**  CROATIA 2008  - Weeks 9~10  **

        This week's Photo Gallery

   Bottom of Page

   Return to Index Page

CROATIA 2008 - inland Croatia, Slavonia and the borders of Bosnia, Serbia and Hungary:

It was a bright sunny May morning when we left Camp Slapić to begin our real adventure into Slavonia, with only the vaguest ideas of where we should camp. We turned off south-east from the A3 autocesta (motorway), and headed towards Sisak. What a dramatic contrast in topography and scenery here, where the flat lands of the Sava valley stretched away to the distant low hills of inland Croatia. A minor road winding along the northern bank of the sluggishly meandering River Sava brought us to the Lonjsko Polje Nature Reserve. The single street villages were lined with traditional oak-timbered houses of the region, with overhanging eaves and doors at first-floor level reached by outside covered staircases; and at Čigoč, we saw our first storks' nests perched on house roof-tops (Photo 1 - traditional Lonjsko Polje timber-built house with resident stork). It was here also that we made a serendipitous discovery: the Tradicije Čigoč was a traditional timber-built house built by the enterprising Barić family, originally refugees from the Bosnian wars, who had just started an agro-tourism venture with camping facilities in the rear paddock. We were their first visitors.

Click on map for details

At such a perfect setting for our first camp looking out over the Polje wetlands, storks wheeled overhead, returning to their nests from food-gathering forays with noisy bill-clattering greetings to their young. The Sava wetlands are home to hosts of insects, frogs, fish and snakes, providing rich food resources for the storks which nest each year in Čigoč.  Our walks out into the Polje gave much opportunity for bird observation despite the swarms of endemic midges, including watching a huge colony of nesting spoonbills and Purple Herons at Krapje Đol.

Following the meanders and ox-bow lakes of the Sava River, we reached Jasenovac, a small town with a hugely baleful history. From 1991, the town had been occupied by the Serbs, who 'ethnically cleansed' the Croat population, looting homes and dynamiting the Catholic church. They were forcefully driven out by the Croat Operation Flash in 1995 and just beyond the railway bridge, we were confronted with a sinister reminder of this period - the rusting, burnt-out remains of a Serbian tank by the road side and the inevitable mines warning signs. The place still had a sorry and forlorn air with the scars of war evident everywhere in the form of bombed-out houses and the wrecked shell of the former Sava Hotel. But what truly sets Jasenovac apart in the annals of barbarity was being the site of the notorious concentration camp set up by the WW2 Croatian fascist Ustaše puppet-regime. Here unknown thousands of Serbs, Jews, gypsies and Croat anti-fascist opponents were eliminated. Memories and imagery of Jasenovac have been exploited by both Serbian and Croatian propagandists in the intervening years, exaggerating or minimising the alleged numbers of victims to suit political needs. The camp's site was turned into a memorial park in the 1960s, the most prominent feature being a massive concrete sculpture in the form of an opening tulip; a bronze plaque shows an outline of the death-camp's enormous scale (Photo 2 - memorial sculpture at site of Jasenovac concentration camp).

Driving from the Sava valley up into the hills of the interior, we passed through a further series of villages, all showing evident signs of war damage and bombed-out churches. Pakrac was another forlorn town with a number of wrecked buildings and apartment blocks still pock-marked from shrapnel. The amount of unrepaired war damage was severe. The town must have had a significant Serb population, and here before our eyes was the stark evidence of 'ethnic cleansing' (a ghastly euphemism for wanton looting, rape and murder): amid re-built homes along the main street, pock-marked, decaying houses abandoned by their owners gave constant reminder of former neighbours who had been driven out by ethnic hatred. The burnt-out shell of a former restaurant, the sign still showing, stood starkly at a corner; was the former owner's only fault to have been of the 'wrong ethnicity' to suit the gangs of armed thugs (of whichever side) who had committed this monstrous barbarity? As we drove eastwards from Pakrac through farming settlements scattered along a wooded valley, things became far worse. In one village just beyond Španovica, almost every house and barn was wrecked; along the lower valley side, all the brushwood and trees had been uprooted and the ground marked out with a grid-plan of red plastic tape; here mine clearance work was still taking place (Photo 3 - mine clearance operations near Pakrac) with unexploded mines warning signs all around. We pulled in alongside the shell of a ruined house which was draped with white tape with the words MINES along its length. We did not hang around to investigate further! The drive along this valley was an utterly depressing and heart-rending experience; in pre-war days, it must have been a predominantly Serb-occupied area, with peaceful farming folk eking out a living from small holdings, until, that is, bestial ethnic hatred spread death, destruction and terror among the community. How many of these people had been shot on their own door step for refusing to leave? And where now are those who fled as refugees? You can read about the impact of war on civilian population, but to come face to face with the realities among these peaceful hills was truly gruelling. A small cameo which would long stay in our recollection was the sight of two small school children with their satchels standing by the road side waiting for the school bus alongside a mines warning sign.

