a quick photo gallery…

if you have an idle moment there is a quick and dirty photo gallery available from my trip. Not tightly edited yet but not just snapshots either, they are not ‘great pics’ by any means and I left some of the ‘postcard’ pics in to give it context… my usual mix of random street, abstract and whatever else you want to call it… it is not too extensive so you won’t get bored, and it might help give a sense of the place…. I hope….. clicky the image below to open in a new window (If you’re viewing on a windows PC rather than an Apple Mac then some of the pics may appear darker than they are meant to…  :-)

My favourite single image though, in line with my preference for street ‘moments’ is this one… I like the geometry of it, the spontaneity (I was just walking by to get coffee…) and it has a sense of place too from the Jadrolinija name…

I’ll edit down to the best 8 and add a gallery to my site.. next wet Sunday we get.. should not have too long to wait being Cornwall and all :-)

that’s about it I think…

So… there’s loads of new reading in the posts below and that’s about it really for Croatia & Bosnia-Hercegovina. A brilliant little journey. I closed my loop just north of Ston from where it was just 60km back to Dubrovnik… a bloody hot 60km. The three of us met up that evening in the Old Town for end of trip/farewell drinks and dinner… we were such party animals.. worn out and brain dead by 11pm :-) Although that might have been down to the walnut and sour cherry liquers they brew locally….

My cycling gear made the journey home stuffed in plastic bag from a clothes shop in Dubrovnik called Bio-Hazard…  how very appropriate. There is totally a business opportunity for me in Dubrovnik I think… all those English tourists and not a curry house in the city. There was a restaurant there with an Indian name, Taj Mahal, but it served only Bosnian food… nothing Indian about it so it clearly  seems the way of it to have a restaurant name unrelated to the cuisine, i’ll call my place Vatican Surf n’Turf or something (to attract the american cruise ship crowd), it can be next to the Dominican Monastery in downtown Dubrovnik.

(this is the suspension bridge just west of Dubrovnik)

Bike made it home without a scratch on it. I flew British Airways for only £105 return and they did not charge for the bike… or even weigh it in either direction. Check out though what the sun did to the back of my once-black jersey. I took my one and only piece of Rapha gear ‘cos it looks OK off the bike, is nicely understated and the merino content means it doesn’t pong… I’ve sent it back to Rapha asking for a new one… remains to be seen if they take me seriously :-)

That is it I think, I suffered from only one fatal mistake on my journey home… the failure to make sure my wine rack was stocked before leaving home… the place was dry as a camel’s backside when I got home.. silly silly silly!

I’ll stick up a photo gallery with all the arty stuff in it dreckly….

MIjet..

Probably worth mentioning at this point that camping in Croatia, especially if travelling alone, ain’t really going to save you any money. The going rate for a room or bed in my experience was between 100 and 200 kuna/night.. for which you get linen and towels as a minimum… sometimes use of a kitchen and more often than not a terrace and a fridge. According to the girls they were being charged between 100 and 200 kuna per night for a camping pitch.. for which you get to bed down with loads of Dutch and German folk in their RVs :-) Having said that though there were a couple of terrific spots for camping.. quiet and right by the water. If I was to do this trip again I’d leave behind my off-bike shoes (just flipflops instead) and take a summer weight sleeping bag and mat for the odd bivy… All this leads nicely in to the morning of the 15th June when at about 8am , after breakfast and multiple coffees in Ston, I rode over south over another big hill to D & N’s campsite at Prapratno.. where I found them breakfasting outside their tent amongst large numbers of Dutch and German folk in their RVs :-) The plan for the day was to catch the 10am car ferry across to Sobra on MIjet island and pedal west to the MIjet National Park which is very beautiful and has some terrific swimming in a couple of saltwater lagoons. There was time for coffee on the quay before the ferry however so that is exactly what we did.

There is not so much to say really about MIjet except it was a truly fab day… and probably the slowest 90km I ever rode! Some terrific views, brilliant swimming spots with diving straight into deep, blue, impossibly clear water, icecream, beer, sun etc etc. Definitely a day to remember.

(right after this photo I changed into my swimmers and executed a perfect double somersault backflip into the water… really…)

We arrived back in Sobra about an hour before the 7pm ferry. The light wind had dropped to nothing and it was turning into a stunning evening. A cold beer and some pretzels (magicked from my back pretzel pocket…) passed the time before riding onto the ferry absolutely exhausted. The water at the ferry harbour in Sobra was the clearest I have ever seen… with a depth of about 10 meters I could see the bottom with perfect clarity and it was if the fish were simply suspended in crystal. Amazing. The crossing of about 45 minutes back to Prapratno was absolutely magic – the ocean was  mirror smooth as the sun dropped towards the horizon in the warmth of a mellow evening.The comedy was provided by an Austrian couple who asked Daniela if her hair was real, lol, not so many folk with dreads in Austria I guess… I was tempted to ask if the walking carpet that was their dog was real…

It was a sprint for me back over the hill to Ston where I went straight back to the same restaurant as the night before (good grub..) where, despite dripping with sweat and looking slightly the worse for wear in my cycling kit, I was warmly welcomed with a handshake and an ice cold natural lemonade (for a change!). One wag said “Tour de France, haha!” as I parked my bike… <sigh> there is always one…

Oh yes, lots of Mk1 VW Golfs all over Croatia… none quite so amusingly gruesome as this one however….

