Saturday, April 13, 2013

Europe Bike Trip Part 5: Croatia


After spending a couple of nights on lovely Lake Balaton in Hungary, we began our journey to Croatia. Crossing into Croatia was an interesting experience, as we didn’t know exactly where the border was located. Along the road, we asked several people to point us in the right direction and eventually a man steered us through a corn field. Riding through the field, we weren’t sure whether we were illegally crossing the border. When we came through the field we saw the border crossing, but weren’t sure which side we were on. Confused, we rode to the crossing and sheepishly asked what country we were in. Luckily, we were still in Hungary, and the crossing was indeed the Croatian border.

After crossing the border we made our way to the town of Koprivnica where we spent our first night. The next day we rode just under 100km to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. It was mid-July at the time; so much of the city’s inhabitants had made their way to the Mediterranean coast. This meant that the city was not as bustling as it would normally have been. Finding a place to have a drink was a bit more challenging, but the kids managed just fine.

Zagreb is an interesting city, with lots of history and culture. Since many so many had fled the city for the coast, there weren’t any crowds and we were able to float along and enjoy ourselves. Most of our time in Zagreb was spent aimlessly wandering the streets until we found something that caught our attention. The people in Zagreb are incredibly warm and friendly, and always offered assistance when our wandering eventually led us astray.

After a leisurely stay in Zagreb, we got back on our bikes and began the final leg of our adventure.

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