Over into the next valley, we reached Požega, a town similar in size to Pakrac, but with not a trace of unrepaired war damage. Brightly coloured palatial Baroque buildings filled the square and the town exuded a modern air of confidence with trendily dressed youngsters striding assuredly through streets lined with lively cafés; such contrast with the forlorn feel of Pakrac with its wrecked churches, abandoned homes, unrepaired war damage marking almost every building, and the mainly elderly residents with downcast air. In fact, both towns had suffered equally during the Homeland War (the memorial at Požega commemorated the town's 102 war dead). The difference was that the degree of post-war revival and reconstruction all hinged on a town's economic well-being: the more affluent Požega had somehow managed to preserve its industrial infrastructure and economically was in a position to repair the damage; in contrast the economically-depressed Pakrac had lost its industry. Well-fed people with jobs look happier than those with low standard of living and no prospects. Slavonski Brod back in the Sava valley on the Bosnian border was our next port of call. We had passed this way in 1974 on our way to Banja Luka and Sarajevo, but today there seemed little appealing about Slavonski Brod other than the earthwork remains of the former Habsburg fortress (built to keep out the Turks); the tourist information staff seemed indifferent to the fact that absence of campsite did nothing to entice visitors to spend money in their town.

We pressed on eastwards along the autocesta (motorway) heading towards a lone campsite at Spačva just 8 kms short of the Serbian border near to Lipovac. The Autocesta had originally been built in the early Tito period linking Zagreb to Belgrade, to help speed post-war reconstruction embodying the optimistic spirit of Yugoslav socialist-idealism and constructed in part by brigades of students; 'We build the road and the road builds us' was a popular propaganda slogan of the time. Officially named the Motorway of Brotherhood and Unity, the Autocesta somehow aptly symbolised the failure of Tito's idealism - a road going nowhere, other than the Serb border. We recalled passing this way in 1974 when the road was rough bone-shaking concrete; in 1991 it had provided a fast means for the Yugoslav National Army's (JNA) tanks to invade Slavonia. The flat, open agricultural terrain gave way to endless forests, and in these lonely wild lands we eventually found the one and only official campsite in Slavonia hidden in dark woods behind the Spačva Hotel motorway service station, a far from secure-feeling setting given the passing trucks on what was clearly a major east-west freight route. It felt like stepping back in time to the Tito era; you could imagine this as originally an encampment for those who had built the road, except that it had been devastated in the wars - who, we wondered, had stayed here since? Despite our misgivings, we had no choice but to use this as a base for visiting the Slavonian towns of Đakovo and Vinkovci. Đakovo is a delightful town, dominated by the slender spires of its monumental 19th century Cathedral, built by Bishop Strossmayer (Photo 4 - Đakovo and its Cathedral). But the day's highlight was lunch at the Croatia-Turist restaurant, renowned for its local Slavonian cuisine (Kulan spicy paprika sausage, Čobanac rich beef gulaš stew, Šumski Odrezak pork fillet stuffed with wild mushrooms) and its larger than life owner Ivan Balog, who totally surrealistically chats with you in fluent French. If you pass this way, this is a must!

With the service station lorry park just 100m away, Spačva had been a noisy and tense place to camp and we were glad to move on, turning inland just before the border-crossing with Serbia to the war-ravaged village of Lipovac. A new bridge had replaced the one evidently blown up during the war, and the presence of scoured woodland and an armoured bulldozer showed that mine-clearance work was still taking place. The road led across the Slavonian farmland to Vukovar on the west bank of the Danube, a once prosperous town with successful manufacturing industry. But its ethnically mixed population (44% Croat and 37% Serb) and proximity to the Serbian province of Vojvodina drew Vukovar into the most savagely brutal barbarity of the war. In April 1991 inter-ethnic tensions flared, provoked by extremists on both sides. Barricades went up in the suburbs of Borovo, Croat policemen were shot and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav National Army (JNA) moved in ostensibly to separate the opposing factions but in fact digging in to strategic positions. Serb irregulars and the JNA besieged the town preventing anyone from leaving, and Croat refugees fled into the crowded centre. By October with constant shelling and bombing, Vukovar was devastated and its citizens surviving in appalling conditions. Despite an heroic defence, Vukovar finally fell in November 1991, with most of the survivors fleeing to the hospital. The worst atrocity occurred when the Serbs cleared the hospital the day before the agreed evacuation by the Red Cross; those captured were driven away in trucks to be murdered outside the town. Some 2,300 soldiers and civilians died in the defence of Vukovar and a further 2,600 are still missing; recovery of bodies from mass graves is still taking place 16 years later. The centre of town was utterly destroyed by the siege, while the outside world, its attention diverted by the more TV-photogenic siege of Dubrovnik, paid little heed (Photos 5 and 6 - devastation of homes and public buildings in Vukovar, from Serb bombardment during the 1991 siege).

