Category: Travel in Croatia

Drink the coffee; it is good and affordable.  Outside of tourist resorts, Croatian cafes rarely sell cakes or anything at all to eat [but bakeries generally have excellent cakes you can buy and eat with your coffee].  Buy a coffee and you can linger and watch the world go by as long as you like.

The coastline of Istria is beautiful but take the time to explore inland.  We walked the 10 kms St Simeon Path that winds steeply down from the stone village of Gračišće to a stunning waterfall that falls into a turquoise blue pool and then climbs through woodland back up the hillside.  We also cycled along the some of the Parenzana cycle trail around Motovun, a wonderful walled hilltop town with stunning views.

Paklenica National Park is a fantastic place for walking and climbing but it is also popular and it is worth turning off the main valley route where you will quickly find solitude.  Mala Paklenica is a narrow gorge where the walking is more difficult but worthwhile and just outside the National Park there are scores of other walking and cycling opportunities.  We followed the trail to see the mirila above Starigrad, fascinating engraved stones up to 300-years old that mark the places where bodies were laid down to allow the bearers to rest during the journey from their mountain hamlet to the cemetery.

Krka and Plitvicka National Parks both get very busy with coach loads of tour groups, as well as individual visitors as seeing the waterfalls is an understandably popular activity.  It is worth arriving as early as you can to miss some of these crowds and enjoy the views in tranquillity.  We arrived at Krka at 09.00 and enjoyed the early morning peace before the rush.

Don’t miss Zagreb out of your Croatian itinerary, it is a pleasant and lively city that is easy to walk around.  The city has plenty of green spaces to relax in, more cafes than you will ever need and for lunch you can visit La Štruk and enjoy a baked cheese štrukli – this is the only dish the restaurant serves and it is delicious and filling.  For culture we visited the unique, heartbreaking and sometimes amusing Museum of Broken Relationships.

Camping Slapić near the small town of Duga Resa is an idyllic spot to relax.  There are cycling and walking routes from the site or you can just sit and watch the clear waters of the river pass by.  The Croatian campsites we stayed on were generally of a high standard and well run.

Veliki Tabor sitting on a hilltop north of Zagreb is everything a European castle should be and it will charm you.

In a previous post I mentioned how gorgeous it is around the village of Samobor so I couldn’t miss it out of this post too.

North-east of Zagreb we were enchanted by the city of Varazdin with its garden-cemetery and pretty historical centre and castle.  This is certainly somewhere that needs a campsite so that visitors can stay longer.

Croatian people will be so happy if you learn just a few words of their language.  Just being able to say hvala [thank you] and dober dan [good day / hello] will get you a long way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps all our spring holidays are destined to have an ‘incident’ and if a bicycle accident is as bad as it gets on this trip then we are happy enough [although no incident at all would be better].  We were visiting the lovely town of Samobor, a short distance north-west of Zagreb and in a region famed for its wine and the grapes are grown in small strips of vineyards on the steep slopes.  Samobor’s main square is packed with cafes, many of them serving the local speciality cakes, kremsnita, a light and fluffy version of a vanilla slice.  These are delicious and we tucked in to a slice each while considering how friendly all the Croatian people we had met were.  In every cafe and campsite people had been helpful and welcoming and also pleased when we used our four words of Croatian.  We speculated whether Croatian people were naturally nice or if all these people were just good at their tourism jobs.

 

Our lovely campsite was a two kms easy cycle ride in to Samobor’s town centre along flat roads.  Climbing back on our bikes after our cakes we found the one-way system took us up a hill and as we then descended a steep residential street a breeze caught my much loved Portuguese sunhat I was wearing and I stupidly put a hand up to save the hat.  At that moment time went in to slow motion as it dawned on me that I was losing control of my bike and I was going to hit the tarmac.

Every part of my body hit the road in some way.  My lovely calm husband made sure I was safe and gently untangled me from my bike.  I could hardly move as I cautiously checked the many different parts of my body that hurt and when I did try and sit upright dizziness overcame me so I stayed lying down.  Over the next thirty minutes every Croatian who passed us by, in cars, on foot and other cyclists, stopped to ask if they could help, reverting to English as soon as they realised we weren’t Croatian; their kind-heartedness was both natural and extraordinary.  One man from the street bought a bottle of water, other local residents offered a pillow and everyone asked if they could call an ambulance for us.

I hoped I would be able to get back on my bike but it became apparent this might not be possible in the short-term and so Luka and his brother Noah, whose house I had fallen outside, came up with a plan to help.  They stored my amazingly undamaged bike in their garage, helped me in to their car and drove me the short distance to our campsite.  Hubby followed on his bike and then Luka and Noah took him back so that he could return on my bike; what heroes!  During our car journey I was still in shock and at first could only keep repeating ‘Hvala’ [thank you], ‘You speak Croatian!’ Luka delightedly exclaimed.  I managed to pull myself together enough for conversation and Luka, Noah and I found a shared love of Manchester United, we talked about the many beautiful places we had seen in Croatia and they told me about their studies.  They were both exceptionally generous human beings.

At the campervan I investigated my injuries, cleaned up the cuts and grazes, got out the ice packs and ibuprofen and counted my lucky stars I had no broken bones.  My left wrist was sprained, a rib cracked, my right hand had some wounds and there was blood on my face from grazes.  In truth it is easier to tell you where I don’t have any bruises than describe where they are.  The right side of my face soon swelled up and after a couple of days the bruises emerged from underneath my tan.  I keep forgetting about this visible sign of my injuries and then wonder why people are looking at me strangely, children must be saying to their parents, ‘Why has that woman got a blue face?’  I can’t open a jar of olives just at the moment, reaching up to all those high cupboards in the ‘van is painful and getting comfortable at night is tricky [even with painkillers] but it could have been so much worse.

Falling off my bike is a drastic way to test the goodness of the people of Croatia but we can now confidently say that Croatia is not only beautiful it is also truly friendly.