Our visit to Croatia was a part of our car journey from the UAE to the Czech Republic. Since we were towards the end of our trip, we only spent 2 nights in Zagreb and then continued north to Slovenia.

Day 0.5: The First Night

I call this the day 0.5 since we crossed the border to Croatia from Kostajnica (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in the evening and drove directly to Zagreb looking for a place to stay. The day before we saw that there was a large park called Jarun on the south-west side of Zagreb, so we headed there to chance our arm. It turned out to be one of the best finds of our trip.

The park around lake Jarun is an amazing spot of you are overlanding. The entrance is super cheap and no one bothered us the whole time there. It's not far from downtown (we walked) and it has toilets and shops nearby.

We paid 2€ for entrance to the park (in 2022 prices were still in Kunas but the guy at the gate was nice). The park was deserted at night and also it was the beginning of winter, so we had ample spots to pick from. This park for 2€ became our camping spot for the next two nights.

After quickly checking the park, we went to the nearby pizza place (Matej: YES!) to have dinner and watch the World Cup (Clare: YES!). I’m not 100% sure but I think we watched the Argentina : Mexico game.

Day 1: Zagreb

We left the car in the park and headed by foot to the city (we did that since we were expecting to have some drinks during the day). It wasn’t the shortest walk (about 2 hours) but we like these strolls since it’s a great way how to see other parts of the town and wake up.

We crisscrossed the old town, and since it was advent, the city was clad in Christmas colors and ornaments, and we stopped and several Christmas markets, bought some presents, and got some mulled wine.

We planned our trip to Zagreb to fall on the same day when Croatia played Canada in the World Cup. The game wasn’t on until late evening, hence we had enough time to walk the entire city. We walked as far as Park Maksimir, tried some local pastries, and even placed a bet on the day’s football games (F*ing Japan ruined my day!)

We ended up watching the game on a big screen in front of the Pivnica Mali Medo. There were many locals and Croatia ended up winning 4:1 so it was a great night. We ended up walking all the way back to our car and Clare cooked a quick dinner.

Day 2: Samobor

We had to make it to Ljubljana, Slovenia for the night and wanted to see more out of Croatia with our limited time, so we headed to the nearby town of Samobor.

Samobor is located only about a 30-minute drive from Zagreb and 8 minutes from the border crossing with Slovenia. We went for a walk up to the Samobor Castle and were able to navigate the forest path to the other side of the town and straight to the square.

After Samobor, we had to say goodbye to Croatia and headed for the border with Slovenia. Croatia has a load to offer and we hope that we will have the chance to come back again to see Dubrovnik, the Istria peninsula, Plitvička Jezera, and others.