I only saw the sea around Greece at the edges of the mainland, though (no island trip), and this was 23 years ago.  

Same here.Aegean Sea is where I have been then but this where my daughter was is Ionian sea. Also islands seem to be something different and much more beautiful.
And also I do not like that much when coast is flat and no mountains around like where I have been in Greece and also here around Brisbane...maybe because I have those memories of Adriatic coast with mountains and stone everywhere.And honestly I can't forget that pine's smell on Adriatic coast...nowhere else they smell like that I suppose...ah memories :)

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind...Albert Einstein

Thank you for sharing...
This brings so many memories because for decades starting from my childhood toward the days of wars, we have spent almost every single summer on this coast(and mostly on Croatian coast all tho Montenegro coast is as beautiful as this one).
Croatians (and who can blame them) always preferred Germans as guests then us Serbs , because when it comes to accommodation it was different price for them then for us at the time and of course Germans had much more money to spend then us. That's why at some point when it became affordable for us ( prior to wars) we Serbs started to go to Greece. Greeks on the other hand were really , really friendly to us.Also we used this holiday as a shopping tour too so Greeks (especially northern) loved it because business was good too.
Yeah and those cities there in Croatia (Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar etc.) really have touch of history and that makes them even more interesting.
Last time I visited Belgrade I saw big billboard with add for summer holidays in Croatia. Writing was : " Come and (have a) holiday where your parents used to (have a holiday) holiday". Holiday being a verb in Serbian. Some joker changed the verb holiday to another verb which rimes with holiday and means "fought war". So it was " Come and have a holiday where your parents fought war". Everything become joke with time except for those who lost their lives or their loved ones...
I would like to see Dubrovnik one more time ( my daughter visited it few years ago) but my husband wouldn't step in Croatia ever again so I doubt we will visit ever...Who can blame him...he lost quite a few members of his larger family in these wars...  

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind...Albert Einstein

Damn... all places that bring back memories!

• I was once on a round trip in the Kvarner Gulf by boat, and Rab was indeed the most beautiful stop.
  
• On a summer holiday in my childhood, we crossed the Velebit Mountains north-east of Zadar on the old (unpaved) mountain pass road.
  
• I spent two years in Zadar as a small child (while my father was working nearby). The closest memory is about a hundred metres to the right from where you made the photo at the Roman ruins: I mistook another adult for my father and got lost, but had the extreme luck that that adult and my family circled the same house block in the opposite direction and met again at the far corner shortly after I realised what happened.
  
• I haven1t been to Zadar since the Sea Organ was built, but it's next to where the big cruise ships and the ferries to Italy moored, and we went by ferry on a trip to the long island in the background (Ugljan) several times.
  
• Prior to Zadar, we lived for six months in... Obrovac! The town was/is roughly at the Serbo-Croatian ethnic border and was thus at the front between the unrecognised Republic of Serbian Krajina and Croatia. You getting off the road gives me the creeps: Croatian authorities claim that they de-mined the area 100%, but I wouldn't be so sure. (Last time I was there, prior to the completion of the de-mining, there was a forest fire left unchecked because fire-fighters feared the mines.)
  
• So the war ruins are still there, but at least a lot of Serbs got back. A few years after the Croatian Reconquista (which involved chasing away the entire population), I saw entire ghost villages in what was Serbian Krajina.
  
• I have few memories of Spit, but the more of the Krka National Park! More interesting that that Tesla power plant is what's right behind: Skradinski buk, a series of waterfalls with lush vegetation accessible by paths and staircases, the place I remember liking most in my early childhood. Did you walk in there or have you only seen it from the bottom?

I should visit these places again soon... but it's difficult without a car.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}