We took off from Heathrow on a ‘typical’ rainy August day just after lunch and landed at Split Airport at 5pm. As the first stop on our travels was Dubrovnik (250km away) we had decided to spend the night near the airport and drive down first thing the next day.

When planning our trip we had struggled finding a hotel as because it was for one night we didn’t want to spend a fortune and we couldn’t find any family rooms for the 4 of us. So in the end we found a hotel on Bookings.com, ‘Hotel Ballet School’ in Kastela where we could have 2 rooms, breakfast was included and it cost approx £170 which felt reasonable. Link to Hotel Ballet School

We picked up our hire car from the airport (which had a huge scrape across the back) and drove 15 minutes to the hotel. The rooms were a little basic but impeccably clean, overlooked the sea and were next to each other. However, the best bit was we were out of the hotel and on the beach in under 2 minutes!!! On booking I hadn’t realised it was actually on the shore.

Tom and Izzy paddled in the sea for about 10 minutes then decided they wanted to go swimming so put their swim stuff on and in they went! They reluctantly got out about an hour later as we needed to find somewhere for tea.

Next to the hotel was a restaurant which looked lovely – there was an outdoor dining area where we sat and they had a restaurant cat! We all had pizza (they were really good pizzas) and Stu and I sampled our first Croatian wine – we had no idea Croatia made wine! Didn’t see much of Tom and Izzy as there was a playground so they disappeared off as soon as they’d eaten.

^{Pizza for tea next door to the hotel}

We decided to go for a walk along the beach before going to bed as it was such a beautiful evening and do some photography!

^{Trying to take some artistic photos!}

The next morning we got up extra early as I wanted to be down at breakfast when it opened! The breakfast was brilliant – fruit, breads, meats, eggs, juices, cakes, all sorts – I was very happy!

^{Our hotel breakfast before setting off}

As we were out of breakfast before 8am we had a final wander along the beach before heading off to Dubrovnik. This stay was only due to be a stop over before our holiday began but we had such a lovely time and would definitely recommend the hotel.

^{Exploring Beach Malapunta in Split}