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Today was going to be a long trip, so we needed to be well organised. Last night we had a pretty reasonable thunderstorm, so the boat was rocking and rolling quite a bit. When I got up in the morning to go to the loo, there was no plank! I was busting, but the guy on the boat next door let me walk across his boat and use his plank. On the way back, I saw another plank lying on the pathway with no boat attached to it, so I figured it needed a home. Cheryl said later that she had heard some people talking in the early hours of the morning, and then a loud thud, and could be that the plank was stolen.
Cheryl cooked some great omelets for breakfast. By the time we had eaten, and had a coffee and cleaned up, it was time to go. ☹ We lugged all the bags up to the Adriatic Charter office to wait for the taxi we had ordered. It was the same driver that took us to town and back to the marina 2 weeks ago. He gave us his card so when we returned, we could call him. He was a nice young bloke. The taxi dropped us off at the central Bus station, where we were to catch our bus to Zagreb.
Getting the bus was going to be interesting, because when Dianne booked the tickets, they actually booked them for a month earlier. When Dianne picked up the error, they sent her an email saying everything was OK, but did not re-issue the tickets. As it turned out, we had seats and we were on our way. The bus was very comfortable, and had WiFi, so Brian could watch the F1.
The ride to Zagreb was normally around 3 hours, however the trip was quite slow, closer to 4.5 hours. The freeway is an amazing road, with lots of big bridges and tunnels. But it also had LOTS of traffic. We stopped at a Service Station about halfway through. If you needed a licence to print money this was it. It was packed. Even though you had to pay for the toilets, you still had to stand in a very long line. We only had a 15-minute stop, but I think it would have taken the girls 1 week to get to the front of the queue. The men's was much quicker because we come equipped for these sorts of situations. (Multifunctional)
The area of Croatia to Zagreb is much greener than the areas along the coast. Lots of farmland, with all sorts of different crops. We eventually got into Zagreb, an hour and a half late, but the driver Dianne had organised to take us to Hungary was waiting. His name was Davos, whom he said to call Dave. Dave worked for a Driver Hire company. Before the 2007 financial crisis he worked in the building industry. But when the crisis came, he needed to find alternative employment. He decided he wanted to do something he likes, and he has never regretted doing this work. He has freedom, he likes people, he gets to see lots of places, and he speaks several languages. The original car that was ordered had to go in for maintenance as the air conditioner had failed. Instead we got upgraded to a Landrover Discovery. This was a bonus, as we were able to sit higher and see more. Dave spoke great English and is very knowledgeable about Croatia and most of the surrounding European countries. It was great to get a history lesson, and it was also good to know that Croatia etc have the same types of problems Australia has. Dave took us for an hour diversion to a small town that was representative of the old Croatia. The town was called Varazdin. And beautiful it was. Like other parts of Croatia, as they are creating their wealth, they are putting a lot of effort into restoring these beautiful buildings. Dave explained that restorations can take quite a period of time, because there are many restrictions on what you can do. I liken it to our National Trust. The government will do the research on the area, and the building. They will ensure the outside is brought back to its original condition. I have to say however that these buildings have so much character, and the architecture is something you do not see nowadays. The restorations are worth doing. These buildings look fantastic when they are finished. I suspect also, that the trades that are needed to do the restorations are kept alive as well.
We visited the local bakery for something to have for lunch, followed by another ice cream! However, we had to keep moving. As we moved along, we seemed to be following a thunderstorm. It was getting blacker and blacker. There was only dull light, so all the corn and sunflower crops along the road looked this beautiful lush green. Our next stop was to be the border stop between Croatia and Slovenia. It almost seems a waste of time. You stop, hand over your passports, they check you out of Croatia, and then we drive at least 2 metres to another stop and they check you into Slovenia. The stop only took about 5 minutes. We now had to go through a part of Slovenia to get to Hungary. But because of the EU arrangement between Slovenia and Croatia, there is no more border crossings. The highway in Slovenia was also very good, though one part was undergoing some pretty extensive repairs, which slowed us down again.
Finally, we got to the turn of to Keszthely, our seaside destination on the shores of Lake Baleton in Hungary. It was a bit, mmm scary. We had a major thunderstorm and rain happening, and the road we were on was a goat track, and Dave was less confident than he normally is. Transylvania it what crossed my mind. Dave did take the time to point out some of then housing. You can see a clear distinction between the pre-communist housing and the houses built in the Communist era. In his words he says housing was built as a function under Communism, but there were no feelings built into them. He was right. This goat track wasn't getting any better, so we became concerned about where Dianne had actually booked us in. She has never failed to get it right before, but this wasn't looking good. Just as I started looking for people walking around with bolts in their necks, we came upon a major road that took us straight into the town. We really could make much out, as it was raining, dark and stormy. Dianne said we had booked into the comfort inn, so we were looking for a "Comfort Inn" like we have back home. But Dave did say we were in the right place. Dianne had called the "Comfort Inn" a couple of times on the way in to give them an update of our journey. This was their request. But instead of calling reception as we thought, we were actually calling a couple who was looking after a friends Air BNB type apartment. Finally, we met Gurty, and she took us up to the Apartment. Again, walking up the stairs did not give us good vibes. They were a bit on the "Shabby Side" and we walked past some of the old "Communist" type units, which look like Stalag 37. We went up 2 flights of stairs lugging our cases. Eventually we arrived. Gurty opened the and Voila a lovely clean apartment. We were very tired by now and hadn't eaten for a while. We thought we would simply unpack, have a shower and go to bed. We ran into a slight problem as there were no towels! And also, we could get the Wi-Fi to work either. We rang the owner and found out towels do not come with the deal. I had a hanky, and Cheryl mentioned that it would be more than suitable for my build. ☹ Gurty eventually dropped a couple of very average towels around, but they would do for the night. Fortunately, Cheryl had also packed a couple of microfibre towels for the beach, so we got through.
We were so tired we skipped tea. All we wanted to do was get a good nights sleep. I will see what Transylvania looks like in the morning.
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Marty All sounds very interesting!!