The local region and its facilities

The shopping situation in the local area is excellent. There are supermarkets, a restaurant and a petrol station within 10 minutes drive.

If you take the main road at the top of the hill in the direction of Split and Mekovic, at the bottom of the hill, you will find a small supermarket , a petrol station and  a small market kiosk.   There is the Hotel Merlot - where they have a coffee shop where you can sit outside and Pizza oven in the large restaurant.  The food is good (even the Pizzas!) and the owner has his own vineyards.   This might be a possible hotel to stay for the odd night if required - although we have not sampled it.  Whatever you have the price seems to add up to around the equivalent of £12 per head).  This  is in fact part of Opusen, but the main part is on the way to Metkovic.  At the traffic lights as you are heading for Metkovic (just before the turn-off) there is a Tomy supermarket with an attached cafe - where all the locals seems to meet.  Beyond this there is also an ERA DIY and builders merchants store on your right.

Further on, by taking the turn to Metkovic, you will find another Tomy supermarket and a health centre with Doctors and chemist the old part of Opuzen.  There are also some useful DIY homestores where you can buy things like electric plugs and kitchen equipment - ERA mentioned above is one.  Another is  SOLIN - a great big yellow hanger, which you see on the main road from Ploce towards Dubrovnik, but approached only from Opuzen (go past with the Tomy supermarket on your left, then turn left and follow the potholed road around until you nearly hit the main Dubrovnik to Split road and turn into gates on your right). 

Metkovic (promounced Metkovits) is the regional centre.  Before you get there, you can see a new Lidl store on the right and also a large Konsum supermarket.  At the traffic lights (turn left and left again into the carpark), there is a large new shopping mall area which includes a large Mercator supermarket, clothes shops, perfumery, electrical appliance shop, restaurant and cafes. The car-park is now getting rather full, but initially it was an excellent place to park for any shopping in the centre of the town.   There is also a T-mobile shop, 2 other large supermarkets and an open-air market.   The old part of the town contains a bakery and similar type shops and cafes and there is an excellent hardware shop (over the bridge near the big Tomy supermarket).  There are at least 2 bank cash dispensers in the town, one is near the Mercator carpark.  The open market is somewhat difficult to find as it is in between lots of buildings and quite near the river - but it is well worth it - even if you don't speak the language you can always point to things and for fruit and veg, it is much better value than the supermarkets - and it is fun too!

On the way to Ploce from Metkovic, there are lots of stalls selling local produce in season and you can usually buy honey  and, sometimes local cheese, from these stalls.  Ploce itself has several restaurants (which we have not sampled yet) and a few other shops (untried as yet).  The biggest restaurant is Monaco on the main road to Split where the service is friendly, but you are not overlooking the sea.   The main importance  of Ploce is the ferry which takes your car and goes over to the Peljesac peninsula.

Two other places locally are worth visiting... one is Blace (pronounced Blatse) and this is a typical seaside Dalmatian village built around a bay with fishing boats moored in it.  It has a cafe or two but not much else.  You can reach it from a side road off the main road at the traffic lights near Tomy/ERA in Opuzen, or you can walk to it from Kremena (1 & 1/2 - 2 hours).  From there is a straight road to Ploce (if you can find it!). The other place is Klek which is along the main road in the direction of Dubrovnik.  This has a nice hotel restaurant on the beach and there is a tourist complex there - so it might get crowded in summer. On the way to Klek is another seaside village called Duboka - which is charming and you might find fish being sold from fishing boats there.  The restaurant and hotel is on the main road and it is called  Villa Malo Misto and it is family run and most of the family speak English.  They usually have good fish there.It would be a good  place to stay in the event of being unable to sleep at Kremena. There are also two restaurants in Komarna, one of which you must book in advance.  This also applies to a new restaurant  (our nearest) at Duba.