Zadar, Zagreb and onto Slovenia - days 7 and 8

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DAY 7 - ZADAR

Because of the time, when left luggage opened at 6am I left my bag behind with the intention of seeing what Zadar had to offer. At 6am, not much except rain and darkness. So I did a walking tour of a very empty city in the rain. By the time people started appearing and the weather started clearing it was after 9am. Nothing much was open so I after looking around the markets, getting some breakfast, I got some directions to my hostel from the guy at the information centre. You would think he would be able to send me the right way!! But no. He said it was walking distance and pointed to an entirely different street. Looking at the map I still thought my hostel must be walking distance so, having not yet collected my baggage from the bus station, thought I would walk anyway. About an hour and a half of walking around the harbour and marina area I arrived. Not much else in the area although quite scenic walk. I checked in and paid for two nights and then headed back to the station via bus, collected my luggage and put it in the hostel. It was then about 1pm or so so I figured I would head into the old town again and see what was open and try to book a tour for the next day.

That's pretty much where all of my plans changed yet again. There were only a few travel places open and of the ones that were, none had any tours running on a Sunday out of season. That meant no visit to Kornati Islands, Plitvive National Park or anything else. So, when I got back to the hostel, I cancelled the second night and looked up trains to Zagreb.

Spent a very quiet night in a massive hostel. Was a HI affiliated one but there was absolutely no one there apart from me and the reception dude from what I can tell. I never saw or heard anyone.

DAY 8 - ZADAR TO ZAGREB TO LJUBLJANA

Woke up very early to make the 730am bus to Zagreb. Found the bus station ok and even managed to get an earlier bus at 7am. A few hours later at around 1030 we arrived in Zagreb. By this stage the weather was sunny and it was quite a nice day. I moved my luggage to left luggage at the train station and bought a ticket for the train from Zagreb to Ljubljana for that evening at 6pm.

Having taken care of that, I headed into the city. Bought an all day tram ticket as the place seemed quite spread out. Turns out there was a massive marathon going on in the city so traffic was being diverted around, making sure that I was well and truly lost for the first hour or so. Saw the usual cathedrals and monuments, squares and parks before grabbing some food for lunch. By that stage I figured I would hit up some museums. But, being a Sunday, turns out they all shut early. Most of the shops were also shut and I was no where near a beach. So I ended up sitting in one of the parks/squares near the station and reading my book in the sun. Was quite pleasant but kind of felt I should be doing something more with my time!

Caught the train to Slovenia at 6pm. I am not sure if I got into a smoking carriage or whether trains are all smoking here, but quite a few people in my carriage lit up a cigarette. I found that quite strange as I don't actually remember people ever being allowed to smoke in public transport. It seems the normal thing to do here though.

The train trip took longer than expected and I think that's because of the ridiculous border controls, I am guessing because Slovenia is in the EU and Croatia isn't. Got checked at the Croatian border, both tickets and passports. Then at the first Slovenian station we pulled into, there was easily 20 or 30 police/Customs dudes waiting for the train. Quite intimidating really!!

I was in one of the carriages towards the front half and about 6 police came on board and read names of passports into a radio and checked them one by one. Finally I felt like I was going through a real land border crossing!! Got another stamp in the passport before a Customs guy simply strolled through the carriage asking if anyone had anything to declare. Not that he checked though.

After that it was smooth sailing through to Ljubljana where I found my hostel no problems and went out for a late walk to grab some food.

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