12-Day Gastronomic Tour of Croatia: Croatian Cuisine Exploration
What to expect on this itinerary
Life is filled with a plethora of delicious places to explore, and in a world where you have so many options for having an unforgettable, gastronomic adventure, it is sometimes difficult to choose where to go. That is why this custom-curated, 12-day gastronomy tour offers an elite adventure in Croatia amid a world of wonder, beauty, and intrigue. Beginning from the stunning shores of Dubrovnik, winding your way to Split, and stopping by Plitvice National Park and Zagreb, you will be provided with an authentic taste of the absolute best that this remarkable country has to offer, which will remove all of the guesswork from your decision.
Customizable Itinerary
Dubrovnik - Be Introduced to Dubrovnik on a Sunset Dinner Sail
The moment that you arrive in Dubrovnik, your private driver will whisk you away to your luxurious accommodation. After you become settled into your hotel, your adventure will begin immediately as you set sail for a sunset dinner aboard a 16th-century karaka replica.
While you relax and dine on a delicious array of Dalmatian dishes and glide along the azure waters of the Adriatic, you will already feel all of the worries and stress of your everyday as they sail away as well. After delighting an awe-inspiring sunset, your private driver will return you to your luxurious hotel for the remainder of the evening.
What’s Included: airport transfer, accommodation, tour, dinner
What's Included:
Dubrovnik - Pamper Your Palette on a Peljesac Peninsula Wine Tour
Dubrovnik – Explore the Old City and Sail to Lokrum Island
Dubrovnik – Be Regaled with Fun Foodie Stories in the Konavle Valley
Dubrovnik - Discover What is So Sweet About Croatian Honey
Dubrovnik - Embark on a Tasting Tour as You Sail to the Elafiti Islands
Split - Witness the Best of Split and Learn All About Local Olive Oils
Split - Join a Cooking Class on a Sunlit Sail and Enjoy an Authentic Peka Meal
Plitvice - Roam Romantic Plitvice Park and Dine at a Local Tavern
Zagreb – Wander Zagreb’s Upper Town Before Whipping Up a Feast
Zagreb - Enjoy Wine and Cheese by Day and a Truffle Hunt by Night
Zagreb – Partake in a Lovely Brunch Before Saying Goodbye
Trip Highlights
- Enjoy a delicious and romantic sunset sail off of the Dubrovnik shores, while dining on delectable Dalmatian dishes and watching the sun fade below the horizon
- Spend a full day of discovering the sweet secrets of Croatian honey as you venture to an actual working bee farm and are led on an up-close tour of its inner workings
- Explore all things wine and cheese and venture on an exciting evening truffle hunt that will be complete with a headlamp, professional hunting dogs, and an expert guide
- Be regaled with fascinating foodie facts as you explore the Konavle Valley, where you will be told historical stories and given samplings of local fare that are specific to the region
- Discover the delicious delights of Croatia’s capital city in Zagreb’s Upper Town while wandering among the famed Dolac Market, Zagreb Cathedral, and more
- Sip your way through a private wine tour in the stunning Peljesac Peninsula, sampling local blends and learning all about the production process of the region’s most decadent elixirs
- Indulge in a behind-the-scenes look at the amazing world of olive oil on a private tour, which will include stops at luscious vineyards that will allow you to sample some of the best olive oils that are made onsite
- Sail on an authentic, 16th-century karaka, while enjoying a scrumptious feast that is filled with the most delectable Dalmatian dishes
- Immerse yourself on a tasting tour and sail to the Elaphiti Islands, where you will bask in the sun as you cruise the gorgeous waters
Detailed Description
It is a well-known fact that food has always tied humans together, and its universal appeal and common bonding power are remarkably beneficial and enjoyable. There is perhaps no better way to experience this phenomenon than to have an authentic taste of it on a luxurious, 12-day gourmet tour through Croatia.
This custom-tailored adventure has been crafted with you in mind, and it caters to your impeccable and elite palette by offering nothing but the best gourmet experiences that this Eastern European gem gas to offer. If savory Dalmatian cuisine, fine wines, exquisitely aged cheese make your mouth water, then you will adore the delicious outings of discovery and fine dining that await your arrival.
Your 12-day gourmet excursion will begin in the seaside haven of Dubrovnik, where you will spend your first evening in Croatia dining aboard an authentic, 16th-century karaka replica on a sunset dinner sail. The following day will find you perusing the palette-pleasing treasures of the gorgeous Peljesac Peninsula on a full day’s wine tour.