As we walked into the town, it was just beyond comprehension what conditions would have been like during the siege and how anyone could have survived. But despite the war-time devastation, Vukovar is beginning to rise from the ashes; everywhere the results of reconstruction were evident alongside the many remaining buildings which still bear the scars of wartime shelling (Photo 7 - reconstruction at Vukovar after the 1991 destruction). The new modern Lav Hotel stands proudly alongside the burnt-out shell of its war-wrecked predecessor, and nearby the white cross memorial to those killed in the siege faces across the Danube to the wooded Serbian embankment opposite. On the eastern side of the town, the shell-torn Vukovar water-tower still stands, now flying the Croat flag, a proud landmark-memorial to the siege visible for miles around. Determined to make even a small contribution to Vukovar's reviving economy, we treated ourselves to lunch by the Danube (Photo 8 - lunch of fiš paprikaš by the Danube at Vukovar).

A couple of miles outside the town on the road to Ilok stands Vukovar's War Cemetery, laid out on the site of Europe's largest mass grave since WW2. In stunned silence, we walked over to where stark rows of 938 white crosses symbolically commemorate the dead from the 1991 defence of Vukovar. Nearby the tombs of the mainly young defenders stand, decorated with masses of flowers, each bearing the names and dates of the dead with the honorific Hrvatski Branitelj (Croatian Defender). Even more chilling however were the lines of unmarked, empty graves awaiting the discovery of more mass graves. (Photo 9 - Vukovar War Cemetery with graves of those killed defending the town). And as if to underline the horrors of 1991, yet more mines warning signs stood by the nearby woodland. Vukovar bears the scars of so many tragedies and a constant stream of families attended the cemetery with wreathes and flowers to lay at the tombs of their young relatives buried here. At the nearby farming settlement of Ovčara, the Memorial House to the 200 Vukovar hospital victims is set out in one of the barns where, after the town's fall in November 1991, JNA troops and Serbian Chetnik paramilitaries beat and tortured those captured, mainly medical personnel and wounded civilians. Over 200 victims, ages ranging from 16 to 72, were taken along the lane, murdered in cold blood and buried in a mass grave. One Serbian officer was eventually convicted for this war crime and given a mere 5 years prison sentence. During the Vukovar siege, over 1,700 such murders were carried out by the JNA and Chetniks; additionally, at least 2,800 Croats captured in Vukovar were taken away to concentration camps in Serbia and few have been heard of since. The Memorial House was a truly searing experience, with names of the victims set around the walls, and items of personal possessions found on the exhumed bodies laid out in glass cases. A memorial plaque stands at the site of the Ovčara mass grave (Photo 10 - Memorial plaque at the mass grave of Vukovar hospital's 200 murdered victims).

We continued eastwards along the Danube through a series of villages where the number of war damaged, derelict churches suggested that this area took the brunt of Serb aggression in 1991. Beyond the villages of Bapska and Šarengrad, the easternmost corridor of Croatian territory narrows to just 3 kms wide towards the Serbian border at Ilok. Here the hillsides are now covered with the Ilok vineyards which were destroyed during the Serb occupation but since 1998 have been replanted and wine production flourishes again (Photo 11 - the grapes of the Ilok vineyards ). Although unknown outside Croatia, the dry white wines of Ilok are excellent, with grape varieties such as Graševina, Bijelo Pinot, Chardonnay, Rizling and our favourite Traminec. Beyond Ilok we reached the border crossing to Serbia (Photo 12 - Croatia's most easterly point - the Serb border-crossing to Bačka Palanka); this had to be our turning point. Our homeward journey started here, but we needed a campsite for tonight. It was here that the blessed St Serendipity came to our rescue once more: pausing by the Danube at the little river port of Šarengrad, we noticed a small bar-restaurant on the grassy river bank. Over the first of many beers, the ebullient owner Krešimir Kovačević readily agreed to our camping here. His great grandfather, a retired Danube river-boat captain, had originally bought the riverside house here at Šarengrad (hence its name, the Kapetanova Kuča), but with the 1991 Serb invasion, the family like so many others had been forced to abandon their home, fleeing as refugees. When they returned 7 years later, everything had been looted or destroyed. Krešimir himself had led a brigade of 60 volunteers in the defence of Vukovar; of the original 60, only 10 survived the siege, and of these only Krešimir and his 2 comrades remained (the wound scars on their bodies told their own story), the rest having since committed suicide. The tragedy of Vukovar continues into the next generation, the survivors' lives marred by post-traumatic shock syndrome, depression, alcoholism, suicide and family break-up.

