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As promised long ago - pictures from Croatia (and a few from Hungary).
There were three parts of the trip. Marzena told me she is not going to sleep in the car or bushes in random places, and that was part of my plan. So I bought her a plane ticket to Split, promised to collect her from the airport, packed the car - and left a week earlier. That was the start of the first part.
My first stop was in Hortobagy. I wanted to see Hungarian Grey cattle and puszta. It mostly worked - that is, I have seen the cattle (this is actually a bull, with his own collection of flies):
draw well typical for puszta:
and Hungarian buffalo (with even larger collection of flies):
Next day I drove to Plitvice Lakes National Park (which meant about 1500 km in two days). This is a beautiful place, but so crowded walking there was for most of the time rather unpleasant. If you ever happen to visit Plitivice, go around a Kozjak lake - no people there. Crowd was so thick it was difficult to take pictures in the most picturesque parts of the park (full of waterfalls), so only two from other places:
Not all paths are wooden, but some are.
After Plitvice I spent a day around Knin. Main road to Knin was closed, I was driving a detour and lo - spotted something I have already seen on pictures (so called Burnum arches):
They were in the https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=3155780&highlight=Burnum+arches#post3155780 this year, but I didn't plan to see the place - it was completely accidental.
In the Knin and around there are plenty signs of the war, some villages are almost completely deserted, there are plenty of deserted houses - this one with a painted sign Oluja 95 (Oluja - Operation Storm - was a Croatian military operation in August '95):
As everywhere in Croatia, landscape is incredible:
History is still fresh here. Which doesn't mean life doesn't continue:
From Knin I drove to the sea, to wander north and south for two days. This is a city of Korčula, on the Korčula island:
And this is a small village high above Makarska:
Bed is ready
- camping on Korčula (I had to stop in civilized places now and then to take a shower):
And the views... I am not even 100% sure where these were taken, either on Korčula or on Pelješac:
Roads in Croatia are not for faint-hearted, what you see is not wide enough for two cars, so there is a bay (is it how it is called in English?) on the right, to create passing place:
Actually getting to the place where I took the picture was a crazy thing to do, I had to walk about 100 meters on the very narrow road between wall and a barrier to get there; luckily there were no cars for a moment.
After a week I collected Marzena from the Split airport. Our plan was to go to Hvar island, but as I wasn't sure we will be able to get to the ferry on time, I pitched our tent on a camping place in Baško Polje. That meant we were not in hurry, so we went to see ruins of Salona. While driving there (pretty close from the airport) we have seen a strange cloud, but we didn't realize it is a smoke before we stopped and left the car. Now I know it was a forest fire on Brač island, but at the time it was not clear if the fire is on Brač or Hvar (both islands are in the same direction). I was even afraid Hvar can be closed for arrivals. We were at least 20 km from the fire, but we could smell the smoke and when we got back to the car there was some ash on the roof. So, this is Solona and a cloud of smoke:
Next day we got to Vrboska. This is port in Vrboska:
and the famous fortress church:
Note the wind changed direction, so the smoke is visible again.
Next two weeks (over two weeks) we spent getting tan, walking, swimming, diving, visiting different places on the island and so on. So, for example, this is how Jelsa looks from above (if you are ready to climb up in temperatures in the 90 deg F range):
(huge version - 5MB and will require scrolling)
There are no beaches on Hvar (in general there are no beaches in Croatia), coast is almost always rocky:
but you don't need a beach to have fun:
Surprisingly, weather wasn't perfect. That's a rare thing on Hvar.
Third part was the trip back. On the way north it happened that we had enough time for a side trip, so we decided to see the Varaždin - it was just close enough to the highway, it was early enough, and we wanted to stop to eat something. And Varaždin was a very pleasant surprise, we liked it. Well, we have seen only the old city - but we highly recommend it.
Then, as planned, we went to Budapest. And - to be honest - we didn't like it
That is, there is nothing wrong with the city, it just didn't work with us. We prefer Prague.
While on Hvar we meet Poles, who told us to visit Tokaj. It wasn't exactly on our road to Warsaw, but we had some time reserve, so getting back a day later was not a problem. And Tokaj was great. City is not as picturesque as - say - Varaždin. It is nice, it has its charm, but it is all about wine. City smells of wine, city is full of cellars, you can buy wine in every place, it is incredibly cheap, and very good. We have spent there one night only, but we bought something like 10 liters of wine to take it home. Again, highly recommended.
Bor means wine, pince means cellar. These are two most popular words in Tokaj.
Price list behind Marzena says 500 - but that's for a very special wine, called Aszu. Prices start with with 80 Ft for a 100 mL glass - that's about 40 cents, and this cheap wine is already quite good.
That's all for today, perhaps more later...
Edit: three of the pictures (Solona, rain on Hvar and Parliament building in Budapest) were taken by Marzena.
