Wednesday 4th September. Happy Birthday my beautiful daughter Carly! Thinking of you lots today. Love you so much.

Wow! If I wasn’t already in love with Croatia, I certainly am now. The drive from Plitvice Lakes to Dubrovnik was amazing and Dubrovnik, well, I’ll get to that later!

The topography of this country continues to surprise me. I can see why Brad Pitt recently described Croatia as “the most beautiful country on the planet”! We left Plitvice about 10am and for the first hour the drive was very green and hilly.

As we pass through Lovinac the terrain changes, less green and more stone and then we see this amazing range pop up in front of us around Lovinac.

The road takes us towards and then left and then through the Stone Mountain – the area known as Velebit! There are lots of tunnels in Croatia as there is so much limestone. The view and the change to landscape on the other side is more like a desert, dry and lots of stone. We end up back near the Coast at Jasenice.

The road turns slightly away from the coast to the left and we are now heading towards Zadar. The dry landscape continues and we pass through tunnels that have been built to allow wolves and bears to pass over above!

The highways here are amazing by the way. Very well done. Lots of Gabion (rock basket) walls on the high passes and lots of tunnels too.

As we sweep through Vrgorac the landscape gives way to soaring mountains and then a beautiful green valley that we seem to drive all the way around, swinging left before heading right… and we are back on the coast again..

We pass through Ploce and their are many colourful market stands, produce from the valley I think. Some even have little water fountains keeping the produce cool.

The drive along the coast is known as the Croatian Riviera. The road hugs the cliff tops as it winds along and the beautiful coastline opens up before us.

I found out the next day that this super yacht; the Elysian (I think) belongs to the owner of one of the big English football teams. Nice way to travel I must say!

We arrive Dubrovnik about 4pm, locate our B&B in Babin Kuk and immediately head out for a walk. Our host has supplied a map that takes us around the headland with some local tips for bars and restaurants, we catch the sunset and then find dinner. Great day and an excellent bottle of wine that we enjoyed with dinner.

We are off to Dubrovnik old town tomorrow. I’ve been looking forward to this since hearing about my friend Alison’s trip last year!