One of the advantages of only having a limited service to and from Plitvice is that everyone has to leave on the same bus, so for the journey to Zagreb I was guaranteed to be accompanied by a lively collection of fellow travellers making their way across the country. We all collected at the makeshift bus stop opposite the entrance with plenty of time to spare - you really don't want to miss the only bus out of town - and had already spent a considerable amount of time swapping travellers tales and generally larking about before the bus finally drew up and we all piled on board our air conditioned ride to the capital. The journey to Zagreb, unlike the mainly backroad trip from Dubrovnik and Split, makes use of the motorway for at least part of the way - so expect the ride to take anywhere between 2 1/4 and 3 hours depending on traffic - and believe me, that's a good thing as any longer and you wouldn't be getting into town until long after everybody's gone to bed. Accompanying me on my journey were a number of backpackers who had apparently been staying at the campground in Plitvice and had clearly spent the day at the adjoining market buying souvenirs as they could hardly stand up. We were then joined a little later by a young Croatian lady called Nathalie who was on her way home after visiting relatives with her little girl and was keen to redefine the word "bubbly" by engaging everyone on the bus in conversation for almost the entire journey - but her presence turned out to be something of a godsend as I had absolutely no idea how I was going to get to my hotel in Zagreb and as soon as she found this out she immediately offered to get her brother in law to drive me there upon arrival and began texting him to make arrangements. Croatians, in my experience, are nothing if not accommodating.

Upon arrival, and the customary amount of time spent swapping contact details with people I'd known for all of 3 hours and having the life hugged or cheek-kissed out of me, Nathalie whisked me off to the car park where her brother-in-law was waiting, and continued to natter to me about my travels while we negotiated the streets of Zagreb at breakneck speed. Then, after about 15 minutes, we arrived outside entirely the wrong hotel. The problem, you see, is that the Sheraton has two hotels in downtown Zagreb - the standard one they provide to anyone who turns up with money pouring from every orifice, and another one at the cheaper end of the market for normal people. Nathalie's brother-in-law had clearly taken one look at the scruffy backpacker hanging around with his brother's wife and decided that the sooner he got shot of me the better, and with that in mind he had simply driven me to the nearest building with Sheraton written on it in the hope that I was, perhaps, an undercover millionaire. Although, now I come to think about it, if you turn up at the bus station to collect your sister-in-law and find her hanging out with a millionaire, I would've thought talking her into divorcing your brother would be the first order of the day…

Eventually, after a certain amount of tutting and turning corners on two wheels, we screeched to a halt outside the "Four Points by Sheraton", which is where I'd actually wanted to be in the first place, and first impressions did not disappoint. If you're the sort of person who walks into a hotel room with the intention of going onto Trip Advisor and slagging a place off the moment you find a single cobweb or speck of dust, then I really do think this says more about you than it does the hotel. I, luckily, chose to ignore the completely conflicting reviews I had read on the internet which, confusingly, ranged from "This is the most luxurious place I've ever stayed" through to "Oh my god, kill me now. The woman at reception didn't smile once and the bed wasn't made out of gold". Personally, the moment I walked into the sprawling marble-floored lobby and started to explore the adjoining coffee shop and restaurant, I found it to be right up my alley - a little dated, perhaps, but I'd much rather stay in The Grand Budapest Hotel than something built last year out of glass and concrete any day of the week. My room is certainly simple, consisting of not much more than a double bed, desk and television, and the hotel is a reasonable walk from the centre of town, but I really don't care - I will be spending my time here exploring the city anyway, and as long as I can turn the TV on in the evening when I get back and watch something British hilariously dubbed into Croatian, I'm quite happy. I just wish I could use the elevators - there's a big sign in every one telling me that I should not use them in case of fire, and being something of a grammar nazi I take this to mean that I may never use them.

Update: I gather that the hotel has now dropped the Sheraton moniker altogether and now calls itself the Panorama Zegreb - so don't expect to be able to look for it on Google and find photographs of anything other than wide angle views of the city. I can't help thinking they haven't thought that one through properly.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.