Author: Ron Corbin

On our second day visiting Dubrovnik we visited several of the museums in town. The highlight was the Regents Palace from the days when Dubrovnik was a seafaring city state. It is not a particularly large palace by European standards and while the artwork was interesting and some of the old furniture and antiques were fun to look at the highlight for us was tucked away in a back corner of the museum and was a collection of photos from the War of Independence as the Croatians call it.

Today Dubrovnik is almost Disney like in its appeal as a medieval town brought to life but the vibrant tourist city is a very recent development. In 1991 during the breakup of Yugoslavia after the fall of the communist government, Dubrovnik was under siege for over 100 days, and under artillery fire for over 200 days. The part of Croatia Dubrovnik is located in is a very narrow panhandle along the coast. In some places it is less than 1km wide, and at its widest it is about 25km’s. Today the border is with Bosnia, but in 1991 Bosnia was still controlled by the Serbs, and the Serbs wanted to retain Dubrovnik in greater Serbia. They attacked towards the coast and succeeded in cutting Dubrovnik off from the rest of Croatia for over 100 days, and since the Serbs still controlled the old Yugoslav Navy this included from the sea. The relatively small garrison of Croatian troops managed to hold on to the city despite heavy artillery fire. The siege was lifted after 100 days, but the Serbs remained within artillery range for another 100 days and continued to shell the town periodically. Looking at recent pictures of wartime damage of a city you are actually visiting really drove home the story of the battle. It was a very moving experience for both of us.

The other story we learned in the Rectors Palace was the story of Saint Blaise who is the patron saint of Dubrovnik. Most Catholic cities have a patron saint, but Saint Blaise is really popular and his image pops up all over the city. We had a good time the rest of the day pointing out images of Blaise to each other as we walked around, including one live fellow who we felt looked like Blaise.

After the Rectors Palace we enjoyed a stroll along the harbor and a walkway at the base of the fort. One thing you find every where in Europe are incredibly beautiful harbors. The one here had crystal clear green water and the walls enhanced the beauty of the harbor.

As we have been traveling in Dalmatia we have been seeing on restaurant menus a dish called black Risotto that is a specialty of the region. I have been meaning to try it for a few days and today we found a place that specializes in it. The dish is made with the ink from cuttlefish which turns it jet black. I really enjoyed it and another thing from my Dalmatian bucket list is now complete.

By this point we were ready to head back to the campground which involved a relatively short walk to the bus stop. But as you can tell from the photos, Dubrovnik is built on a pretty steep hillside. While the distance was short the climb was substantial and neither of us were looking forward to it, in the end we made it to the bus stop where we enjoyed a multi-national group of people guessing what time the 2:30 bus would arrive, the answer was 2:47, the Croatians have a Mediterranean sense of time like the Spanish and Italians, it drives the Swiss and Germans crazy.

Like many visitors to Croatia Dubrovnik was high on our places to see. Ton recommended that we try to get there early before the cruise ships drop everyone into town, so we were out waiting for the bus at 9:15 am. The bus ride in was uneventful, but as we were riding I saw them advertising something called the Dubrovnik Pass on the video board on the bus. A quick look saw that a three day pass cost 300 Kuna and included the walk on the wall (240 Kuna by itself) and some other museums, and free bus passes for the three days so for us it was a great value and will probably save us 400 0r 500 Kuna during our visit. We highly recommend it.

We arrived in town about 9:45 and it was pretty quiet when we got to the wall. The old town in Dubrovnik is completely enclosed by a medieval wall that is quite impressive. It was built by the Venetians to protect from sea raids and to also defend against the Ottomans to the land side. It was only breached once in its history by Napoleon.

The seaward side protects two different harbors on either side of the peninsula that Dubrovnik is on. Overall it is quite an engineering feat and pretty fun. Dubrovnik was a minor tourist destination until fairly recently due to being under the communist government of Yugoslavia, and then getting tied up in the resulting civil war that came with the break up of Yugoslavia.

In the last 15 years it is no longer undiscovered, but overwhelmed with tourism. The tourism is a double edged sword as it drives the economy of the region, but also makes living here very tough for the Croatians. The local government has limited the number of cruise ships that can dock on a daily basis and are studying other measures to find the correct balance between tourism and the quality of life for the local people.

The other factor leading to the explosion of tourism is Game of Thrones. When the town was quite a bit sleepier it was the ideal setting for Westeros in Game of Thrones. As the show became more and more popular people came here just to see the site that the show was filmed at.

