Croatia: Part 5 - Day 4: Drive from Dubrovnik to Makarska

Here is a summary of what is spent on Day 4

4/8 Day 4: Drive from Dubrovnik to Makarska. Started 12pm and arrived at 4.30pm.

Cost

(1) Car rent (including full insurance) 8 days from Uni Rent - Shared EUR721 for 3 persons. Price includes insurance super collision damage waiver EUR90, tire and glass coverage EUR45, additional driver EUR28. Per person EUR240,33

(2) Stuff from the roadside - a 1,5 liter orange juice EUR7, a 500ml orange marmelade with chilli EUR6

Accommodation
(1) Apartment in Makarska, 3 nights (from Booking.com) - Shared room EUR351 for 3 persons, EUR117 per person

Food
(1) Fruit from Gruz market - 3 peaches and a cluster of grapes EUR2

(2) Breakfast at Caffe Pizzeria Amici - Dalmation breakfast set EUR9,70, coffee latte EUR3,80, Pago orange juice EUR4,80

(3) Snacks and water from Studenac store - Water 1.5 liter EUR1,05, shared nuts EUR5,50

(4) Lunch at Feral, Brijesta - Fish soup EUR5, Pago orange juice EUR3,10, cappucino EUR2,50, dessert a slice of Ston cake EUR6

(5) Radler 500ml from grocery store by the beach, Makarska - EUR3

(6) Dinner at Hotel Mileni, Makarska - Black risotto EUR16, Romerquelle carbonated water 330ml EUR3,30

The Story

04082025: Today, we will pick up our rented car from Uni Rent. I researched and found that this place has a reasonable price. The company has good reviews and I can contribute to a good review too. No regrets about renting the car from them! All went smooth. Pick-up and return, as well as us reporting on a scratch on a tyre. We took full insurance so we need not worry about the cost. 

We checked out and walked to our car rental which is located in Lapad. This is how our accommodation looked like. Ours is on the second floor of the house. 

Goodbye, never-ending stairs. We hope to not see more stairs after Dubrovnik. 

Along the way, we bought fruits from Gruz market (a local morning market), stopped for breakfast and withdrew money from Kent Bank. The only bank that does not have withdrawal fees, as of writing time! The morning was still manageable and we walked as much as we could under the shade. 

Gruz market opposite the road.

Found a spot at Amici Cafe with locals having their coffee here. Not many of them were having breakfast. The locals tend to just enjoy their coffee with their company or by themselves. Reminds me of the elderly locals in my country that just meet to drink coffee (or kopi, as we call it, or teh tarik - pulled tea). My breakfast set is an omelette with ham, cheese and bacon with the sad portion of salad. Drinks are not part of the set. Probably that could be a reason the locals are not having breakfast here. 

After breakfast, we continued our walk to the car rental. We stopped by Kent Bank along the way. I researched from a TripAdvisor forum that this is the only bank that has no withdrawal fees. The car rental office is located on the same street as the beach we were at yesterday at Lapad. We took the bus yesterday but we walked today. It got cloudy so the walk was manageable and shortly after, it drizzled and became heavy. We stopped at a grocery store to get water and mixed nut. We reached the car rental office by 11.40am, much later than our booked time at 11am. Thankfully, the staff did not comment anything on that. 

The signboard is really small under the giant sign of Hotel Vis. The car rental office is in the hotel, opposite the reception. 

The road trip starts now - destination Makarska! We stopped at Feral restaurant for lunch at Brijesta. I did not know that it was a well-known seafood restaurant. My stomach was queasy from the road trip so I had a simple fish soup for lunch. It was appetiser and there was hardly any fish meat in the soup. The soup had rice and was tasteless. All the diners had some form of seafood dish on their table. My Pago orange juice is cheaper than my Pago peach I had in Heritage of Dubrovnik at EUR6!

As I did not have a complete lunch, I had cappucino and a local dessert - a slice of Ston cake that is made with penne (a kind of pasta) and has chocolate taste. Very unique dessert as it has pasta. 

Along the way, we saw many stalls by the roadside and we decided to stop by one. I got a bottle of orange juice and an orange marmelad with chilli. The orange juice was very fresh and we finished it during our stay in Makarska. I was very tempted to buy the watermelon but my travel companions were not. They said that the watermelon is sticky from the sugar. 

This is the car with the automated gear that we got. We picked a small car as we were unsure of the road width and how other drivers are. We made the right choice because most drivers do not abide by the rules. They overtake despite the whole line. Sometimes, vehicles on the opposite direction drive very near to the middle line. I had the experience of honking a driver from the opposite direction who came into my line. That was scary.

At 4.30pm, we reached Makarska! I called the owner and she guided us to the parking space behind the house. The roads were narrow in Makarska. Good thing we have a small car so it was not difficult to swing into the narrow lane.

Our apartment that we found in Booking.com was lovely. I booked the place as it has a washing machine and a parking space. Bonus was that this apartment is less than 5 minutes to the beach! We took both morning and night dip in the waters.

There was not much of a view from the balcony.

I have not seen this kind of cloth drying stand for the balcony. I was nervous that the clothes may drop to the ground despite the cloth pegs. So, I moved the cloth drying stand to the inside of the balcony.

After settling in, we went to the beach, squeezed myself through all the tourists at the beach (it reminded me of walking through a night market in Malaysia... haha), bought my favourite radler from a grocery store, took a dip in the warm Adriatic sea and had dinner. 

My dinner is risotto cooked with squid's ink hence, the black colour. This must be my first time eating risotto because I thought the rice was not fully cooked. I commented that to my travel companions and they tasted my dish. They said that this is how risotto is. It is not supposed to be soft as rice. So, I did not enjoy my dish. This rice would have been considered a failure in Chinese cooking... 

After dinner, we walked along the beach and saw a beautiful sunset. But I still prefer the sunset from Mount Srd.

We walked into town. It is not too far from the beach. In town, which is along the waters too, we stopped by the ticket office to buy tickets from tomorrow's ship ride to Sumartin. The ticket office closes at 9pm. 

This is our apartment. The house is by the road so one is not able to park the car in front of the building for too long.