The thing about an "anything goes" road trip is that ANYTHING goes, including one's initial plans that give way to another, which would later prove to be quite an adventure indeed. To prove my point: we just checked in to a hotel off the Slovenian motorway and it's currently 3.40am.
The initial plan to spend the night in Zagreb was, in retrospect, pretty much screwed when we took extra time in Montenegro to walk up to the top of the historical Venetian fortress in Kotor. That itself took a couple of hours and it didn't help that we woke up late. The fortress was amazing - and so was the drive through Bosnia. The mountainous landscape, the near-empty roads, the derelict-looking buildings...Bosnia had a feel of melancholy to it, especially in contrast to the other countries in the region.
We got lost a couple of times, which added to the travel time. It also didn't help that the road signs in Bosnia were pretty rubbish (some were only in Cryllic). We got to Croatia somewhere about half past midnight and the first hotel we stopped at was closed; then spent the next 2.5 hours driving around, during which we covered half of Slovenia on these winding, narrow roads in the middle of nowhere.
What a day. I am beyond exhausted now and all I did was sit in the car and intermittently fall asleep. I can't imagine what I would be feeling now if I had been the one driving.