Escaping from the baking midday sun, between snatched periods of welcome shade, in the warm waters of the Adriatic, off the Croatian coast, we spotted our first mud woman of Nin.
Caked from her forehead to her ankles, almost every inch of skin was smeared with peloid, medicinal black mud, a gift from Mother Nature found in the lagoon near the long, sandy Queen’s Beach.
It is said to effectively treat various ailments from female infertility and skin diseases to rheumatic complaints muscular and problems.
The therapy, thought to last from ten to twenty days, involves covering the body with the mud, then sunbathing on the sandy beach, before cleaning it off with warm sea water.
We weren’t there to treat anything in particular, other than ourselves to a new experience, so my daughter and I made our way to the lagoon where we wallowed like hippos, allowing warm and squelchy, gritty mud to ooze its way through our fingers and toes.
Like those around us, despite a slightly acrid sulphur smell, we plastered ourselves in the stuff, leaving us with an all-over exfoliating skin scrub before rinsing it off in the tepid tides nearby.
The lagoon is short walk from Nin, a small but significant town of just under 3,000 souls, where visitors can see Roman remains and enjoy a walk around the historic streets.
It is also home to the Church of the Holy Cross, the smallest cathedral in the world, which, inside, is 7.80 m long, 7.60 m wide, and 8.20 metres in height.
Built in the 9th century, the country’s early Christian period, it is the most valuable preserved monument of early Croatian religious architecture.
As well as absorbing some of the rich history, Nin provides visitors with plenty of opportunities to pick up souvenirs, refreshing Croatian gelato or an authentic Dalmation meal.
We were staying at the nearby Zaton Holiday Park, which is a 20-minute walk from the islet, and requires crossing the impressive stone bridge, and passing Plodine, the very useful supermarket chain store.
Our accommodation at this large four-star resort was a holiday home with Eurocamp, which has lodges at 150 sites in ten countries across the continent.
Situated at the top of the park, the lodges are spacious, the size of a static caravan, with three bedrooms, a double and two twins, a living/dining/kitchen area and a separate bathroom and toilet.
It has everything you need for a self-catering holiday with a full oven and four-hob gas stove, microwave and fridge freezer.
All the cutlery and crockery you need are there, but basics like washing up liquid, toilet rolls, bin bags and cleaning products are not provided.
We made good use of the local supermarket early on, which is similarly priced to home, and was ideal for fresh crusty bread, croissants, and fresh meat to cook on the gas barbecue we had outside the lodge.
We enjoyed meals sitting out on the shaded front, relaxing in the warm evening air on the Rattan-style furniture, as well cooling off completely using the air conditioning, which meant there were no uncomfortable sticky nights.
The temperature during our stay at the end of June was well into the 30s during the day, way hotter than us North-Easterners are normally used to, but fortunately there were plenty of opportunities to enjoy it.
Zaton is one of the best holiday parks in Croatia and as well as the lodges there were also plenty of pitches for tents, touring caravans and apartments.
Judging by the number plates, people come from all over but it seems to be most popular with families from Germany and Poland.
By road, you could drive from Amsterdam, though Germany, Austria and Slovenia, a 1,000-mile journey of 16 hours, which would need a couple of stops en route to make it bearable, but would be a fun road trip nonetheless.
We took a far easier option and flew direct to Zadar from Newcastle, which meant two-and-a-half hours in the air, and cost £350 for a family of four, with five small cases and five rucksacks.
Oh, how we have missed budget travel as the world wrestled with a global pandemic, which despite rising case numbers, appears to have been removed from the collective consciousness everywhere save the stray facemask here and there.
We left home in a taxi at 4am on a Sunday morning and by noon we swimming in the deep blue Adriatic Sea, leaving only for mouthfuls of delicious burek, a Balkan pasty made from meat or cheese rolled in a flaky filo pastry.
The beach area is a hot hive of activity and the leisure hub of the park.
Those in the know bring wet shoes to prevent an embarrassing hobble back to shore as the shallows can be a bit rocky and gravelly, the beach here made of small pebbles and not deep golden sand that gets everywhere
Four poster sunbeds with white-sheeted shades allow people to spend lazy days by the water while keeping an eye on the children as they play on the impressive inflatable moored to the seabed, which has slides, jumps and obstacles to navigate.
Nearby there is a beachside cocktail bar and a pizzeria; further out to sea, boats and a cruise liner are moored allowing the wealthy to stop by the harbour to visit the posh restaurant as a pianist plays live on the waterfront.
The beach area has a good range of restaurants offering everything from fast food and snacks to delicious Croatian grills, kebabs and seafood, all fairly reasonably priced.
A very good scoop of luxury flavoured gelato here will set you back under £2, about the same as a 99 with monkey’s blood at a seaside ice cream van.
Here you can also book boat trips, where they take you on excursions for the day to picturesque islands, snorkelling in deep clear pools with rugged rocks as we did, or a banana boat pulled by a jet ski, as we also did.
It is hard not be completely entranced by the Adriatic, the intoxicating deep blue sea so salty you can lie on your back and float as your cares wash away.
Nearby there is also the most incredible swimming pool complex with something for everyone, whether it is a splash zone for toddlers, places to simply loll about to cool off, and larger pools for jumping in and splashing about.
There is a very good poolside café and bar where you can refuel with a burger while the kids munch chips, or enjoy a well-earned pint of chilled and refreshing Ožujsko underneath a parasol. Bliss.
The way up from the beach has it’s own ‘strip’, the sort of parade of shops you get in Greek or Spanish resorts that stay open late and sell everything you need for a beach holiday, as well as postcards and irresistible tourist trinkets.
Dotted around are more good quality restaurants, a small store, a bakery, ice cream and people selling boat trips, giving an authentic busting town centre market feel.
But after a hard day of sunbathing and swimming, weighed down with wet clothes, the best way to avoid the 20-minute walk to the lodge in oppressive heat is to take the free site train, which drops off not far from ‘home’.
A lodge for a week costs around £1,500, depending exactly when you book, but that was for a family of four, and it could easily have accommodated six.
We had a wonderful time on the Croatian coast, which is understandably becoming increasingly popular with UK visitors, and cannot recommend it enough.
It seems hard to believe just six hours after dawn shouts of ‘taxi’s here’ rang throughout the house, we were sitting on a Balkan beach.
*Accommodation at Zaton Holiday Resort in Croatia was provided by Eurocamp. For more information and to find out about prices bookings click here
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