Croatian Highway
We’re looking for an ark this morning. We are making some progress wherever we go
and are getting a feel for each of our destinations, but it could be a lot
better. It has actually stopped raining
but is still windy and cold. We take our
time over breakfast and have a second cup of coffee. We’re getting picked up at 12:30 for a trip
to the airport for a rental car and the next leg of our journey which gives us
at least a couple hours to kill.
We head back into the center with an eye towards the
horseshoe of parks. They stretch away
(south we think) from the square to the train station, then west for about 6
blocks and then back to the north. This
is a much more upscale part of town with embassies and Croatian government
buildings ringing the very well maintained parks. The big fancy hotels are in this part of town
as well.
The train station looks like a classic European structure
with trains zooming in and out and trams back and forth in front to get
travelers to and from their eventual destinations. There is a big underground mall under the
square across from the station where we wander about for a while. We can imagine someone arriving by train and
thinking they should pick up a new watch, a pair of shoes and a bag of
lemons. We have also passed the offices
of “Air Croatia” where John suggests the marketing slogan, “…as the
Cro-flies.” Suppose someone already
thought of it.
We pass the very fancy Esplanade Hotel where our bus-buddies
from Friday will be staying when they return to Zagreb. This is the westerly leg and our park here is
fenced with an arboretum at the end and one entrance in the middle. It seems to be a well landscaped urban
retreat for Zagrebians who want some quiet time. A few more blocks and the parks swing back to
the north with more national government buildings.
We spend a little more time exploring our neighborhood away
from the center and, all in all, it was a worthwhile few hours to have a
different sip of Zagreb. We catch up on
a few chores while we wait for the taxi and he arrives at exactly 12:30. He grabs both big suitcases hauling them down
the stairs and into the back of his mini-van.
He’s a burly chatty fellow who is talking to us in broken English when
he isn’t chatting with someone else in Croatian on his phone. He drops us right
at the car rental desk and it’s a worthwhile 200 Kuna expense.
We get a Volkswagon Polo from Sixt Car Rental as a long line
forms behind us. Just in the nick of
time. The guy at the counter gives us a
cursory overview of the hand-held GPS (punch in the address right here and off
you go) and we hustle off to the parking area.
Mary does her once-over of the vehicle while John works a bit more with
the lot attendant on punching an address into the GPS. After a few minutes we think we have it.
John tries to remember 1967 when he last drove a stick shift
which sends us lurching out into the traffic lane in front of the terminal
which in turn causes the GPS to fly off its suction cup holder onto the
floor. Mary is scrambling to get it
reassembled while John is trying to figure out some direction to get this trip
started. We go through a couple lights
while the GPS is telling us to proceed to the runway. Later we figure out that it was programmed
for off-road which made it think we were flying. "...as the Cro flies!"
We pull off the road for a couple minutes to try to recover
before we return the GPS to the Sixt lot by throwing it out the window. We finally call on our old pal “Sami,” the
Samsung phone person who tsk-tsks at us for trusting someone else. Then she punishes us by taking us down some
gravel roads bordering a long drainage ditch and through a herd of horses and
past a couple tractors. OK, we’re sorry. Eventually we get back on a somewhat real
road and the GPS system catches on to what we’re trying to accomplish after
some serious coaxing by Mary. Now we
have two systems telling us mostly the same thing and we believe we’re on the
right track.
It is really a lovely drive on our 135 KM trip through north
central Croatia. This is very hilly farm
and forest land that feels upper-midwestern to us. The sun is peeking through from time to time
which brightens our day immensely. Our
destination in Plitvice Lakes National Park and the Hotel Degenija, our home
for the next two days. After almost 5
weeks of other vehicles it is nice to have a little control over the trip
(eventually). Twenty-five years ago this
part of the country was a war zone but it seems very serene to us.
The hills are thinking about being more like mountains when
we reach our Hotel. This is pretty
country and we have heard great things about the park so we’ll see what
tomorrow has in store. In the meantime
we are in a real hotel with a real elevator, and a real patio off our room and
a lounge down the hall and a nice bathroom and a restaurant. Mary is in heaven. While we love small properties and great
B&B hosts, the Eastern Europeans might not yet be genetically programmed
for hospitality. There is still a little
too much commie sternness in them.
We go for a walk up our country road and smell some great
fresh air with a hint of wood smoke from the old houses nearby. We come back to our outside bar area for a
beer at sunset which is pleasant in spite of chilly temps. We have made dinner reservations at the restaurant
for 7:00 meaning we have a little reading time between now and then.
There is a nice table waiting for us in a pretty crowded
dining room. Mary has a green pasta with
smoked salmon and John gets the veal with prosciutto and risotto and a tomato salad which is a large bowl of quartered tomatoes. We share a
really cheap and really bad liter of local red wine. Did we finish the really bad wine? Of course.
A big day tomorrow.
We get some basic directions to the park from the desk guy on our way
back to the room and we both read two pages before falling asleep.
What did we learn today?
Don’t mess with Sami!
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