Meet me at the adriatic sea

I consider myself a fairly pro traveller. As someone who's been going on holidays and trips monthly for the past 6 years (COVID era exempt), I'm a wizz at planning and organising. I find great deals, I stay in beautiful hotels, I maximise my time in the destination, I prioritise exploring new places. So the universe obviously figured it was time for a new challenge. And I have to say that coordinating a trip with my bestie Laura, who now lives in Italy, was just that! Trying to find dates and flights that worked to the same place for both of us was harder than you might think but we both already had our hearts set on the country, so that at least narrowed down some options. I'm proud to say we managed to plan it to a tee and so we headed out to meet on the Adriatic coast in beautiful Croatia.

UK flights to Croatia always seem to be afternoon/evening ones meaning they mostly get you there quite late, so I booked a flight the night before Laura was flying out. Therefore I got to bagsy my preferred side of the bed! We'd opted for an apartment rather than a hotel (which I found on Booking.com as always) and it was in such a perfect location. The death-defying staircase certainly tested us once or twice (especially after a couple of wines) but it was really reasonably priced. I could definitely tell that Laura had gotten used to living in Italy, as we were in constant battle over the air con temperature - she's much more used to 30 degree weather than I am!

The next morning started in the very best way as my migliore amica arrived! It's always the best feeling in the world being reunited, and I'm loving that the regularity is back to once a month (ish) after not seeing each other for 3 months over the Spring. Laura's flight had been pretty early so we started the morning with some juice and coffee at a lovely little spot round the corner from us.

My favourite mode of transport on holiday is always my legs, so I try to do everything by walking wherever possible (you miss lots of cute little streets and spots otherwise). Split is actually tiny though so we really didn't struggle to walk it all in a day. We started by having a little meander around the marina area and the colour of the water was simply so beautiful.

Then we headed into the old town to explore the ruins and the other beautiful buildings. I think that former Yugoslavia is my favourite area of the world and I've loved all 3 of the countries within it that I've explored so far (Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia). I just love the terracotta roofs, striking blue ocean, Italian-esque architecture. Honestly one of the most beautiful places in the world and I think I actually liked Split better than Dubrovnik as it felt marginally less touristy.

I never feel like I'm really on holiday until I've had a cheeky drink. And by this point, it had been a sickeningly long time since I arrived and it was definitely Aperol spritz o'clock. It actually took us a long time to pick a restaurant as we both wanted something light and it felt like lots of the places were offering more 'dinner-y' options, but we ended up at a place called Portofino, which was in a lovely little courtyard, and had a delicious lunch.

After another little wander around the town, we finished the day with some drinks and a big gossip overlooking the sea. As always, we had to find a spot that suited us both; the shade queen and the sun demon. The yin to my yang.

Something else I know of the Adriatic coast is that they have very beautiful sunsets, so the first question I asked our apartment owner was for a good spot to see it from. He recommended the viewpoint on top of Marjan hill, which is an observation deck with views across the whole city. You just have to climb up 300 steps to get there! The views were definitely beautiful but the only problem was that the view was of the east. The sun sets in the west. So as you can see we had a beautiful hued sky, but it wasn't the actual setting of the sun that we could see. A plan was hatched there and then; more on that later!

We were very hungry by this point so once the sun had set, we headed back down the hill (the steps were much easier on the way down) to find somewhere for dinner. We'd found a restaurant on google called eVala 1903 and loved the look of it but it seemed to have a giant queue outside. Then the hostess stopped us and asked if we wanted a table; we'd mistaken the queue for the place next door and nearly abandoned this place! It was incredible and I had one of the most amazing octopus dishes I've ever had. Forever a seafood lover but on holiday it's a literal must. At night the main strip of restaurants on the boardwalk become more clubby with loud music and cocktails so we finished our evening with drinks there.

We had 4 days in Split in total and we wanted to pack as much in as possible. We do the same on most of our trips and the best thing about travelling to a town or city on the coast is that you can get the best of both a city break and beach holiday. We'd done the city break exploring; it was time for some beach club fun! Hvar is definitely the more popular place for beach clubs and we did look into doing one of the famous ones there, but we felt it would be stressful to travel there and back and we'd already done our accommodation in Split so didn't have the option of a night there. Instead we found a beach club called Mistral just round the bay and decided to spend the day there. We hadn't pre-booked but when we've done beach clubs before it's never been a problem. This one was much smaller than others I've been to though so even though we arrived at around 11am, all the sun loungers were full. Luckily, they had space in the main bar area so we were still able to spend the day there but it's worth bearing in mind if you're planning a trip. Although the perks of being in the bar was that it was free entry, which meant more budget for lots of cocktails...

We had such a gorgeous day! I love a beach club day with lots of day drinking, eating a caesar salad and fries (ultimate girl dinner), and dipping in the ocean every so often. Although the place was small, it still had a good atmosphere and great music and we stayed until the sun went down.

