Balkan Journey Days 1 and 2 - Into Croatia

The departure from Wiesbaden was delayed by 2 days or so due to taxing reasons but we set off for Innsbruck late Monday afternoon.
As we set out for Gostivar
we hoped that the voyage would be a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.

Mrs N looks  demented  because she is doing her tax return prior to going on holiday.

A pageant of efficient transportation - 3 registered and TuV certified vehicles and a top box held on with nylon tie wraps all in close formation.

Innsbruck  value lodgings - introducing Ali, our bringalong Balkans guide and first rate builder

Next day we headed for Slovenia and Ljubljana

A retro motorway cafe provides 50's relief

..complete with Harley-Davidsons en masse off to a rally somewhere or other

Motorway tolls muct be prepaid in Austria and Slovenia

Somewhere on the Slovenian border we stop again to work where we we are supposed to be goingt

We are not completely  lost..

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
we’ll never find things like that on our way because we are driving on land stupid
as long as we keep our thoughts raised high
a finger on the map and the Tomtom switched off,

Very handy pictorial road signs in Slovenia diminish the need to turn off the motorway to visit places

We ended up in the Croation port city of Rijeka looking for accomodation.

Here is a signage for the Botel....

The Botel was full but we were guided here.to a "Lounge Hostel"...

A shock for us to be outside of the euro zone.

The "Lounge Hostel" was well positioned.

We ate at a nearby pizza restaurant - Croation cuisine borrows heavily from Italy.

Beer

Pizza and kofte

An inexpensive meal - thanks to the €

National Geographic were putting on a public photo montage exhibition featuring Croatia - it seems to have a diverse topography

The efficient pageant is parked overnight at the old dock wharehouses and surprisingly we find it the next morning.

as long as a rare excitement
stirs our spirit and our body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—we won’t encounter them
unless we bring them along inside our soul,
unless our soul sets them up in front of us,
unless we did not realise that Tomtom maps do not cover Bosnia Herzegovina that well......