Simple but modern apartment at the beach of the Adriatic

“Hemos pasado una semana estupenda en el apartamento de Jan. Está en la isla de Vir, alejada del bullicio turístico de Croacia, y a la vez lo bastante cerca para realizar todo tipo de excursiones: Zadar, Sibenik, Trogir, Plitvice, etc. A dos minutos de la playa, es fantástico llegar y poder pegarte un chapuzón tras un día de ruta turística. Jan es muy amable, y ha estado pendiente de nosotros en todo momento.”

“we had the opportunity to stay one week in Vir island, in a non simulatneous home swap (march // August for us) we had a very relax and lazy time. the island is in development. please be advise that it is not a easy going vacations, wild environment : beaches are rocky with no private beach and confortable sun bed to rent with the umbrella. the water is not drinkable the apartment is very far away from the center, need a car ... Please advise to Croatia is a country to visit by boat, if you have your boat permit take it, your day will be more lovely. you will find a small beaches at 2minutes by walk from the apartment. we took a ride to split & trogir in the same day, we were very enjoy of our visites. we also went to Zadar for one late afternoon & dinner, it was ok but very busy (due to the period august). About our hosts, they were very welcoming, they bought some water, drinks, cheese ... for the first meals and it is very nice from them. to finish we were surprised to pay the tourist tax, it is not the price (20euro) but the idea, we will never asked, and we never asked our homeswaper to pay it in 16 homeswap. it should be culture point of view ! They let our place clean , we recommend them of course & and we wish you a very nice stay in Vir. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Host's Response: 1) Regarding drinking water in the apartment: The water is potable but we ourselves prefer not to drink it, because it is stored in the underground tank and may have been stored there for longer time period (even though it is not the case in August, then it's always freshly delivered). Therefore we propose to our guests to use bottled water, same as we do ourselves. Some of our neighbours are using the same water for cooking and drinking without any problem, so it is surely safe for consumption. 2) Regarding tourist tax: Croatia is quite strict in controlling payments of tourist tax and even the owners of holiday apartments (ourselves) have to pay the tourist tax themselves (unless they are permanent residents of the tourist town or village, which we are not). There are occassional controls from the local authority visiting tourist apartments at nights asking the guests to present the confirmation of payments of the tourist tax. So therefore we prefer to pay the tourist tax on behalf of our guests electronically and send them the payment confirmation so that they do not need to go to visit the local tourist office and wait in line there to pay their tourist tax obligation themselves, which may be quite time consuming and also confusing. Thus we ask our guests to pay the cost of the tourist tax to us, because we must always pay it on their behalf. I understand that this requirement may sound strange, but that is how things are working here in Croatia. On our side we have never had to pay tourist taxes during our home swaps in other countries as well, but I suppose that our hosts have never had to pay tourist tax on our behalf to the local authorities. ”