It took us about 2 hours to complete the 2km circuit around the walls. Having completed that we dropped down into a very busy old town. While we were walking around we had seen a steady stream of boats coming in from one of the cruise ships that was anchored out, and while the crowds were not overwhelming it was busier than we like.

We took in a couple of other sites including the Jesuit Steps which are similar to the Spanish Steps in Rome, and the market. As the crowds built and we have three days to explore we decided to return early tomorrow to continue looking around.

As our Dubrovnik Pass now allowed us unlimited rides on the bus system we decided to get out of the tourist part of town and head to the local microbrewery. Dubrovnik Brewing shares its location with a tire shop and was doing good business on a Friday afternoon. The beer was good, and the food truck attached to the brewery was serving a Croatian take on a Pork Burrito which was interesting.

We have settled into a campground in the small village of Orasac about 12km’s from Dubrovnik which will be our base while we visit the most visited place in Croatia. It has a nice view of the Adriatic and is quite full as their are not many camping locations available near Dubrovnik and several of them have closed for the season.

Our drive down was easier than it would have been 4 months ago because Croatia opened a new bridge in July. Before the bridge there was no direct route to Dubrovnik that did not involve crossing into Bosnia. As a result of the settlement of the breakup of Yugoslavia Bosnia was given a very small access to the Adriatic. Their Adriatic coast is 12 miles long which is the second shortest national coastline in the world. The problem is that it cut Dubrovnik off from direct access to the rest of Croatia. The border crossings 12 miles apart often added two hours to what should be a 2 hour trip.

The Croatians have been working on a bridge to by pass the Bosnian coastline since 2007 and finished it this year. It was quite expensive to build as it had to be high enough to allow ocean going vessels to go under it so that the Bosnian port could receive ships. We really appreciated it today.

Yesterday we met an American couple at the restaurant in Milna #1 who told us about the fantastic oysters in Ston. Ton mentioned she had also read about the oysters in Ston and many claimed they were the best in the world. As a son of the Chesapeake Bay I took that as a challenge and told Ton I would be the judge of that.

Luckily we had to pass directly thru Ston on the way to Dubrovnik. In addition to having the “best” oysters in the world Ston also had a very valuable salt flat that caused it to be constantly fought over in the middle ages. So to protect the town they built this elaborate 3 plus mile wall around the town and a hill next to the town. It is supposed to be the second longest wall in the world after the Great Wall of China, but that claim like their claim to have the best oysters in the world is disputed.

To give Ston oysters their due we picked the best restaurant in town and ordered an excellent meal with three oysters on the half shell to test their claim. While the oysters were quite large and tasty I do not accept that they are the best in the world and will put Chesapeake Bay oysters up against them for quality and taste.

Having said that Ston was an interesting city and the meal was great continuing our streak of not having a bad meal in Croatia.

Today was a down day for maintenance. Yesterday was a long day and on the way back to the campsite we decided we deserved a day off from our stressful life as permanent vacationers. The cute building in the top photo is the laundry room for the campground which was the highlight of our day as Ton always feels better when the laundry bag is empty.

We are planning to spend a few days around Split using it as a base to explore some of the off shore islands as well as the city itself. Today we headed down to the city center to check it out and scout the best options to get to the off shore islands.

Split is an old town going back thousands of years. Today it is a sprawling modern city of 160,000 people. A lot of the apartment blocks go back to the communist era and to put it nicely are not very pretty. I think the term for the architecture from this period is Brutalist and that is an apt description.

Our first stop as often happens is the city market. There was nothing particularly remarkable about this market. It was the usual mixture of meat and vegetables with a few local artisans showing their goods. Ton found a pair of pretty fingerless gloves to replace the ones that have gone missing at home at one of the artisans shops.

Splits old town is pretty compact and can be covered in a couple of hours of walking. Split is known for two things its Cathedral and Diocletian’s Palace.

The Cathedral and the Palace are kind of mixed together as the mausoleum of the palace was converted to a Christian Church in the third century and the cathedral grew up around it.

Diocletian was a Roman emperor in the third century who was born in this area. He gets mixed reviews as he left the remains of this beautiful palace for us all to share which is a plus. The minus it was built by Christian slaves in 10 years at great cost to the slaves who Diocletian was trying to get to renounce Christianity because he believed he was a child of Jupiter.

