Hi Alan,
Just wanted to drop you a quick note to thank you for helping us have a great trip to Croatia. We really enjoyed ourselves, food was good, scenery was even better.
The San Rocco in Brtonigla was fantastic – staff were really helpful and friendly. The accommodation was lovely. The degustation dinner was good, perhaps some dishes weren’t quite to my taste, but overall, very nice.
Ethno House in Plitvice Lakes – I know you probably don’t book guests in here regularly. It was quite simple accommodation, but I liked it – it was rustic and the building was in an interesting traditional style.
Hotel Ivan in Sibenik – I think you tried to warn me that hotels in Sibenik aren’t that good! The Ivan was quite dated, which was ok for one night, but we found that the staff were quite disorganised too – not sure if it is their computer systems that are not up to scratch but when we checked in, we were given a room that was already occupied and when we checked out, they tried to make us pay, even though I told them we had already paid via Secret Dalmatia. This was only sorted out when they rang you. Also, this hotel didn’t offer free wi-fi – which was disappointing, considering even Ethno House (which is in a more remote location) offers that as a standard. In hindsight, we would have driven straight to Split from the lakes….. Sibenik was saved by the wonderful Pelegrini restaurant though.
Split was great. We loved the Hotel Peristil, but a little hard to find initially by driving – or our GPS just gave us bad directions! Once we worked out where it was, we loved the location within the palace walls. We really enjoyed our walking tour with Sonja. Sonja was a great guide – very friendly and knowledgeable.
We went to Klub Hedonista and Gurmanda that I had read about on your blog, and it was fantastic! We learned a lot about Croatia wine from Serge, and their gourmet delicacies. I would definitely recommend this as a place for visitors to Croatia to get a taste of local wines, if that is something they are interested in.
Transfers were easy with Ivana to help us, so that was much appreciated.
Hvar and the Villa Nora was one of my favourites. The staff at the hotel were all friendly. The wine tour with Leo was really enjoyable – with our scenic view of the island, and well as visiting two very different wineries. Dinner in the olive grove was a highlight too!
The chauffeur transfer between Split and Dubrovnik was very good. The car was very comfortable and Florio was informative about the areas we were driving through.
Dubrovnik – what’s to be said that has not been said before? Beautiful! Hotel Lapad was a lovely modern hotel, and easy to get to the old town via bus. We did not investigate the Lapad peninsula itself too much as we were more interested in the old town.
Overall, we had a fantastic trip. Croatia is definitely a spectacular location. The hotels that you have personally inspected were fantastic – just a pity that Sibenik does not have a good quality hotel, but I suppose most tourists bypass staying there.
Thank you once again,
Yen and John