This Mediterranean coastal roadtrip is the way to truly unwind

Dalmatians love a slow pace of life – so much so that other Croatians often mock their southern counterparts. But when your landscape includes the shimmering Adriatic Sea on one side and the Dinaric Alps towering over Venetian-style villages on the other, why would you want to race through it? And that’s without mentioning the irresistible food and wine to be enjoyed. Dalmatians have a word for this laid-back attitude – pomalo, roughly meaning, ‘hey, why the rush, take it easy’. It’s a mindset I readily slip into every time I come here.

Less than an hour’s drive from busy Dubrovnik along the meandering coast road leads to the Pelješac peninsula – specifically the village of Mali Ston. Game of Thrones fans will recognise the hulking medieval Walls of Ston that loom over the village, which helped depict the show’s fictional capital city, King’s Landing. But shellfish lovers will look to the bay, with its oyster and mussel beds that bring sweet saltiness to Dalmatian plates.

For more than 40 years, the Šare family has been farming European flat oysters for its Bota Šare restaurants in Mali Ston, Dubrovnik, Split and Zagreb. The bay’s salty waters combine with the mineral-rich freshwater from the Neretva river to give these oysters a delicate sweetness that mingles with their natural brininess. Many years after I first tasted these I’m still not sure I’ve had a better oyster.

The Šare family also run boat tours to one of the floating shacks where you can see the oysters being harvested before tasting them – it’s as fresh as you can get. They’ll also cook their own just pulled from the water mussels buzara-style in olive oil, garlic and white wine. For a truly VIP experience, contact them directly for a visit to their private islet, Banja, where a rustic restaurant under the pines is the setting for serious feasting on oysters, mussels and pršut (prosciutto), alongside Dalmatian white wine.

While white wine might be the usual companion to oysters – and several grape varieties grow here – Pelješac produces some kings of Croatian red wine. From Ston down to the port town of Orebić, vineyards of red plavac mali grapes sprawl along the peninsula and cling perilously to stony slopes, particularly in the south. Fruity, full-bodied and robust, plavac mali is the happy result of the strong Dalmatian sunshine being tempered by those dry Adriatic winds.

The southern coastal villages of Dingač and Postup are among the few in Croatia to have their own appellation, and these are among the most prized reds. The village of Potomje is winery central, with more than a half dozen small-scale winemakers. If you have time for only one, Matuško will give you an excellent introduction. Taste its plavac mali, postup and dingač, along with the aromatic white Dalmatian rukatac and – one of my favourites – dry, lightly citrussy pošip, which originated in the neighbouring island of Korčula and is now produced in small quantities in Pelješac.

From Pelješac, it’s easy to reach Korčula town via the 20-minute ferry that shuttles from Orebić. As the boat takes me across the narrow channel I feel a familiar anticipation that I get whenever I see Korčula town’s medieval walls curving around its thumb-shaped peninsula. Almost like Dubrovnik in miniature, the old town’s stone houses and cobbled lanes fan out from the centre like a fishbone – best for letting the hot Dalmatian air circulate. Down one of the narrowest of alleyways is Fundamentum, a minuscule, fair-weather restaurant – or, rather, a cluster of wooden tables squeezed wherever they can fit – where homemade pasta dishes include heavenly gnocchi with truffles. You’ll smell the truffles from around the corner.

Delightful as Korčula town is, I have another wine route to revisit. It’s been nearly 10 years since I stumbled across the fishing village of Lumbarda, a 10-minute drive south of Korčula town. Here, amid several sandy beaches (a rarity in Croatia), a few family-run wineries produce crisp white grk wine which, after I first tasted it, became my top white. This grape has been around for about 2,300 years and, until very recently, was cultivated only in Lumbarda.

Among Lumbarda’s grk-producing wineries, Bire is probably the most popular, so book ahead. For me, though, Zure winery became a favourite after I tasted its grk and pošip. Brothers Ivan and Marko Batistić run it with their father Bartul, and I met up with them at the winery in time to celebrate yet another Decanter Award win.

Find yourself in Lumbarda on a summery Friday and you’re in for a treat. Kicking off around the summer solstice in June, Fishermen’s Evenings run every Friday until early September – a lively beachfront festival during which fishermen fry their catches, winemakers sell bottles and craftspeople showcase creations while music fills the air. It’s truly one of the great pleasures of a sultry Dalmatian night.

To reach Dalmatia’s largest island Bra č from Korčula takes a bit of planning, as you need to ferry-hop from Korčula to Orebić to Trpanj, then Ploče on the mainland. But here you can slow your journey even further with a detour to the Neretva valley – this lushly fertile place where the Neretva spills into the Adriatic is Dalmatia’s orchard, with its fruit trees supplying mandarins (its particular speciality) and other citrus fruits, plus cherries and melons to restaurants, markets and riverside stalls.

Another speciality is brudet, a stew made from frogs’ legs and eels, which might not be to everyone’s taste. But what should appeal are the boat trips organised by Hotel Villa Neretva to its second restaurant, Konoba Neretvanska Kuća, which is on the water and reachable only by boat. It might sound touristy but it really is an enjoyable experience being serenaded by folk musicians as you drift along the river to a lunch of one of Croatia’s most mouthwatering dishes.

Throughout Croatia, especially in rural areas, you can find lamb, veal, pork or octopus cooked in a cast-iron, bell-shaped pot called a peka, which is then smothered in embers while everything – veg, potatoes, garlic – cooks together slowly for hours. Here by the river I devour the most succulent veal shank I’d had since, well, the last time I had a peka. It’s rare I refuse a peka but you do need to book it at least several hours in advance, if not the day before.

Onwards to the ferry port at Makarska to Brač – the v-shaped Zlatni Rat is Croatia’s most photographed beach. Despite its fame it’s certainly worth a visit but best seen in the mellow morning. Pitch up in the neighbouring village of Bol at lunchtime and you might wonder why it’s so relatively relaxed (answer: everyone’s at the beach or on a boat). Come evening the place comes alive, especially during the weekly summertime seafood festival on Wednesdays – a larger affair than Lumbarda’s Friday fish fest.

Brač’s heavily indented coastline harbours so many charming villages and ports – Pučišća, Sutivan, Milna – that it’s easy to forget the hinterland of olive groves, vineyards, scrub-covered hills and tiny villages. In the small village of Donji Humac, I enter a carnivore’s paradise, also known as Konoba Kopačina. This cheerful family-run restaurant takes farm-to-fork and nose-to-tail seriously, and local Bra č lamb is the star on the grill and under the peka’s bell. As parts of Croatia become slicker and glossier, count on Konoba Kopa čina to remind you of the simpler pleasures of life.