History is always complicated in the Balkans.

After walking around for a while we decided to head over to the waterfront for a lunch. Ton was deciding which meal to order when she asked the waiter the difference between two local fish, he replied they are like brother and sister, so she asked which one was the sister? This cracked the Croatian guy up at the next table, and caused our waiter to blush a little. We ended up with another excellent meal that had us skipping dinner later in the day.

We took one more pass thru the old town, cathedral, and palace. We noticed that another cruise ship had put into town so we decided to head on back to the campground.

After our great day yesterday in Piltvice NP it was time to take advantage of a low traffic Sunday to move 280 kilometers south to Split. It is the center of the Dalmatian Coast and also the second largest city in Croatia.

The drive was uneventful and we arrived at a large waterfront campground about 1pm. Sundays are pretty quiet in Croatia like much of Europe so we spent the afternoon being lazy and catching up with friends at home.

The campground is in the middle of a suburb of Split with a short waterfront promenade. The highlight of our day was a sunset walk to one end of the promenade and then back to François for dinner. Some days are just meant to be quiet.

Plitvice Lakes National Park is one of the most visited places in Croatia and like a lot of National Parks in the US it is so popular that the Croatian Park Service has had to put restrictions on the number of visitors per day. When we checked into the campground yesterday the owner told us that we picked a good time to visit as the Park Service was offering a discount this week.

We both woke up before 7am in anticipation of going into the park and I told Ton about the discount. While I was making our coffee Ton went on line and said to get the special price you had to buy the tickets on line. While the water was boiling I took a look on line and saw we could not buy tickets on line the day of the visit, but there was a place to see how many walk up tickets were available per hour of the day. I panicked a bit as between 8 and 10 am there were only a handful of walkups available, but before 8 am there were hundreds. We are located about 10 minutes from the park gate and when I made that announcement it was 7:20. We set a record for making François road ready and rolled into the park at 7:50.

We got our tickets for the day, then took a few minutes back at François to get our breath. Initially when we entered the crowds were pretty light. But as the day went on the crowds built quite a bit, so were glad we had rushed over early.

The park was extremely well designed to give you a great walking experience. There were wonderful raised walkways over water, wetlands and woods. The Croatian National Park Service deserves kudos for the well thought out design of the trail system. It seems to strike the right balance between protecting the fragile ecosystem and allowing people to interact with the natural environment.

In general the walks were pretty easy, but there was some elevation change, and at one point we got on a little more strenuous trail that most people avoided, but it was worth it.

During our 5 hour hike thru the park I was impressed with the striking beauty of the place. I was also very impressed with how well the visitors behaved. There was no straying off of trails or boardwalks. People worked well together to enjoy the experience and share in taking in the beauty of the place.

We have visited many National Parks in the US and a few overseas and this one is really quite special. I think we caught it a good time of the year as the fall colors are at there peak which really adds to the natural beauty. We really recommend it to anyone. It is by itself almost worth a trip to Croatia.

Ton usually sends me five or 10 pictures to pick from for the blog. Today she sent me 71, this place was that special. We will be working on a photo album devoted to the park later in the trip.

We have moved from the coast up into the mountains near Plitvice National Park. I told Ton I was feeling lazy so I allowed Greta to use toll roads for the trip. The toll roads in Croatia are very nice, but quite expensive. We liked the mannequin flaggers they use here in construction zones if you are wondering about the picture today. I knew the last 60km’s or so were going to be on single lane roads, what I didn’t know was that Greta was going to use a short cut that sent us on a one and a half lane mountain road for 40 km’s. So much for our easy drive.

This area was extensively fought over during the break up of Yugoslavia. The mountains where we are at were a mixture of Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians. Over simplifying things terribly, they all speak the same language (Serbo-Croat), but are of different religions. This region was very heavily contested between the three different groups, and unfortunately a fair amount of ethnic cleansing took place. As we were driving on our unexpected back mountain road we saw plenty of evidence of the fighting from the 90’s, including one house pockmarked with small arms, and another house that had its roof caved in by an artillery round, as well as well maintained graves of soldiers who died fighting in the area. Many of the houses were abandoned on this road as a result of the cleansing. Also, on this road we saw for the first time soldiers from the Croatian army driving vehicles. When we arrived at the campground I realized that our route today had taken us within a couple of miles of the Bosnian border.

We arrived at our campground around 1:30 and decided to take the rest of the day off. We did polish off a very nice bottle of Croatian wine.

