The ride

Most Croatian drivers are courteous,
 and the road to Sl Brod is a bike route.

Another postcard home.

Day 4
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Am keen to make up ground, so I skip the free brekky and am riding by 6.30. There is a cluster of burned out home, and another further on still has upended furniture, one bureau with all the drawers opened, looted I suppose. Breakfast is another 40km in Jasenovac. It's a normal looking town, nice enough. Outside in a large field is the memorial, which is a big steel flower and a little train parked nearby.

Nice architecture.

Different scenery all day.

The next town is Novska, and as per normal, there's a sign with Novska something to the left, and Novska something to the right, better than no sign. I pick the wrong way of course, but ask not long after.
It's plain sailing from here. Stopping frequently for ice cream or chocolate. The next 100k all the way is one village after another.

Every single home is totally shot up.

The town with the "Right of return"

One village (Smrtic or Medari) has the top of the church still missing, the rest damaged, and all the rest of the town smashed up. Outside there is an EU sign stating the "right of return", so I guess this is/was a Serb village. There is a handful of people. Lord knows their story and I don't know how to ask it. Maybe just as well.

Rain comes after the heavy humidity, and the gillette I bought is just perfect. Sl. Brod finally arrives. After texting Marie, she turns up about 1 and 1/2 hours later.

Some of Marie's cousins look so much like her dad it's ridiculous. This side has Ollie's eyes. I now think that Louis is a Stanic, taking after Teta Ivka, apart from looking like his cousin Will.

Cousins and Jelena, Evonne, Zdenka, Teta Ivka, Marie.

Mara, Zdenka, Blazenka, Ivana, Gordana, Martina,Marin.

Over the next days, we hear about how Mara's house got bombed along with the rest of the place. Teta Ivka had to leave the farm so quickly, that her husband lost one of the shoes he was wearing, but had no time to stop for it.