Osijek Croatia

Osijek, Croatia


Yesterday we came by train from Budapest in Hungary to Osijek in northern Croatia. The train ride was long (6 hrs ) and it was the first time that we were stopped at any border and asked for our passports. We were first stopped by the Hungary custom guards and then by the Croatian guards who sent the dogs aboard as well.

Our new group at the train

Lots of argricultural land in this area

We are now with a new group for the next two weeks, a much smaller group than before with only four others besides us. We have four Australians, a young couple, and two single ladies. I think that it will be a very good group to travel with for the next two weeks.

We stayed the last two nights in a family home in the city of Osijek, which is the fourth largest city in Croatia located on the right bank of the Drava river about 25 km upstream from the Danube. Due to its location by the border of Serbia and Croatia it was hard hit during the recent conflict in 1990s and still bears the scars on many of its buildings. It is a very beautiful town with lots of open spaces and walking trails particularly down by the river.

Don reading his email in the kitchen

We went for a walk with the husband of the owner who was born here and he gave us a great tour about the area, particularly about some of the social impacts of the recent war here in the Balkans.

The former grand mansions on the main street

An example of a bombed building left with the red symbolizing the dead killed in the war

Our group walking along the river,there were many families and couples walking also

We also went out for a meal at a local restaurant where we had a goulash of wild game, boar and venison served in a paprika sauce over homemade noodles with sour cream and herbs. Again very delicious and what is even better in this town are the pastry shops on every corner and the 24 hour one on the corner next to our accommodation.

Our goulash and noodles

We were up early and gone for a walk around by ourselves. Don needed a new pair of shoes so we shopped for them, changed our money into kunas and then sat with the locals and watched the world go by. We just love the way the people here love to sit, chat, drink coffee and people watch for hours. We sometimes wonder who works around here!





Then we took the local bus to a town about an hour away called Vukovar. This town was completely destroyed in 1991 and although somewhat rebuilt it still has many spaces which have not been restored. Here we walked with a Croatian who is a Serb and heard his version of history. He works with a NGO which is here trying to work on Reconciliation. However in this town there is almost total segregation of Serbs and Croatians, they go to separate schools, churches and even cafes. It seems this is a recipe for another civil war. We couldn’t believe that in this time there are places that are set up based on hatred of one another because of such a recent history of ethnic cleansing, not much different than what Hitler did but on a much smaller scale.

Our guide by one of the bombed buildings

There were many streets with bombed houses full of bullet holes that were never lived in again

We went under the hospital to visit the rooms where many lived during the war, however when they came up many of them were still killed

One story that stuck with me was when we passed a Kindergarten school it was pointed out that the Serbian children entered from one side through separate entrances while the Croatian children came by another road and another entrance. In the playground there is a high wall where the children play in separate spaces. Now they are raising the children to believe they are so different from each other that they cannot even play together!!

When we returned our leader, Kris, had prepared a bbq for us with many of the typical meats from here, spicy sausage and of course pork! We went in on the vegetables, breads and desserts.

Yeah bbq over real coals!