LOKVA ROGOZNICA 2026

Between Temples, Fjords and Endless Days – Wall I / Croatia

In 2026, I spent five months on the road with my family. My girlfriend, my three-year-old daughter, my then eleven-month-old son, and me. Just the road, adventure, and the rooftop tent on our old Ford Torneo.

We traveled down the Croatian coast to Athens, then through Bulgaria and Romania, heading north toward the North Cape, and eventually back home. Weeks on the road, somewhere different every single day.

Naturally, space for spray cans in the car was extremely limited. Between diapers, toys, clothes, and all the chaos that comes with family travel, I was allowed to bring exactly one grocery bag full of cans. No joke. I packed four T-shirts, one pair of shorts, and one pair of long pants—just so a few more cans would fit in the car. Priorities have to be set.

Wild camping in Croatia was unfortunately pretty tricky. Unless you wanted to hide completely out in the middle of nowhere, you were fairly likely to run into trouble or hefty fines. So every now and then we ended up staying at campgrounds after all.

Just past Split, we arrived at a small campsite right by the sea. It was completely empty at that time of year.

And then there was this little sanitary building.

Old showers, toilets, exposed concrete, rough and original surfaces, visible straight from the sea—a perfect spot, an incredible wall.

So I went straight to the owner and asked if I could paint it. He immediately agreed, didn’t ask any questions about the design, and suddenly I had the perfect spot lined up for the next day.

That evening I quickly picked a motif. By pure coincidence, I had a character from one of my recent shoots with me—a young woman with a towel wrapped around her head—which fit the sanitary block perfectly.

When you’re traveling with your family and painting right next to where you’re sleeping, you’re still on call all the time. Which also means that my girlfriend has to take care of both kids by herself while I’m standing at the wall.

That’s why I wanted to start as early as possible, hoping to at least get the sketch onto the wall before breakfast. So the next morning, my alarm went off at five o’clock.

At first, the owner was a bit skeptical. After all, we had never discussed the actual motif, and I had simply started painting. But in the end, he thought the result was fantastic. He let us stay at the campsite free of charge and even sent us on our way with homemade chestnut schnapps and a few other local treats.