Croatia Backpacker - Backpacking in Croatia, the cheap Italy!

Trieste harbour faces west, so after our amazing pizzas we watched the sun go down from a big wharf. Trieste is nice, the hotel, the food, the sunset, were all amazing. Losing my watch on the first day wasn't! Ah well, I wouldn't be me if I didn't lose stuff eh! D'OH! Don't worry, I lost my Lonely Planet Croatia book and my shower gel on the trip too! ANYWAY.....so, the next day we hopped on the bus to Croatia. Passing through Slovenia into Croatia was easy and we ended up in a small town near the border called Rijeka (re-ekka).

Here we hired a car and drove to Zagreb. On the way we passed another lovely little village by the coast and us being us, we were hungry again. So we stopped and got another pizza...each. And then we drove to Zagreb, Croatia's cool capital city. It was dark by the time we arrived. Zagreb is full of one-way streets and sure enough, we got hopelessly lost. So we pulled into a garage to buy a map. We had the map out on the bonnet but it didn't make any sense what-so-ever! I remember thinking 'We're never gunna be able to find the hostel we've booked into!' When a man, a very big man, came up and asked, in perfect English, if we were lost. (We were soon to realise, Croatian men are all well over 6 feet tall! No wonder they're so good at Basketball!)

He tried to explain to us where to go, which was over the other side of the city but he could see we had no idea. He says "Follow behind my car and ill take you there." No way! we thought, what a nice fella! This was the first of many times a complete stranger helped us out. It was like being part of a huge family. So follow him we did, through the city, past the main town centre, over coblestones, dodging old trams, one way streets and all.He took us right to the front door! We said "HVALA" which means Thank you and he left. We went into town that night. into the old part of town. Most buildings are over 500 years old. Some even date back to Roman times!

After walking around for a couple of hours we were mighty hungry! and thristy! So we found an old, old bar that had a restaurant downstairs. WOW! The restaurabt was housed in the old cellar. The high ceilings were made of bricks, which have been layed in arches and vaults, it looks absolutely AMAZING! And the food? WOW! Huge helpings too! The wine was rather tasty and cheap! The next day we went back into the city and found a huge fruit and vegetable and souvineer market. After lunch we drove to Plitvice National Park.

We found a 'Sobe', which means guesthouse. It was half of an old couples house converted into a 2 bedroom appartment and only cost 100 Kunas each, which = 10, I know, cheap eh! In the evening we went to a local restaurant suggested by the old couple. It was great! The local dish here is spit roasted Lamb! Every restaurant in the area has a sign out front with a picture of a skinned Lamb and the spit skewer through it, next to a wee little 'glasshouse' type building with a crooked chimney coming out the top. It's in this wee glass contraption that they roast the lamb. So being a man of culture, wanting to experience the local cuisine, we ordered the lamb. "Was it good?" i hear you ask. Well, i'm drooling as i type! Seriously i'm drooling! I need to take a wee break for while, need to find me a lamb!