Dubrovnik’s ancient Old City, which was made famous by HBO’s Game of Thrones, will be your next stop. Here, as you make your way through the mazes of side streets, narrow alleyways, and charming buildings, you will be amazed by the impeccably preserved landmarks of this unique locale. After exploring the mainland highlights, an island expedition to nearby Lokrum Island awaits you, and this is where you will end your evening with a delicious dessert and nightcap.
Also adding to the enjoyment of your time in Dubrovnik is a wondrous day of being regaled with fascinating foodie facts, myths, stories, and tales that are directly tied to the Konavle Valley. You will also spend a day of learning about and sampling local honey before delighting in a full day’s sail to the Elaphiti Islands.
Shortly after, Split will welcome you and invite you to explore its most exciting locales on an in-depth tour. You will then dive into the interesting world of olive oil to see what is required to create the perfect blend. Indulging in a private cooking class while cruising along the Adriatic on a yacht is also on your agenda in addition to enjoying a local favorite: an authentic Peka meal.
The day following your sail, you will venture to Plitvice National Park, and after exploring this waterfall-filled wonderland, you will enjoy an evening stop at the nearby Rastoke Village. Here, you will enjoy an authentic Croatian dinner at one of the village’s beloved taverns. The next stop on your journey will be Zagreb, which is where your first gourmet adventure will be a private walking tour of the Upper Town. As you visit its famous landmarks and gaze in awed appreciation at the beauty of its architecture and charming streets, you will fall in love with this country’s capital city. Culminating your first evening in Zagreb with a private cooking class that is hosted a master chef will be a perfect end to your initial day in Zagreb.
Your final day in Zagreb will find you on an adventure of discovery as you delve into the world of wine and cheese. After learning the histories of this dynamic duo and tasting the best local offerings, you will be provided with the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to partake in an actual evening truffle hunt.
Your luxurious accommodations have all been carefully handpicked for your ultimate enjoyment in mind, and private transportation has already been arranged to effortlessly transfer you to and from each desired destination. This adventure is also extremely flexible, so you can alter any part of it to better cater to your moods and desires once you are in Croatia. Your only concern for this entire Croatian vacation is deciding what to sample, see, and enjoy next.Looking for the best Croatia travel ideas? Consider browsing our Croatia travel reviews page.
Starting Price
$3,900 per person (excluding international flights)
Your Zicasso trip is fully customizable, and this sample itinerary is a starting place for your travel plans. Actual costs are dynamic, and your selection of accommodations and activities, your season of travel, and other such variables will bring this budget guideline up or down. Throughout your planning experience with your Zicasso specialist, your itinerary is designed around your budget. You can book your trip when you are satisfied with every detail. Planning your trip with a Zicasso travel specialist is a free service.
What's Included
- Accommodations
- In-country transportation
- Some or all activities and tours
- Expert trip planning
- 24x7 support during your trip
Your final trip cost will vary based on your selected accommodations, activities, meals, and other trip elements that you opt to include.
Verified Traveler Reviews
Based on 182 reviews
We are a couple in our upper seventies who recently returned from a fabulous 10-day private tour of Croatia. Of the many places we have visited around the globe, Croatia is among our favorites. The country offers extraordinary national parks, a gorgeous, dramatic coastline, warm, friendly people, great food, and a cosmopolitan culture with a rich history. The weather was splendid in late May.
Zicasso's travel specialist worked closely with us to put together an itinerary that was truly perfect in terms of the pace and the types of activities we like to do. She is a great listener and truly understood our concerns as senior travelers. We were very pleased to meet her for breakfast at the end of our trip. Although we had not been directly in touch earlier during the tour, we had the sense that she was checking in with our guides along the way, just to make sure every detail was attended to. When the Meštrović Museum in Split was closed while we were there, she arranged for us to have a private tour, just one example of her thoughtfulness.
At every phase of the tour, we had wonderful drivers and guides. All were extraordinarily interesting individuals, willing to share their personal experiences and opinions about the complicated and painful history of recent decades. We feel we learned a great deal and came to admire the resilience of these remarkable people. Despite great hardship, they remain positive and optimistic, and are very proud to introduce their culture to visitors.
