We were looking forward to Croatia, after weeks of rain every 2 days, we thought that the summer we would already be waiting for us at the new destination.
I imagined reaching a Croatian Mediterranean fishing village where we would give our first leap into the turquoise water. How funny is the imagination !!
Route:
79,5 Kms
98,8 Kms
120,6 Kms
112,7 Kms
Total Kms 411,6
The 4 stages together were 1.877,8 Kms.
But the arrival was not as I expected. After the border without problems, 20 km we reached the reserved accommodation in a village called Matulji in northern Croatia, but very close to the coast.
Aishhh total chaos, crosses, stops signals, no one is clear who has to go, everyone seemed to be in a hurry though it was Saturday.
We had reached the South!
I arrived exhausted and overwhelmed….
Matulji had nothing special, just a main road with heavy traffic and noise. Steep streets, people crossing where they want or can.
To reach the accommodation, after a close and tight curve had to turn left at full cost, wait for a charitable soul of the opposite lane let you in, put the handbrake, which for years I haven´t use it, what pretty flat it is my Netherlands – I remembered -.
Soon came Evert, he with his beer on arrival always happy!
But also he had the same feeling.
In this accommodation, isolated from the chaos outside, we could relax.
Opitaja was near, on the coast. Here was more touristy, but local tourism. Although bathing areas were well prepared, there was no sand, just rocks or concrete floor, which gave a cold looking.
We had changed the landscape, the views from the mountain watching the sea for the first time sounded very good, however, after coming from the peace and order of the other northern countries, we had to readjust to the new destination.
From here we continue along the coast road to the south. Tomtom did not recognize the streets, this detail gave me a lot of problems during the rest of the travel in Croatia.
Every night we reserved, by Booking, accommodation for the next day, there was almost no hotels, so we reserved apartments from the local people.
I had trouble finding almost all accommodation on the route, until Evert came with his bike GPS , this device has been a great investment !!
In Senj we changed the route, even Evert had to do more kilometers as we had to comeback again to the coast.
But we decided to go inland to visit Plitvice Lakes, which are in Jezerce. I saw a picture once and thought it was worth going to this if we were crossing Croatia.
Good decision! One of the most beautiful places we have been in our different travels!
Curious to see how the landscape changed again, from dry and rocky beaches to the deep green, even Nordic-style houses.
A natural wonder, a park full of green and waterfalls of different shapes and heights all the way you do walking kilometers.
Don´t miss it if you go to Croatia.
But… it was full of people everywhere. We had to go through narrow walkways and had stretches where there were not space enough for everybody in some of the trams.
This really was the first summer day, the sun began to beat with strength. It showed in the environment, feeling too much temperament everywhere…
Here was tourism of all nationalities. Pictures. Selfies. Chinese from all sides running up and down. If there are any Chinese follower, put sense of humor :-) , but when they get off from the bus …
This picture says a lot !! Ha ha ha
Halfway through the tour, Evert find an Italian couple who were beating each other on the grass!! They were about our age and with a baby less than a year with them, you could not even imagine!
Domestic violence. Nobody around doing nothing, until Evert had to separate them.
I was going further back, when I arrived they were already separated, but shouting each other. Evert was very affected by the situation.
This in the Netherlands is not very common, nothing to do with the news we hear in Spain on this topic and probably in these kind of countries.
At that moment we had to take a boat to cross the lake to the other side, I convinced the Italian girl to take the boat as well with the child.
Luckily she took my advice, although I was afraid she would react agressive to me, whe was very upset. Her partner stayed sitting there while she took the boat with us. We wanted to forget this episode but it was a bad experience that spoiled a little bit the day.
From here, we returned again to the coast, each with its means of transport ;-)
The coastal road was full of curves. In one side you had the immense sea and in the other mountain.
The landscape was dry, heavy heat and crickets singing so loud as using microphones!
But what really started to overwhelm to me, was the way the Croats drive, well, from southern Slovenia we were already suffering with this.
For the first time we were more aware of the dangers about the bike travel, I started to be worry for him and he for me with these “brutos” on the road.
Despite these beautiful pictures, we had a kind of bad feeling. Since we had crossed into Croatia, every day was like that, or very good or very annoying.
We finally got to Skradin, this village gave us time to recover, we will explain you in a second part, you can see that Croatia had a lot to explain!
Feeling Travelling
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