Monday, 22nd July 2019
This will be a short blog today as we spent most of the day in the car travelling from Nis in Serbia to Velica Gorica in Croatia – some 645 km which originally should have taken us some 6 hours.
We had a good night’s rest and woke up again to a beautiful view of the square below – it’s Monday morning and now instead of only tourists walking leisurely around, I actually saw people going to work……
After a great breakfast at our hotel, we were ready to go – 10.30 we were in the car driving through a not too busy Nis and were quickly on the motorway towards Belgrade. And this is when Gerry clocked the 250,000 km stand on the Range Rover! Fingers crossed the grand old lady will bring us safely home…….
The scenery along the motorway was of arable land filled with corn, sunflower, and fruit trees that could have been peaches or nectarines.
After driving some 2 hours we stopped for coffee and to fill the car. The fuel pump attendant made us aware that there was something loose under the front of the bumper so we parked the Range Rover on the grass so that Gerry could see and fix the problem – and his only tool to fix the loose cover was a wooden stirring stick for the coffee….. and we were on our way again!
Serbia is also a very fertile country and not at all densely populated till we reached the outskirts of Belgrade – the road network has improved drastically according to Gerry who has done this trip quite often many years ago and in those days he had to drive through the city itself. Now we just could take a sidelong glance at this huge city along the confluence of the rivers Danube and Sava with a population of well over 1.23 million.
At around 2.30 pm we arrived at the state border with Croatia and this time we only had two queues of several cars while the lorries queue was some 3km long……… 10 minutes later we were driving in Croatia and had some 276 km to our destination.
On the way we decided to stop and have some lunch – and yes you may guess it, the fast food which is local is Cevapcici and that’s what we ordered with a fresh mixed salad – all this at a local restaurant just off the motorway.
While we were sitting enjoying lunch, we saw constantly people with huge empty plastic jerrycans walking past and then later walking back again filled with water. So I decided to investigate – these people were cycling down from the neighbourhood and filling up their jerrycans with water coming from a spring which was further along on the restaurants premises. Apparently the restaurant owner discovered this spring on his land and built a fountain for it where people could get their water. As I understood from one of the locals, this water was very healthy so convinced by the many people filling their jerrycans, I decided to fill a few water bottles too! Judging by the luscious garden, this water must be really good!
When we finished our lunch, we bought some peaches, nectarines and shelled walnuts at a fruit seller just outside the restaurant and they smelt ever so sweet – as we had a late lunch, I don’t think we would be having any dinner when we arrive at our hotel in Velika Gorica so the fruit and walnuts would make a healthy snack in the evening.
Within one and a half hours we arrived at hotel – Hotel Time – just on the outskirts of Zagreb. Modern trendy hotel but hardly any guests when we arrived at 6.30 pm……..well we planned to hang around the hotel and after settling in our room and getting onto our social media, we went down to the hotel’s bar to enjoy a cocktail on the terrace. Our relax moments were cut short as the sand flies starting biting so we had to go back indoors. But we did witness a beautiful sunset sky…….
We had an early night – tomorrow we do t have a long drive to Graz – some 2.5 hours where we are meeting with Gerry’s old Croatian friend, Jozo and his wife. They have invited us to stay over with them so I guess there will be a lot of reminiscing about the old days……
