I'm sitting at a cafe under the shade of an umbrella, slurping the last of my lemon gelato before it melts and dribbles down my fingers.

In front of me is a horseshoe-shaped quay where million-euro yachts, fishing skiffs and everything in between are rocking in a see-saw jig.

At my back rises a town of bleached limestone walls and red tiled roofs. Shadows are stretching out across the cobblestones and there's an air of leisure in the sauntering crowd. Some kids are kicking a football around the edge of the quay.

This could easily be a page from Italy's dolce vita handbook, the sweet life incarnate, but it's not.

The town is called Jelsa on the island of Hvar, Sun Island, one of the thousand-plus Dalmatian Islands scattered off the Croatian coast, and which are just now appearing on the radar for savvy South African travellers.

The Dalmatian coast, which runs for 400 kilometres from the Istrian peninsula in the north-west to the border with Montenegro in the south-east, is a new kind of cool. Dalmatia includes Split, Croatia's second largest metropolis, as well as World Heritage listed Dubrovnik, but it's in the islands that the siren song is heard loudest.

The names of these islands - Vis, Hvar, Brac and Pag - might not glide off the tongue with the same sugar-coated sibilance as Positano or St Tropez, yet this slice of sea-washed heaven is already being subtitled the Riviera of the Adriatic.

It's not there yet. Croatia is still recovering from 50 years of communism with a fierce and brutal civil war as a chaser, but the raw ingredients - sunshine, warmth, weathered stone villages, beaches, olive groves, vineyards and a taste for leisure - are all in place, with a price tag that allows Rand-carrying travellers to hold their heads high.

I'm on an island-hopping cruise, a week exploring the Dalmatian islands, taking in the sights, swimming, lapping up the sunshine, drinking rajika (the local firewater), late at night in village squares and trying to get my tongue around a language that sounds like a convention of throat clearers.

My journey begins at the town of Trogir, about an hour's drive north of Split.

Over the little bridge across the canal that makes Trogir an island and I'm in a huddled labyrinth where stone facades with arched doorways form unbroken walls.

It's everything you could ask of the Mediterranean world - a castle at the waterfront, a quay lined with cafes, seafood restaurants tucked away in courtyards and a piazza with a Venetian church.

At one time or another Trogir has been ruled by Greeks, Romans, Franks, Hapsburgs and Venetians, most of whom left an imprint on the town's architecture.

Back across the canal is a market where elderly women sell olive oil flavoured with thyme and fruit-flavoured brandys that spell trouble.

Trogir is so flagrantly gorgeous I don't want to leave, but on a Saturday morning I am standing with my bags preparing to board the Kapetan Jure.

Half a dozen other vessels are awaiting passengers, but the Kapetan Jure is one of the few with bicycles lined up at the stern. This is a cycling cruise.

Every morning we will wake in a different port and, after a leisurely breakfast, pedal off across hills to rendezvous with the boat a few hours later.

After lunch we get a chance to test our legs with a 20km ride from Split up through pine forests to the heights of the Marjan Peninsula for a view over the city.

We spiral back to earth for coffee and cakes in the shadow of Diocletian's Palace, and all agree, if you're a Roman Emperor, you get to pick the primo spot for your retirement villa.

Born on the Dalmatian coast, Diocletian rose through the ranks of Rome's military machine to become emperor at the end of the 3rd century AD.

He abdicated in 305 and spent his last years at this walled compound on the Bay of Aspalathos. Once a formidable piece of military engineering, today it's a town within the city, a maze of cobbled alleys and marbled-paved piazzas where jewellers, art galleries and cafes ply their trade behind facades that were carved out 1 700 years ago.

Built in 2000 by her captain, the ever-smiling Anton, the Kapetan Jure is a handsome, two-masted cruiser with a forest of well-varnished woodwork and a sunny top deck upholstered with day beds.

Cabins are simple, functional and neat. Each has its own bathroom and air conditioning, but most of the 15 double cabins open to the deck and an open door to catch the sea breeze is the preferred option.

We're a multicultural gang on board. Most are Germans, for whom the combination of warmth, fresh seafood, amiable locals who tolerate nude bathing and bargain basement prices make this an earthly paradise.

There's also a Canadian couple with kids in tow, aged 12 and 10, a pair of hardcore women cyclists from the US and Alfred, a 78-year-old Viennese charmer, travelling with wife number four.

Over the next few days the Kapetan Jure conjures up a string of islands from the blue waters of the Adriatic. On Mljet, where the Greek mythological hero Odysseus was supposedly shipwrecked for seven years, we spend an afternoon lazing on the shores of a forest girt lake, with the 12th century island monastery of St Mary as a focal point.

At Hvar, one of the superstars of this part of the world, we tie up amid a showcase of gleaming nautical hardware.

Korcula, on day three, is my favourite, a mini fortress encased in honey-coloured walls. Korcula claims Marco Polo as one of its native sons, but it still knows how to rock. At the heart of the old city we spend a long night listening to a willowy singer in black boots belting out folk and blues.

Pretty as the beaches are, they lack one vital component that any South African takes for granted, namely sand. Grey pebbles are not made for comfort, although there is much to be said for a beach where a cafe is never far away.

The water, on the other hand, is crystal.

Somehow you don't expect any part of the crowded Mediterranean shoreline to sparkle, but the sea around these islands is vodka clear, and warm enough for shiver-free swimming in June.

Most of all, we pedal. About half of each day is spent in the saddle, cycling between 30 and 40kms, and it's tough going.

The Dalmatian Islands might be long and narrow but they're also lumpy. Just about any journey involves a stiff climb, sometimes to a height of more than 400 metres.

One day we cycle almost the full length of Korcula, a 67km leg burner that takes most of a hot day.

Our bikes hoist us high into searing hills of tumbled white stone and prickly pear, where every house comes with its own fig and lemon trees, and sometimes a vineyard.

It's hard work but there are gem moments, such as the sight of Alfred, doing a nimble two-step to a Queen number that our guide, Mario, plays on his cellphone, and the fast downhill schuss at the end of each day's ride.

Cycling brings a sense of purpose to what would otherwise be a week of pure indulgence. There's only so much of loitering in cafes and sunning yourself on beaches that the human body can take.

Despite the energetic pedal pushing, we've also absorbed something of the slow and lazy rhythm of these islands. The Croatians have a word for this, "fjaka".

Fjaka tells you not to do anything that is not necessary, savour momentary pleasures and absorb the beauty that is life. And so, having finished my lemon gelato at the café where this all started, I shall now pedal back to Kapetan Jure - but slowly, and with a dip along the way, in the true spirit of fjaka.