7 days in North Croatia: all you need is a car and a tent

We just got back from our road trip in North Croatia: 7 days of amazing landscapes, contact with the nature and almost 2000 km driven.

The best thing about camping is that you don’t need to plan in advance, you can just stop whenever you find a free spot in a camping (or in the nature, for the bravest ones!), and spontaneously decide how long to stay.

It’s true you have to build and unbuild your tent almost every day, use public toilets, and turn your car into your house for one week but if you’re in that mindset, it’s one of the most relaxing ways of travelling ever. You’re constantly surrounded by the nature, you can wake up listening to the sound of sea and at night you’re so tired that you fall asleep at 11 (also because the sun will wake you up early the next day).

We left from Como, our hometown in Italy, and in 7 days we visited the beautiful islands of Cres and Pag, as well as the incredibile Plitvice Lakes.

Cres

We reached Cres via ferry from Rijeka and spent 3 nights in the camping Kovačine, a big camping structure very close to the sea.

In particular we spent one day in Valun beach, in the north of the island. This place is perfect if you’re looking for a quiet non tourist spot, it’s not equipped so make sure to bring everything you need with you. At just 5 minutes walk from the beach you’ll find a mini market and three really nice restaurants on the sea where you can enjoy some delicious fish for lunch.

Talking about food, we had the best food experience in Cres in the open-air restaurant located just in front of our camping.

You can choose among fried calamari, grilled mackerel, sardines, Ćevapčići (a typical Croatian sausage) and french fries and and have an amazing dinner under the stars and at 2 meters from the sea for a very good price. Definitely worth a try!

Among the many beaches you can visit in Cres, one of the best ones is Lubenice’s beach, a picturesque village located in the north of the island. You can reach this bay only with a 1,5 hour walk in the nature, but unfortunately a storm forced us to change our plans (and to rebuild our tent). Alternatively you can reach the bay with an organised boat trip that departs from Cres harbour and takes you both to the bay and to the beautiful caves just next to the bay. The trip also includes lunch with freshly fished mackarels or sea basses.

Due to the bad weather we didn't go to Lubenice bay, but instead we visited the towns of Mali and Veli Lošinj in the south of Cres island. In Veli Lošinj there’s not much to do, apart from visiting the city centre, so we decided to follow our beloved Lonely Planet guide, that was indicating a very interesting sea turtles centre. Erica was over excited until it took us almost one hour to find that small centre that was hosting just one turtle from the day before. In the end we can almost say we were lucky, but if you happen to be in Veli Lošinj, we recommend you to move to Mali Lošinj and get lost in its fascinating narrow streets.

Pag

We experienced Pag, usually known for its parties, clubs and famous DJs, in the most quiet and relaxing way ever. We stayed in a new camping spot at around 10 minutes drive from Novalja, the party hub, and it looked like we were on a completely different island.

The camping Navis was so new that it was almost empty, but still everything was functional and clean. The only “problem” was that the tree didn’t grow yet so in the morning we woke up at 7 and felt like in a sauna. Good that the sea was just 50 metres from our tent so we could start our day with a refreshing morning swim :)

Plitvice Lakes

Plitviče Lakes National Park is a huge forest reserve in central Croatia. It's known for a chain of 16 terraced lakes, joined by waterfalls, and there are different paths that you can take to visit the park. The park is simply stunning, the sun reflection makes the water look almost green, and the waterfalls makes the whole place unique.

We arrived at 12 and did the 5-6 hour walking path, that includes 10 minutes on a bus and another 10 minutes on a boat. We really enjoyed it, but if you can, we recommend you to visit it in the morning and in spring or early autumn, so that the waterfalls are not dry and that you won’t find as many tourists as we did.

Another recommendation is to not buy anything to eat while you’re queuing to buy the tickets, we had the most disgusting sandwiches ever! As soon as you enter the park, you’ll find different restaurants where the food looked much nicer than our sandwiches.

But apart from that, the visit was amazing, we walked for around 8 km in the middle of plants, stones, waterfalls and beautiful water reflections. It’s definitely worth a visit.

And at night, we had one of the best surprises of the whole trip. We didn’t know where to sleep yet, so we started driving towards the north of Croatia looking for a camping spot. We drove for over one hour in the desert Croatian hills, until we saw a camping sign, so we followed it. We drove another 10 minutes and we arrived in this small village on a lake called Ogulin, where we were lucky enough to find the only camping spot within 40 km, Sabljaci Kamp.

A very kind guy welcomed us with some home made grappa and recommended us the best bistrot we experienced in the whole trip, located at just 200 metres walk from the camping. It’s called Ive, and being right on the lake, we went for fresh grilled trouts with vegetables and local cheese. It was simply amazing and the portions were so big that we could take them away for the next day.

The day after, on the way back home, we stopped in beautiful Trieste and had a quick picnic just in front of the sea. The trouts were still delicious and we couldn’t be happier.

Now we just can’t wait for our next road trip!

#holiday #croatia #summer #camping #roadtrip