nirajshah8

Hi!

I am traveling to Europe in November and December of this year and would love to include Croatia in my plans. Does anyone have any experience or can offer advice on travelling to Croatia in late November / early December? I understand it will be off season but I'm assuming there will still be things open and sights to see.

Appreciate any feedback!

hdogan

Welcome to FT, nirajshah8!

Unfortunately, it's not really a good time to visit. You'd have to stick to big cities, as most tourist places are almost literally dead during the winter. If it's cold enough, you may have a spectacular visit to Plitvice Lakes national park, but really only if it's freezing with a lot of snow. Just google "Plitvice winter" to get a glimpse.

Otherwise, it's going to be cold and pretty boring in terms of entertainment.

mad_atta

I get the impression that Dubrovnik is a bit more of a year-round destination these days. It certainly shouldn't be crazy cold, and to be honest it would be a relief not to have the hordes of summer cruise ship tourists. On the other hand, sitting around outside eating and drinking isn't such a great option at that time of year.

One thing that would still be stunning, assuming that you got clear weather, is the Bay of Kotor in northwestern Montenegro, only about 1.5h drive away from Dubrovnik (and doable as a daytrip). Truly stunning place, which is more about the spectacular fiord-like scenery and mountains than about beaches and lounging - plus the steep hike up the walls of Kotor old town would probably be much more pleasant in cooler weather

mad_atta

This seems to indicate that November wouldn't be great in Dubrovnik, but that the islands like Hvar are significantly drier and sunnier.

http://www.climateandweather.com/weather-in-croatia

nirajshah8

Thank you for the feedback hdogan and madatta!! Ideally, I'd like to include Split, Dubrovnik and Zagreb in my plans as I'll be moving from city to city each day. I'll definitely consider Hvar and the Bay of Kotor in my resarch.

stimpy

Thanks for all the info posted here. We had a great holiday in Croatia and a bit in Montenegro.

We found much cheaper flights going in and out of Zagreb, plus the hotels are really cheap there in August. The Westin was under €100. We had a car from Hertz and drove to Split and enjoyed the LM for free thanks to Starpoints. Then we dropped off the car at the port and took the boat over to Hvar and had a nice AirBnb apartment overlooking the town. Then took the boat over to Dubrovnik and found the Hilton there to be even better than the LM Split. Then we picked up another car right next to the old city and drove down to the excellent new Regent Porto Montenegro and found the whole area of Northwest Montenegro to be amazing. Then we drove back up to Split for another stay at the LM, then back to Zagreb for another stay at the Westin, this time enjoying Zagreb a bit before flying home.

All in all a fantastic holiday. But what I think made it best was the attitude of the local people. Unlike most every other tourist destination in the world, no one here was pushy or trying to sell us stuff everywhere. I recall on the first night in Split in an open air restaurant in the old town, a guy walked up to our table and said "Hello I'm a magician, but don't worry. I work here and I'm not trying to sell you anything. He then did some tricks for the kids. That was it! At first I was worried I was going to get hit on for some money or something, but all the guy was doing was entertaining the guests at the restaurant. From there out we really enjoyed our time and had no worries at all.

GUWonder

I agree in full about the attitude. We've done some trips to Croatia where we have young relatives along. And when with them at the places beyond the major cities, the amount of free ice cream given (expectation-free from the sellers) to the toddlers/preschool kids was sort of something from a bygone era. And the parents of local kids were very inclusive in including our little relatives in their own kids' playtime. Rather nicely different than what we've experienced in most other parts of Europe.

I am a big fan of Croatia as a tourist destination.

stimpy

I should also say the other rather unique thing is that we didn't see police visible anywhere. Not in the port, not in the old city, not at any tourist areas, not on the islands. Perhaps they were there in plain clothes, but we didn't see any obvious presence which is REALLY rare at a tourist destination. I saw one or two motorcycle cops the highways while driving at night. That's it.

In the US most tourist areas WANT to have armed police everywhere to make the tourists feel safe. In Croatia we still felt quite safe without all any visible security presence. I don't think I saw a gun the whole time there.

christianj

Thanks for all the posts which were an interesting read as we are considering the area for next summers trip to Europe.

alexandrosmikure

useful post`s definitely..