As we are staying in Bulgaria longer than we expected, while we wait for the puppy to be old enough to travel we decided to have a few days away in Croatia. A few years ago we went to Dubrovnik which was lovely, during that trip we heard about the Plitvice Lakes which are supposed to be amazing and a place we had on our wish list to visit, so decided to take the opportunity to go.
Actually getting there from Bulgaria meant travelling through Serbia. We had initially decided to avoid driving through Serbia on our travels as we had heard so many horror stories, but it was the quickest way to go and we found it to be really nice, the people were very helpful, the roads very scenic and the immigration border so easy that we are now going to travel back home that way.
The journey was so long we stayed over one night in a hotel just outside Belgrade, very close to Mount Avala which we decided to explore.
On the way up the hill there is a memorial to Soviet generals who had flown over to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Belgrade being liberated from the Germans. However, their plane crashed on the hillside so a memorial was made for them. There is an interesting sculpture there and stunning views but typically at that point my IPad wouldn't take photos as it said I didn't have enough memory. Once we were back in the car we carried on up the hill while I frantically tried deleting things so I could get some photos.
At the top of the hill there is a car park which strangely is guarded by a sphinx. There are also some stalls there selling souvenirs.
We got out of the car and went looking for the tomb of the unknown soldier. This was very impressive, placed high up on a structure made out of black stone. The black stone actually showed some sign of damage probably caused when the nearby television tower was bombed by the Croatians.
The drive was beautiful with many tunnels cutting through the mountainside. At one stage there were thirteen tunnels in a row.
Early the next morning we set off on the road once more. The road we were driving on had lots of tolls, we have come through a variety of toll roads on our travels, some countries have machines you put money into at the toll booth, others you pay cash before you go on, in Serbia you get a ticket as you go onto the road from a machine then as you leave it you hand your ticket to an assistant in the booth and they work out how much you owe.
We had been through several of these booths and were going alongside another booth when we
suddenly heard a huge bang and the car rocked. Turns out we had gone too close to the kerb , hit a
sharp bit and the tyre basically popped, it looked like it had been shredded. Well, we thought we were well and truly snookered, stuck in the middle of nowhere with only three tyres. The car we have doesn't have a spare tyre, you get a can with some liquid foam type of stuff in it (is that technical
enough for you) which is supposed to fix a flat tyre until you can get it sorted. Well, I tell you that can
was going to be no good with that tyre.
I did ask David why he had gone so close to the booth and he said it was so I could reach the machine, goodness knows how short he thinks my arms are! In his defence it was harder for him to gauge how close we are as the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car for their booths. The annoying thing is we had gone through so many already with no problems.
Anyway, we drove a little bit clear of the booths to examine the damage and have a little freak out moment. Thinking we were well and truly stuck, David set off to see if we could get some help while I eyed up the land, considering whether we were going to have to pitch our tent, which was in the boot of the car.
David quickly reappeared with two guys. The first one he spoke to had looked at him like he was an
alien, thinking he sort of sounds like he is speaking English but not quite. So guy number one told him to wait while he got someone else, he came back with the second guy who was also Serbian, he realised as soon as David spoke that he was Scottish. He was actually quite excited that we were Scottish as he hadn't spoken to anyone from Scotland before, I tell you he understood us very well.
He said that a lot of people burst their tyres there, looked at the tyre then offered to drive David to a garage to see if we could get a new one. The problem was that basically we were in the middle of the
countryside, the nearest garage was in a village so had a limited range of tyres and it was Saturday
and most places were either totally shut on a Saturday or shut early and wouldn't open again until Monday. With fingers crossed I watched David disappear with the man, clutching the tyre which he had removed from the car and I sat on the verge to wait. It seemed ages before they returned by that time I had visualised the best place to put the tent, scared off two street dogs and people watched
everyone going through the tolls. There was one car that stopped to use the not very nice looking loos
and the amount of people who clambered out was incredible, it was like a comedy sketch.
Thankfully, when David did eventually reappear he had another tyre, however it was slightly smaller than the other three we already had but it was better than nothing. Rather cautiously we set off on the road with me in particular constantly thinking , does the car sound funny, is it moving funny but no, we not only got to Croatia we also managed to get back to Bulgaria where we managed to get a new tyre.
So it goes to show, you can find heroes anywhere, that Serbian man who helped us at the toll booth saved the day and he wouldn't even take any money for his help, or the petrol used. Although to David's disgust he seemed to know a lot about Hearts football club, not good when David is a Hibee!
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