A weekend in Croatia

We crossed the border from Bosnia into Croatia late afternoon. We had every intention of driving straight through Croatia into Slovenia and onto Italy.

Neither of us had ever been to Croatia, we have heard its a beautiful country. We would really love to see and experience Croatia, but we had heard lots from van lifers and motorhomers that it is not very ‘van friendly’ and that it is quite expensive. We’d also heard that wild camping is not allowed and you have to stay on campsites. Because it was August, the height of summer and the school holidays campsites were at least €50 a night, many even more and also very booked up. With all this information we decided that we would just drive through.

Ozalj

Then it was getting late and Dee was getting tired so I decided to look on our Park4Night app and see if there was anywhere we could spend the night. We were close to a place called Ozalj, there was a park up right by a lake and it was free and had 5 star reviews.

We were about to drive down onto the lake when we spotted a police car. We pulled over and Dee went and asked the policemen if it was ok for us to drive down there, they said yes. He then asked if it was ok for us to spend the night there and again they said yes.

As we drove down a guy on a motorbike directed us into the parking space. Dee offered him a beer to say thank you. We started chatting to him and his girlfriend and ended up having an evening with them drinking beer and wine and ordering pizza.

It turned out that she was a swimmer and we got to have a dip in the lake too taking our wine with us (obviously be sensible if you do ever do this!)

In the morning there were loads of people arriving at the lake. All dressed in sports wear and in various teams. We found out that it was a sports day for all the local regions .

They were all very friendly and welcoming. They loved the fact that we were travelling in a motorhome and asked us lots of questions about where we had been and where we were going.

Ozalj is a small town in the central Croatia, about 66km away from Croatia’s capital Zagreb. In the town there is a castle. There are also some walking paths and cycling trails close by.

We decided to stay at the lake for another night and day as it was so nice there. We didn’t actually go into the town or to the castle, we just enjoyed being at the lake.

As you can see it was also a perfect place for yoga as well as a great swimming spot. It was a lovely relaxing weekend.

We left Croatia and headed for the Slovenian border after 2 nights at this lovely lake park up.

It was nothing like we expected after hearing about how it wasn’t van or motorhome friendly so we were very pleasantly surprised. Maybe because Ozalj is not a particularly touristy place? We hope to return one day and see some more of Croatia, probably out of high season and in a smaller van.

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