We left Hungary and drove into Croatia for our first stop in Zagreb. We have already been to Croatia for two times. The first time was in 2016 and the second time in 2020, but we didn’t visit Zagreb.
Zagreb
The first day of Zagreb we arrived about 11:00 in the city center and did some sightseeing here. We have been to the Oktogon that connects two streets. The Oktogon is part of the building of the former First Croatian Savings Bank.
Gric tunnels
The Gric tunnels are build in WWII as a bomb shelter. In 1990 is hosted it hosted one of the first raves in Croatia and was used in the Croation War of Independence.
The tunnel is opened daily.
Scout centre
We found that there is a Scout Centre here in Zagreb. We have already sent them a message through Facebook, but they do not seem to respond. We decided to walk to the Scout Centre and just see if we will meet somebody there. When we arrived they just came back from planting trees somewhere and talked to a scout. We asked him some tips and trails we could walk in Croatia and swopped one of our badges.
After doing some groceries we went to the campground just at the outside of Zagreb, but when we arrived at the campground and having a beer in the restaurant next to it, we decided to order some food here so we didn’t have to cook in the cold.
The next morning we went early to the Jakusevec Flea market first. This is a big outdoor market every sunday with second hand things, fruit, vagetables and on one part there is even a second hand car sale. First we drove into the part where you can sell your car, so that was the wrong entrance. At another gate is the entrance of the parking which cost €2,- for the whole day.
We didn’t see anything for sale what we needed after having seen the whole market and left to the ‘upper part’ of the city center. We drove around in the little streets where we couldn’t find a good place to park Henry. We drove into a road with parked cars and hoped to find a free spot. Unfortunately we drove into a street with a dead end and no possibility to turn around, so we had to backup. Finally found a parking of the Spar supermarket where Henry could go in.
We walked through the upper part where we wanted to visit the St. Marks church. The church is on the same square as the Government building and the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Croatia and because something serious was happened, the whole square is fenced and you cannot enter. The policeman who told this also said the church is closed because it is damaged during the earthquake in 2020.
While walking we got some Instagram messages. Somebody saw us driving Henry while we were searching for a parking spot. He told us he would love to meet today because tomorrow he will leave Zagreb. So after dinner we have met Ezra, a scout from Austalia who is travelling through Europe since the World Jamboree in Korea.
We talked a lot about Scouting, his World Jamboree experience and about both our traveling experiences. At the end we swapped our badge with some of his. He still had some left after his World Jamboree.
Ezra told us about Villa Rabar, ruins of an old villa with tunnels that were made to escape during the WWII. When it was left the villa became a bar for a short period, but that ended after a fire.
So we went there by foot, after parking Henry down in the village where also the cable car goes up the hill, and walked through the long tunnels. The place itself isn’t very special but it was fun to see this pace.
Our visit to Villa Rabar wasn’t the only exploration of abandoned places for the day. We drove up the hill to the upper cable car station where we parked the car and from there we walked to the abandoned Brestovac Sanatory. We tried to make some nice pictures, but we are also wondered about the fact that humans are good at building in the most remote places, but they leave everything behind when they don’t need it anymore.
Mirogoj Cemetery
The last thing we visited in Zagreb was the Mirogoj Cemetery. This a big and bueatiful Cemetery with a lot of stone sculptures and big tombs. The oldest part of the cemetery can be accessed through a couple of gates in a stone wall that unfortunately has been damaged by the same earthquake 2020.
When we left Zagreb we drove to Zumberak nature park to see a waterfall. We had a quick stop because we saw a little church what looked very nice. The road to the waterfall was very narrow, but was doable with Henry, luckily we were the only ones so no cars were coming from the other direction.
There was no parking when we arrived at the trailhead so we parked Henry as close as possible to the bushes. The walk to the waterfall Vranjak was short and a little but uphill we took some photos and went back to the car. The waterfall itself was not very impressive but looked nice. On the way we saw other signs to sopotski slap. After 45 minutes we arrived at the trail to Sopotski slap, it turned out it was a very short walk only 4 minutes to the waterfall. The waterfall had different stages, to see them all we walked uphill toe see het form each level.
After the waterfall we drove towards Rijeka but first we stopped in Fuzine, because there is a Skautski Centar. We hoped we could spent the night over there, but it was impossible to get there because you can’t enter it with a car from the direction we came. We found on other spot nearby to spent the night. Now it was time for cooking our diner, but because we have to cook outside the van and guess what, it started pouring rain and heavy winds. Neither of us wanted to cook in the rain so we ended up at the pizzeria of Fuzine. The next morning we walked to the skautski centar to see what it look like. We think in the summer you can have a really nice summer camp at this location. In the afternoon we arrived in Rijeka. The weather cleared up and it was really sunny, after some sightseeing we thought it was time for a beer in the sun. Because we are only one day in Rijeka and wanted to see the Tratski Kastel we made some effort and walked uphill to the castle. From this point we had a nice view over the city and saw the sunset.
Our next destination in Croatia is the island Krk the first stop is in Omisalj we did some groceries and find a place for a cup of coffee. Then we drove to the next town Malinska walked along the seaside to the Haludovo hotel. it’s an abandoned hotel full with graffiti and trees. It’s very interesting that it was ones a real luxury hotel back in the 80’s and 90’s. We walked through the hotel an saw many cool places. After exploring the hotel we got a little hungry and found a really nice places along the seaside. After lunch we thought that we found a nice place to sleep on ioverlander, but it turned out it was not possible anymore to go there and sleep. We spoke to a local guy that give us a nice tip. It’s a walk to the beach. We parked the car and walked thru the forest to the beach. On our way we saw giant mushrooms, a few days later we found out they were addible, unfortunately we didn’t take them to the campervan. In the end we drove back to Malinska and slept on a parking side. In the evening we went back to the café for a drink. We asked the girl who works there, if she knew a nice trail to walk. She suggested a trail that leads to a beach and start in Baska.
The next morning we drove to Baska and started the trail. The trail is uphill what includes very nice views. It’s a 4 km walk to the beach, when we arrived we went for a swim, the water was cold but not freezing so it was very refreshing. Then we had to hurry because we saw very dark clouds coming our way. We changed cloths and started the walk back. We didn’t make it dry back to the car because a few minutes on the way back it started to hail which later turned into hard rain. When we came back to Henry our clothes had already dried up.
After Krk we went to Bosnia to visit UNA national park we will write about that later.
After our quick visit in Bosnia we drove back to Croatia. The plan was to hike the mali prince trail in the Velebit mountain range. We arrived at the trailhead around 3 pm, later than we hoped but started the trail anyway. The trial is 9 km and leads you to a hill top called mali prince. The trail was steep uphill and took more time than we hoped. We hiked till mali prince but we didn’t walked the loop around mali prince because of the time. We didn’t want the same experience as in the tatra’s so we started the hike back and getting back to Henry before it’s getting dark. The hike was beautiful but would be even more prettier if we had a few hours more.
Because we were really in need of a shower and had to organize some things we booked an apartment in Novi Grad. We took advantage of having a full size kitchen and cooked some Indonesian food. After leaving the apartment we headed to Izvor Cetine it’s the source of …….. river. When you see the source from above it looks like a cat eye. We flew with the drone to make some pictures from above to see the cat eye.
Now it was time for our second stop in Bosnia so when we left izvor Cetine and drove in the direction of Bosnia. We will tell you about Bosnia and our visit to Dubrovnik in a different blog.