The Road To Plitvice National Park, Croatia

After a relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable time in Rovinj, Anelia and Jeff hopped on the bus Rejika in hopes of obtaining their own set of wheels. Upon arriving in Rejika their first job was to locate the Alamo rental car agency (Alamo is the only agency to accept Airmiles, thus making the care rental “free”).  The nearest tourist info, which wasn’t too far of a walk from the bus station, kindly showed them where Alamo was located, about a 20 minute walk through town.  With no intention on staying in town, Jeff and Anelia, in full gear, set off straight to Alamo.  After the 20 minute walk, searching up and down the every road and back alley, and asking numerous Croatians (who had no clue where Alamo was located), a helpful bartender was finally able to inform them that the agency had gone under. This seemed odd to Anelia and Jeff as this was not congruent with the information on Alamo’s website. Nevertheless, they pressed on walking the opposite direction another 15 minutes to National car rental only to find that National and Alamo were the same agency and both locations were closed. By this time, the backpacks were getting heavy and Anelia was losing her cool. They took a break at a nearby restaurant that locals seemed to flock to. The atmosphere and waitress were nice, unfortunately the food did not follow suit. After the dissatisfying meal they continued on foot another 15 minutes to Budget rental cars which to their delight was open!!!!  Anelia and Jeff asked for an economy car to which Budget replied "sure! In 3 days".   They left Budget, broken hearted, and proceeded on foot to Hertz car rental… which had moved to a new location.  Luckily, Anelia and Jeff were able to find the new location on foot as well as the sign posted on the shop window explaining that the employees were out delivery rental cars and no one was able to rent cars at that time.  Pressing on once again, on foot, to an unfamiliar car rental agency, they found that the building was under renovation and the agency was not renting cars.  Their final stop took them back to the bus station, where just 2.5 hours earlier they had been dropped off.  The gentleman at Thrifty was kind enough to supply them with an economy vehicle and the trek to Plitvice National Park resumed. The moral of the story, call ahead to book a car.