Croatia; I lost my heart to Dalmatian coast

Now I´ll tell you something about our holiday journey to Croatia (renting a car and also about our overnight places). I promised to my new croatian friends at Hotel Paulina to write some words in english and that´s why I hope that you won´t matter about my choise of language (I´ll write a finnish version too and there will be more about the journey). And I hope you will not care about the incorrect words or incorrect sentences. I write in english only couple times per year and that´s why the text will not be perfect. I think that the mistakes makes the text more rich, so I let it be :). If you will not understand something, you can always ask me, and I´ll try to explane it better.

Now after that long prologi I´ll get to the point; our trip! I can tell you that it was amazing. The views was awsome beautiful and the people was so kind and friendly.


When we went to Croatia, we took the mornig flight and when we came back we took the latest fligt as possible. So we had as much time as possible to stay at Croatia.


At the airport of Dubrovnik was a rental car waiting for us. That was the first positive surprise for us; it was brand new diesel VW Golf with automatic "vaihteisto" (I don´t know the word in english, but it was not a manual version). We were the second users of that car. We had booked the car in advance from the finnish internet page of Kroatia. We choosed the Avantcar and we were very pleased of that choice; all went fluently and we got exellent service from two gentlemen who gave and received the car.

After leaving the airport, we drove towards the Dubrovnik historical city. There we supposed to find our first sleeping place, Apartment Studio Andrea. We had chosen that place because several people had written only good feedback of the Studio Andrea and there was also available to park our car. At the first time we drove past the crossroad we supposed to turn to the street where apartment located, Gornji Kono38. So we turned from the next crossing and that was a mistake; the street was so narrow that it was almost impossible to drive there. But finally we succeed to find a way out of that lane and find the correct place. Afterwards we learned that almost all of the streets at Dubrovnik are very narrow and more like our sidewalks. Luckily Mario, the host of Studio Andrea, helped us with parking because the "parking hall" was as tiny as possible. Finally the car was safely at the parking hall and we decided that we´ll not need to use the car before leaving that place :).

The apartment was just that the internet had promised; we had our own bedroom, a little kitchen and also an own bathroom. And we had also a little terrace in the front of our room. From the terrace was nice view to the sea below. The place was not any thing like luxus hotel, so if you seek that kind of place, this is not for you. Studio Andrea is a warm spirit apartment, which gives you joy by being an cute apartmentstyle place. The room was very clean and decorated as family style.  At the garden grows vegetables and charming flowers.

Only if you are not in a good condition, I wouldn´t recommend that apartment or any other apartment at the hill: there is several hundred stairs to climb from the old town of Dubrovnik to get back to the apartment :D. We enjoyed the climbing and we took it as exercise :D. Our host, Mario, was so super kind, friendly and helpful that we enjoyed a lot of our staying there. And he also noticed, that my husband had his birthday during our visit at Dubrovnik and Mario gave him a bottle on vine as a present. Thank you so much, Mario!

We stayed at Dubrovnik two nights and then we drove by coastal road to Split. Advance we had planned to stay there three nights, but when we saw the Hotel Jadran that we had booked, we decided to sleep there only one night. The hotel was not like we thought it would be by booking.com- internet sides. Actually the hotel was connected to an old swimming stadium and it looked dirty and uncared. Our room had also a balcony, which was so dirty that we didn´t went there at all. Luckily the room was quite clean and nice and the bathroom was almost beautiful. That is why the night was not so awful.

Now we were wiser and when we choosed our next hotel, we looked very carefylly all critiques before booking. And it was worth the effort; our next hotel was a luxus Place :). We drove from Split to little coastal village Brela. There was a beutiful hotel Villa Paulina. It was amazing place; the hotel was located next to sea, the distance is only 5 meters :)! We had booked the room which was located downstairs, but because there was available room also at upstairs, was the host of the hotel booked that room to us. So we had a better room with the same price :). And what a room, or should we say an apartment it was!!! It was very modernly decorated apartment with two rooms, little kitchen, bedroom and balcony. All was so clean and looked as new. At the ground-floor there was a sauna and a little exersice -room.

I really felt that I was in paradise. The sun was shining and the sea was turquose blue. And the sea water was so clean and clear that we could see the sea bottom at quite deep water too. We had sea view from our balcony and there was also view to the cristal clear pool area.

The personnel of the Villa Paulina was so helpful, cheerful, kind and hard-working that I can only wonder, how is that possible. At mornings they served us a marvellous breakfast at a cute little dining room. And they cleaned our room during we stayed there allthought we stayed there only two nights. When we were leaving the hotel, they gave us a bottle of local handmade liqueur as a memory of Villa Paulina and Brela. This hotel I can recommend by my heart to all visitors :). Thank you to personnel of Villa Paulina; you all are amazing and you literally crowned our holiday! And the Brela village is really a place where one can have a relaxing and pleasant holiday.

Next days I´ll tell you more about our Holiday at Croatia and then I´ll use finnish language.