On Saturday, May 5th 2018, we arrived in Pécs in Hungary, where my wife was born.
After several days of rest, on Thursday, May 10th, in the afternoon, I drove to Zagreb in Croatia, that is only 250 km from Pécs.
There I met Velimir (@velimir) who was kind enough to let me use his apartment for two nights.
We went to the center of the city and walked there for some time. I did not take many pictures.
The equestrian statue of ban Josip Jelačić on Ban Jelačić Square
Is this where Marcel Dubrovnik (@marcel.dubrovnik) lives?
Then we went it a nice vegan restaurant and had dinner, before retiring for the night.
On Friday morning, Velimir came to get me with his Kawasaki Vulcan 900 motorbike and we first went to an interesting café/restaurant in the middle of a spontaneous forest to have coffee.
From what I understand, it is the Zagreb section of the Croatian Mountaineering Association (Hrvatski planinarski savez).
After coffee, we rode to the town of Samobor, west of Zagreb.
In the middle of the city, there is a locomotive and two train cars. This is what remains of the railway that went from Zagreb to Samobor, but was closed in the seventies.
A channeled creek, the Gradna, flows in the middle of Samobor. It is currently low, but as I understand, at the beginning of Spring, when the snow melts, it can be quite high.
Near the creek, there are several trees that must be at least 300 years old.
From the town, we could see the ruined Samobor castle.
Samobor castle
We then took a climbing road that follows the creek. The goal was to get to a restaurant and have lunch there. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed.
The creek was very small where we stopped, as we were close to its source.
We went back to Samobor and had lunch in a nice restaurant, where I was able to have a very good vegan lunch.
Then, we returned to Zagreb.
On Saturday morning, I went back to Pécs.
On the road, in the village of Veliki Zdenci, in Croatia, I saw six stork nests on tops of electric poles. I also saw two more in Darány, in Hungary.
I was very happy to meet again Velimir in Zagreb. We had first met in Lisbon during SteemFest2.
I will come back to Croatia and Zagreb to have a proper touristy visit, and I am sure we will meet again, Velimir and myself.