We visited Zagreb, Zadar, Split, Hvar, Dubrovnik, and Mostar, and had walking tours of each. Truly every place we visited offered highlights. Among our favorites: Plitvice Lakes and Krka National Parks (the two are quite different and both are worth seeing); the Meštrović Museum in Split; walking the walls of Dubrovnik; an incredible Middle Eastern lunch following a trek to the historic bridge in Mostar; the Sea Organ and Greeting to the Sun in Zadar; lunch featuring prawns buzara at a harborside restaurant on a glistening day in the Elaphiti Islands. Indeed, too many fine restaurants to mention!
In sum, Zicasso's travel company created a superlative tour for us, for which we thank our travel specialist and her marvelous team.
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We just returned home from a very memorable trip to Croatia. Thanks to Zicasso's travel expert and her company for the terrific itinerary. Dubrovnik, Hvar, Split, Rovinj, and Zagreb were all toured with knowledgeable guides and experienced drivers to get us there!
There were many highlights, including the beautiful Adriatic countryside, Plitvice Lakes National Park, and a dinner with wine pairing. Of course, there were many more delightful experiences, but too many to include all of them!
We received top-shelf transportation, well thought out itineraries, and first-rate services. I would highly recommend this travel company!
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The entire nine days of travel from Slovenia to Montenegro were seamless as far as being picked up at the arrival airport and departure as planned. Transportaion was on schedule, which was important to me in a foreign country and eliminated any stress. Each private guide and/or driver throughout our trip was courteous and spoke English, which avoided any misunderstanding about all the wonderful sites we saw.
Lake Bled was absolutely wonderful. The guide parked the van at this family home four blocks from the lake and introduced us to his mother and sister, who welcomed us, and we saw how they lived in this beautiful village. The walk of four blocks to the lake also gave us the opportunity to see more of this quaint place to live. Since the lake does not allow power boats, we and about 20 other people were rowed to the island, where an ancient church was located. We found out that this family, in the past, were the caretakers of the island and our tour guide had to row himself to the shore to go to school and, in the winter, skate to school every day.
Next, we were driven to the castle on top of a small mountain, which had a perfect, 360-degree view of the area. Beautiful!
The next day we went to Plitvice Lakes National Park, with too many waterfalls to count and water that looked as crystal clear as any natural water I have ever seen. The four-kilometer walk upstream was nothing like I've ever seen in the USA.
We spent the night in a wonderful mountain lodge, with individual lodges and an upper-end-style bed and breakfast theme.
Split was a city with parts dating back to the third century, with many Roman influences in its many buildings.
Mostar in Bosnia was very interesting and had a central arch-style bridge which seemed to be a central point for all to see. There was so much we saw that it is too much to describe here.
We also stopped at a wine tasting at the most modern winery I've ever been to. It even had 12 guest rooms, with a pool.
On our way to Dubrovnik, we stopped at Ston to have an unbelievable lunch. At the restaurant, we had an oyster tasting of fresh oysters being farmed several hundred yards from the restaurant. We were served oysters three ways, from raw to fried and baked, and they were the best I will ever eat in my life.
We next went to Dubrovnik, which was particularly interesting to me because it is where Game of Thrones was filmed. Our guide was excellent, as he worked as a "roadie" for the film company, helping set the scenes by taking down modern signs or anything modern, and putting them back after filming. He had large screen shots in a spiral binder and would take us to a cove and hold up the screen shot of the actual scene from the movie to show us the similarity. His behind-the-scenes knowledge of the actors and the reaction from the town and church was beyond expectations. My wife and I were fans of GOT and so excited that we are going to watch if all again one day.
Our last day was in Montenegro, which again was beautiful, and we spent the day next to the water there. We were ferried to a man-made island with an old church on it.
Overall, the Adriatic Sea along the coast of these countries was one of the most beautiful stretches of water you could imagine.
Our expectations of this tour were met and exceeded.
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This is a summary of our thoughts on our recent trip to Croatia that was created by Zicasso's travel specialist. Overall, we had a really great time.
The hotels that the travel specialist chose for us were terrific. The rooms in our hotels in Split and Dubrovnik were spacious and very comfortable. In fact, the location for all three hotels was excellent. In Split, our hotel was right where the action was. It was a great location. The hotel rooms at our hotel in Hvar were small, but otherwise very comfortable, and the location was fantastic. The travel specialist correctly chose our hotel in Dubrovnik outside of the Old Town. It was not within walking distance of the Old Town, but travel by cab or Uber was very easy and our hotel was beautiful. The breakfast spots in each hotel were beautiful, which was a lovely way to start each day.
