In reply to: https://rhiaro.co.uk/2018/07/related
Croatia won and the FERRIES are honking their horns WTF lol
I'm walking along the edge of the land in a residential part of Zadar. The sky is stained pink and orange by the sunset, clouds paint wild shapes, dramatic and peaceful at the same time. It's so beautiful I can hardly breathe. The street I'm following is called 'Karma'. The ocean laps at the rocks, providing the only sound for miles, and I scramble down some stairs to dip my legs. The water is almost warm.
Suddenly the air is alive, a roar that becomes discernable as cheers, whistles, applause. Some fire crackers, some car horns. Croatia scored in the World Cup, I suppose, and I am reminded that I'm not the only person in the world.
Leaving Ancona, Italy at 7:45pm (+02:00) on Friday the 9th of June 2017 and arriving in Split, Croatia at 7:00am (+02:00) on Saturday the 10th of June 2017
I just jumped on the train from Zagreb to Ljubljana for the final leg of my trip. My stay in Zagreb was short but magical. I will be back. To make a positive generalisation, Croatians seem to be the most hospitable people ever. Perhaps too hospitable; over the past 24 hours I've been scolded many times for saying 'thank you' too much and offering to help move/carry/cook/clean things, I've overeaten, and eaten enough dairy that I feel a bit queasy because I was already being looked after far too well, and the delight with which fritula, biscuits, pancakes and cappucinos were sent my way was impossible to say no to. I did manage to turn down ice cream a couple of times, and communicate 'vegetarian' before it was too late.
So remember L who I met in Split? He put me in touch with D, with whom he'd stayed in Zagreb. D was quick to offer me a bed too. She met me at the station on Friday morning, and I joined her, her neighbour S (who reminds me a lot of my grandma) and her daughter M in wandering around a flower exhibition for a couple of hours. D bought fritula with chocolate sauce and insisted I try this local speciality (they're like doughnut holes, but chewier). The flower exhibition was in Bundek park, and was a lovely, relaxing start to the day. We stopped in a cafe for a coffee, and S insisted on paying for mine. D shared wifi from her phone and I caught up on the internets.
Then they bought some plants; I was really tempted by a teeny tiny cactus, but it would never have made it home.
D dropped me in the city centre and headed home (with my rucksack so I didn't have to carry it). I wandered through the old town and upper town. Zagreb is pretty hilly. There were anti-government protests and lots of police near the government buildings. There also seemed to be some kind of police-escorted muscle car demo in the centre. I saw all of the main buildings listed on wikitravel, and thought about visiting the Museum of Broken Relationships but the weather was so good I didn't fancy spending the afternoon inside.
Despite this, when I found Nishta, a vegetarian restaurant with power, wifi and incredible food, I bedded in and ended up being there for a productive and delicious three hours. I 'splashed out' and spent 112 kuna on amazingly floral iced tea, BBQ barley and tofu burger, almond cream panna cotta, and coffee. So. Good. So I stayed much longer than intended, and needed to hurry back to D's place, which is in the north of the city at the base of the mountain. I took what I thought was a short diversion via Mirogoj cemetery on the way, but this ended up adding over an hour to my route. What looked close on the map was actually separated by several hills and impenetrable forest. As usual.
The cemetery was pretty spectacular, and I could spend more time there.
The walk from there to D's was mostly uphill, but so scenic. There were some rad, modern houses and tons of foresty space. The city was well and truly out of sight; views from all balconies and gardens were green. I could definitely live there.
I eventually navigated to D's, where I met her six excitable jack russells, and S's son, M. I had a room in D's attic, with a gorgeous view and my own bathroom. She made dinner, and even offered to wash my clothes. I ate rice and salad (with pumpkin oil), pancakes and homemade jam, outside on the terrace while the sun set over the mountain and M quizzed me about who controls the internet, why being vegetarian is reasonable when plants have feelings too, and why Tigo wouldn't be better off if I set him free.
This morning D was out for a bit, and I was under instruction to visit S across the road for coffee when I got up. Not only coffee, it turns out, but chocolate wafers and bread and apricot jam (I managed to stop her from cooking eggs for me) but I wasn't at any point allowed to stop eating the bread and jam >.< Again, I wasn't allowed to help, either. We sat in the garden, in the blistering sun until D got back.
D drove me to the train station, but not before S had wrapped up an armful of chocolate wafers for me, and D made me jam pancakes for the road.
Wow I'm full.
Need to go back to Zagreb.
I just reached Dobova, and Croatian and Slovenian police came through to check passports. I think the train is sitting here for about half an hour. The train is super nice! Power sockets, and every six seats are in their own little compartments with doors.
I think Croatia is my favourite country so far.
Leaving Zagreb, Croatia at 12:00am (+01:00) on Saturday the 30th of May 2015 and arriving in Ljuljana, Slovenia at 12:00am (+01:00) on Saturday the 30th of May 2015
Anti-government protests in Zagreb Upper Town. Also eduroam.
Coffee in Croatia is better than coffee in Italy, in my professional opinion.
