SPLIT: With its seafront cafés and ancient alleyways, shouting stallholders and travellers on the move, bustling, exuberant Split is one of the Mediterranean’s most compelling cities.
BRAČ: The old town of Bol is an attractive place, with small stone houses and winding streets dotted with pink and purple geraniums.
HVAR: Endowed with natural beauty: a slim, purple-grey slice of land punctured by jagged inlets and pebbly coves, with lavender plantations, vineyards and half-abandoned stone villages clinging to its steep central ridge. The island’s capital, Hvar Town, is one of the Adriatic’s best-preserved historic towns.
VIS: A compact hump rearing dramatically out of the sea, Vis is situated farther offshore than any of Croatia’s other inhabited Adriatic islands, with breathtaking bays, fantastic food and wine and two great-looking small towns – Vis Town and Komiža.
KORČULA: Cloaked in vineyards, olives and Aleppo pines, Korčula is one of the greenest of the
Adriatic islands.
MLJET: The green island of Mljet is one of the most beautiful on the entire coast; the most visited part of the island is the west, where untouched Mediterranean forest and two saltwater lakes provide the focus of the Mljet National Park.
DUBROVNIK: A walled, sea-battered city lying at the foot of a grizzled mountain, Dubrovnik is Croatia’s most popular tourist destination, and it’s not difficult to see why. An essentially medieval town reshaped by Baroque planners after a disastrous earthquake of 1667, Dubrovnik’s historic core seems to have been suspended in time ever since. Set-piece churches and public buildings blend seamlessly with the green-shuttered stone houses, forming a perfect ensemble relatively untouched by the twenty-first century.