Finally we are allowed: next travel goes to Slovenia and Croatia!

After 1.5 years of Covid-19, when the world was in lockdown we are now slowly able to travel again! Hooray! At the end of the month (July) I will get my second and last vaccine, so I'm fully vaccinated and allowed to cross some borders. My last travel was in 2019 (to Canada), so it's time for another adventure! This time the journey won't be by airplane (too much of a hassle in these times), but by car. We are going to Slovenia and Croatia. Both countries were part of Yugoslavia until early 90s. More information about these countries below.

Slovenia
Except for the very touristic (Lake) Bled Slovenia has beautiful landscapes to offer which reminds of the Rocky Mountains in the west of Canada. Besides that Slovenia has recently discovered Karst caverns, where remains of human activity dating from 45,000 years B.C.(!!) has been found. The first civilization that stayed permanently in Slovenia (of course it wasn't named like this at that time) were the Indo-Europeans, Celts and Illyrians. Later on the Romans, Franks and Habsburg empire took over the country. After the First World War the country merged together with some other countries and from then on it was called Yugoslavia. After president Tito's death, who ruled Yugoslavia with an iron fist, the Yugoslavian republic fell apart and Slovenia became an independent country which currently is part of the EU, has the euro as currency and is part of the Schengen zone.

Croatia
This country is already inhabited for ten thousand years by mankind. Starting from the fourth century B.C. Croatia is inhabited by Celts and Greeks. Some centuries later the Romans settled in this country. Many centuries later again the Hungarians took over the country (also parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina), after a while they lost the Bosnian parts to the Ottomans. After the First World War the first shapes of a merging took place between some countries in the Balkan, what eventually led to the foundation of Yugoslavia. After the Second World War president Tito ruled Yugoslavia and made it into a communist state. When Tito passed away Yugoslavia slowly fell apart and one after the other country became independent. At the same time ethnic cleansing took place on a massive scale which led to a war. Peace was signed in 1995. Nowadays, Croatia is a touristic attraction (it's in the top 20 most popular holiday destinations in Europe). Croatia does still have its own currency: the Croatian kuna even though it's part of the EU. In 2022 Croatia will probably change the currency to euro.

(source: landenwijzer.nl, in Dutch)

My adventure will start on August 25 and will take 3 weeks (until September 15). Of course, I hope you will follow my blog faithfully, I'm happy I can finally go again! :D

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