Croatia 1997 Report (UK)

On our first day, most of the time we had to stay in the car. After about 950 km (600 mi) we arrived at a beautiful town, called Straubing in Germany. The camp-site of Straubing has a modern infrastructure and lots of hot showers. It's wasn't cheap, about 40 DM ($22), but later you'll see that it was not cheap at all!

The second day was less exhausting, we drove to Spittal in Austria, through a couple of large tunnels, about 5 km (3 mi) each. A little while ago I read in the newspaper that tourism has gone very bad in Austria, which is correct, but as I see it's their own fault. An obsolete camp-site costs about 350 Shilling ($30) for a night, and that's a bit too much when compared with camp-sites in other countries.

On our third day we finally came in the land of destination, Croatia. We must have been very lucky, we have had no problems at all passing the borders. Nor the Italian-Slovenian or the Slovenian-Croatian border. But, we were still less than 10 minutes in Croatia, or some police patrol demanded us to stop the car, in the middle of the slope... But, what was the case, it appeared to be some kind of a inquiry of a high-school or University to check the amount of visitors to Croatia :)

Our first stop was Vrsar, about 8 km (5 mi) under Porec, a fishing-harbor. The roads in Croatia are in reasonable condition, but way to small in proportion of the amount of visitors visiting Croatia. Our first Croatian camp-site was called Valkanella, and there could stay about 8000 campers on the site! But in whole Croatia, the camp-sites are big, referring to the European norms. Also, there are many FKK camp-sites in Croatia.

Historically seen is this side of the Croatian peninsula, Istria not big, except for the huge fjord, called the Limski Kanal, which goes for about 12 km (8 mi) far into mainland. But the nature and the scenery of Croatia is beautiful. On saturday we made everything ready to make a trip to Pula, the biggest town on the peninsula Istria. This camp-site, Stoja, looks much older than the one in Vrsar. They definitely live in the 80s there... no hot showers :(

Pula is a great city with a rich historical past time. The amphitheater is elliptical, the large diameter is 131 m (450 ft). It was used for Roman games in the time of Contantin. The theatre had 23000 places. In present time, there are still performances, but for much less people. Not only the theatre proves the Roman history, but also the old entrance-gate and a Roman temple. The biggest industrial activity is still the port, but at the time of my visit there wasn't much movement. But it could be as result of the high temperature, around midday it was about 30°C (86°F). Also important to mention is the museum of history, which gives a summary of Istrian history and its large amount of archeological sites.

And, so we have to continue our trip. Next town we visit is Rabac, a little town with a beach just like Blankenberge (for those don't now Blankenberge, it's a city on the Belgian coast, where you have about 1 sq m (10 sq ft) place on the beach during summer holiday!). Luckily the camp-site, Oliva (in the middle of olive-trees), is modern, but the sanitary was literal cold shower! But the site has a direct connection to the sea. The town is not that great, there are too much tourists. But it seems you have that over whole Croatia...

We are already Wednesday, 08/27/97, and when I woke up it was strange that the sun didn't shine like the other days, and yes... It was the forerunner of a day full of rain. And, at the time of writing, 11am, the rain fell out the sky like in Belgium (well, like SOME days in Belgium) :) But, the day after, it was sunny and hot, like the other days. Tomorrow, we will make a crossing to the isle Cres, from Brestova. Later we'll make another crossing, to Krk, the unspeakable isle... But, that's for later.

Now something about the prices of several consumer goods, some "luxury products" like a pot of chocolate (400 g) costs 25 Kuna ($3.6). Other products are as cheap as (or cheaper) than in Belgium. We even found a cafe who sold our own "Stella Artois" beer for about 13 Kuna ($2). Oh yes, for about 5 kg of Belgian potatoes, you can buy 1 kg of Croatian potatoes. Also, subsidiary products of potatoes like chips are expensive.

At night, we had a nice free sound & light show, and today it doesn't look much better. The whole day rain... According to the statistics, in Hvratska (Croatia in the local language) it should be around 23 days sunny in August, which means there are still 8 days left - days with rain, apparently. Nevertheless, we took boat this morning from Brestova to Porozina, on the isle of Cres. About 200 Kuna ($37) for a car with caravan. Well paid? I think so. Our destination of today, Cres is a little port-town, in isle of the same name. Our camp-site, Kovacine is a nice camp-site divided into 2 parts. A "regular" camp-site and an FKK part, which are strictly separated. The sanitary is good to very good. And, they have regular toilets in stead of "French" toilets.

There isn't much to say about Cres (the city), except for the fact that the port is quite big! Yesterday, Sunday, we went to Vela Losinj and Mali Losinj. V. Losinj is the older capital of the isle Losinj (Vela = old), it's a little port-town, and it's definitely worth a visit because it's not so far away from the newer capital of Losinj, Mali Losinj (Mali = new). M. Losinj is a newer, large city with a large port. When we arrived in M. Losinj, we saw the liner to Venice. There are also a couple of nice restaurants on this isle, but be warned, most of them are only open till 2pm in the afternoon. And they will not server you, when you arrive at 2.15pm... On our way back we stopped in the historical city Osor, on the border between the isle of Cres and Losinj, where lots of iron statues adorn the city. We also visited the little town Martinscica, but there isn't much to see there.

Close to the city of Cres is the town Valun. According to the legends they found a stone (table?) with inscriptions about the ten commandments. And, while your in the neighborhood you can visit the beautiful town Lubenice, but you'll need to ride along the 7 km (4.3 mi) road which is only 2.40 m (8 ft) wide and occasionally there are passing places. But, once you're there, the view is MAGNIFICENT, if the weather is good.

Also beautiful is the big fresh water lake in the middle of the isle. But you can only "view" it, there are no roads leading to it. I've heard that the lake should serve for the water-supply of the isle. I don't know if it's true or not...

All things come to an end, and so also our trip to Croatia. Next day we took the boat from Merag to Valbiska, on the isle of Krk. Next we drove via Rijeka to Matulji. Our stop was the camp-site Preluk, for a couple of days. It's a nice camp-site with direct access to a bay of the sea. But we stayed only for one night on the camp-site, because it's simply not possible to sleep at night. Cars are constantly driving on the street right next to the camp-site... :(

So, our trip ended a couple of days earlier, but we made a stop in Salzburg, the home town of W.A. Mozart, on our way back.

If I need to give a conclusion about Croatia, I should say the following. The peninsula Istria, it's very touristical. But the isles Cres and Losinj are great, much more nicer than Istria. I would recommend this country to everybody.

Author : Olivier Debonne
Technical realization : Atari Portfolio Palmtop PC

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