Driving to Slovenia we again chose to take the scenic route rather than take the highway to Zagreb and then to Slovenia from there. Instead we took the scenic road to Karlovac and then straight north across the border from there.
The was a very small road through a hilly landscape consisting mostly of farms and forests. A great and very enjoyable drive.
When we arrived to Karlovac I noticed a field just outside the city limits where they had deposited a lot of military hardware such as tanks, planes and artilery.
We decided to stop and have a look and it was almost like a museum, but there didn't seem to be anyone taking and entrance fee. There were also a number of bombed out buildings surrounding the field.
Karlovac was badly damaged during the war. Especially the southern part where this field was was totally destroyed. It was pretty much on the frontline between the croats and the serbs. The United nations tried to keep the parties apart, but the croats detroyed the UN observation posts.
The serbs responded with a heavy bombardment of Karlovac firing 5-6,000
grenades into the city every day (that is a lot) as well as by firing
missiles into Zagreb.
One of the things on display was one very much shot up and crashed Mig 21...I would assume from the Yugoslav/Serbian Army based on the markings.
The Croatian markings were different on the other Mig21 on display.
Besides from this there were a lot of other hardware such as tanks and artilery as well as one russian missile launcher. I am pretty sure the first tank is an M84 and I think the other ones are Russian T55's.
It was obvious that most of the equipment here had been used in action and some of the equipment was improvised and was also badly shot up such as this armoured personel car.
Afterwards we drove through the city itself and it was obvious that the scars of the war on the buildings were very visible just like in Mostar.
Ironically the main industry in Kardovac today is Arms production and they are a major producer and exporter of handguns.
Driving north from Karlovac we entered a mountain range leading us across the border. On the top we found the Slovenian border and crossed it easily.
It was now lunch time and coming down on the other side we started looking for a place to have eat. We found a restaurant at the foorhills and decided to order todays special having no idea what the price was. We decided to skip the initial soup that was part of the menu and went straight to some very solid mains. The waiter then brought us deserts as well. In total the bill came to 18 Euros including drinks...Kim called this the greatest bargain on our trip.
Not far from there we again joined up with the highway that would take us to Bled. After a while we came to the check for Road Tolls. Not knowing how it worked and not sure which lane I was supposed to be in I had to just go through the gates without paying. After another 30 kilometers we encountered we came to another toll gate and this time I decided to go through the truck/bus lane as it seemed like this one had a cashier. I asked him how the system worked and he said that I had to purchase a weekly pass (so we did). I also asked him what would happen if I didn't have a pass and he told me that I would get a 300 Euro fine...Oouch!!! But he also said that the controls were manual controls, so unless I was stopped I would be ok.....Whewww!!!
The rest of the drive to Bled was a breeze from there on. During our whole trip we used my GPS navigator extensively. Although it wasn't totally accurate all the time for these countries it would still get us most of the way and the driving would definitely have been a lot less enjoyable if we had to use a map all the time.