitta but was bigger and filled with all sorts of ingredients from rows of sausages to ham and cheese. Every question was met with blank stares until the kunar dropped that they were simply Croatia’s version of sandwiches.

I had basically kept asking what a sandwich was called. Err.. a sandwich.

Often I find that some countries are lacking in the veg accompaniment department. Not Croatia.

Blitva is an eye-widening combination of Swiss chard, potatoes, garlic and olive oil that has you exclaiming ‘right, we’re definitely trying that at home’ after the first bite. I’ve checked out recipes online and it’s easy peasy but I reckon they’re all missing a vital ingredient that I’m pretty sure was in the first, and best, blitva we tried in Zadar’s oldest konoba. There will be experimentation to see if I’m right.

On an idyllic afternoon we were introduced to artichokes and broad beans; a spring speciality. It’s not the most sophisticated looking of dishes but for the first time it made me think that artichokes were actually worth the effort.

That idyllic afternoon exposed our taste-buds to some of the best food we ate in Croatia; home grown olives on slivers of smoked tuna and swordfish; egg, bean, caper and olive salad and the artichokes – all washed down with home produced wine and grappa. It was so good it deserves a blog all to itself, which is why I’m not saying too much about it at this point.

I could go on and on and on about the cuisine in Croatia. Hopefully you’ll have figured by now that we thought it was pretty top notch (apart from in Dubrovnik but that’s a story for another day and blog post).

The Croatians may humbly say their cuisine has its foundations in many other countries. But it is they who have built a culinary kingdom on those foundations.

Jack is co-owner, writer and photographer for BuzzTrips and the Real Tenerife series of travel websites as well as a contributor to lots of other places. Follow Jack on Google+

We pause to photograph a fence heavy with the purple heads of pasiflora, each one busy with its own community of beetles, bugs and butterflies, and a tethered goat who had earlier almost strangled himself attempting to head butt me on my way into the village.
“He is my goat,” the woman with the twigs informs us. “I have another one in the other field.” She jerks her head towards a small clearing in the forest behind her. “I don’t know what I will do with him now. There is no-one here any more and I am too old to keep working so hard.”

Her children are grown, she tells us, and have left Mljet to live in Australia and Germany, far off places where work is not dependant on the season and a trickle of passing trade. She points to the row of pretty stone cottages standing in overgrown gardens to our left.
“All empty, everyone has moved away” she says. “No-one to maintain them any more. I don’t know what will happen.”
The irony of Mljet’s attraction as a de-stress destination for overworked executives is not lost on us as we make vague conciliatory noises about the rising popularity of Croatia, and head back into the forest, more guilty than ever that we’re walkers and not cyclists.

Ascending through the forest of Aleppo pines, holm oak and ash, glimpses of the teal and turquoise waters of the lake tantalise until we emerge at the peak of Montokuc where views open up across the endless Adriatic on one side and to the shimmering Mljetski Channel and the Peljesac peninsula on the other. From here, the stone in the throat beauty of Mljet is all too evident,  its impossibly clear sea studded with tiny satellite islands; its oscillating canopy of forest and its limestone cliffs.

Descending back towards the lake, the spiky purple heads of thistles line our path and gently sway in the breeze, each one occupied by several bugs and butterflies enjoying the fairground ride. I’ve never seen so many insects. With every footfall we disturb clouds of tiny butterflies and moths that settle onto my T shirt. I’m a walking nature reserve. As just about every purple flower we’ve seen has been adorned by them, I can only assume Mljet’s insects are drawn towards the violet section of the colour wheel and my pink T shirt seems to qualify.

We arrive lakeside and drop down onto the narrow path that skirts the water, arriving at the jetty just in time to catch the little ferry which takes us across the lake to the island of SV Marija. Disembarking and settling at a lakeside table beneath the pines to peruse the menu, I try to get my head around our Inception-like location of being on an island, on an island. I wonder if we should have explored the ruined monastery and the island before deciding to have lunch, in case there isn’t enough time before the ferry returns in just under two hours. I needn’t have worried, the family who disembarked with us and chose to explore first have returned by the time our sandwich arrives, their full circuit having taken somewhere in the region of 15 minutes.

For the next hour or so we sip our beers by the waterside, stroll the island – twice – and drink in the soundtrack of crickets, the antics of lizards and the never ending flypast of Brimstone butterflies, beetles and dragonflies. When the ferryman arrives, we glide across the lake to Mali Most and retrace our path back to Pomena and the island’s only hotel, Odisej.

With 90% of Mljet covered in forest and one third given over to the protected area of the National Park, its 850 human inhabitants are far outnumbered by the birds, bees and butterflies, not to mention the lizards, hedgehogs, snakes, deer and boar. On our four and a half hour walk we only saw other visitors around the lakeside paths with not another soul to disturb the beauty and tranquility of the higher ground of the forest. A veritable garden of Eden, the pace of life on Mljet is dictated only by the length of the shadows and your chosen mode of transport, be it foot, canoe, kayak, boat or bicycle. Come to think of it, why not give them all a go and enjoy a guilt-free, slow sojourn in paradise.

Inntravel feature Mljet on their ‘Dubrovnik and Dalmatian Islands‘ holiday.

Andrea (Andy) Montgomery is a freelance travel writer and co-owner of Buzz Trips and The Real Tenerife series of travel websites. Published in The Telegraph, The Independent, Wexas Traveller, Thomas Cook Travel Magazine, EasyJet Traveller Magazine, you can read her latest content on Google+

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