A string of pearls and other Croatia Things to Do Tips

Mention Croatia and the Adriatic and everyone immediately thinks of Dubrovnik, the beautiful walled city at the southern tip of the country - the Pearl of the Adriatic. Well, yes, Dubrovnik is beautiful, but it is by no means the only pearl of a city along this coastline. There is a veritable string of such jewels stretching all the way from Porec in the north to Dubrovnik in the south and beyond - Kotor, across the border in Montenegro is an absolute gem of a small mediaeval city that can easily be visited in a day from Croatia. And then there are the islands - over a thousand of them, 67 of which are inhabited and most of those with their own small pearls of towns and villages Even if you intend simply to veg out on a beach and soak up the sun, you really should allow a little time to explore one or two of these lovely places. Whether you choose to join the crowds in Dubrovnik (and Dubrovnik does get very crowded indeed!) walk in the footsteps of the Emperor Diocletian in Split, check out some of the enchanting little towns on Brac, explore the narrow streets of Trogir or seek out somewhere off the beaten track, you will find they all have their own charm and much to please the eye.

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Whether your time in Dubrovnik is limited to a single day as a cruise stopover or an excursion from your holiday apartment or hotel, a port of call on a sailing holiday, or you are there for a more extended stay, the city is sure to leave a lasting impression on you. It is a truly exquisite place set down between a backdrop of mountains and the bluest of blue seas studded with pine-tree-clad islands.

The main attraction is the mediaeval heart of the city, surrounded by massive, and very complete, fortified walls. A walk around the walls will take you about an hour and will give you a wonderful overview of the city's building - and those famous terracotta tiled roofs. For lovers of architecture there are some beautiful churches and a couple of lovely little palaces, tranquil monastery cloisters and street after street of mellow old stone houses. Others will find their enjoyment in the details - fine stone carvings over doorways, around windows, on fountains and capitals - there is so much to catch the eye here. There are more than enough umbrella-shaded cafes and restaurants in which to sit and watch the passing parade and shoppers will enjoy the quaint little shops that both line the main street - the Placa - and are tucked away in side streets and alleyways. The charm of the city lies in the sum of all these things - there's a really special wholeness about Dubrovnik and it is this that led to the city being declared a UNESCO World Heritage site as early as 1979.

So, even if you only have a few hours in Dubrovnik, you can get a real feel of what the city is like. The main streets and squares are busy from early morning until late afternoon - things quieten down as the day-trippers head back to their buses - but you don't have to walk far from the main thoroughfares to find you have a street to yourself - and the washing overhead- where you can really soak up the atmosphere of this magical place.

Click on photo for full panorama

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Across the bay from Dubrovnik lies Cavtat, the southern-most seaside town in Croatia. Once a little fishing village, Cavtat's incarnation as a tourist destination dates back to the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Its proximity to Dubrovnik makes it an attractive location for hotel developers, with the result that there are several large package tour hotels there now, and, no doubt, lots more in the planning. They're not the only option for would-be visitors though. We checked at the small accommodation agency on the main road from Dubrovnik and found ourselves a lovely apartment up the hill from the centre of town, with a fabulous view over the bay.

Our visit here was limited to an evening stroll down by the water, a delicious meal in a waterside restaurant and a quick flip back into town in the morning to take a couple of photos. We hadn't intended to stay there at all but a last minute change of plans had taken us south into Montenegro for a day rather than heading north from Dubrovnik as we had intended, with the result that we needed somewhere to spend the night. Maybe next time we're down this way we'll come back and stay for a little longer. Then we could check out those churches (the parish church of Sv Nicholas and the Franciscan monastery church of Our Lady of the Snows), have as swim at one of the numerous little beaches around the peninsula, walk up to the hilltop cemetery to see the white marble Racic Mausoleum and browse through the shops and galleries that no seaside town here seems to be without. Lunch back at that restaurant ( was it the Konoba Ivan?, I think so) would be good too.

Alternatively, after a quieter night's sleep - Cavtat is right under the airport's flightpath - we could catch a water taxi from Dubrovnik; the journey takes about 40 minutes. The bus takes the same. Going by sea and back by bus would be the way to do it. The road around the coast is lovely and, being high, affords you classic views of Dubrovnik as you approach the city.

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One of the real pleasures of a holiday in Croatia is the string of small towns and villages that lie all down the coast, some on their own small island linked to the land by a low bridge or causeway. Tucked into quiet bays and inlets on both the mainland and the larger islands, their mellow stone houses sit beautifully around small harbours while further away from the centre you'll find the newer houses and villas of more recent expansion. You'll find cafes along a seaside promenade; pretty parish churches (and sometimes the remnants of much earlier churches some dating back to Byzantine times); bright patches of colour from oleanders, bougainvillea, tecoma and the like. There's almost always a small beach of either pebbles or rocky shelving nearby where the water will be sparklingly clear though a little exploring around the area may well turn up an even more attractive, and quieter, place to swim.