We enjoyed the family's hospitality for an unforgettable weekend, camped on the banks of the wide, fast-flowing River Danube at the Kapetanova Kuča: on the Saturday evening we enjoyed more fiš paprikaš and were entertained with traditional Slavonian music by a local tamburica band (a sort of mandolin string instrument); after a boat ride on the Danube, Sunday lunch was fried Danube fish caught by Krešimir's elderly father, a real character with trim white moustache and twinkling blue eyes. Our camp on the river bank was marked by kilometre-post 1306 (ie that distance from the Danube's Black Sea outflow), and all day long, enormous barges ploughed up and down stream; the Danube was clearly still a major freight highway. We should indeed always remember Vukovar, and the wonderfully generous hospitality given by Krešimir and his extended family at the Kapetanova Kuča; all that we had learnt about the re-building of lives scarred by tragedy somehow gave a personal slant to the Phoenix-like re-birth of Vukovar. Our lasting memory was the sight of Krešimir's elderly mother waving to us as we drove away on the Monday morning.

Returning through Vukovar, the suburb of Borovo where the inter-ethnic nationalistic fratricide had first begun in early 1991 was still clearly occupied by a largely Serb population since most of the signs were dual language, Croat and Serb-Cyrillic, and amid a group of high rise flats, one unoccupied block stood out scarred with blackened shell-gashed holes. It was still an impoverished area 15 years after the fighting. After a passing visit to the border village of Erdut, where the 1995 US enforced Agreement ending the fighting in Slavonia restored the region to Croatia in 1998, we headed for Osijek, the capital of Slavonia on the banks of the Drava river. The city had survived shelling by the Serbs but its economy was badly damaged by the war. Even so, today the trams trundle through the busy streets and people go earnestly about their business. After a day across the border in southern Hungary to re-visit places last seen in 2005  <Web pages from Hungary 2005>,  we wild-camped at the Kopački Rit Nature Reserve, Europe's largest wetlands formed by back-flowing waters at the confluence of the briskly-flowing Drava with the sluggish Danube. Exploring the wetlands by boat, we had good sightings of the Reserve's characteristic White-Tailed Eagles and Black Storks.

After a long drive across northern Croatia, we fitted in a day at Varaždin, a former Habsburg fortified border town; the glorious Baroque churches and palaces of its centre are testimony to its 18th century opulence. It's a lively and prosperous town, one of the few whose economy was spared the ravages of the 1991~5 war. Although unaffected by the fighting, Varaždin did witness one of the war's bizarre episodes: in September 1991, the Serb-dominated Yugoslav National Army (JNA) regional commander Vlado Trifunović surrendered his garrison to avoid fighting between his troops and Croat forces. As a result, the embryonic Croat army acquired their first tanks and heavy artillery; as a consequence, on his return to Belgrade Trifunović was tried for treason and sentenced to 12 years in jail.

Our time in Croatia was drawing to a close, and our last couple of days were spent in the Risjnak National Park set among the remote wooded hills of Croatia's north-western corner. Beyond the town of Delnice, a narrow road wound up into the hills, and just after the scattered alpine settlement of Crni Lug, we found wild-camping potential at the National Park's entrance. A forest trail which wove among the hills and alpine meadows gave plenty of scope for learning about the fauna, vegetation and geology of the wooded Karst terrain. Dusk seemed to set in fast that evening at our 2,500 feet high wild camp, and to her amazement Sheila got a fleeting glimpse of a bulky animal outline scrambling up the grassy bank opposite: it was a brown bear which along with lynx are still endemic to these wooded hills. The following morning, we set off on our final drive, around the dismal tower blocks of Rijeka and back to the border crossing into Slovenia. We treated ourselves to a couple of days R and R at Venice, before beginning the long drive back across France; our wine stocks needed some replenishment! After 3 months on the road, it was to be home now for a summer breathing space, time to reflect on our Croatian venture and consider where our autumn trip would turn.

Sheila and Paul	Published: Wednesday 2 July 2008
Postscript edition to be published in 2 weeks

		This week's Photo Gallery
		Top of News Page
		Return to Index Page

Music this week: Croatian folk dance

Denmark 2007

Sicily 2007

Alsace 2006

Greece 2006

Hungary 2005

Pyrenees 2005

Slovenia 2004

Greece 2004

Home Page	Site Plan	Who we are	Publications	Email us