Vegan in Croatia: Split and Dubrovnik + Vegan Travel Guide Giveaway

This is my final post from this summer's European road trip adventure and to make it that little bit more exciting I'm combining it with my spot on the blog tour for Caitlin from The Vegan Word's super helpful and informative book The Essential Vegan Travel Guide. I'd feel guilty for not writing about Split and Dubrovnik sooner (how has almost 4 months passed so fast?) but they're not going anywhere and life happens y'know. As I mentioned in my post about Pula and Plitviče, Croatia was one of the countries that inspired my European road trip and Split had been at the top of the Croatia list for some time. It just seemed like the kind of city that'd be right up my street and it was all I'd imagined and more. Nick and I stayed a little way out of town, as is often the way with camping, at a spot called Camping Stobreč. The reason we chose that particular campsite was because there's a bus stop right outside with regular busses taking campers and locals alike into the city centre. Perfect.

Vege was one of our first stops in town as we were starving when we first arrived and we knew that this place served solid fast food. It was a little challenging to find as the Happy Cow map I'd taken a screenshot of was a little off the mark leading me to the main road next to the market that Vege is located in. After a little wandering and asking for directions we ascertained that Vege was in the market, if we'd approached from the port or anywhere on that side of town we'd have easily spotted it because there's a huge sign pointing you in the right direction!

Vegan in Croatia: Pula to Plitviče

If you're into quiet cities and Roman architecture you're going to want to visit the coastal city of Pula whilst you're in Croatia. Located on the southernmost tip of the Istra peninsula I started my Croatian journey there after spending time in Slovenia. It was a wonderful introduction to this newish (I visited Zagreb a couple of years ago) country and I enjoyed wandering the streets, testing out the Croatian postal system (I've been sending out zines from all over Europe this summer) and, of course, exploring the Roman amphitheatre which is located right in the middle of the city. 

Exploring the amphitheatre brought back memories of my trip to Rome when I was 17 and studying ancient history - I was a terrible student but I had a great teacher for that subject and my interest in all things Roman has stuck with me ever since. I'm still just as easily distracted now as I was back then though but really who could resist spending time trying to photograph this adorable pup? 

After much walking in the midday sun my stomach was grumbling and I headed towards the only eat-in location on Happy Cow Fresh Sandwich and Salad Bar. You know how I feel about most salads so sandwiches were really the only option and thankfully they had two kinds to choose from; Smoked Tofu and Olive Tapenade and Hummus with Salad. Nick and I ordered both to share but I had my eye on the tofu tapenade. This is also where I'll try to shoehorn this post neatly into today's Vegan MoFo theme - Recreate a Meal From Your Childhood. I ate sandwiches as a child! These are sandwiches! Boom!

Thankfully Nick preferred the sandwich with the hummus and salad (just lettuce really) so I was able to chow down on the majority of the better sandwich. Win! Our next stop was Zelena, another Happy Cow find, and somewhere we were hoping to find the usual array of mock meats, cheese slices and chocolate bars. Instead we found somewhere altogether more interesting, this little organic vegetarian shop whose name translates to "Green" stocks organic fruits and veggies as well as a plethora of home-made products.

When I enquired about whether they had any chickpea flour the guy I was chatting to grabbed a bag of chickpeas and told me he could grind me some in 15 minutes! Amazing. As well as the chickpea flour I picked up two locally made dark chocolate bars, one with rosemary and one with rosemary and garlic. The rosemary bar was fantastic and I've been stashing the rosemary garlic bar in the fridge for a chocolate emergency but I bet it's delicious and I'm fascinated by the combination of ingredients. I also picked up a freshly squeezed peach and pear juice to drink on the way back to the campsite as well as some kale chips (okay, those were Nick's). Zelena is a great store that I'd highly recommend you check out whilst you're in the region - the people working there really went above and beyond to help us and I really hope that their little store is still going strong next time I'm able to re-visit Pula.

Our base whilst we were in Pula was Camping Stoja where we found a great shady pitch in-between some trees. Truthfully we chose this campsite because it looked like it was by the beach but thanks to a lack of understanding on our part about this part of the country the beach wasn't so much a beach as a slightly hard to get down to rocky outcrop. Not the most comfortable place to soak up the sun unless, like some campsite regulars, you had the foresight to bring a chair.

Still, the pitch was cute, we took cute pictures and I enjoyed a peaceful early morning walk on the beach / rocky outcrop when the light was at it's best. Beautiful.

