Croatia

Last weekend was our trip to Rijeka, Croatia to see the sea and visit our friend Marina, who you may remember from Oktoberfest.

Attila, MA, José, and I left Vienna at 9am hoping to get to Rijeka around 6. However, we had to stop in Wiener Neustadt to pick up Farkhod, a 30 year old IAESTE trainee from Uzbekistan. We crammed him into the already packed car and headed to Croatia. On the way we stopped in Slovenia for lunch; the food was good, but nothing special. The wine was cheap, and tasted like it. We finally arrived at the Slovenia/Croatia border and that's when everything went wrong.

You probably won't be shocked to hear that people from Uzbekistan need visas to enter other countries, and as Croatia isn't EU, Farkhod's EU visa was useless. After a long discussion between Farkhod the the border officers he was finally allowed to leave Slovenia on the condition that he was allowed into Croatia. So, we pulled ahead 400m to the Croatia border, where we were stopped again, trapped in no-man's land while Farkhod tried to convince them to let him through. Surprise, surprise, he had to go back. So, we drove him back into Slovenia, and left him with his food, some clothes, and his wallet to find his own way back (he somehow ended up in Munich on his way back to Vienna, don't know how he managed that one).

After being thoroughly checked again at the border to ensure there were no more Uzbeks hidden in our car, we entered Croatia and drove the 20min to Rijeka. As we were entering the city, the sun was setting over the Adriatic.
After driving in circles attempting to find a parking spot, we found a spot to idle and phoned Marina. Looking for a landmark, Attila and MA discovered that we were right by Nikola Tesla's elementary school, now a part of the University of Rijeka. She met us there, and took us to our hostel. The hostel was run by the Red Cross and was really really cheap, at ~€8/person/night for a large 5 person room with an amazing view.

As the others weren't leaving Vienna until around 4pm, we went out to eat. We stopped into a pizza restaurant and read through the menu, someone jokingly pointed out that there was a smoked horsemeat pizza, and one thing lead to another...
It wasn't that bad, it tasted like prosciutto. After that, we went to a bar on a boat, then an English pub where we were finally met by the others.

The next morning we woke up late and missed our boat tour (which we weren't too upset about because it would have been €20). While everyone was getting ready I took these pictures of Rijeka and the Adriatic from our window, I told you it was a good view.

On one of the utility room doors in the hostel we found this sign; no grinding.

The central streets of Rijeka have been turned into a large pedestrian mall. One random thing is that the pedestrian street was paved in marble, the local stone, very classy.Unlike Bosnia, there were flags everywhere in Croatia. However, the flags of most of the Balkan countries and the Bosnian province of Srpska look very similar, with red, white, and blue stripes in different orders and occasionally a crest. Croatia's flag was no different.
Near the bus terminal there was this very ornate church, parts of it reminded me of the fisherman's bastion in Budapest.
The hills around Rijeka are filled with houses, our hostel was also on one of the hills, which was so steep that the buildings all along the street were set back a few meters and connected to the walled sidewalk by bridges one or two stories up from the ground floor.
After a super-cheap ($1) hearty lunch at a student cafeteria we drove about 20min to the tourist-town of Opatija, parked the cars and went right to one of the rocky beaches.
The water was clear blue and warm, considering the fact that the air was ~8°C. It wasn't warm enough to swim in, by European standards, but felt like the St.Lawrence in June.

Predrag, me, Attila, José, and Andrew.Jasmina (Macedonia) and CoraFrom that beach we walked along the seawall infront of large homes, hotels, and parks.

After walking around to the harbour and through a large park we came upon a coffee and cocktail bar with a sandy beach and lounge chairs. It was their last day of operation for the season so we had the place mostly to ourselves.
After a cappuccino we headed straight for the lounge chairs. José found it very cold, as winter in southern Portugal is about as cold as a warm fall day. Andrew on the other hand proved that 8°C is Canadian sunbathing weather.

Our short coffee stop turned into a long lounge by the Adriatic.The architecture and feel of Western Croatia is very Italian, because at one point it was a part of Italy, and is only 90km away from Trieste.

That night we toured around Rijeka, and ended up back in the now-very-crowded boat bar. The next morning we decided to part ways with one car (Attila, Cora, Jasmina, and myself) going back through Ljubljana, and the other car (MA, Predrag, José, and Andrew) taking the longer route through Zagreb, dropping Marina off at her parent's house on the way.

We opted to keep driving instead of entering Ljubljana, and got the Slovenia-Austria border just as it started to get dark.
We arrived back in Vienna at 8:00, and had the girls over to our place to celebrate Attila's 24th birthday.

Today (25th) I leave for Novi Sad, Serbia. Sounds like Szilvia and Laslo's family is very excited to meet us, it should be great. It'll be fun to hang out with Laslo again, and enjoy the extra long weekend (holiday + 1 extra hour from daylight savings).

After Serbia I have 1 evening to pack (for the move and Paris) and move into Haus Döbling, then Tuesday evening I have my first German class, and Wednesday I leave for Paris, so the Serbia post might be a while, and might be really quick to make room for what is sure to be a novel-length Paris post.