It was a super speedy getting ready (my hair is mostly slicked back with seawater here) and then we went for some dinner and drinks. The restaurant was super cool and it was actually recommended to me by a friend who visited the week before; so here I am paying the recommendation forward. Go to Picasso if you're in Split! The vibe was really cool and the cocktails were really good! The pizzas were hit and miss (mine was good, Laura's not so traditional) but overall they scored very highly. It was also in the old town where there were some cool little cocktail bars and I loved the one we finished up in; the menus were made out of old vinyls.

I love a boat trip. I push for doing one whenever I'm near a body of water (even those little loser canal boat trips). And since Split is located near so many islands, it was naturally an absolute must-do for our trip. We compared quite a few different options before booking this one on tripadvisor which seemed like it ticked all the boxes. We were the early birds to catch the worm that morning as the meeting time for the boat was 7am, but the journey and lighting was so beautiful because of it. The first stop was at the Pakleni islands where we were hopping off the boat for a swim. The issue? The current was super strong and so the whole boatload of people really struggled to get back to the boat after drifting away. Me and Laura definitely saw our life flash before our eyes but we made it back in one piece! The ocean will never stop being the thing I find the most majestic and terrifying of all.

Another reason we'd opted not to go to Hvar for a beach club was because we were already going there on our boat trip. That was our second stop of the day and while we were only there for about an hour, we still had time to wander around, grab an iced coffee, and do a bit of souvenir shopping. Hvar is even tinier than Split so it really is a destination all about the beach clubs and restaurants, because there isn't a whole lot to do in the actual town (although it is beautiful). Having been to both, I'm glad we opted to stay in Split and visit Hvar, rather than the other way around.

We were back on the boat for lunch and some wine, all of which was included in the ticket price which made it quite reasonable. Then we were sailing to our last stop for the day which was the island of Brač. We were told we were stopping off at a beach club and while I knew it wouldn't be a beach club in the way that O beach is, I was pretty impressed with the set up. It was basically just our group there, it had a pool, and the drinks were 20% off so I had a nice cheap aperol spritz (which somehow made it taste even better). A perfect end to a wonderful day basically.

Remember how I said a plan was hatched a couple of days earlier? Well, if you look at Split on a map you can see that the whole thing is on a piece of land that sticks out from the mainland. The town of Split is in the south, meaning the sun disappears behind the mountain before it sets. But it's only a 20 minute walk to the marina on the north-west side of that land. My thought process being that it might have a clearer view of the sunset. And it worked a treat! Obviously you're still contending with the mountains on the mainland, but I'm sure we can all agree that the view was absolutely stunning. My phone came back out to capture another picture of it every 3 and a half minutes. How many sunset picture is too many? My camera roll would argue there's no such thing.

There wasn't a whole lot going on that side of Split but we still found a lovely restaurant called Mandrach where we had the most incredible seafood dinner. I also find that old towns can become a bit monotonous whenever you go to them for every meal, so it was nice to have a change of scenery.

It was our last day and therefore time to check out of our apartment, so we decided to have a cute breakfast on the patio first. Afterall, we'd largely booked the apartment we chose because it had some nice outdoor space and we'd made the most of it precisely zero times by this point. We hadn't bought any stuff for coffee though so we had a two part breakfast, and got coffee at the same cute cafe as before.

Our flights home weren't until 9pm so we had the whole day to enjoy. We'd been told that Ježinac beach was one of the nicest in Split so we headed there, excited to be exploring yet another part of the area. It was very Little Mermaid; lots of rock perching and jumping straight into the sea. It wasn't the kind of beach that has a shore but that suited us just fine. Croatia had severe hot weather warnings that day and it was like 35 degrees so we were pretty happy just dipping in and out of the sea.

When we'd headed to the beach, we'd made sure it was near to some lunch options so we wouldn't have to walk all the way back to town when we got hungry. There were a couple of places around there and we ended up at a nice spot called Kavanazona. Honestly anywhere that provided me with a spritz in that heat would've been just fine.

Funny story actually. When we were looking for places for lunch, we found this place online called Jadran beach bar, which we assumed was a casual restaurant and headed there. What we found was that it was actually more of a beach club, with loungers and music and drinks. And ironically, no food. So after having lunch at the other place, we'd serendipitously lined up a perfect afternoon of frozen aperol spritz', sunbathing, reading, and swimming in the sea. All with the added comfort of a padded seat (no more rock bathing) and the convenience of showers for afterwards. Honestly looking back over our trip to Split, I genuinely couldn't think of any way to improve it; I feel like we crafted the perfect itinerary. And obviously I had the perfect company! It was so lovely to be reunited with Laura for another fabulous girls trip. I can't wait until we meet again; next stop Napoli.