Travel Log Part 5

On the road to the Adriatic coast, Croatia
20 March 2008

The road out of Zagreb was much too curvy to pull out the laptop and type this morning without getting carsick, it's better now but not by much. Yesterday was our day in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, and when I saw our itinerery, I'd wondered by we were to only stay one night. Now I understand. It's a boring town. It's way south of the Alps so the terrain around the city is pretty flat, but the town itself was partially built on a hill (more hills and steps to walk up, oh my aching thighs). There's the upper town, the lower town and the "new" town across the Salva River. We left our tour group early (too much talking, not enough seeing) for lunch and to make our way back to the hotel on our own by way of the tram system. I like to try out local public transportation systems when I travel. It gives a glimpse of a place you don't always get to see from the comfort of a motor coach.

This morning we left Zagreb and headed to Plitvice lakes, I couldn't type and Fern stole the book I was reading, and I didn't feel like knitting, so I just looked at the scenery. Which was also kinda boring: snowy, barren land. I finally pulled out my iPod after our tour guide, Maja (my-a), droned on and on and on about the Croats, the Serbs, the Italians, and the Hapsburgs. It was interesting for about a minute.

Our first stop was the Plitvice lakes. The temperature this morning was about 3°C, maybe colder, so the walk around the lakes and falls was quite chilly. Fern forgot to set out socks with the rest of her clothes before the porters picked up the luggage from our rooms, so she bravely, her word not mine, trekked on the snow-covered boardwalks in her crocs and naked piggies. The falls were beautiful and I took lots of pictures. I even set the camera to B&W for some artsy shots. I can't wait until I can unload all the pictures onto the computer with the big screen and see where I've been.

Oh, now she's going on about the Serbian territory. Sheesh.

Our next stop was for lunch at what could be compared to as a truck stop diner (sorry John) with cafeteria-style Croat food. It scored very low on the price-tastiness scale.

Our tour group consists of 74 people on two buses. The buses depart about a half-hour apart from each other so we're not waiting for or stepping over 74 people, but only 35 or so. Oh, by the way, I was wrong, by a number of years, about the ages of some of the others in our group. There are a pair of girls in their late twenties, who like to travel while their peers just talk about going places; they appear to be the youngest after Kevin and Fern.

Rovinj, Croatia

The bus went from Plitvice to the coast, then along the A1A, as I call it, but the real route was the E65, the coastal road overlooking the Adriatic, finally ending up in Rovinj (ro-veen) at 6:30. We checked into our last hotel, the Hotel Eden, and signed up for 24 hours of Internet access for 100kn (kuna).