There were three parts of the trip. Marzena told me she is not going to sleep in the car or bushes in random places, and that was part of my plan. So I bought her a plane ticket to Split, promised to collect her from the airport, packed the car - and left a week earlier. That was the start of the first part.
My first stop was in Hortobagy. I wanted to see Hungarian Grey cattle and puszta. It mostly worked - that is, I have seen the cattle (this is actually a bull, with his own collection of flies):
draw well typical for puszta:
and Hungarian buffalo (with even larger collection of flies):
Next day I drove to Plitvice Lakes National Park (which meant about 1500 km in two days). This is a beautiful place, but so crowded walking there was for most of the time rather unpleasant. If you ever happen to visit Plitivice, go around a Kozjak lake - no people there. Crowd was so thick it was difficult to take pictures in the most picturesque parts of the park (full of waterfalls), so only two from other places:
Not all paths are wooden, but some are.
After Plitvice I spent a day around Knin. Main road to Knin was closed, I was driving a detour and lo - spotted something I have already seen on pictures (so called Burnum arches):
They were in the https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=3155780&highlight=Burnum+arches#post3155780 this year, but I didn't plan to see the place - it was completely accidental.
In the Knin and around there are plenty signs of the war, some villages are almost completely deserted, there are plenty of deserted houses - this one with a painted sign Oluja 95 (Oluja - Operation Storm - was a Croatian military operation in August '95):
As everywhere in Croatia, landscape is incredible:
History is still fresh here. Which doesn't mean life doesn't continue:
From Knin I drove to the sea, to wander north and south for two days. This is a city of Korčula, on the Korčula island:
And this is a small village high above Makarska:
Bed is ready
- camping on Korčula (I had to stop in civilized places now and then to take a shower):And the views... I am not even 100% sure where these were taken, either on Korčula or on Pelješac:
Roads in Croatia are not for faint-hearted, what you see is not wide enough for two cars, so there is a bay (is it how it is called in English?) on the right, to create passing place:
Actually getting to the place where I took the picture was a crazy thing to do, I had to walk about 100 meters on the very narrow road between wall and a barrier to get there; luckily there were no cars for a moment.
After a week I collected Marzena from the Split airport. Our plan was to go to Hvar island, but as I wasn't sure we will be able to get to the ferry on time, I pitched our tent on a camping place in Baško Polje. That meant we were not in hurry, so we went to see ruins of Salona. While driving there (pretty close from the airport) we have seen a strange cloud, but we didn't realize it is a smoke before we stopped and left the car. Now I know it was a forest fire on Brač island, but at the time it was not clear if the fire is on Brač or Hvar (both islands are in the same direction). I was even afraid Hvar can be closed for arrivals. We were at least 20 km from the fire, but we could smell the smoke and when we got back to the car there was some ash on the roof. So, this is Solona and a cloud of smoke:
Next day we got to Vrboska. This is port in Vrboska:
and the famous fortress church:
Note the wind changed direction, so the smoke is visible again.
Next two weeks (over two weeks) we spent getting tan, walking, swimming, diving, visiting different places on the island and so on. So, for example, this is how Jelsa looks from above (if you are ready to climb up in temperatures in the 90 deg F range):
(huge version - 5MB and will require scrolling)
There are no beaches on Hvar (in general there are no beaches in Croatia), coast is almost always rocky:
but you don't need a beach to have fun:
Surprisingly, weather wasn't perfect. That's a rare thing on Hvar.
Third part was the trip back. On the way north it happened that we had enough time for a side trip, so we decided to see the Varaždin - it was just close enough to the highway, it was early enough, and we wanted to stop to eat something. And Varaždin was a very pleasant surprise, we liked it. Well, we have seen only the old city - but we highly recommend it.
Then, as planned, we went to Budapest. And - to be honest - we didn't like it
That is, there is nothing wrong with the city, it just didn't work with us. We prefer Prague.While on Hvar we meet Poles, who told us to visit Tokaj. It wasn't exactly on our road to Warsaw, but we had some time reserve, so getting back a day later was not a problem. And Tokaj was great. City is not as picturesque as - say - Varaždin. It is nice, it has its charm, but it is all about wine. City smells of wine, city is full of cellars, you can buy wine in every place, it is incredibly cheap, and very good. We have spent there one night only, but we bought something like 10 liters of wine to take it home. Again, highly recommended.
Bor means wine, pince means cellar. These are two most popular words in Tokaj.
Price list behind Marzena says 500 - but that's for a very special wine, called Aszu. Prices start with with 80 Ft for a 100 mL glass - that's about 40 cents, and this cheap wine is already quite good.
That's all for today, perhaps more later...
Edit: three of the pictures (Solona, rain on Hvar and Parliament building in Budapest) were taken by Marzena.
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