Our next stop was Plitvice Lakes National Park, one of the places that inspired this road trip and an interesting lesson in what to do when your dreams don't live up to your experience. I'll start with the good - Camp Borje, the site closest to Plitvice Lakes National Park was a dream. It was quiet with no marked pitches and a little shop that sold bread and wafers, two of our road trip essentials! There was also an adorable dog who just kept coming back to me for cuddles and pats. At first I assumed that she belonged to some fellow campers but it transpired that nope, she just lives at the campsite and really enjoys socialising with different campers every day. Certainly not the worst life for a stray pup.

That's pretty much the only good thing I have to say about Plitvice. I'm kidding. Kinda. Our first shock upon arrival was the enormous queue... I hadn't set an alarm for 7am to stand in the biggest queue I'd seen since Kyary Pamyu Pamyu at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. I stood in that queue alone for an hour because it took Nick that long to find parking, realise he'd left his reusable water bottle at the campsite, turn around, go get it, and then park again. It was a tedious beginning to the day but I was still excited, I made it to the front of the queue and look how cute the ticket is? Well yeah, it had better be cute for £17! £17 to visit a park!! Complete madness. I was kinda pleased to discover that this included a ride on both an electric boat and an electric bus because damn, I woulda been pretty pissed if I'd had to pay £17 and then pay even more to get around the park! 

The boat was cute. Nick and I skipped the next 30 minute long line for the bus by deciding to visit the park in the opposite direction than the signs suggested. This meant we were afforded a peaceful ride across one of the lakes by electric boat which, whilst every seat was full, was the most most serene moment of the day.

I loved how clear the water was. I loved seeing the ducks bobbing about and being able to see their little feet through the water!

I did not love how overrun this place was. There was a whole hour when we walked the trail through the central part of the lakes when I was never less than a foot from someone else's back. You couldn't even really stop to look around without being that totally obnoxious jerk who's holding everyone up. I've visited plenty of national parks in my time but nothing has ever come close to the madness of Plitvice.

If you do want to visit I would highly recommend avoiding peak tourist season completely. Not only is it horribly busy but they also jack the price up from £10 to £17 during July and August (who doesn't want to pay more to have a crappier experience?!). The car parking sitch' is ridiculous too because when you've had enough of all of the people and are desperate to get the hell outa there you have to stand in another enormous queue to pay for your parking! My other tip (especially if you're going to ignore tip number one) is to treat this as a theme park rather than a park park, kinda like a less terrifying Jurassic Park. Thirdly the park opens at 7, if you want any semblance of peace and normality get there at 6:30.

I have no idea how it would be possible to limit the amount of tourists coming into a park but holy wow do they need to get on that, if the people in charge don't reign in the visitor numbers somehow they're selling the park short and stealing away some of it's natural beauty which is such a shame.

Travel Tip Tuesday - Zagreb: Stores and More

This is the last of my Vegan MoFo 2013 Travel Tip Tuesday posts and today I'm continuing the virtual tour of Zagreb I began last week.

We were stoked to find that super vegan friendly health food store chain bio & bio had a location a short walk from the central apartment we'd rented for the week.

On our first visit we chatted to a vegan guy working there who not only pointed out everything vegan for us but also gave us a great tip about what turned out to be our favourite restaurant. On that visit I bought a few breakfast items - bread rolls, spreads, yoghurts as well as baked tofu for snacking, a delicious tofu sandwich, a cookie and a slice of cake. When we visited all of the cakes and sandwiches in the fridge were vegan.

We think that these cakes were made by the people at our favourite restaurant, Zrno, and I really enjoyed this slice which seemed to be made out of super thin layers of almost pancake like cake interspersed with agave sweetened chocolate mousse. It was delicious. 

This smoked seitan sandwich was another favourite of mine although I liked the smoked tofu salad one even more.

Croatioa is also a veritable gold mine for accidentally vegan sweet treats. We saw all three of these chocolates in stores all over the city, from the speciality places like Kras to the regular old corner store. The Bajadera were my favourites, they were so sweet and creamy that I'd imagine people could find it hard to believe that they're vegan!

Napolitanke are another accidentally vegan Croatian speciality and I particularly enjoyed the cherry flavour made by Koestlin. Also vegan are Kras brand Napolitanke in Lemon Orange, Nougat and Chocolate.

We were excited to see that just like in Western Europe Croatia have a wonderful selection of Alpro products including some that were totally new to us like these Speculoos desserts...

...and red fruit flavoured soya milk.

We were tipped off before our trip that Croatian bakery chain MLINAR have two accidentally vegan pastries, the Burek S Višnjama and the Burek S Jabukama. We picked up both and whilst the Burek S Višnjama was, as expected, cherry filled, the Burek S Jabukama which we had expected to be filled with apples was full of something that looked and apparently tasted like cheese curds. We're not sure if the recipe had changed or if the person working simply passed us the wrong burek. I thought the cherry was pretty great though, the pastry was definitely on the greasy side but I enjoyed it and I'd definitely eat it again.

