Week 5: Republika Hrvatska
The last sunlight still glowed in the treetops. My hammock swayed gently between two pine trees where I tied it a few days ago. Me in it. Sarah sat across from me reading her book. A serious book about a serial killer, but she was giggling at a funny section about a dog and a cat attacking their owner’s friend.
We were camping on a farm. The farmer makes wine and olive oil. One of his daughters, is a lawyer by profession, the other is a fine artist who loves to work at the campsite during the summer and has seven dogs. One which became friends with us, probably because I gave it small pieces of kobasica (Croatian sausage). There’s a rooster to call an end to the night. Cicadas to accompany the heat. The small double bay of Grebišće, which we made home for the last 4 days, was the perfect peaceful place to get out of the camper for a few days. Our daily routine filled in the gaps around relaxing in the sun. Catching up on some rest, swimming in the bay, lying in the sun, swinging in the hammock, watching the seaplane from Jelsa take off and land, admiring grape pickers balancing large baskets of late harvest on their shoulders whilst walking through the vineyards, and wondering why the farmers are turning the soil under the olive trees. There’s a certain fulfilment that comes from watching others work. On the island of Hvar it’s an obvious pastime – for us at least!
This week we kept to Croatia (Republika Hrvatska). It’s a fascinating country of contrasts. On the one side there’s a frantic busyness about the place. Roads being dug up. Houses left seemingly unfinished with metal rods sticking out from the concreted roofs. Boats going backwards and forwards. Cars and scooters pushing and shoving in the traffic. But on the other side there’s the slow-motioned pace of life on the islands. Calm and relaxing days in some of the most beautiful and tranquil surrounds on the planet. We’re almost halfway into the trip and we chose a good place to stop for a few days and have a break from the camper van. In fact we chose an excellent place and it made it easy to stay a bit longer.
Croatia
We headed back inland after a few days along the coast on Krk island. On route we unexpectedly stumbled upon remnants of the war (1991 – 1995). At first we saw a single building. Bullet holes around the windows and the doorways. Perhaps a deserted dwelling on a farm we thought, but a short distance further we drove through an entire small town. Roofs burnt or blown off in some cases. Bullet holes all over the walls. The buildings still blackened by smoke. A feeling that something very dark still lived inside. A couple of elderly ladies, a man with a cowboy hat and a crippled dog are the only living beings we encountered next to the road. The entire stretch of road felt abandoned – the same as the soldiers had left it. A few private memorials dotted along the road to the fallen and war graffiti still clearly visible on many of the buildings, like it was sprayed on yesterday. We started seeing the burnt, abandoned buildings everywhere. It’s clear some very bad things happened here. It felt like we shouldn’t have been there and the entire scene was in stark contrast to the holiday hotspot of Krk. We were both shocked by what we’ve seen, but clearly – even so long after the war – there are many people in Croatia who’re dealing with the mess left behind by the war.
Plitvice National Park is Croatia’s number one tourist attraction and it feels it when you’re there. Even though we were there in the shoulder season, it was still extremely busy. It’s beautiful yes, but I felt closer to nature in some of the previous lake-places we’ve visited. We only spent a night here and to see more of the park you’ll need a lot longer.
The rest of the week was all about the coast and we headed back towards the Adriatic aiming for Split, but we ended up in Trogir for a couple of nights. The campsite was quite full, but somehow or other we ended up right on the beach with it mostly to ourselves from late afternoon onwards.
From Split we took a ferry on to Hvar Island – our current location. We did some exploring to Hvar town, but mostly we lazed under the pine trees at Camp Grebišće, our most favourite campsite of the trip yet. If we weren’t under the pines, we were in the lovely waters of Grebišće Bay.
Hvar island and Jelsa in particular is a spectacular part of the world. We had a great time here and Croatia’s tourism industry is a great success story. But, like all great success stories, there is also another side to it. During the last evening on Hvar we went for a short wander around where we were staying and we stumbled on a vast derelict hotel complex. By pure chance we met a man there who stayed at the hotel over thirty years ago. It turned out to be the remnants of the Belgrade Children’s Resort with a very sad and unpleasant back story.
In the coming week we’re still heading further south and after taking it easy in Croatia, we’ll now need to pick up the pace a little if we still want to stick to our original planned route.
Trip statistics (Weeks 1 – 5):
- Current location: Jelsa, Croatia
- Days on the road: 35
- Distance travelled: 4113.16 km
- Countries visited: Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia
- Cups of coffee: 75
- Pitched the tent 3 times.
- Camper awning pitched 11 times.
- Number of campsites: 20
- Average weekly cost for camping: £116.29
- Average weekly cost for diesel: £34.37
- Average weekly cost for food & groceries: £77.63
- Average weekly cost for ferries, tolls, parking and public transport: £55.60
- Average weekly cost for entertainment, museums, and other attractions: £35.09