At each point in the trip, the arranged rides were right on time and very helpful. The vehicles were all excellent. We had a variety of excursions and the quality was variable. Our first full day in Split we had a food tour mid-morning after we had had a full breakfast. That kind of tour would have been much better in the afternoon. Our guide did not give us very much history of Diocletian's Palace, which we would have enjoyed, but touring the palace was still a delight.
The trip to Krka National Park was beautiful, as well as the brief walk in Šibenik on the way back to Split. Our guide was very knowledgeable and pleasant.
The ferry rides from Split to Hvar and then Hvar to Dubrovnik were uneventful. Transfers to and from the hotels also were smooth.
The tour of Hvar was interesting, although it seemed to be stretched out to get us to our dinner destination at a set time. That particular meal was mediocre and the subsequent trip to a small winery was also not a highlight. That trip could have been done in a shorter period of time and we would have been happy to pick our own dining location. The itinerary read, "Enjoy your authentic Mediterranean meal," but it really was not special.
We were disappointed that we could not see the Blue Cave or the island of Vis, but the weather really did not permit it. The itinerary was clear that weather conditions might affect the itinerary, which they did, but the skipper did his best to keep us relatively close to shore. We were still able to go swimming at a protected cove and had a nice stop at a beautiful winery, which made up for not getting to the cave and Vis. Unfortunately, at one point two of us got seasick and after lunch those two went home to Hvar by taxi. The other two of us had a great afternoon boat ride back to Hvar.
In Dubrovnik we had an excellent guide who showed us the Old Town and guided us to the cable car ride to Mount Srđ. We had a one-day Dubrovnik Pass, which, frankly, was a waste of money. We had toured with our guide and then did the cable car, so there really was not any time to avail ourselves of the things that the Dubrovnik Pass would have given us. If it helps for future planning, we really did not need the pass.
We, as a group, had different feelings about the trip to Montenegro. We did not realize how long the trip actually took. It's a long drive there and back. One of us thought it was worth the effort; the others did not. Our guide was very good. If we had understood what was involved in traveling back and forth, I suspect we would not have pursued the trip. It was relatively late in our tour and a day of rest or a trip back to Dubrovnik would have been a better use of time (and then we would have used the Dubrovnik Pass!)
The last day touring the Elaphiti Islands was also affected by rough seas. Again, it was no one's fault, but we did not get to see everything we had hoped for. That said, our skipper was excellent. We learned quite a bit about Croatia and Croatian life from him, and we had a nice lunch on a beautiful island.
One recommendation that we would like to make relates to tipping. We were very happy to tip everyone along the way, but we had not planned for this, so we were a bit short on the euros that we had brought with us. We would recommend that the travel company include an approximate total of the tips for the trip. That would have been very valuable.
All told, it was an excellent trip, our second Zicasso trip in two years. Thanks!
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Zicasso's tour company is fantastic. They designed a perfect custom itinerary for us that included boating, hiking, biking, wine tasting, and much more. Our days were filled with interesting activities and meeting some of the most lovely people as our guides.
Though there were too many highlights to list them all, a few unexpected ones were a cooking class near Split that included shopping for fresh ingredients, snorkeling, lunching off a luxury boat near Hvar, and lunch at an oyster farm.
We had the most lovely guide in Dubrovnik who works for the tourist board and gave us the insider's guide to places in the old town. We even had an authentic meal, one that takes days to prepare, outside of Hvar. There is so much to love about Croatia. This tour company will help you find it.
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Zicasso’s travel specialist was very attentive to our personal preferences in planning an unforgettable honeymoon. Her knowledge of the area allowed us to have a diverse itinerary, which included city and hiking tours with personable local guides, a flexible skipper trip with options to snorkel and visit islands and caves, and a chef's table to sample local cuisine with a personal chef. We had the opportunity to stay in Dubrovnik, Hvar, and Split at high-quality hotels in convenient locations.
She was very responsive and connected us with drivers, our skipper, and guides to assist with coordination. Overall, the trip was made stress-free thanks to the personalized itinerary, recommendations, bookings, and ferry/park tickets provided ahead of time.
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