From a City to a National Park

Our guide for the Croatian tour is a very knowledgable Croatian man named Tomas (Tom) whose approach borders on pomposity - disappointing after having had the lovely Tatjana for the Slovenian tour. The guide and bus driver (Bozo - pronounced Borszow) certainly don’t seem to be the best of buddies.

At first, Zagreb seems to disappoint when compared to Ljubliana. However, the International Hotel is the best we have stayed in so far, so there are some benefits. After another smorgasboard of choice for breakfast, we boarded the coach for a tour of Zagreb city. The city can be divided into two main parts - the upper or old city and the lower or newer section. The upper is a contradiction - there are so many vacant residences, which have been left to deteriorate simply because real estate costs so much in this part of the city.

Our first real stop for Kodak moments caused me grave concern - we had arrived at the largest and oldest cemetry in Zagreb. Over 120 years old and with 260,000 grave sites, it is the largest in Croatia. Of course, all the important people are buried there!

The most photographed building in Zagreb is in the old part of town - the huge cathedral with its multi coloured roof. As we passed St Mark’s Square (no, we were not back in Venice), we came across a demonstration of sorts, complete with police presence, within the square itself. Our local guide informed us that the young people were demonstrating about the lack of golf courses in Croatia - apparently there are only 3! This, he added, is doing nothing to attract tourists to the country, as visitors to Dubrovnik in the south have to travel 300 km to find a golf course!

After leaving the old town, we spent some time in the newer, lower section of town. We wandered the markets with its huge range of local produce, bought a few gifts for folks back home, Jill had the Croatian version of a German Bratwurst and I enjoyed a hot dog for lunch. I’m pleased to say that a local optometrist managed to repair Jill’s glasses. He only dropped the tiny, tiny screw twice! Makes me feel a little better that even the right man, with the right tools, still had trouble finishing the job!

After we left this rather untidy and graffiti ridden city, we headed south west for the Plitvice Lakes National Park, some 140 km away. On the way, we passed through Karlovac, a village that was the scene of occupation by Serbian forces during the Serbian-Croatian war during the 90’s. The evidence of fierce gun battles and damaged buildings was plain to see and feelings still run strong whenever this conflict is mentioned.

The highlight of the journey to the national park was a brief stop at Slunj, a small village which still has several working water mills where flour is ground to make a local bread. The ingenuity in developing these water mills was amazing - machines designed several hundred years ago were still doing the job as well as the day they were made. We were offered a sample of the bread made from the flour ground out in the water mill - very grainy and heavy, but quite tasty. The village had been built at a spot where two fast flowing rivers join together. The number of waterfalls and the sound of falling water create a dazzling spectacle - many Kodak moments here!

We finally made it to our hotel - all the single travellers and one couple were dropped off at another hotel. Apparently the hotel at which we had all been due to stay had been overbooked because of the huge number of tourists that this place receives every day. From reports, it would seem that we who came here received the short end of the straw - we didn’t even have a plug for our bathroom sink! After much effort, Jill managed to convince the hotel maintenance man that we really needed that plug and eventually, he fixed it. This hotel is very basic and would not receive recommendations from us. Our room reminded Jill of an upmarket sport and rec type facility. The bar, lobby and restaurant were of a satisfactory standard  -  just a lower standard than we have been experiencing.

I retired to bed early, but Jill seems to be hooked on Rummikub and sat up much later playing with the ladies.

Tomorrow, we spend all day in the national park walking the trails. Please let there be no rain!