We had a late morning train to catch so we had a slow morning, walking to the train station by 10 am to catch our train. We were off to Graz across the border into Austria. At Graz we transferred to a train heading to Vienna (Wein as the city is referred to in our Eurail map).

Austria, as we saw before when we passed through and stopped in Innsbruck, has beautiful scenery!

The newspapers provided to the passengers displayed very important international news!!!!

More mountain, farm and village scenery!

We didn’t transfer trains in Vienna, although it was a busy stop. We continued on across the border into the Czech Republic and to Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic after Prague.

We disembarked at the impressive Brno hlavní nádraží (central station), a 20 minute walk to our apartment.

From the apartment, after we settled in a little, we walked back to the station to the largest grocery store and bought meal ingredients, returned and enjoyed a nice evening.

The view, from the small balcony of the apartment, of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul on Petrov hill.

A last look around the neighborhood of the lovely apartment we stayed at for only one night! A large billboard with a map of the area and information in several languages describing the environs of the Mrežnica river.

Another travel day, the last day with the car! We will drive to Zagreb and turn it in then catch a train, cross the border into Slovenia and disembark in Maribor.

Driving through the town of Duga Resa we got this glimpse of the river.

We successfully made it to Zagreb, turned in the car and caught the tram to the train station with enough time to enjoy a few beers before we boarded. The train took us over some of the same track that brought us to Zagreb from Ljubljana back on July 16th! About halfway before the train reached Ljubljana we disembarked and transferred to a train traveling north towards the border with Austria.

Our simple picnic lunch we brought with us onto the train! Hearty brown bread, pate in a squeeze tube, mustard in a squeeze tube and some grilled paprika pepper spread in a jar!

We reached the city of Maribor in Slovenia a short distance before the border and walked the 20 minutes to our apartment. It’s another one night stand so we didn’t do any exploring except to the closest grocery store for salad ingredients!

We woke up to a beautiful blue sky, blue water day! We have a 4 hour drive ahead of us so we had a leisurely morning, breakfast and packing. We drove out of the marvelous medieval village of Novigrad and stopped along the bank of the Karinsko sea for pictures.

The sea has beautiful color and the mountains are storm free!

We then headed for those mountains to take the inland route north.

In the mountains we stopped at this abandoned structure for expansive views of the mountains. Very rocky, with scrubby forest overlay, nevertheless home to a variety of wildlife.

Over the mountains, we descended into lush river valleys, passing the crowded Plitvice National Park and the little village of Rastoke near Slunj, both famous for their waterfalls. Owing to it being high season and dry season, we opted not to visit the parks because of crowds and low water levels. For beautiful pictures of the waterfalls click HERE and HERE.

We continued on to our accommodation in the country near the Mrežnica river and the town of Duga Resa.

A very bucolic setting amid farms on the banks of the river that boasts 93 waterfalls!

We unfortunately did not see any of those waterfalls, they were in the far reaches of the river and we were ready to relax on the patio, enjoying a glass of elderwater homemade by our host, before we headed to the nearby restaurant recommended by her.

Dinner was worth the wait! I had perch in a pumpkin seed crust on a bed of salad with citrus and fennel and pumpkin puree. Robert had grilled trout and fries and a beet root salad that was actually a big bowl of sliced pickled beets! It was all delicious!

After breakfast we walked down the hill to town before it got too hot! Our first stop was the church which looked like it had some renovations ongoing.

The church looked modest from the outside, but the big chandelier, spiral staircase and extensive frescoes belied its simplicity! The frescoes around the door with the round window above give the appearance of opulent drapery!

We then started the climb up to the fortification ruins on the hilltop above town.

We had the ‘castle’ ruins to ourselves this morning.

The panorama from the top, looking down on the main town and the harbor which is the tail end of a huge bay penetrating into the Dalmatian coast called the ‘Karinsko more’ or Carina sea.

Another view looks down on the sweep of the bay opening into the Carina sea, in the distance there’s a bridge over the inlet from the Adriatic into the bay.

With the sky clouding over we started our hike down from the heights into town.

In town we visited the ‘Tower Buta’, originally a guard tower at the city’s great gate, which is now a visitor center. Inside was an exhibit of pictures of people from the Novigrad area that emigrated to America in the late 19th century. They sent pictures back from St. Louis, Missouri, Texas and California, the 3 main areas they emigrated to. The docent described a recent visit by descendants of one of those immigrants! Just then the storm gathered force and the wind started blowing. The docent had to get home and suggested we get going too! We hoofed it back up the hill, grateful for the wind and the expectation that the heat wave might break! We made it back to the Airbnb before the rain and small hail storm! We had a nice break for lunch and a nap, then we headed back out for an early evening walk!

The wind quieted down, but it was still hot!

We made it around the bay to the beach and watched the families enjoying a Saturday evening swimming, sunbathing and picnicking. We found the beachside bar and had our first Croatian beers!

Back at the Airbnb we enjoyed watching the sunset from the top floor balcony of our apartment in the house at the head of a little valley looking toward town.

This morning we finally ventured down to the beach! And I even got into the water!

The water is cool and very salty! Floating was no problem at all. The bottom is cobbly and hard to walk on, especially in flip-flops!

We had breakfast and packed our luggage in the car and drove north towards our next stop. We took the scenic route along the coast as much as we could, including a detour along a bulge on the Adriatic coast, about the center of the ‘Dalmatian Coast’ as the area is known. And yes, “The origins of this breed (the Dalmatian) can be traced back to Croatia and its historical region of Dalmatia.” per Wikipedia!

An intriguing town site along the Dalmatian coast.

We stopped to get a photo of the town of Primosten from this vantage point, and to buy a couple of bottles of wine from a stand manned by 2 young men (one about 10 years old!) from a local winery. The major agricultural products in this area are olives and grapes for wine! We continued on to our next destination in Novigrad, Zadar County. There are 2 Novigrad’s in Croatia, this one and another further north in the region of Istria. The first amazing view of the town as you descend toward the small bay where it is situated, from the Wanderers Compass website.!