Particularly if sunbathing and swimming are the top of your agenda for your holiday here, these villages make a great place to base yourself. There is usually very reasonably priced accommodation available in the form of small, privately-owned apartments and private rooms. Most villages and towns will have an accommodation agency somewhere near the approach into town or the centre and if you are travelling out of the peak periods of July and August you can be pretty sure of finding something suitable quite easily.

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Lying on the ouskirts of Split, in the town of Solin, are the ruins of Roman Salona. Founded by Greek-Illyrians in the 4thC BC, the 1stC BC saw the city taken by the Romans and it soon became the most important Roman city along this coast, with a population of 60,000. Salona must have been an impressive sight with its dramatic backdrop of mountains and the sea spreading out below. Now it is an abandoned ruin, sleeping quietly on its hillside, visited by very few - we had the place to ourselves the whole time we were there.

Entering the site from the carpark, you'll pass through an extensive area known as the Manastirine - the focus of early Christian life in the city. Following the burial here of the martyred Bishop Domnius - who had met his fate along with all the other Christians in the city when Diocletian ordered the execution of the entire Christian population in 304AD - the necropolis grew larger and larger until, in the late 4th C, the city's first basilica was built on the site. More churches, and burials, were to follow and now their ruined outlines and huge stone sarcophagi form much of what there is to be seen as you explore the site.

A shady garden area near the Tusculum (the museum) houses a small lapidarium and a cool cypress-lined avenue leads down through the site to the long walk to the ampitheatre, and it is worth the walk, even on a hot day! Built in the 2ndC AD, seating 18,000 and initially used for gladiatorial games (there is a wonderful small model of a gladiator in the Archaeological Museum in Split) it is thought this ampitheatre was the first to be used for Christian executions.

Well-defined baths can be found in the eastern section of the site.

Look out too for the aqueduct by the road from Split. Once it ran for 9km from the source of the River Jadro to bring water to the palace on the seashore.

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Directions: Open daily - Summer 7-5, winter 9-3
If driving, look for the signs to Solin and then follow more signs to the site.
Buses leave Split every 30 mins from Trg Gaje Bulata
The site is extensive and mostly unshaded. Wear a hat and bring some water in summer.

Sun-seeking 21st century tourists were not the first to decide that the Adriatic coast of Croatia was a little piece of Paradise. Way back in 295AD, the Roman emperor, Diocletian, decided a summer palace was just what he needed, and a site near the Roman city of Salona, (now a ruin on the outskirts of Split) was just the place. Roman emperors being given to notions of grandeur, the palace he built was sufficiently splendid for Diocletian to decide he would retire there, and he then went a step further and built a magnificent mausoleum for himself within the walls. Successive emperors made use of the palace for the next couple of hundred years but it gradually fell into abandoned decay before time, and invading tribes from the north, saw the palace become a refuge for the citizens of Salona in 615. They took over the grand apartments of the nobility, the kitchens, the stables and all the other supporting areas of the old palace and gradually subsumed the crumbling grandeur in the warren of an early mediaeval city.

Whilst most of Diocletian's palace is now lost in the maze of narrow streets and houses that cram the old city, there is still more than enough evidence of its Roman origins to be seen as you explore the area within the walls. A seaside promenade lined with shops and cafes runs between the walls and the sea these days - in Diocletian's time the sea lapped the stone here, with a seaward entrance known as the Bronze Gate (Mjenda Vrata) that today opens from the promenade. Look up from your cafe seat and you'll see the Roman masonry is still there, even though it is breached with windows and air-conditioners. Pass through the gate and you'll step back in time as you pass through the dim passage known as the Podrum- once a grim place of imprisonment, now lined with craft and souvenir stalls. Be sure to look beyond the little shops at the Roman brick and masonry of the roof and the walls.

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Directions: Look out for the large posters on the Riva (the sea-side promenade) that show how the palace looked in its heyday.

The first place to head for once you pass through the walls of what was once Diocletian's palace in Split, is the Peristil, the central meeting place of this part of the city ever since the palace was first built. It 's a grand space still, and it's easy enough to imagine what it must have been like when Diocletian made his public appearances here. The courtyard is dominated by the Cathedral, beside which a black sphinx stands guard under a row of marble columns with Corinthian capitals and linking arches.

The sphinx dates to 1500BC and is one of a pair brought from Egypt by Diocletian to stand guard over the mausoleum he built here for himself (the other is now in the Archeological Museum). That the cathedral and mausoleum are the one and the same building is a considerable irony - Diocletian came to think himself a god and built the mausoleum to house his mortal remains and glorify his immortality. His body disappeared however and, in time, the Christians he had persecuted unmercifully during his lifetime claimed the mausoleum for their own use as the city's cathedral.

