Posts From Croatia

This morning we made another effort to visit St Peter's Bascilica at the Vatican and things were going smoothly. The place was open, the lineup was short but as I approached the security screening just before the entrance I realized that I had a small pocket knife in my shoulder bag. Nina and I quickly discussed that if the knife was discovered I would step out of line, but the bag passed through the x-ray machine with no objection from the securty staff.

Yesterday and today we have spent our time exploring Dubrovnik's old city. It is truely a picturesque, story book, place. Located on a rock outcropping and surrounded by a huge stone wall it looks like a picture from a Tolkien story.

Today we took a bus tour south along the coast into the nearby country of Montenegro and in particular visited the towns of Kotor and Budva. Both of these towns are also walled towns like Dubrovnik. Though in neither case are the walls in quite as good a condition.

Yesterday we rounded off our time in Dubrovnik with a trip on the towns cable car to the fort atop the mountains behind the city. The fort was built during the Napoleonic era and offered good views of the town. Today the fort houses a museum dedicated to the 1991-95 war between Croatia and Serbia. The exhibits in the museum really brought home how fierce the fighting was and how recent the events are.

Here are just a few images of Split. We spent a pleasant, though sweaty day, exploring the port and old-town area. The World Cup was the big news today with Croatian the colors of red and white displayed everywhere. Last night was pretty noises as the locals got worked up over the "cups" first match between Brazil and Croatia.

Our short visit to the Balkans is just about over. Tomorrow we will fly to Berlin for a few days with our eldest son before moving on to Antwerp to get the truck. Yesterday we spent most of the day on the bus traveling from Split to Zagreb. It was an interesting drive. Good motorway and pretty countryside, with lots of European campers/motorhomes heading towards the coast.

In case you have been wondering what has happened to us, Nina and I just want you to know that we are in Zagreb, we have been here since the 30th of September and we look like being here until at least the end of the coming week (17th October). Why I hear you ask? Zagreb is a nice enough city but that seems like a long time in one place. Well you will have to read the rest of the entry to find out.

So the day we were schedule to get the visa for India finally arrived. In the intervening days Nina had phoned the consulate a few times and been told "you will get them on the 17th at 4:00pm" so we had a degree of confidence that these long awaited stamps in our passports would materialize. We planned the journey to the consulate with meticulous care deciding in advance what trams and what bus we needed to catch to be there by 4:00pm (" and don't be late we close at 4:30"). So what happened, read below.

First stop on this mornings drive was Zagreb Arena Mall. We had passed by this place each time we caught the bus into the city but it was only late in our stay that we decided to get off and investigate; we should have done that much earlier. The mall (as distinct from the Arena) was a really good up-market modern shopping mall but even more importantly it had a really great super market. That supermarket was this mornings goal, we wanted to stock up.

One of the perpetual and sometimes pleasant things about travel is finding out "how things work". Today was a good example of this phenomena. We had learned (through Nina's researches) that there was a bus from the Autocamp to the national Park at 9:00 in the morning, that inside the park there were a variety of walks that one could take and that in addition there was a boat ride possible and a a "train" service provided transport within the park when one did not want to walk. But exactly how that all worked was a mystery. One that we soon started to unravel.

This morning we retraced our route back along the D1 towards Zagreb as far as the little town of Slunj. We passed through, and noted this town, on our way from Zagreb two days ago as the place seemed to be built in the middle of a river with water flowing in, around and under the houses and buildings. So this morning we went back for a look. Sure enough the towns geology was similar to the Plitvice park with the river widening into a series of pools and cascades and thats where the town was built. Certainly picturesque, but also difficult to build and maintain and also noisy.

You can see from the gaps between blog entries that the relaxed pace of travel, and somewhat quiet uneventful days are having its effect on us. Some days it just feels like there is not much to say. On the other hand our travels through Croatia and Bosnia (and now Montenegro and Albania) are interesting in a quiet sort of way. Croatia is proving to be a much more first world country than we had expected with great roads and clean towns and cities. So, going back to the gaps in the blog - this entry will bring you up to date since the last entry in Sarajevo.

After yesterdays realization that we are in "get there mode" today was simply a driving day. Navigation from the campground to the main highway west towards Croatia was pretty easy and then the remainder of the day was on good European highways all the way to the Zagreb ring route.