We are wrapping up our very short visit to Istria today as once again the calender is getting away from us. We visited two cities today, one really caught our fancy and the other missed catching our fancy but was interesting .

Rovinj is advertised as the most picturesque town in Istria, and the advertisements were correct. When we first arrived and parked François we were overlooking a working harbor with the fishing fleet just coming into port to off load their catch into trucks. The process was interesting and we enjoyed watching the crews working to pack the fish into ice and load them on the trucks. Also, occasionally a local would walk up to one of the fishermen and buy a couple of fish or a kilo of sardines literally off the boat.

From the commercial docks we could see the old town, but it was not the picturesque views Ton remembered from her research. As we got closer to the old town it was interesting to see the construction where some of the houses actually acted as a kind of sea wall for the town.

The town clearly had character. We were climbing up to the church that sits at the top of the hill that the old town is built on, when we both noticed how worn the paving stones were in the narrow alleys. A lot of people had walked these streets over the centuries.

It was a good climb to the top where the church dominated the town. The church itself was not overly impressive, but we did like the image at the top of the tower of a sailor steering a ship. This is clearly a town dedicated to the sea and the old town was until the late 1700’s an island. In the 1700’s they filled the small canal that separated it from the mainland.

On the descent from the church Ton was telling me that what we had seen did not quite match the pictures she had seen when researching Rovinj. Just then we emerged onto a square on the other side of town where a beautiful waterfront and leisure harbor opened up in front of us. Ton laughed and said these are the pictures I remember, and then went off to take her own.

Rovinj is a beautiful and picturesque place. We debated having lunch here but decided to instead head on to Pula as the day was getting away from us.

Pula is an old city and was the center of the Roman government for this area. It contains a few very well preserved Roman buildings and we were looking forward to seeing them. What we didn’t expect was that Pula was a big bustling industrial port. We had really enjoyed the small scale of the towns in Istria so suddenly finding ourselves in a busy city was a little bit of a shock.

After a little adventure getting lost, for once I will concede that Gretas directions were correct, I just didn’t follow them. We headed over to the Roman amphitheater following Googles walking direction. Google told us it was about 1km mostly flat. Ton and I laughed about that the whole way as we were either going up or down pretty sizable hills and we debated where the person who characterized the walk as flat had grown up.

Google then lead us to a dead end and we had to improvise our way to the amphitheater which involved climbing some pretty good hills and stairs. We finally got near the amphitheater but found a fairly modern fort in our way and decided to give up as it was closed for repairs. From the fort we could see the Roman Colosseum in the distance, checking with Google it told us it was a little over a kilometer away. For some reason we both thought it was closed for maintenance so we decided to pass on the walk.

We walked down to the old town and found the last Roman ruin which was a Forum. After a few photos we both realized we were hungry and decided to call it a day.

Pula is the kind of town that we usually enjoy. It is a little rough around the edges, but has a lot of interesting sites. But today we did not connect with it. I think we had adjusted to the smaller towns we had been in and the size put us off a bit. Also, we were a bit hungry having skipped lunch. I think if we had more time we might return because it turns out we were both wrong and the Colosseum is not closed for maintenance and would probably be very interesting to tour.

Today we set out to explore Northern Istria. Ton had picked out a couple of towns she wanted to check out, and she told me that we were going to look for a wine tasting room to drop into if we saw one.

Just south of us is the small town of Vrsar which Ton said had a pretty harbor We were there in about 10 minutes and the parking lot I chose was supposed to be paid, but the barriers had been removed for off season so it was free. This lot allows overnight parking so we lamented the lost opportunity of a couple of free nights, but decided we deserved the luxury we were living in our resort campground.

We followed the promenade around the harbor which was a mixture of fishing, tour, and private boats. Ton was in heaven as the sky and sea were both beautiful and with no wind to speak of the sea was reflecting the clouds.

We finished with Vrsar and headed for Umag which was close to the Slovenian border. We followed a winding seaside highway for the 40km’s to Umag. About 7% of the population of Istria is Italian so the town names were listed in both Croatian and Italian. Near the town of Novigrad (Cittanova in Italian) Ton spotted a sign for a winery so we turned in. The wide road turned into a one lane track and just as I was about to turn around we found the winery.

I wasn’t sure if they were open so I was turning François around when Ton hopped out and told me she was going to take some pictures. Just as I got François pointing in the right direction I heard a shout from her to grab my wallet as the winery was open for tasting.

