Croatia!

We said goodbye to the gondolas, gelatos and perfect weather of Venice and caught a train to the border. We hopped on a bus that took us through a narrow strip of Slovenia, which was very green and rural, to a large town in Croatia where we picked up our hire car.

On the bus into Croatia.

Getting out of that town in a manual hire car while driving on the wrong side of the narrow roads was a challenge to say the least. Fortunately, Janet the GPS kept us heading in the right direction while John tried to remember who to give way to. We started off along highways but soon turned onto beautiful country roads. We passed gorgeous stone farm houses with terracotta tiled roofs. We saw lots of crops and vege gardens but very few farm animals.

We finally found our accommodation and it was amazing - stone and timber walls, shutters and flower-boxes at the windows. We somehow scored the attic rooms which was a bit squishy for John and I but the kids loved it. The people here were great - very friendly and lots of fun.

That tiny window at the top was John's and my room. The kids' room was on the other side.

The reason we stayed here was to see Plitvice National Park. The next day we walked for many hours through beautiful forests gawping at amazing waterfalls in the park. The water was crystal clear. The weather is significantly hotter in Croatia and we would love to have jumped in that cool, clear water but sadly, it wasn't allowed. It's summer holidays here so we also shared the walk with hoards of other people but it wasn't too bad most of the time.

The National Park was simply superb!

The next day I did some driving and it wasn't too hard on the country roads and well-made highways. I let John tackle the cities though!

Hooroo!
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