Zagreb to Togir

Who knew that Croatia uses Monopoly Money for most transactions?

After a good night's rest, I was up early, headed back across the wide street  to the train station. There I withdrew some Croatian money from an ATM machine and arranged for a rental car. I was told a car rental agent would meet us. So an hour later Jo and I were at the station with our luggage.

Rental Car arguing with HQ on our behalf

A friendly car rental associate showed up and no surprise, he spoke better English than we did. He had all sorts of gizmos and electronics to gather our information & payment. So when our passports and such were all checked over we signed the rental paperwork.

 After a cursory examination we drove off in an serviceable little white car.

Final check by the train station, just before zipping off with our Croatian Rental Car

The town of Zagreb was large and it had loads of apartment buildings that strongly reminded me of New York City's project housing. The similarity ended in that the Zagreb buildings were dour, gray and are probably a hold over from the World War II era when Croatia was still a part of Yugoslavia.

Once we left the bustling little city of Zagreb, we drove through lots of countryside. I was today's driver so it was Jo that took most of the shots.

 For me, the only maddening bit of our journey was there were lots and lots of  hawks along the highways, but no shoulders to the roads, ergo no possible way to stop so I could view or photograph the birds.

We drove past at least one national park 

We drove through lots of tunnels, one of which took several minutest to pass through. Some of the tunnels, like the one below, were labeled as overpasses that connected wildlife habitats. Sadly, we saw no wildlife at all, not even a squirrel or bunny.

Wildlife Overpass

After a few hours driving we hit the Mediterranean coast and began the drive along the sea, headed south.

Croatian flag on a private yacht along the Croatian Adriatic.

We'd gotten by most of the day with snacks or chips whenever we stopped for gas or a bathroom break. So we were getting pretty peckish by the time we reached small town called Zadar. It's a small town that we hear is quite young for these parts, having been founded only 3 thousand years ago. In Zadar, we managed to park - never an easy thing. We seated ourselves in a little open air restaurant Restaurant Kornat. There the waiter was v. kind to the two tired ladies. He treated us to free appetizers - some tuna pate with olive oil and fresh bread. Yum!

The Kornat Restaurant by a bay

The starters were followed by tubs - yes tubs - of fresh mussels. Don't believe me?

Yep, we had tubs o' mussels

I had a split order of the mussels &
 'Venus warty clams' as seen above. 

Refreshed, we climbed back in the car and headed south again. We drove on 90 minutes or so to a second little town on the sea, Togir. By now it was getting dark and we were getting fuzzy brained.


Fuzzy or not, it was Jo to the rescue. She went into a nearby BnB and secured us two rooms, which so late in the day was yet another miracle. We each had our own room as there were none left with two beds. So, Jo took an upstairs room, and I took one on the street level. Whew! It was a long but pleasant day.

Sunset over Togir