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Top attractions in the Balkans: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia by car, train and ship

The journey to the capital of Croatia: Zagreb.

Next destination: Starigrad Paklenica and the national park with the Gorge >>

On Sunday April 27th 2009 we jumped in our packed car and headed for the capital of Croatia, Zagreb. The first day of our holiday that you could describe as "continuation of sightseeing or another year top tourist attractions in the Balkans in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia" It was the first time that we made a travel of that length. We did not arrange any overnight stay, but simply relied on the information and experiences for from the past years, that there are plenty of rooms available at reasonable prices. We wanted to find out, if we could have a two weeks holiday at the same budget as the year before in hotel Neptun in Tučepi: €1609,-. That year we hired a car for three days to visit only some of the attractions that were on our list. The fee - €150,- was an amount that we would save this time, because we were going to have a car with us every day. The first 750 kilometres was taken care of by Anita. After a short stop, a walk along the river Main in Marktheidenfeld, a small town about 60 kilometres past Frankfurt am Main in a beautiful region called Spessart and something to eat, Wiener Schnitzel for Anita and a Leberknödelsuppe for the webmaster, we continued our journey through the German state Bavaria. Not long after having passed Nuremberg a police car overtook us and started driving in front of us, showing "stop polizei". "Looks like we are kindly asked to follow them to the parking." They were looking for drugs and illegal goods, they informed us. After some time of investigating our car, they left us, leaving us with a mess of opened suitcases and stuff all over the place. Keep on smiling we thought. At 01.30 am we stopped driving and tried to get some sleep in our car. We had already reached the Alps and parked our car on the rest area Hochfelln. At about 05.00 am we visited the restaurant and had some coffee and a cup of soup. We filled our car with petrol at Bad Reichenhal, but that was wrong. What we did not expect, is that petrol is cheaper in Austria. At rest area Golling in Austria, we drank another cup of coffee. It was partly sunny yet, but after watching the forecasts including shots from web cams on a television, we prepared for rain and showers, moving further down south over the Tauern motorway towards Villach in Carinthia. For driving on the motorways in Austria you have to buy a toll sticker - a so called Autobahn vignette. It costs €7.70 and is valid for 10 days, so we had to buy 2. The Tauern motorway is 192 kilometres long, of which 24 kilometres are in tunnels. Before going through the Tauern tunnel (6400 meters long) and Katschberg tunnel (5400 meters long), which were not included in the toll sticker, we had to pay another €9.50 toll. While driving on the Tauern motorway you pass a lot of famous skiing areas, like Salzburger Sportwelt, which has the largest network of ski facilities in Europe.

Many mountain ranges were still covered with heaps of snow, which resulted in a beautiful photos now and then. At Knoten Villach - interchange Villach - we had to change the direction towards Ljubljana in Slovenija. This lake area in southern Carinthia near Villach is well known by the webmaster, because here he spent quite some holidays with his parents on a camping site on the Ossiachersee, more than 25 years ago. There was no motorway at all, at those times. Before we left Austria we had to go through the Karavanke tunnel first. Another €6.50. There were many clouds so we did not see much of the Julian Alps mountains in Northern Slovenija near Kranjska Gora. After some time of driving we saw the signs "Cestarina", which is in among others Slovenia and Croatia the location on a motorway where you have to pay toll. Similar to Austria, there was a toll sticker required in Slovenia. Somebody there told us, that it would cost us €35,- and that it would be valid for half a year. At first we thought it was a joke, because we had to drive through Slovenia for only a 100 kilometres. Then we decided to buy a sticker to avoid trouble and risk a penalty. This would mean we were not going home from Croatia via Italy but again via Slovenia, since we have already paid for the motorways. Meanwhile we were following the signs Zagreb. After having passed the border and entered Croatia, we soon reached the Croatian capital at about 01.30 pm. Unfortunately we were not able to find a room, so we had our overnight stay in a hotel. We found one by the name of Vienna. It was going to cost us about €84,- including breakfast. We knew that this was going to change, once being in the more tourist regions along the Adriatic coast and in Bosnia.
That afternoon at first we enjoyed a couple of Ožujsko beer. Then we took the tram to the heart of Zagreb. We walked around a little and noticed that the buildings reminded you of the times that Austrians and Hungarians ruled here. After making some photos we decided to sit down in a chair on Britanski Trg (square) and order something to eat. We also had an appointment with Pamela, who was our daughter Jennifer's best mate during Croatia holiday 2008 in hotel Neptun in Tučepi, so we sent her a message about our location. Along with her came another girl who has fallen in love with a Dutch guy, not so long ago. She was trying to get a job in Holland and live there. It was nice to see Pamela again. The conversations took place in Dutch, German, English and of course in Serbo-Croatian Language. Koje broj means which number, which is what the webmaster learned from their talk, when Pamela asked her acquaintance in their native language what tram number might stop near hotel Vienna.
Pam, we regret that Jennifer was not with us, but we thought that a few days in Paris including 2 days Disneyland and a week holiday in Turkey in a good hotel including swimming pool and water slides, is going to be a more appreciated destination, compared to changing the location, the accommodation and thus the beds nearly every day.
Hotel Vienna was not bad and breakfast was okay. Then we continued our journey, although we changed our plans. If Sarajevo was going to be our next destination, it would mean that we would have to drive another 450 kilometres, of which the greater part would be off motorways. Going down South 250 kilometres towards Zadar and the Adriatic Sea was going to take us perhaps 3 hours. And national park Starigrad Paklenica was on top of our list. None of us wanted to spent another whole day in the car, so the direction was going to be Northern Dalmatia. After a two hours trip we left motorway A1 at Gospić and continued our journey on the road D25 to Karlobag, which is said to be an interesting road as far is comes to landscapes and panoramic views. Though it was very cloudy, we could imagine that on sunny days you would be able to shoot beautiful photos for an album. We tried it too :-)

 

© Jos van der Burgt