Hand model credit to Melanie.

We also visited the vast and wonderfully colourful dolac market. Outside every stall was bursting with fruit and veg that the farmers had brought in from their farms that morning.

We also wandered the streets checking out the fantastic architecture...

...and squeezed in visits to great museums. We all enjoyed the quirky Museum of Broken Relationships...

...and I had a wonderful time at the Museum of Contemporary Art, and not just because I went on the slides four times whilst my travel companions sipped coffee like real adults after their slightly more sensible one go.

Zagreb also has many wonderful cafe bars and a great tradition of spending Sunday afternoons sitting outside them and people watching. I enjoyed many of these vegan friendly grapefruit radlers at our favourite spot, Kino Europa, and I hope to see them making an appearance in UK stores soon.

This was a wonderful trip, I love these ladies and I love Zagreb. I hope to go back one day and I would strongly recommend it to any vegans planning Eastern European travels.

Travel Tip Tuesday - Zagreb

I'm in San Francisco right now but today I'll be taking you on a virtual tour of Zagreb's vegan eateries for Travel Tip Tuesday.

I was in Zagreb in late June with my friends Melanie and Carmen who both live in Vienna. We met up in Barcelona last year and I'm loving our fairly new tradition of meeting up in different European cities. 

Or first dinner destination was vegetarian restaurant Vegehop.

Vegehop have a large menu with a lot of vegan options but it didn't take me long to hone in on the Moussaka...

...which I ordered with a side of Greek Salad.

Honestly this tofu, chickpea and olive stuffed salad was so huge that it could have been a meal in itself but I had no issue polishing off both plates of food. The moussaka was filled with tofu, kale, mushrooms and zucchini and there's no doubt in my mind that I'd order it again.

On our second visit I ordered the Seitan Burger which I loved. It came in a seeded bun with plenty of mayo, some lettuce and a gherkin which I removed. 

This burger was huge, filling, flavourful and only cost £2.20, what more could you ask for?! 

The real highlight of Vegehop's vegan offerings are their cakes, specifically the Danube Waves. We ordered a slice to share on the first night and if I didn't love these ladies so much I may have stabbed them with the dessert fork and run away with the whole thing. Luckily I'm learning to share food but on our second visit I did the sensible thing and took home two pieces just for me.

The base of this insanely delicious cake is a vanilla sponge, like a pound cake in texture, interspaced with waves of chocolate batter and filled with sour cherries, next comes a not-too-sweet mousse-like layer and then the cake is topped off with a semi-sweet chocolate icing. It was crazy good and I love being surprised by unexpectedly brilliant desserts.

It took us until the third day of our trip to check out Zrno's brand new Bio Bistro on Meduliceva which only opened the day after we arrived. We discovered their fresh, healthy, lunch menu thanks to a recommendation from a friendly vegan chap at the health food store and we loved this place so much that we ended up visiting three times in three days.

On day one I ordered the Greenpeace Pasta which came with wholewheat pasta, seasonal leafy greens, and smoked tofu with vegan cheese and fresh basil.

I enjoyed this but I need to try to remember that I don't love wholewheat pasta, aside from that this dish was fresh and delicious and I loved the pesto.

On day two I opted for the Brown Rice Gomoku. I love brown rice and this short grain rice dish with mixed vegetables, seitan, tofu and a side of steamed greens was fantastic, filling and healthy.

I went a little fancier for our final meal and ordered the Seitan Cordon Bleu which was unlike any I'd had before. 

The crisp coating around this seitan steak was perfect and the steaks themselves went wonderfully with the steamed greens, tomatoey barbecue sauce and creamy tofu mayonnaise. This was definitely my favourite meal out of the three and if I lived near Zrno I would find myself ordering it again and again.

Something else I'd love to be able to order again is their Chocolate Temptation cake. This dense but moist cake was filled with perfectly fluffy chocolate mousse and toped with chocolate ganache and a chocolate drizzle.

We were all super impressed with how delicious this cake was, rich but not too sweet, and then we were really surprised to find out that it's sweetened with agave. I wish I was eating a slice of this right now.

Our final dine-out destination in Zagreb was Green Point, a veggie fast food spot located right in the centre of the city. I ordered the Grilled Seitan Burger which was totally delicious.

I love seitan and I love burgers so a seitan burger is always a winner in my mind. This one was especially delicious as it was well seasoned and came with a really delicious soya mayonnaise. It was also about £2.35 which is a ridiculous bargain.

We all had a wonderful time in Zagreb and I'll be back next tuesday to show you what else we loved so stay tuned.