Our first trip to Croatia was in the fall of 2011. Flying into Zagreb airport, we immediately embarked on a week-long road trip. Our route took us to an amazing national park (Plitvice), then a seaside Istrian town (Rovinj), and a mountain lake resort in neighboring Slovenia (Lake Bled) before arriving back in the Croatian capital for our return flight home. We had no intentions of entering the Zagreb city center, but we were early and thought it would be better than wasting time in an airport bar. After finding suitable parking, we explored the area immediately surrounding the central train station and Tomislav Square. Our short visit that afternoon consisted of little more than walking around, taking a few photos, and visiting a cafe for a drink and a bathroom before continuing to the airport. However, both Fara and I left with an inexplicable feeling that there was something special about Zagreb and we had to come back for another visit. Fast forward to early spring 2018, we’re only a few months into our world tour and finally making good on our vow to return since that chance encounter more than six and a half years earlier. Our intention was to spend a couple of weeks exploring Zagreb before continuing on to other locations in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Instead, it became our temporary home base for the rest of the spring and into summer. As I write this in March 2019, we’re now planning a return trip for next month.
Continue reading “At home on the road”Croatia World Cup Rally (photo gallery)
The day after Croatia’s second place finish in the World Cup Finals, the team flew back to Zagreb. From the airport, they would board a bus and parade through the city, eventually making it to a rally in Ban Jelečić Square. About an hour before the team was scheduled to arrive at the square, we left our apartment and met many fans ready to celebrate… Continue reading “Croatia World Cup Rally (photo gallery)”
BAtB: World Cup
In the weeks leading up to the opening round of the World Cup, I was excited to see what it would be like to experience the tournament outside of the United States. These feelings were tempered with the disappointment of not being able to root for the US Men’s team, who had failed to qualify for the first time in nearly 30 years. By just dumb luck we had booked an AirBnB in Zagreb, Croatia for the last part of June and the entire month of JuIy. Little did I know at the time how fortunate that would be.
Continue reading “BAtB: World Cup”
Bouncing Around the Balkans: An Introduction
I’ve done it again. It’s been over a month since my last confession, um, I mean post. In my defense, we have been travelling pretty fast again. Just when I think we learned our lesson, we get ourselves into a situation where we don’t plan far enough ahead and realize that we have too many people and places to see, covering too great a distance, in much too short a period of time. In the last three weeks, we visited 7 cities in 5 different countries, traveled over 2,000 km, most of the time staying in a place for only a couple of nights. We are now back where this chapter of the adventure started, in Zagreb, Croatia. We’ll be staying put for the next month, giving both of us a chance to catch up on everything we didn’t have time for while in a perpetual state of motion. Continue reading “Bouncing Around the Balkans: An Introduction”