We tasted 3 whites and a red and they were all delicious. The conversation was limited as the person poring only spoke Croatian and German, but we settled on a white that is an Istrian grape, but were not sure the name of the grape. All we know is that the wine is delicious.

Ton picked Umag because the guide book she was looking at said it was off the tourist route. She wanted to see what a working port town looked like. Umag was not very touristy though they were trying. Most of the boats in the harbor were fishing boats. There was a small waterfront promenade with a couple of restaurants, and an old town of three roads about 100 yards long.

Near the end of one of the alleys we saw a sign for a sea food restaurant and followed it to a waterfront restaurant tucked away out of site. As we walked up we decided that it was going to be our lunch. As we approached one of the staff gave us a wave and asked if we were hungry. When we said yes, he paused and asked if we were Americans. When we replied affirmatively he surprised us by asking what in the world we were doing in Umag! He said that they hardly ever see Americans here. He was an interesting fellow and asked us a lot of questions about home, and also our impression of Croatia. He told us he was hoping to immigrate and if he had a choice it would be the US. He was not happy about the conversion from the Kuna to the Euro coming up in January as he was convinced costs were going to go up, and his real wages were going to go down. It was an interesting perspective we had not thought of because having everyone on one currency makes our life much easier.

Once we got off of politics, our server took Ton inside the restaurant to survey the fish on offer. When she returned we ordered the Umag platter which consisted of two fish, octopus, shrimp, and mussels. It was wonderful and served for two meals as neither of us was hungry for dinner when we returned to the campground.

We accomplished all of our targets for the day and even found the wine tasting that Ton had added as a bonus challenge. The last thing we accomplished was getting a load of washing done when we returned for the evening. All in all a very productive day for us.

Today we made it to the Adriatic Sea for the first time. The next couple of weeks at least, we will be slowly driving down the coast towards Greece. Everyone we have met has told us that the Croatian coast is one of the most beautiful places they have been and we are looking forward to finding out for ourselves.

Our drive over today was on a brand new and lightly used series of toll ways. Croatia is joining the Schengen Zone, and is also converting to the Euro on January 1st, which makes them full on members of the EU. It looks like they have spent quite a bit of money on infrastructure development in preparation, and you can certainly see it in the toll ways. While they are not cheap they are very well built.

Our planned stop for the day was Porec where we plan to spend some time exploring tomorrow. As we were coming into town Ton saw a new Lidl so we swung in there for some shopping. The refrigerator is now fully stocked again.

We had picked out a campground last night, and even though we arrived pretty early they were full. I had picked out an alternative which was described as a gigantic campground with over 500 spots. So tonight we are in a campground with over 500 RV sites and a couple of hundred sites of trailers, glamping tents, and cabins. It is incredibly immense.

This site occupies a whole peninsula sticking into the Adriatic and includes a fun island which is a real island, a waterpark, and a concert venue as well as a village square with a grocery, pizza restaurant and a couple of bars. It is unlike anything we have ever stayed at. They do have 500 spots, but about 350 have been closed down for the offseason.

After a convoluted check in process that was not very Premium Resort like. We settled into the most expensive campsite we have stayed in in Europe. While it is expensive the bathrooms and showers are indeed premium so we decided we would enjoy the luxury for two nights.

We spent about an hour walking along a pathway along the ocean. It was our first sunset on the Adriatic and it did not disappoint.

The campground we are staying at is in a suburb of Zagreb about 11km’s from the city center. They run a free shuttle bus to the local train station, and from there it is about 15 minutes to the center. We were the only couple on the first shuttle of the day, and when we got to the station we were waiting in line to buy our tickets when a train pulled into the station. The Croatian ticket seller then yelled something in Croatian at a young lady in line and us. The young lady understood and bolted after the train, Ton and I looked confused so she said something else and pointed at the train, so we retreated to the platform, just to make sure we understood she came out of her office and gave us the hand signal to hurry up and pointed at the train. So we ran after the train and got on. At that point I went up to the young Croatian lady who was in line with us and asked if she spoke English, she did, fluently. She explained that the ticket seller was telling us to get on the train and pay there. I asked who we should pay, and she said that someone might come along to collect, and if they don’t the ride is free this morning. The ride turned out to be free.

