First foray into Croatia

Eastern bloc art at the crossing

This morning I grabbed my passport and headed to the end of highway 6: the border crossing with Croatia. I knew traffic would be light on a Sunday morning, so this would be a good time to try out our passports; more importantly, I seem to have a desire to explore that my children are not at all eager to encourage, and I can get to the village on the other side of the border without even waking them up.


The crossing was fine, although I had to speak a little more Hungarian than I knew how to provide; interestingly, in the non-town on the other side of the border, the lone Croat there spoke a very comfortable English.

Tiny church

On the Croat side is the merest hint of a village. There were farms and crops, and only one place of business I could find anywhere; and most people seemed to be inside, hopefully enjoying their Sunday morning.

In this picture at left, notice two things: One, that houses are very pleasant in this village, and two, that there is a platform atop the street light, upon which rests a heavy-duty nest.

The highlight of my trip, quite literally, was the abandoned military watch tower that rose from a mound of trees and brush off a dirt road. On a sign off the highway, I read -- in English! -- that this tower had "served for the control of the strictly protected boundary with the former Eastern block."

While I am sure somewhere thousands of miles away, my father is cringing as he's looking at the picture, and though I had hesitations of my own, I saw no lock, no sign, no chain, no impediment save the tangle of nettles at the base and the sting of certainly warranted fear.

But I began to climb, however slowly, over rusted rungs and tired looking bolts. 

At the top, I felt the entire structure sway with my weight. I climbed enough to carefully take a picture of the observation deck and then descended, with great relief. 

But here is what I saw while I was up there, in all four directions:

My last stop was to take a look back at Barcs over the river. I saw the Szabadstrand, the walkway, and the beauty of the river that was ours from both ends.

And then I returned to the European Union once more.