Mljet Island, Croatia: Complete Guide-Odysseus Cave, Parks, Beach
Your Essential Mljet Island Guide: What to Do, Where to Swim, How to Visit!
If you don't feel like reading all the details, see Miljet - TLDR; blog post!
Mljet is one of those places you don’t want to talk about because humans suck and we ruin things. It’s an incredible Croatian island that is mostly national park. It has two salt water lakes, covered with many trees, flowers, fruit plants, animals (wild goats, wild boar, etc) and of course ocean.
We love national parks in the States so when researching places to visit it seemed like a perfect fit and we are so happy we were able to spend four nights there. We could have easily spent several more!
We stayed in an Airb&B that looked directly into the national park on the trees and mountains, it was in goveðari, which is the oldest town in the national park. The town is only residential and full of large old stone homes and lots of cats! The last count showed only 1100 people live on the total island of Mljet. The owners were very friendly, accommodating and great hosts! We didn't see the place we stayed here, but here are some VRBO's in the area!
If you don't have time for a full visit - we did find this tour that looks like it covers most of the basics!
We arrived via ferry from Split into Pomena (you can arrive from Dubrovnik or the other islands to pomena or sobra ports), we took a regular ferry but I believe car ferries come as well. The island is small, about an hour across on car, the roads can be very steep and winding, but well maintained. You can rent cars, bikes (e bikes), & scooters on the island, but definitely plan ahead in the busy season.
We decided to walk from the ferry port, which was not the best idea, so we’d recommend a taxi or car rental. Since we arrived after 1, we had a few hours to explore the island!
We walked to the park and purchased our national park tickets (they are 20 Euro but good for as many days as you stay and get you 1 ride to the island and access to a shuttle) before venturing into the park to have dinner on the lake at Mali Raj. Ryan enjoyed a mixed fish and I had chicken. We were not overly impressed with the food on the island as a whole… it was pretty pricey so we didn’t order some of the “better looking” dishes so those may be better. We did really enjoy dinner at Agroturizam Dalmatino on our final night!
After eating dinner, we walked back into town to rent a scooter (similar to a slower Vespa) so we could go to the “bigger” grocery store and explore the island the next day. The grocery stores on the island are all very small, so if you can… bring some snacks with you! The scooter ride was about 40 minutes on the winding roads and then the sunset ride on the way back we saw some goats! We wrapped up the evening and got some sleep!
Day 2:
The next day Ryan woke up early and hiked to one of the viewpoints. He caught beautiful early morning views and a group of goats! Once Ryan returned we made some breakfast at the house with eggs, zucchini and coffee to fuel us for the day. Since we had the scooter till 6:30, this is our day to explore the island!
We packed up our bags with swim suites, towels, snacks and sunblock and hit the road. We took a side stop to drive through the town of Polace for a quick at the castle ruins. Our first real stop was at Odysseus cave, which better than we could have imagined!
Odysseus cave in Mljet,Croatia
Odysseus cave is located in Babino Polje and steeped in legend that Odysseus used the cave for shelter after shipwreck. The Greek Mythology story is an added plus to this amazing site. We parked near Tommy’s and took the trail down for about 35 minutes. We noticed after about 20 there was a closer lot on dirt road. I wore my open Teva sandals and wish I had my hiking or sneakers on. It was a very hot and humid day with lots of slippery rocks, especially at the end. You can see the top of the cave after about 25 mins and then continue the hike down the side of a cliff (the path is not super clear so we followed others). You pass a small shack that is very picturesque and there was an individual selling drinks!
Once you pass the shack, you climb down to see the way to get into the water! You are greeted with picture perfect blue water, that begs you to jump in. The rocks can be very slippery so definitely consider beach shoes, I took my time and kind of slid in… but most people jump. There is not a “shore” but a lot of rocks, so you can find a small spot to put your things, but I could see it getting busy!
There are several cliff jumping spots that you can see marked with graffiti on 1-5 and Ryan took on number 4! It was definitely a high climb up and make sure you check the tides and for rocks. Once you jump into the water (it was cool, but not super cold at all), you can swim to make your way into the cave! I’m not a super strong swimmer and was fine to swim (and float and doggie paddle) to the cave. In the cave you can work with the tide to climb up on shore for a break. The tide was great so there were no periods where I had to swim with my head fully underwater. I saw a few people with floats, so that could also be a great option! When you are swimming under the cave, definitely look behind you to see the almost neon blue. It was such a cool experience and my favorite on the island. We were told a lot of tours take people via boat here, so if you are coming from the island.. try to go early to get it to yourself!
If you want to visit the cave, but are not staying on the island, we did find a tour here!
Our next stop we continued down the island to the far end for saplunara beach! There are a few places to eat here, but we took our snacks, so had a picnic under the trees before jumping in the water! This is a beautiful sand beach (with some rocks in the water, so be careful!), in early September the water was still very warm in the shallow end. There are chairs and umbrellas to rent if you’d like to enjoy more comfortable. After an hour or so of swimming we got back on the scooter to wrap up the day.
We did some sight seeing from the scooter at Marijina marina and Sutmiholjska. Sutmiholjska looked beautiful from above and this is a beach we definitely would have loved to explore if we had more time!
We dropped off the scooter in town and took the 30 minute walk back to the house. We were super tired after a day on the scooter and water so we returned home to have some pasta at the house.
Day three:
On day two we learned from our host that there is a bakery truck that visit the town at 8am sharp each morning! So we started day 3 waiting for the bakery man, we were expecting something a bit more extravagant but it was still a great way to start the day and mingle with the locals. We got two jam filled croissants and burek. We had our first and favorite burek in Slovenia, it’s a thin dough with filling - we normally get meat. After eating our snacks, we walked down the national park!
Big Lake, Mljet Island, Croatia
Our plan was to walk around the lake, do some swimming and visit saint Mary’s island. We walked clockwise around the lake from Mali Most and stopped a bit past the bridge where you can catch a free small boat to the island if you eat at the restaurant. We had luck at the restaurant on the island and then explored before taking the ferry to the other side. We walked along the lake back to Mali post before finding a spot to swim. It was very fun to swim in the big salt water lake and the water was very refreshing after a hot day. I had a call so we walked back to the house and Ryan explored Mali most. Mali most is where the ocean comes in and out to the large lake and you can let the current take you under the bridge.
We wrapped up the day with some planning and that night the storms rolled in!
Day four:
The storms started rolling in with strong winds in the morning, but thankfully the bakery truck came so we had some provisions before the rain came! By 10am there was a ton of wind and rain, so we used the day to relax and catch up on planning. At 3 there was a break in the rain so we took the opportunity to walk into Pomena and eat at Agroturizam Dalmatino. We really enjoyed this restaurant, I had the pork chop and Ryan had grilled squid! We took the mile walk back and only caught a little rain before the downpour started almost immediately after we closed the doors. There was lightning, thunder and rain through the night!
Day five
The rains passed and we woke up to beautiful (but windy) weather! We had our last breakfast at the house before cleaning and packing up. Our hosts drove us down to pomena and we stored our things in their gift shop so we could walk around the water, have some coffee and a quick bite before back on the ferry to Dubrovnik, where we are flying to Madrid.
By far, Mljet is a must visit if you enjoy nature, beautiful beaches, awesome lakes and want a few days of the slow life!
-Kaylina
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