When we woke up in our apartment in Sisak we started our routine. Breakfast, packing bags and making the bicycles ready. Everything worked fine and we could start our stage quite early. We wanted to continue cycling along the river Sava on minor streets. We planned to have another stop before we will come to Slavonski Brod where we wanted to cross the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina. When we cycled out of the city a local man joined us with his bicycle and we had a little talk. He told us when he was younger he did a bicycle trip from Sisak to Paris and back. One-way it took him just two weeks. Pretty impressive! Also he told us about a stork village which is located next to the river Sava. After a while he had to say goodbye and turned to his workplace.

The street along the route was pretty good for cycling. There was almost no traffic and you came across a lot of smaller villages. Also we had from time to time a nice look at the river. But most time there was a dike on the right side and farm land on left side. However, cycling there was fun and we made good progress. Also at this segment we found a Sava bicycle route sign for the first time (so it really exists at some points!). So obviously the cycle path is in development.

The stork village at the Sava

It didn’t took that long and we came to Čigoć. 1994 it was the first official appointed stork village in Europe. Since then 14 other villages in 14 other European countries got appointed. There was an information center where you had to buy tickets to enter the nature reserve. But before that we made a little break on benches under a tree. Afterwards we begun our walk. There was a 5 km round trip where you could stop at a viewpoint and maybe watch some storks.

Meanwhile it was getting really hot. A lady told us it was around 37° C, so the walk was really tough. And we had bad luck and did not see any stork (but lots of mosquitos instead…). However, when we were back at the information there were a lot of storks flying above the place. So we watched a bit and tried to recover from our (unnecessary) heat walk again under the trees.

So although the sun was burning we decided to continue our stage. The area didn’t change much but besides the landscape you could see and hear a lot of different birds. Unfortunately the heat got more and more of a problem. When we cycle the wind cooled us down a bit but still we needed a break form time to time in the shadow. When we came to Krapje it was time for lunch and we came cross a beautiful ecological farm with restaurant.

An early end in the evil heat

In the restaurant (with air conditioning 😍) we had a delicious fish dinner and also the location was quite nice in an old fashion way. The owner told us that we could also use the pool before continuing the stage. We checked our options for the night because the farm also had some rooms to stay. So we decided to end our stage and enjoyed the pool. It was a really hot day so maybe this was the best decision and we planned to start very early the next day to avoid the heat for some hours.

Route

The total distance can be viewed on the “Sabbatical 2021 – Europe” page.

Download file: Sabbatical2021_044_Sisak_to_Krapje.gpx