We were picked up a bit before 9am by our driver, Mario, for our transfer from Plitvice to Opatija. He loves to chat thankfully that stopped after a while, we enjoy our peace.
But I get ahead of myself, yesterday I swapped our SIM cards over to our 2nd set for our trip (I got two 30 day SIMs each for the trip) and found Deb’s didn’t work. I got onto the issuing company and they got onto it. This morning I found out from them that both our new SIMs were faulty! Hopefully all will be resolved by the end of today.
The countryside is very green up this way, still high peaks and deep flat valleys, just very green. 
We are in bear country. There aren’t that many and they tend to come out late in the day.
Along the way there were many abandoned houses. Apparently when the 1990’s war broke out many people fled overseas and have never returned. So the houses have gone to ruin and they cant be repaired without the owners consent and mostly, the owners can’t be found, so they sit and rot.
Turns out our driver isn’t the fastest around, we seem to be overtaken regularly and he is coughing a lot, but he put it down to hayfever.
The area we were going through about an hour into our trip had quite a few cows grazing and many plum trees. The locals make plum brandy with their personal fruit, only mid 30 % alcohol! (Grappa has alcohol in the mid 40’s)
We went through a town called Otocac, there was still lots of evidence of the war.
One woman in the town lost her husband and her 4 sons in the war.
We went through the longest road tunnel in Croatia, around 6km long (5821m), the Mala Kapela Tunnel. Started in 2002, the first tunnel was finished in 2005 and the 2nd in 2009. The 1st tunnel was used in 2 directions until the 2nd was completed.
The northern inland part of Croatia we drove through is often referred to as little Switzerland due to the high snowfall and very cold temperatures. (-15C)
Arrived in Opatija at 1pm and were very happy that our room was ready, check-in was meant to be at 3pm. We got a tour through the hotels facilities, a glass of sparkling proseco each and then made our way to our room.
We had a late lunch at a local cafe, Spicy tortillas all round, lunch was nice.
Opatija looks very much like a tourist town, full of hotels restaurants and bars. The waterfront is dotted with swimming areas, beachside recreation activities of many sorts, coffee shops, snack bars, restaurants and bars.
After we checked in we went for a walk along the foreshore promenade. There are many fine old hotels along the foreshore. This town like many others shows signs that this was a much more opulent country than it is today. Our hotel was built around 1903, and it looks like most other hotels were built around the same time. I think that was the time the Austrian/Hungarian Empire ruled this part of the world.
We walked past possibly the oldest, small boat harbour in Opatija. There are many stories of local folklore and history attached to it.
A little further around the foreshore was a statue of a woman on a small rocky outcrop.
I will let you workout what it looked like (the pic might give it away as much as the name), it was called “Maiden with the Seagull”. A bit further around we came to The Open Air Theatre. The wall out the front of the theatre had murals of great people in the arts and sciences from around the world. 
We then walked up through the Angiolina Gardens, a large garden with a few old historic houses and formal gardens and walkways through it. We got as far as the Opatija Yacht Club then walked back through the gardens to the main road.
There were more fine old hotels and buildings lining the street all the way back to our hotel.
For dinner, we went to a restaurant recommended to us by the concierge at our hotel,Najade (our first choice was booked out). 
Dinner was at a small waterside restaurant called Najade, Deb had squid and I had scampi, and we shared a salad. It was very nice and unrushed. After dinner we went for a walk on a nearby stone jetty. While we were on the jetty, Deb asked one of the fishermen if he had caught anything. He said, with a cheeky grin, yes, Fish!! We all laughed, fisho’s, the same everywhere.
A good night, and good night all.
