It happens to us a lot: In Istria, we were rather unimpressed by the top rated sights but fell in love with the places we discovered spontaneously – some small sleepy towns not mentioned in any guidebook and aesthetical fixer-uppers topping over vineyards and Istrian rolling hills.

The best beaches in Croatia: Read about the most famous coastlines, hidden gems and scenic town beaches - the following locations are our absolute favourites.

With the tank full of cheap Bosnian diesel and food supplies that should last us a week we crossed the Croatian border as early as 7 am. The border crossing at Neum was not busy, there were maybe 10 cars in front of us and the cars moved quickly. For comparison: 10 cars at the Ukrainian-Polish border would mean an hour of waiting at least.

On this day we examined the best Dalmatian beaches (according to Lonely Planet) and now share our impressions here.

We check more bucket list destinations in Croatia - Rastoke, Zadar and Sibenik - and go shoe shopping!

We leave the Croatian coast and go further inland heading to Plitvice Lakes National park. But what we see there makes us change our plans...

The warm Adriatic Sea and the exquisite coastline of Opatija – a former Austrian aristocrat resort – certainly repay visitors for any inconvenience involved in getting or staying there. In our case finding a parking spot turned out to be such an inconvenience – we drove backwards and forwards the whole morning, looking for a free place to park – we did finally find something at a supermarket – luckily the gate was broken and we could park for as long as we wanted to! Without our Gnu, we strolled around the streets of Opatija. I liked what I saw very much.

Gnu, our lovely Defender here, has a story of its own if I may say so. When we got him from the British RAF he was rather tattered and you could see outside in places where you really shouldn't be able to - which is to say that rust and other, possibly more sinister causes, had left their mark.