Croatia by train, bus, ferry, and a very expensive car!

After booking Italy and Slovenia, Croatia was a no-brainer. My dear friend, Sharon, had traveled to Croatia a few years back and after seeing some of her photos I just knew it had to be on my list.

The train from Slovenia to Zagreb was so good; only 2.5 hours! We shared a little “cabin” with an older lady and our luggage (which seems excessive when I have to carry it, but I have seen people with more (a LOT more) - and I’m guessing few people are traveling for as long as I am). The countryside is SO green. Some people say it is not unlike Austria and Switzerland. Unfortunately, I have been to neither of these places (yet), so I’m just going to take their word for it.

We arrived in Zagreb and walked through the busy downtown area to find our hotel. One night only in Zagreb before we pick up our car (I know, right? I’m driving in Europe!) to head for the more rural areas in the Western part of Croatia.

I instantly liked Zagreb. Busy, cosmopolitan, artsy, and lots of public transport. We were staying in a quirky little downtown hotel in a tiny room with two skinny single beds. The pay off was the internal open-air restaurant, serving local food, oh, and a roof-top bar.

We dropped off our bags in said tiny room and went out for a walk and to find some dinner. We chose Japanese food (funny the things you crave while traveling) which was served out of little plastic take-out containers in a street side seating area. It wasn’t fabulous food, but it filled us up and it was cheap. And as the sun began to set behind my dinner partner, we made some plans for the next day.

We decided to go up to the roof-top bar for a drink and to do some catch-up stuff. Imogen had to do some work on her laptop and I had a diary entry to catch up on. The music was good, and the drinks were good too. After chatting a bit with our waiter, we learned that he had spent some time in Mexico and San Diego. Before I knew it, I had a fabulous mango mojito in my hand with Tajin around the rim of the glass. YUM! Got to admit, those flavors gave me a little twinge of homesickness… for about a second.

We started our day at the amazing 10 Euro “all you can eat” breakfast buffet and with bellies full, we were set to take on a day of exploring, driving and (later) country livin’. Zagreb is a very creative city. Great museums, really interesting architecture, and it was a really fun city to do our Questo game in. A few of the landmarks we were supposed to find were under construction, so it was tricky to complete the game without some hint help, but we did it. We paused the game to observe the quirkiest tradition I think I’ve ever heard of. At noon every day in Zagreb, a canon is fired out of the top window of the Lotrščak Tower on the top of the hill in old Zagreb. It’s a blank, of course, but it is SO LOUD! Our game took us up to this part of the town; the Upper Town, and as we started reading about the Grič Canon and the history of this tradition, I looked at my watch and it was 11:51am. We decided to stay right there to see if we could experience this Zagrebian special. If you’re interested in the story behind it, read more here.

There were a bunch of school kids there, and quite a number of tourists, all with our heads craning upward to look for the window with the mouth of the canon poking out. The kids started chanting a count-down and BANG! As you can see from the video below… it gave me one helluva fright. Eardrum damage alert. If you’re wearing headphones while reading this, please be careful!

As I said, there are lots of things about Zagreb that I liked, but I think the best part is the juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern. Honestly, I think that is a bit of a theme for me. I just love learning about the history of the old parts of a city, while also enjoying the modern aspects, and Zagreb offers this ying/yang vibe without apology.

We continued our Questo game and visited the Museum of Broken Relationships; a museum dedicated to exhibiting items that people have sent from all over the world to celebrate, commemorate, mourn, and process their break-ups. It’s funny, sad, shocking, and above all beautifully human. We loved it! This one struck a chord for me.

After gallivanting around the city for three or so hours we headed back to pick up our bags and find our car. I always get sucked into buying extra insurance for rental cars, not because I’m not a good driver, but because I just don’t want to be dealing with surprises if something happens. They insured me to the point where I could have bought the damn car for what I was paying to rent it, but when I told the guy behind the counter we would have to take the bus, he softened and upgraded the car to a small SUV, switched it to an automatic transmission vehicle, removed the deductible, AND told me he would add Immy for no additional cost. All those acting classes in opera school have now officially paid off!

We hit the road in our fancy car and soon the busy streets and city lifestyle made way for stone wall lined roads with little or no opportunity for passing, green fields, and quaint small towns with little more than a Studenac and a gas station to announce their existence. The host of our cottage had sent specific directions because neither Google or Apple Maps could find the address. We arrived in our idyllic little A-frame house in Duga Resa and were greeted by our host and a little local cat.

This place was heaven. We spent the first morning going for a walk down one of the local country lanes. The spring flowers were in bloom and the farmers crops were starting to poke their heads through the fields; breaking the uniformity of the each brown field as it began to accommodated its future harvest. Fields and flowers, crops and industrial farmers tending their farms, all accompanied by the faint gurgling of the Korana River. Such a welcome escape from the busy cities we had visited thus far.

Our airbnb was advertised as having kayaks, and due to the unseasonably warm spring weather we were experiencing, we decided to go for a paddle. SO FUNNY! Immy was the rower, and I played rudder. If we had videoed this adventure we would have watched a kayak go around in circles more than anything. We paddled and paddled up stream away from the “rapids” but our technique was just horrible. I don’t know whether my arms were tired from paddling or laughing, but after about half an hour of this madness we safely dragged the kayak onto the bank and were, again, land-ho! Our host took this photo!

Speaking of unseasonably warm weather, the next day we decided to walk down to said “rapids” to swim. Yes, people, your mad friend Fiona inspired by her equally insane child, decided to go swimming in a freezing river in April in Croatia. We donned our swimsuits and headed to the river where a few other insane locals had already taken the plunge. We laid our towels on the lush grass on the bank, and went to “dip a toe” to get a feel for our level of commitment. YIKES!!! Colder than the Pacific on a sunny day in San Diego in January. This was going to take some serious encouragement. And then Immy was IN. “C’mon Mum, you can do it!” When did I become such a wuss? OK. I had to do it. Take a deep breath and… aaaarggghhhhh! Holy Shit this is cold. And then suddenly, it was wonderful. You know that feeling? We did our mermaid thang around in the river until some boys helped us discover the swing-into-the-river game. What a hoot! We both this this for a while. There is video of this adventure, but the footage is a sorry testament to my upper body strength, so I will leave it out and move on.

Soon it was time to pack up our little cottage and head down to the Plitvice Lakes National Park. We arrived at our next Croatian Riverside airbnb which was literally on the banks of the Korana River about 10 minutes away from the park. If you ever decide to go to Croatia, this is a MUST SEE. A dear friend of mine had recommended we visit this national park and it was incredible.

What an amazing day. We met the lovely Lukas and Susanne while we were hiking the “C” trail. They were making their way around Croatia in their motor home!

We had started the day catching a few rays of sun on the patio of our airbnb in our swimsuits, walked 5 hours through a national park, and by the time we got back it was freezing! We started to cook dinner and then as the temperature continued to plummet it actually began to snow. I know, right? I’m not kidding. It snowed enough for there to be still some snow on the ground when we woke up the next morning to head for Split.

Of course Imogen had to go outside to do a little snow dance and stick out her tongue to catch a few flurries. Secretly, I was thinking, “holy shit, I don’t know how to drive in the snow!” And even though I complained earlier about the pretty sum I had paid for my insurance, I was so glad I did. Tomorrow we were off to drive through the countryside to drop off the car in Split, and then onto the Dalmatian Coast, by ferry, for some sun soaked days on the island of Hvar and Dubrovnik. Or were we? How would this sudden cold snap affect the rest of our Croatian adventure?