Ton had mapped out a good agenda for us to take in Zagreb. One of the highlights she had on her list was the Museum of Broken Relationships. It started as kind of a joke, but now is one of the most popular museums in Zagreb. We visited the gift shop but I decided visiting the museum proper would be bad luck so we moved on to one of the churches on her list.

Usually October is shoulder season in Europe and then things start to shut down in November. In Croatia it looks like shoulder season ends on October 1st and we are officially now in off season for tourism. Both the cathedral and St. Marks Church had recently erected scaffolding and were closed to visitors as of today until next May. It also looks like a lot of the campgrounds are closed today until April, fortunately not all, but we will have a little less choice as we move around.

Today we spent a lot of the day enjoying the restaurant and cafe scene in Zagreb. In the morning we visited an excellent coffee shop with a great terrace overlooking a couple of the major tourist highlights of the city.

Our next stop was the bustling Dolac farmers market located in the middle of the city. The fruit and vegetable stands were located on the roof of the market, while the meat and fish stands were in the interior. The fruit and vegetable stands are all covered by red umbrellas which have become a symbol of the market. The story is that in the past all of the stands were covered by boring black umbrellas, but one day a young man confessed his love to his girl and gave her a kiss and all of the umbrellas turned from black to the red ones because of their love.

Our next stop was the cathedral, but as I said earlier it was closed. The highlight was watching two workmen hanging from a basket a couple of hundred feet in the air at the end of a crane.

Our first choice for lunch today was not open, but our second choice turned out to be a treat. The restaurant specialized in a Croatian dish called Strukli. It is baked cheese with dough and a filler. Ton had red peppers for her filler, and I had nuts and honey. It is a simple dish, but delicious and very interesting. We had never had anything quite like it. The closest dish we could come up with to it was Lasagna.

We then spent the next couple of hours wandering around looking at old buildings. Zagreb and Ljubljana both were interesting as the majority of the classic buildings were only from the 1800’s so the cities did not feel as old to us as other cities. It seems like when the Croatians and Slovenes have to rebuild buildings do to a war or natural disaster they are more comfortable rebuilding in the current style, then trying to recreate the older style that was there before the building came down. The French and Germans seem to try to recreate the buildings that were there.

We ended up putting about 9 miles on our old legs today, so when we returned to François for the night we decided to try the pizza restaurant attached to the campground. Even though we are in a small town, and it is Monday night the restaurant was doing pretty well when we turned up. When we received our pizza we knew why, it was excellent.

In all of our travels during our previous five trips to Europe we had never had to deal with a border crossing while driving. Most of the countries in the EU are part of the Schengen Zone and travel between these countries is unrestricted meaning there are no border controls or customs checks. In effect crossing from Austria to Slovenia is like crossing from Oregon to Washington. The license plates change, the flags change, the only difference in Europe is that the languages usually change.

Today for the first time we crossed from a country in the Schengen Zone to a country not in the zone so we had a real border with immigration and customs officials to deal with. While we have documentation for François showing how we legally own him in France, I admit to being worried about the first time I was going to have to explain it at a real border. As we were leaving Slovenia I didn’t expect any trouble as we were already there. I thought the guard would have to stamp us out of Schengen since we were visitors, but did not expect much else. When I pulled up to the booth I reached out to hand our passports to him, without taking them from me, he looked at the cover saw they were from the US and waved us on to Croatia.

I told Ton that was simple, but the real test was going to be Croatia as they are not part of Schengen and we would be in effect entering Croatia for the first time. The line was short at the entry point to Croatia and as we pulled up to the Croatian border guard I reached out to hand him our passports, without taking them from me, he looked at the cover saw they were from the US and waved us into Croatia. Ton and I looked at each other in surprise, but then we noted another gate a couple of hundred yards ahead and I thought that must be customs. When we pulled up to that booth it turned out to be the toll booth for the Croatian highway and all they wanted from us was 9 Croatian Kuna ($1.20) to use the road. I was a little disappointed as I had rehearsed my explanations of why Americans were driving a French licensed camper, and had an envelope full of documents to prove we legally owned François, to leave one country and enter another country without anyone touching our passports turned out to be a big anticlimax.

We are parked up in a cute little campground on the outskirts of Zagreb next to a reservoir. The reservoir was really busy with families out for Sunday strolls and the banks were lined with fishermen. It was a nice evening stroll and as you can see Ton got some great pictures. We will be trying the pizza restaurant on site tomorrow as it was packed with locals all day, which is always a good sign.