Road trip to Croatia!

We finally have some travel photos to post! Seems like forever since I have posted a travel blog.

Guess I will start at the very beginning (it's the very best place to start). Frank, Lori, and Uwe all arrived on the same plane to Munich last Sunday and made their way home to me :) I had been looking forward to the day forever! We grilled brats and turkey burgers and sat out on the patio for a late lunch/early dinner chatting away. Cooper was so happy and smiled and laughed away at his dad. I had to work Monday, but Tuesday morning, we hit the road for Croatia!

Google maps gave us 3 routes to pick from, all quite different from each other, but we decided on going through Austria to Slovenia and then down to Croatia, stopping along the way near Osp, Slovenia to climb. We rented a VW van from the base, and stuffed 2 large dogs, 5 people (one pretty small), a baby swing, stroller, bouncy seat, carpet, cooler full of food, and luggage for the beach and climbing somehow in that thing! The climbing near Osp was great actually, and I wish we could have stayed longer, but I was anxious to leave around 6pm knowing we had 2 more hours to drive. We did 2 routes only, but the limestone was high quality with some of the best Tufa I have ever seen and lots of other cool limestone features.




The drive was beautiful. Up and down through the alps in Austria and Slovenia, and then the foothills along the coast of Croatia. Sort of like Rocky Mountains into West Virginia into... Mallorca. But Slavic with Germanic type stuff. We didn't arrive at our campground until 9:30pm, all quite tired, hungry, and me on edge wanting to get Cooper to sleep. Lori immediately made gnocchi for us all while Uwe and Frank unloaded and I tried to get Cooper ready for bed.

Here is the campground we stayed at http://www.arenacamps.com/mobile_homes/indije. It was really a nice place with a grocery store and 2 restaurants right at the camp, and wifi. We rented a tiny trailer that fortunately had air conditioning and a kitchen and bathroom, but was itty bitty. Frank, Cooper, and I shared a double bed for sleeping, which we therefore got little of. I feel like every time we rolled or moved, Cooper would wake up and I would have to nurse him back to sleep. Plus add 90 pound Maya to the bed on the night it stormed = so uncomfortable! But, worth it. The campground had mostly Austrians, Italians and Germans staying at it (imagine that huh?), and there were LOADS of babies and kids which was comforting. Every morning when Cooper would wake up, I would see loads of parents strolling around their babies for naps, and at nights I would hear crying babies at every corner while walking around. Fortunately, maybe becuase of all the children, it was actually a very quiet campground. We all commented how quiet it was there all the time. We were right in front of a huge field leading down to the coast with a neato island across from us. Great for walking the dogs and picknicking and going to the beach.




Wednesday, Frank and I took the dogs to the beach to swim before anyone else was awake, and then picked up fresh bakery stuff for breakfast and hung out at the camp until Lori and Uwe woke up. While Cooper napped, they went for a swim/snorkel, and when he woke up and played a while at the beach and we picnicked, Lori and Uwe took over Cooper watching so Frank and I could snorkel around. The beaches are rocky, which was kind of hard at times when you are barefoot, but we just laid on the grass field instead of the beach and that was fine. The Adriatic sea is super salty, and the fish/sea life was quite different than I am used to seeing. We saw plenty of hermit crabs, colorful striped fish, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins and no jelly fish thankfully. I hate jelly fish. That night we strolled Cooper out to dinner with us and he slept while we gobbled up pasta. Meals were 1/3 less than in Germany which was a nice surprise.



Quick history lesson. Croatia is not a member of the EU yet, and you probably thought "is Croatia safe" when you first read this post, and that is because in the early 90s, they had a terrible war from 90-95 with the Serbs. However, it is a very nice, normal country now with plenty of tourists from Germany and Austria swarming its coastline. It is located at the crossroads of Western Europe, the Pannonian Plain, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea. Croatia borders Slovenia and Hungary to the north, Serbia to the northeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, and it has a sea border with Italy to the southwest. The section of Croatia we were in was a whole lot like Italy.

On Thursday, we attempted climbing but it was too hot, so ended up going back to camp to swim instead and eat dinner out etc, and that was nice. A day much like Wednesday. Plus we picnicked out on the big field with good cheese and bread and croatian beers. Friday, after a 4 hour very HUGE thunderstorm we got out to attempt climbing. It worked out well! We beat the heat for a few hours and all got to do some good limestone climbing. Poor Cooper got so HOT and tired and fell asleep for a short nap in Frank's arms and when we finally left, he zonked out in his car seat.





We drove back, dropped of the dogs and then went to Pula to see the Roman Amphitheatre there. It is the 6th largest in the world, and pretty cool. I nursed Cooper on some 2000 year old stone steps imagining the crazy stuff that went on in the arena. Apparently St. Euphoria was dropped in to the lions there, but they didn't eat her! She was 15 and would not deny her faith so the Romans crushed her bones on a wheel then threw her to the lions who slightly nibbled an arm and walked away. Unfortunately, the Romans still killed her. Her bones are buried in Rovigno, the only town I really wanted to visit that we didn't make it to this trip. Supposed to be a like Venice without all the tourism, and you can also see Venice from there on a clear day. We really weren't there long enough. Sure would have liked to have seen more, but the beach and water was too enticing with the heat. I could easily spend a couple of weeks there.






Saturday we packed up when Cooper woke up and drove back home. What should have been a 7 hour drive ended up being 12 hours. Horrible. I have never been in such terrible traffic in my life. It took 1.5 hours to get through the border check in Slovenia, then another 1 hour to get down the windy single lane roads, then in Austria, traffic was completely stopped. We just got out of our cars and walked around the parked cars letting Cooper out of his seat. He did great until the very last bit. He was exhausted and so sick of that seat and cried so hard. Poor baby. Made me just sick. I finally was able to lean over his car seat and nurse him to sleep. What a long day that was... But, Cooper only woke up one time during the night Sat night, my best ever!!! And at least the drive was beautiful and we were in good company.

Sunday Lori and Uwe left for Austria to go hut hiking and Frank drove to Prague for work after taking a nice walk with the dogs and me. Meghan came home in the evening and I had made her a pizza, but Maya was so bad and jumped up on the counter and ate it, black beans, jalapenos and all, while I was nursing Cooper to sleep. Sigh...

It is already Tuesday now and wishing I had Frank and Uwe and Lori back. That vacation just flew by. Not sure when our next will be. Lori and Uwe were such a HUGE help. Thank you all so much and we had such a great time with you. We are so lucky to have such great friends. And I love having friends around to do things with. Cooper does too. He loves to stare at guests and new people and smiles so big. He got 2 new teeth on the trip that just poked through. And he is about to take to crawling soon, pretty much there already.

Must go. Frank's turn to blog next! Pictures to come tonight when I upload them all to shutterfly.

Much Love!