Despite later additions and alterations such as a late-mediaeval belltower and two 15thC interior chapels have not managed to disguise the essential Roman style of the building with its exterior octagonal colonnaded form and high dome above a circular interior. Although very small, the cathedral has a 13thC pulpit, magnificent carved wooden doors and some wonderful Romanesque stone carving - including a splendid pair of lions to guard the entrance.

Climbing the bell tower must give you a wonderful view over the city - it was just too hot to contemplate when we were there in June. Next time....

The small Crkvica Sv Roka (Chapel of St Rocco) beside the cathedral dates from the 16thC. It is used now as the tourist information office.

The domed gateway on the seaward side of the Peristil leads to the Vestibule, once the entrance to the Emperor's private apartments.

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A narrow passage (Kraj Sv Ivana) leads out of Split's Peristile, directly opposite the cathedral. Follow it and you will find yourself at the bottom of a small flight of steps that lead up, past a headless sphynx, to an elaborate doorway beneath a barrel-vaulted roof - all that remains of what was once the inner sanctum (the "cella") of a temple dedicated to the supreme Roman god, Jupiter.

The sphynx links it to the mausoleum (also flanked by a sphynx) back in the main square. When they were built, the two buildings faced each other, and spoke eloquently of Diocletian's assumption of his immortality and equality with the gods.

A worn relief of a Christian bishop tells us the building was put to use by the city's Christian inhabitants in the middle ages. Just as the mausoleum of the man who was the scourge of the Christians of his day became the cathedral of the Christian city that grew within the walls of his palace, the temple of the ruler of his gods became the cathedral's Baptistry - a place that more than anywhere symbolizes the total acceptance of Christ as the Supreme Being in a Christian's life.

Step across the threshold and you enter a small barrel-vaulted space dominated by a cross-shaped marble font. The font itself dates from the 11thC, the carvings that decorate it - the elaborate interwoven motifs known as pleter and a relief of a of a king on a throne (thought to be Zvominir, the liberator of Dalmatia, who was crowned in nearby Solin in 1076) were added in the 19th C. The modern sculpture of John the Baptist behind the font is by Ivan Mestrovic.

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The grandest gate in Diocletian's palace was the Porta Aurea - the Golden Gate. Now known as the Zlatna Vrata this gate is situated on the northern wall of the great palace. In Roman times it led out to the road to to Salona, the town that lay just inland. The gate still stands but is currently (2006) undergoing restoration and is hidden behind hoardings. You can still pass through it however, though these days you are confronted by a massive statue rather than a straight Roman road.

Grgur Ninski - Bishop Gregory of Nin - is the man portrayed. A much-revered figure in Croatian history, he is credited with defying the leaders of the Roman Catholic church in his championship of the Croatian Church's right to use the Slav language rather than Latin. This was in the 9th C - hundreds of years before Martin Luther's championship of the vernacular was one of the factors that lit the flame of the Reformation.

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The Emperor Diocletian would have a hard time recognizing his palace by the sea if he was to come back today. Left to decay by its imperial tenants in the latter years of the Western Roman Empire, the palace was deserted for years until sometime in the 7thC AD when the citizens of Salona, the Roman city up the hill, took refuge within its walls from the advance of the tribes of Slavs and Avars who were taking over the region. Over the next few hundred years the city slowly outgrew its confinement within the palace compound, spreading to the the west into what became the mediaeval city of Split. This area was fortified in the 14th century.

Take a walk outside the old city through the Eljezna Vrata (Iron Gate) and you will pass through into that mediaeval city. Whilst the area around the cathedral in the heart of the old city remained the religious centre, commercial and municipal life was now centred here in the new part. Grand homes were built here - look out for the Cipriano Palace with its lovely windows and worn relief of St Antony just outside the Iron Gate. A new Town Hall was built on Narodni Trg (People's Square) and the square became - and remains - the hub of the city ( the Town Hall now houses the Ethnographic Museum). Further afield were the markets, the Green Market on Vocni Trg (now outside the Silver Gate on the east side of the old walls) and the Ribarnica (Fish Market) on Kraj Sv Marije where fresh fish is still daily brought to town by local fishermen.

If you have time, you can take a walk up the the hill to Varos to search for the tiny church of St Nicholas and explore the narrow cobbled streets lined with old houses. Otherwise, you can head down the marble-paved Marmontova with its elegant shops to the Riva and a well-earned drink and chance to rest your feet in one of the cafes there.

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Directions: The Ethnographic Museum is open Monday to Friday from 10 till 3