Croatia 20080705-12

I was travelling with my family, wife Natasha, son Alexander and daughter Nina to Tučepi, S Split in Dalmatia southern Croatia for a combined family and birding tour. We used travel agency Apollo and paid 25 352 SKr (2677 €) which included half pension. The flight from Sturup airport, Malmö to Split airport outside Trogir took 2 hours 10 minutes. We stayed at the good hotel Kastelet in Tučepi. Tučepi is located about 70 km SE of Split on the Makarska riviera. We drove a Citroen C3 from CarCity to the destination which on the small coast road E65 took c. 2-3 hours; would be advisable to take the very good toll-road A1 which will take less than one hour. The car was pre-booked at Economy Car Rentals and should cost 2177,60 HRK, and that should include GPS, but we had to pay 2700 HRK without GPS. The GPS had it´s sub-menus in the Croatioan language only, so we were advised not to take the GPS and should be refunded when leaving the car back. However they refused us to do so. I have now contact Economy Car Rental to solve the issue.

In our week we visited Dubrovnik, Split, Bikovo nature park, Omiš, Trogir, island Hvar and lake Vransko between Zadar and Šibenik. Before travelling I put a question were to see some target species on different discussion boards. I got very good information from Kresimir Leskovar, Zagreb who gave me the very good contact with very kind and pleasant Robert Crnkovic, Trogir to whom I am very grateful for guiding me in Trogir area, giving very useful suggestions for birding. I got very useful information, as well, from Martin Vavřík, Czeck republic; Ivan Budinski, Andrea Corso, Italy, and Mathias Ritschard as well.

In advance I bought Birding in Eastern Europe by Gerard Gorman which lists 20 localities from Croatia and was of good inspiration help. Good trip reports were at Eurobirding.com and Swedish Club 300 (www.club300.se). My cousin, Erik Hirschfeld, lent me some tourist guides of which First Class travel guides was the best. I used the Freytag & Berndt map Croatia Coast (1:200000) which was very good, but it doesn't cover the Northern territory, Slavonia & Baranja and only partly the Central province.

In total we drove 1704 km. The newly built motorway along the Dalmatian coast is excellent and the toll is quite low; we had to pay 25 HRK (about 3,4 €) for the distance Split-Tučepi. You push for a ticket when entering the motorway at the pay station and pays when leaving in cash or using credit card. The cost for petrol was relatively low. We paid c. 9.65 HRK (super 95) which is c. 13.12 Skr or 1.37 €. The speed limit on motorways is 130 km/h. The law allows you to drive with 0.5 ‰ of alcohol as long as you are not involved in any car accident, I was told. You should also drive using dipped headlights during the day. On the smaller coast road E65 we faced some problems with traffic jams, especially on weekends and there were plenty of radar speed controls. In all I manage to see 80 species of birds.

Trip report