Croatia 3.0: holidays in the Kornati National Park

I was two years ago in the Kornati National Park and I liked the place a lot. I like Croatia in general. There is quite many tourists nowadays, but you can still find places which are not over-crowded, and the sea is full of different kind of fishes which is good for people who like to snorkle.

Where we were two years ago, you could see the bay from the balcony of the apartment we rented, and the beach was in 2 minutes walking distance. There was no sand beach, the sea started almost immediately next to where people were taking sun. When you started to swim you could see that the water was getting deep very fast and sometimes you could see the people from the diving center disappear to the deep water.

There was also a diving center and they offered diving courses and diving excursions for people. Not to speak about that that the Kornati-islands is the mecca of sailors and the bay on the other side of the village was always full of beautiful sailing and fishing boats.

In general the best thing about Croatia is that it is still in the range of sustainable tourism. When we were driving on "our" island on the mountain road serpentine, we were amazed by the view. It looked like driving on Korzika or Mallorca.

Below you see a map of the Kornati Islands:

The cheapest way to approach the islands is to fly to Split, then take a bus to Zadar and go to your holiday destination by ferry. Since I have been only to Dugi Otok island, I can share my experiences about this place.

Dugi Otok island, Croatia

Dugi Otok is the longest island of the Kornati-islands. There is many natural sights here, a lighthouse and a pretty sand beach with Maldives-blue water and nice snorkeling and diving places. Our accommodation was in Sali, but we made excursions to the Telascica and to Veli Rat where you can find the light house and the sand beach.

Dugi Otok-island, Croatia

If I would go there again, I am pretty sure that I would enroll for a diving course as well and try the diving from a boat too. I collected here some pictures to give some insight how this place is. Of course it is sometimes hard to transmit feelings through pictures, but at least you can see as well what kind of places you can find here.

And I almost forgot the best thing: each day during the holiday we had breakfast together. There was a local bakery which opened around 7 a.m., I went there to buy fresh bakery products, made the table and then we could eat and chat every morning, look at the sea and then go to swim. There was also fig trees in the village, and you could buy and eat figs for quite ok price.

If you are interested, I still have the contact info of the family we rented the apartment from. Everything was going smooth and they were kind people. If I remember right renting the apartment cots 80 EUR/night, which is not so much at all, if you divide it with 4, if there is 4 of you going on holiday for example.

If you do not have a car, I recommend you to rent one, because you will need it in order to be more flexible when you plan excursions on the island.

Veli Rat and the lighthouse

Telascica

Sali, Dugi Otok

Our beach in Sali

Fishing in Croatia

And last but not least I would like to recommend a nice Croatian blog written in Croatian and English with recipes and insight to the Dalmatian life:
http://dalmatiagourmande.blogspot.fi/