Chilling in park Bundek, Zagreb
Last night I arrived in Korenica (the bus showed up 35 minutes late; 84 kuna, somehow arrived on time 2 hours later, really spectacular mountain scenery), and successfully navigated to Falling Lakes hostel. I thought Tchaikovsky in Split was the best, but Falling Lakes is even nicer. Croatia could really teach the world a thing or two about how to do hostels. I was greeted by Irena, who helped me figure out buses and gave me a ton of advice about how to explore Plitvice. The hostel has a lovely kitchen, plus fresh herbs in the garden, so I immediately went to Konzum to get things I could cook. The hostel is so nice and I was dreading the rush of picking up my rucksack and catchign the bus to Zagreb after walking all day. Then suddenly I realised I could just book another night in Korenica and go to Zagreb in the morning. My host in Zagreb was happy with the change of plan, and suddenly that was a weight off.
I didn't get up quite as early as I'd planned, but still early enough that I didn't want to wait for the official (35 kuna) hostel ride to Plitvice. It's about a 15 minute drive, and the highway is not safe to walk on, with no footpaths, sometimes steep banks, many trucks and everyone going really fast. But I hadn't even made it out of Korenica before I was picked up by a middle aged couple from Zagreb who were very interested in all of my travel. They dropped me at Gate 1 at 0900, which threw off my well thought out agenda that began at Gate 2.
Entrance to the park is 80 kuna with a student card, and the ticket includes one boat ride and one mini-bus-thing ride. Maps are 20 kuna, but fortunately Irena gave me one at the hostel. I did some dynamic replanning, figured there was no way I wasn't going to have to cover a stretch twice if I wanted to leave from Gate 2, and headed for the boat. This was supposed to be the last thing, and I considered walking the length of the lake and getting the boat for the repeat of that later, but then it arrived, so I hopped on. I'm really glad I did, because when I went past again later there were three boats worth of people waiting. That took me to near Gate 2, and the start of the main bit of world-famous multi-tiered waterfalls. I followed the path.
I could have done with learning a few Japanese phrases, like "if you must walk this slowly at least stop zigzagging", "this walkway is too narrow for you to stop and look at every little thing" and "put that selfie stick away you're going to have someone's eye out". There were a lot of elderly Japanese tourists who walked very slowly and had no regard for the high risk of sending people flying into the waterfalls when they stopped suddenly and started brandishing cameras. Sigh.
The waterfalls were impressive and everything, but I had a bit of human overload. Not just the tourists (I know they were all there for the same reason I was), but the work that had gone into making the surroundings traverseable. The walkways were all wooden, and very tasteful; often stretching across whole lakes, low to the water, or steps directly above a waterfall so you were always really close.
I couldn't help wondering what this place would be like without the intervention. How many of the waterfalls and streams were actually there as a result of some footpath sculpting? I enjoyed more when the walkways were flooded and the water was trying to take back its space.
Following Irena's advice, I took a less-trodden trail, from point 1 to point 3 (purple on the map) which led deeper into the woods of the park, away from the main area. I'd have loved to go via point 2, which goes way into the park through small settlements that are still occupied, but I didn't think I had time for the full 24km. I was soon deep in peaceful woods, and saw only two other hikers the whole time. That's more like it. I started to recharge. The trail was well-marked with little read dots on trees, so I could drift. After the intial excitement of interesting mushrooms and rocks, and dappled sunlight, the woods were pretty samey. I love the woods, and it gave me lots of thinking time. I was hankering to work on indieweb and socialwg stuff.
The route took me back to the park, and in a lot less time than I expected. I was back at the Big Waterfall, not far from where I started, at 1430. This time I walked around the eastmost side of the lake, close to the water, to Gate 2. That didn't take long either, and I didn't feel I could just go back so early. I sat for a bit, and then wandered south. I decided to see how far I could get in the direction of Korenica without going back to the highway. Technically the park goes all the way, but I had no terrain information. I ploughed on over a definitely-off-track hill. The ground was leaves and squish and the trees were close and I had to fight through them. The ground though! That's what the world is made of. Decaying things, packed together. It was nice. I made it to the top of one hill and there was another, and another, and another. I'd gone too far to turn back, and my GPS was telling me I was slowly progressing in the right direction. The hills were steep; like I said, off-track, and I basically just had to charge directly upwards, clinging to bushes.
It doesn't seem to matter where I go, I will always ultimately end up scrabbling up hills through undergrowth.
It was such a relief when the track/settlement I could see on google maps appeared over the hill. I made for the highway, cos there was no way trying to go through the park all the way back was a good idea. The verge was such that I could stay off the road, so I followed the highway for about 20 minutes before I was picked up by a local. He didn't speak English but I think we managed to communicate a bit. I was passed by loads of cars that didn't stop this time; I presume they were tourists. Bah.
He dropped me in the centre of Korenica, and I stumbled back to the hostel and collapsed for a bit, by 4pm.
I walked around 18 miles today. My legs, aside from being extremely reluctant to support me, have developed all kinds of interesting enormous red lumps with varying degrees of itchiness. I assumed they were insect bites (they have been developing for several days now) but some of them are going a bit weird. I should probably at least document it...
Also I should sleep... 0625 bus to Zagreb in the morning!
In reply to: https://rhiaro.co.uk/2015/05/hostel-settlers
Oh. I just remembered who makes the decisions about this trip. It's me. I will just stay another night. Duh.
This hostel has Settlers of Catan and free mountain tours and a nice kitchen and friendly staff and I can already tell one night and one day here isn't going to be enough. Also I love travelling alone, but I wish I had someone to share this with right now. (Also to play Settlers of Catan with. Yeah that might be it actually).
Tomorrow I'm going to literally walk for ten hours, so I should probably start sleeping soon.