“When you’re overseas and on a trip for awhile, it’s tough to stay groomed. You miss your routine. “
Klay Thompson
Sites/Topics covered in this post:
• Samobor, visiting friends
Go-Date: Day 118, Monday, May 20
Lesson Learned: Travel can be hard. You miss your stuff. You miss your bed, your house, your routine, your friends, and you miss your neighborhood. It can get challenging packing up and moving every week or two to a new town. Sometimes everything goes well, and sometimes you have a bump or two along the way. No matter how it goes you have the stress of the unknown.
We’ve gotten pretty good in dealing with these things, but still there is always a sliver of doubt. I’m not ready to return home yet, but some days on the road are definitely better than others.
Kicking Back in Samobor
Pulling up roots in Pula, we head east back to Samobor.
We hadn’t stayed in Samobor yet, but we’ve visited our friends there on a day trip. Our new friends, that is. We met Nic and Mary K. at a Chinese Tea House in Zagreb on the first day we moved into our Air BNB on the edge of the city center. I won’t share their last name, because I’m still not sure if Nic is wanted by the FBI, Interpol, the Gambini Crime Syndicate, or an ex wife. Strangely, we (Nic, Mary K, Ellen and I) chose the tea house on a whim. I mean, do you really go to Croatia to eat Chinese food? After striking up a conversation, we really hit it off and they invited us to visit them in their home village. Nic and Mary K. retired and moved to Croatia.
Strange as that may seem, it makes sense in that Nic was born here in Croatia down on the coast north of Pula, lived here for 12 years, and still speaks the language fluently. Mary K (bless her trusting little heart) took a leap of faith and followed Nic, as the cost of living here is less than in the US. Well, we’re glad they did and we’ve met up on the road in Pula and have gotten to be good friends. So it made sense to spend a couple of days in Samobor before left Croatia. As an added bonus one of their friends Vera, was visiting them from Michigan at the same time.
Samobor is located west of Zagreb, between the eastern slopes of the Samobor hills, the eastern part of the Žumberak Mountains, in the Sava River valley. It is part of the historical region of Croatia proper, though I have yet to be able to locate Croatia improper. Its only about 25 km away from Zagreb, so its easy to get into the big city. Samobor has existed as a free royal town since 1242, according to a document of endowment by King Béla IV. We live in Alexandria, VA which was founded in 1749. In the US, you typically think of that as real old. But, Samobor is 507 year older. OK, so that’s not Delphi, or Giza Pyramids kind of old, but Samobor considers post WWI buildings as new construction.
Since 1699, Samobor was part of the Habsburg Monarchy, and in the late 19th century, Samobor was a district capital of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. A more contemporary observation (mine) is this town is just beautiful, with good food, a river running the middle of town, lots of cafés, a nice square to meet friends and enjoy a summer evening, and with a nice castle perched on a hill over the town (Samobor Castle).
In fact, its where Jackie Chan damned near killed himself while making a movie. Armour of God, a 1986 Hong Kong action comedy film was written, directed, and stared in by Jackie Chan. As do all his films, this one features Chan’s kung fu, comedy and stunts, but this time with an Indiana Jones-style theme. Chan came the closest he has ever been to death in this film during a relatively routine stunt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdg1noAv8pM
What happened was during filming of the opening sequence, the scene called for Jackie Chan to jump from a wall (high up on Samobor Castle) to a tree branch. The first take went as planned, but Chan insisted on re-shooting the scene. On his second attempt, the branch broke and he fell 5 meters to the ground below. His head hit a rock, cracking his skull and forcing a piece of bone up into his brain. Chan was flown to the hospital in Zagreb and was rushed to surgery. As a result, he now has a plastic plug in his head and slight hearing loss in one ear. If you Jackie Chan fans don’t recall this movie immediately, that’s because it was released straight to video. Well, I guess an actor can’t guarantee that every movie is a box office smash.
Well, Chan lived. He went on to meet Owen Wilson and made a dozen or so moderately interesting films and the rest is history. I like Jackie Chan, but you have to admit that Rush Hour 2 & 3, The Tuxedo, Around the World in 80 Days, and Police Story 11, 12, 16 and 32 were stinkers.
Samobor Castle was constructed by the Czech king, Ottokar II of Bohemia, between 1260 and 1264, who was then in a war with Hungarian king Stephen V. Croatian-Hungarian forces under command of duke of Okić soon retook the castle, for which he was granted the city of Samobor, as well as the privilege to collect local taxes. As we’ve seen frequently, these ancient kings spend years building castles, only to have them taken over right after construction concluded. You’d think they would have figured out these things just weren’t worth the investment.
Back to our visit. We had a great time, a good hike up to the castle (without anyone leaping from walls into the lush forest below), lots of beer and wine, and Ellen is trying to con Mary K. into dragging Nic to Istambul against his will to meet up with us again. Hopefully, the two ladies will prevail. After two nights, we plowed on to Zagreb to wrap up our visit to Croatia.