Berlin to Croatia

The adventure began in Berlin. After watching the finale game in the capital and experiencing the energy of a country ravelling in its victory, we were on the road again. Hitching our way to a new destination: this time headed to beautiful Plitivce National Park and World Heritage Reserve located in central Croatia. This destination comes along with quite spontaneity: a few weeks ago Christoph and I stumbled upon a documentary about the park, were astounded and decided to hitch our way there the following week.

Day 1: Monday morning. 1,200 kilometers to go. Spirits of excitement. Of course, because of the unpredictability of hitch hiking, we allotted ourselves two days to reach our destination. We spent the first night on a rest stop on the highway in our tent and as you could imagine it was about the worst sleep one could have.

 We didn't have spoons so we got creative and cut the center of apples out and used them instead!!

 

 

Day 2: 600 kilometers covered. 600 to go. Sore backs but smiling faces.

Late afternoon and a stormy sky as we crossed the border into Croatia on a small tour bus filled with lively speaking friendly Croatians. Instead of heading straight to Plitvice park however, we decided to change our plans slightly and spend the evening in the capital: Zagreb. We scouted out a hostel and called it a day.

 

Day 3: After getting a small glimpse of the city from the evening before, we decided that we weren’t quite ready to head to Plitvice park yet and we spent the day touring the city of Zagreb. In the evening we began our journey of 160 kilometers to Plitvice…finally!!! We arrived at our campground around 20:00, set up our tent and crashed.
 

 

Day 4: We visited the park. You should visit Plitvice Park, it’s breathtaking. Crystal clear water, exotic fish, rushing water falls, lush forest, fresh scent and rolling hills. Beautiful. After a 9 kilometre hike and a tour around the falls, dusk was falling and it was time to head back to our camp ground.
 

 

Day 5: After spending an entire day in the park we decided we were going to begin the journey home with plans to perhaps stop somewhere in Austria. The first guy who took us was from Croatia and he is someone that I won’t forget. After sharing briefly his life story and his philosophy on life and the importance of living simply with us I suddenly felt the urge to change plans, stay in Croatia and head somewhere to the coast. To a beach. Any beach. Christoph agreed and just like that we were headed to the closest town on the coast.

Arriving in Opatija early in the evening, we decided the city was too crowded and full of tourist so we headed to the small town of Ičići. We located a small secluded beach, pitched our tent, took a late night swim, shared dinner and caught some shut eye. To my surprise, sleeping on rocks is more comfortable that one would imagine, I think it was the comfiest sleep of the entire trip.

 Opatija by night

 

Day 6: 05:30 wake up.  We waited 1 hour, watched the sunrise over Opitija, swam, took down the tent and found ourselves on the road again. With approx. 1,100 kilometers to cover we left ourselves again, two days. However at times hitch hiking is wonderfully efficient...this was one of those times J J After 5 rides with the last pair taking us over 500 kilometres we were back home by 00:30.
 

Tomorrow begins yet again another journey. This time alone. Beginning in München I will travel my way through Switzerland, Italy, the south of France and Iceland before heading my way back to Canada.

There have been many goodbyes in the past few days:  of course, with my wonderful host family that I will miss so very much and also with friends that I have made here during my time. Many of my friends here have already headed home and some will be here for the next months, some I will see when I return home and others I will see when I am back in Germany in the next year.

‘Life is good but people are stupid.’