A Road Trip Along Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast, Home to Vineyards, Oyster Farms, and Sleepy Island Detours

The mere mention of Croatia conjures up photos of crystalline blue waters, orange-roofed historic towns, and languid times used island hopping. But traversing the country’s shoreline by vehicle, in particular for the duration of shoulder season, can be just as impressive. A push together the southern Dalmatian Coast will bring you to delights frequently overlooked by the masses: household-run wineries on extraordinary sloping hills, oyster farms nestled in quiet turquoise bays, hundreds of years-previous villages, and secured lakes and rivers that are fantastic for paddleboarding, windsurfing, and kayaking.

Now, with a new bridge uniting northern and southern Croatia, it really is attainable to see these highlights in a single seamless highway vacation from Dubrovnik to Break up. The Pelješac Bridge, which opened in July 2022 as one particular of the premier European Union-funded projects in heritage, allows motorists to last but not least bypass a slim strip of Bosnian coastline that formerly necessary inconvenient (and occasionally lengthy) border checks. For Croatians, the opening of this new framework marks a historic milestone. And for travelers, it suggests easier road entry to Croatia’s unsung—and generally fewer crowded—rural highlights.

“It’s opening up areas that had been formerly not known and type of concealed from the map,” says Zrinka Marinovic, community relations manager for Adriatic Luxurious Lodges, a selection of unbiased luxurious resorts in and near Dubrovnik, where by she grew up. “In the past, Neretva Valley wasn’t pretty accessible for the reason that we did not have the bridge. You had to cross the Bosnian border to get to it and the relaxation of Croatia.”