Balkan road trip – Part 7
Day 8 – Dubrovnik
30 December 2018, 11° C a sunny day
I got up with the sunrise and walked to the city. Empty streets, a cold, clear, sunny morning.
After walking around the city, I passed the main places and bought a ticket for the walls.
You can only buy a combi ticket for all the walls and the fortress in front of Dubrovnik city.
I was one of the first visitors. Starting in the west, I walked east and then around the whole city. You are only allowed to walk one-way direction. This day the way was free but in summer it must be crowded.
Passing several stairs, up and down, at the end you will reach the most impressive, highest and thickest tower before exit.
After finishing the wall tour I went to the fortress where I finally found several places known from the series “Game of Thrones” – including Kings Landing.
We left Dubrovnik at 10:50 am. The long drive to Germany started.
We drove all day and we past another border. From Croatia to Bosnia-Herzegovina, but soon entered Croatia again.
We continued the drive north, entered the highway, passed Split which we plan to visit next time. Around 3:00 pm we went off the highway and took a local road near the sea searching for a place to stay overnight. We found a camp ground after Starigrad, in Zadar county around 15.30. Being the only guests we parked the car beneath olive trees with direct view on the sea. The shower was hot, strong and good. We watched the sunset and then went to sleep in the car.
380 km we drove this day, total 1711 km.
Day 9 – Starigrad (Zadar county), Croatia to Slovenia
31 December 2018
8.30 am, 8°C cloudy with view fain drops
We started at 8:30 am and continued to drive north using the local road.
The landscape was beautiful but hard for living. Mostly only rocks with a few thin trees or bushes. We saw some thin cows, the villages seem to survive mainly from tourism. On the left the blue sea, with a long, rocky island – no vegetation visible on it.
In Rijeka we did some extensive shopping, ham, cheese, cakes, oranges and a grilled chicken for lunch, then continued the drive to Slovenia. From the border until Ljubljana the road is a winding country road, from Ljubljana highway. We passed Bled but didn’t visit the castle. It was already afternoon and the weather not really good. For the night we planned searched a place to stay. It is not allowed to stay on a parking place in Triglavski national park, but we found a parking place in front of the park entrance. In the evening the guards checked the area and confirmed that we can stay at the parking place in front of the park but not enter at night. And so we had a very quite new years night surrounded by mountains and forest with a shining moon above.
Day 10
01 January 2019
It was still dark when I made coffee. A quite, cold morning. We passed the border to Austria and continued towards Germany. Partly with heavy snow, especially after we passed the Tauern Tunnel, which turned into light rain. We reached Reutlingen at 12:30, in total we drove 2.658 km from Sibiu.
day distance 947 km, total 2658 km
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We stayed in Reutlingen until Jan. 5th, then drove back to Sibiu. It started to snow in the night and turned to the most difficult part of the tour as snowing continued the whole day. We managed to ascent the Swabian mountain on a uncleaned, snow covered road and continued on the highway. Up until Munich many accidents happened, the road was very slippery and covered with ice and snow.
After Munich snow turned to rain and driving became easier. We passed the Austrian border at 4:00 pm and continued the drive up until Hungary.
The night we spent at a parking area one hour from Budapest. Next morning continued the drive and reached Sibiu on Sunday 6th Jan at 1:00 pm, in total the road trip was 4.298 km in 15 days.