Overseas Update

We are near the end of our trip, and it’s been quite an adventure. After stopping in so many different places along the way, it’s become easier to track our progress via traffic violations (more on that later), but suffice to say we’ve had a wonderful time. We have one more day in the capital city of Zagreb, and then we’re looking forward to flying home on Monday.

Zagreb is clearly the largest city in Croatia with a vibrant downtown central district with hundreds of shops, bars, cafés, and restaurants. And like any major metropolitan place it’s full of young people, which is always a stark contrast to the retirement destination we call home.

We spent a beautiful Saturday strolling the streets getting a sense of the place, and today we enjoyed a three-hour ‘Sunday Lunch’ at the famous Esplanade Zagreb Hotel before teaming up with a private tour guide to get a local’s perspective on the city’s history. One interesting note – we enjoyed a wine tasting last night in a 200 year-old wine cellar, curiously located beneath the Syrian embassy. We’re still not sure how that came about.

Traffic Violation #1: The Speeding Ticket

I have to take credit for this one. Apparently I was going about 80 kilometers an hour, which isn’t really very fast, but the speed limit drops down to 50KMH when you drive through town.

I could argue we weren’t really in town yet. We were driving along the Dalmatian coast, which if you’ve ever driven the Pacific Coast Highway in California, it’s quite similar with mountains on one side and water on the other with lots of windy roads. Quite fun really. Lots of speeding up and slowing down. Ups and downs and arounds.

The cop was just standing there with his radar gun in one hand and his “you need to pull over” paddle in the other on one of those pull-off the road spots to admire the view. He waved his paddle art us so I pulled over. He said we were going too fast and said the ticket was going to cost of 500 Kuna (which is about $70).

I told him we didn’t have 500 Kuna, which was sort of a lie, but not really because my dad was holding the cash, and I didn’t really know how much local currency he had in his wallet. I just had a sense that negotiation was an option. He said he could drop the fine to 250 Kuna if we paid him in cash right now. So we paid the fine and on we went.

Traffic Violation #2: The Parking Ticket

I might be willing to take partial credit for this one because I did vouch for the faint yellow lines on either side of our parking space, but I was definitely not driving the car, nor did I pick the parking location.

We stopped in Split on the way from Zadar to Mostar. We left Zadar early in the morning after spending two nights. We had adjusted our schedule to take advantage of some interesting accommodations we found through Airbnb, and we wanted to reduce the amount of driving each day so we had a longer stretch to make it to Mostar, which is across the border in Bosnia.

We arrived around 8:00am on a Sunday morning so there was no one around. We drove straight the to the old town in the city center and parked next to a truck. We walked around for a bit taking in the sights and snapping a few photos along the way. Eventually we stopped for breakfast, and then proceeding to walk up a hill, out of the old town area for another perspective on the city.

It started to rain a little so we turned around and headed back down the hill. Amazingly, after wandering all over a foreign town, we came out right where we had left the car, but unfortunately it wasn’t there.

That’s when we noticed the handicapped parking sign and realized our car had been towed. We asked a street vendor where we might find our car, and they told us to talk to a taxi driver. We walked across to the street to a line of cabs, and when we asked the driver where they tow the cars, he told us to get in and he would take us there.

Apparently this happens on a regular basis because our taxi driver knew the exact location – all the way across town – where the tow truck driver and a police officer were sitting in a tiny little building guarding a gated parking lot full of cars.

This time it took 450 Kuna for the tow, and another 450 Kuna for the parking ticket – minus 150 Kuna if you paid cash – to be set free. We decided this was a racket, and my father described it as a tourist tax.

Traffic Violation #3: The Flat Tire

It’s remotely possible I could take some credit for this one, but I was certainly not driving the car when we got a flat tire driving down the mountain into the tucked-away port town on Kotor in Montenegro.

I had merely said we should turn around because my Google map showed a tight series of switchbacks running down the mountain indicating a faster route to our destination. It was my father who decided to ram the tire over the sharp curb in an attempted U-turn rather than risk a 3-point turn on the busy highway.

It took only seconds before the tire was completely flat, and we were stuck on the side of the road. A busy mountain highway. On a curve.

I was pissed. We’d been driving for hours in the backwoods of Bosnia and Montenegro, and we were so close to our destination. My father seemed to be delighted by the opportunity to change the tire until we realized there was no spare tire, no jack, just a triangular hazard sign to keep the speeding traffic from crashing into us and pushing over the side of the mountain.

About four hours later – with the dark of night fast approaching – our tow truck finally arrived to take us an hour or so out of our way to the nearest tire shop. And after 65 Euro for the tow, and another 65 Euro for the new tire we were on our way. Of course we didn’t have that many Euros, but it was six o’clock (the tire guy stayed open for us), and the car had already been towed, US dollars were negotiable.

Technically it wasn’t a traffic violation, but since there was no tourist tax discount, the flat tire ended up being our most expensive detour. Two days later we returned our rental car in Dubrovnik. Then we flew from Dubrovnik to Zagreb on Croatian Airlines. That was sketchy too, but we made it. We fly home in the morning. Hope to see you soon…

Until next week,

Matthew Anderson, President
Milestone Marketing Associates, Inc.