Friendly people! We were welcomed at customs (border between Hungary and Croatia) by a grumpy Hungarian officer who freaked out at Ross for snapping a photo (and a contrastingly friendly Croatian officer) who explained our customs "receipt" to us....it detailed our bikes as having bells, lamps and the like. Totally bizarre and adorably un-serious information sprinkled into the seriously official border crossing. We were welcomed no less than 6 times upon our arrival to Croatia: to the county, the region, the state, the town and the area, and then the country again. With signs boasting antlers, coasts, steer, grapes, cranes and the county crests we felt very well-received. They just seemed so very excited we had arrived! We also were happy to bike up and over our first hill (though only ~ 50 meters) since our long week in the great Hungarian plains (flat as an ironing board!)
Went through a really sad town the next day, with an intense history. Vukovar, the last city completely destroyed by war since WW2. Site of epic 3 month siege of the Serbian army on this city who population was ~ 40,000. Some 2000 unarmed and locally organized Croatians held them off, but it was one of those "cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face"/pyrric victories where the entire town was blown apart and horrible completely destroyed in the process (Serbs technically won, but the town remained in Croatia after things were re-settled in 1998). Very tangible and eerie, crumbling fire-smudged structure adorned with bullet holes bombed craters abounded. Apparently it has recovered well economically, but it lost 20,000 if it's barely 40,000 (once) inhabitants. Many left with the onset on conflict, or I should say the intensification of a century-long existing conflict between Croats and Serbs, and moved to nearby towns/cities or into new countries entirely.
Also a very famous hospital remains, apparently patients, doctors and nurses holed up in the underground portion of it for several months, and then towards the end were taken to a cornfield ~ 4 km away and tortured and massacred (while the UN was reported to have stood by outside the hospital, inactive). Heavy stuff. Also there were Serbian concentration camps were 5,000+ Croatians were murdered. We hear less about this in our history lessons, but seems similar (if on a smaller scale) to the terror and senseless brutality of the Holocaust if you ask me.
We also had a delightful and perfect fishy meal along the Danube to get into the spirit of the place (and feel good about supporting the local economy). Smoked fish accompanied but fish stew followed by a grilled fish sampler plate with 3 different buttery filets fresh out of the river 10 feet away.
In Osijek (the night before), we stayed in a meh/over-priced hotel (our first hotel in months since we have been mostly warm-showering and camping) but since there are active land-mines in the area we decided to play it safe!
We did have a very exciting dinner that we were almost too tired to enjoy at a local tavern serving very traditional food. Smoked prunes (cooked in the smoker with meat) and fresh radishes were on the table, along with home-made (very dense) white bread and some olive/cheese spreads. We had (more) grilled perch with pickled vegetables and some almost-too-rich steak with wild mushrooms. And at the urging of our incredibly polite, bow-tie clad waitor, some local wines. Meal was too overwhelming for consideration of dessert (what?!) but we were serenaded by the very festive gypsy quintet (violin, accordion, bass, guitar) to sweeten the evening.
Crossed into Serbia the next day, stayed with a very lovely son & mother duo in Backa Palanka...learned a bit more about Serbs/Coatians. We both so wished we had longer in Croatia (merely 36 hours, 12 of which was biking, 8 of sleeping, 3 -5 of eating...too little time to just feel the country's pulse) but we made the hard decision to come back when we can more properly address its awesomeness.
More on Serbia coming up. No idea if people are reading this far. I am writing these posts more for my own memory and documentation of the trip. Anyways, much love to everyone at home. We are about to merge with Nate and cousin Bobby! Yay!
The food does sound great!
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