Korčula to Mali Ston… the Peljesac Peninsula…

Got up this morning in Korčula feeling decidedly ‘jaded’.. a combination I think of all the kilometres, the heat and red wine last night… Korčula and the Peljesac have some pretty good wines… apparently Korčula does the best whites while just across the water the best reds come from the Peljesac… at least that is what the chappy in the restaurant in Ston told me… with a beer in his hand, lol! I very nearly stayed a day (to be fair I could have stayed forever…) extra to simply absorb the atmosphere of the town (i.e put my feet up at a bar for the day…) but after a couple of good coffees with D&N the motivation started creeping back and bags were packed for the arduous 3km ride to the ferry terminal just around the headland at Dominiče… more caffeine was imbibed while waiting for the 11am boat across to Orebič on the Peljesac… my caffeinated walk was noted by D who apparently is an expert in such matters…

It’s only a 20 minute trip across the channel on a small ferry that runs every hour… it still had an air conditioned bar though with cream vinyl sofas.. :-) As we rolled off the boat the smiley Jadrolinjia guy in his white uniform on the quayside looked at me, grinned, and said “ah, one guy two girls, haha, very good, very very good….!“. I was unable to disagree… though what he didn’t know was that we were about to go our separate ways for the rest of the day… different plans and all that plus different riding speeds in the mountains, though we would be meeting again in the morning…

It was a pretty stiff, and hot, climb of about 10km out of Orebič (another pretty place…) heading east but on a good surface with fab views back towards Korčula. Once over the summit and after some rolling sort of terrain, about 30km into the ride the road descended on the southern side of a very lush forested mountain. I could see a tiny little harbour way below me to the right… it looked like a pretty nice place to stop for more coffee and a bite to eat despite knowing descending all the way to the sea was only going to add more climbing to an already very hilly day… The cafe on the quiet quayside on the far side of the village had some decent shade and groovy tunes so I stopped there. The guy running the place was a dude… long white linen shirt, long gray beard and a ponytail. I walked in with the usual “dobar dan! Bijela kava molim…” to which he responded with something like “groovy, tall latté machiatto, OK!” in a Croatian accent…  technically a machiatto cannot be a latte at the same time (I think anyway…)… a machiatto is an espresso shot marked with a small head of foam… but hey, I wasn’t about to argue.. it had caffeine and I liked the “tall” bit… and indeed it was tall when it arrived. Perfect. After that I didn’t really notice the 600m or so climb back up…

I arrived in Ston at about 3pm I think… figuring that was my riding for the day I decided looking for a room could wait until I had cooled off with a beer… with beer nearly gone and a distinctly wobbly feeling in my legs I asked the barman if there were any rooms for rent in the town… he told me I needed to ride further on to Mali Ston… oh dear, I wove a wonky line as I pedalled across the flagstones of the village square on my way back to the road… Luckily Mali Ston was only a couple of Km and I did indeed find a room… after a trying a few places. Mali Ston is known for it’s oyster beds and there is a pricey hotel in the place… which means that private rooms are also pretty steep and the owners are reluctant to negotiate. The first place advertising a room wanted 300Kn a night.. so I said “well, I want to stay 2 nights so how much is that“… it usually results in a significant discount… “600 Kuna” came the deadpan reply. Bugger. I eventually found a tidy place for 200 Kuna. Not wanting to eat oysters that evening, after a swim I rode back to Ston which seems to consist entirely of cafe-bars and restaurants… and some old city walls which folk come to see. The food was more interesting.

Hvar to Korčula

Up early to catch the ferry to Korčula… the ticket said 8am, it didn’t show up till 9am. This one was a monster of a ship, I think it comes just twice a week from Bari to Rijeka, Split Hvar, Korčula and Dubrovnik…or something. N&D were there, as were my American friends, with a pack of beer :-), from before looking somewhat hungover….also another German couple on bikes with luggage that looked like something by Samsonite,or a cheaper version of it anyway… bike suitcases with natty purple and green trim. It looked pretty amusing stacked up on the back of their bikes :-) Though perhaps I should not laugh, they probably thought my Ortlieb panniers were dreadfully dull… Wasn’t allowed to park my own bike on this one, the crew were pretty insistent that they had to provide a service (I guess that is what the 121Kn was for,….) by lashing the bikes to rails at the side of the car deck…interestingly they don’t provide the same untying service, leaving the cyclist to sort the mess of bicycles and rope out on arrival….

The ferry ride itself was ace, found a nice shady spot on the deck with N&D from which to enjoy the views of the coastal mountains and islands for the 3 1/2hr ride. Coffee and jaffa cakes (yep, they sell ‘em in the supermarkets :-) provided just enough sustenance to get through ‘till lunch time on arrival at Korčula Town. Korčula Town is yet another one of those elegant little towns that Croatia is so good at….

The three of us cyclists found a great little apartment (no sharks in the loo sadly) to share right in the heart of the old town…it wasn’t hard,  all the local landladies come out to meet the ferries. Turned out our landlady was from Široki Brijeg, the town just west of Mostar I passed through last week.  Bikes were parked on the terrace with enough room left to kick back with a much needed beer* in the evening after a hot and hilly afternoon of exploring…

Korčula has some serious hills, heading west right of town the road climbs at between 8 and 10% for 16km… OK it’s not quite on an alpine scale but with a temp of 32 or 33 in the shade you do notice it. Could only be bothered to explore about 20km west before doglegging back through the vineyards  below some fantastic limestone cliffs and then climbing to Pupnat (great name, the associated harbour way below at sea level is called Pupnatska :-) There was a terrific steep (20% or so) hairpinned descent down a tiny little road from Pupnat to the north facing coast… the sea looked fab and we were pretty damn sweaty so nothing to do but park the bikes on a little boat slip and jump in…. and then head back to town for a beer (it was on our minds… again) before going out for dinner and icecream :-) Quite a nice day really, lol…that is an understatement by the way ;-)

* My friend Ana in Zagreb tells me that of the various Croatian beers Karlovačko is the best. Can’t argue with that tho they are all pretty good to my tastes..

Hvar Island

Was up pretty early and scooted over the mountain to Hvar Town to meet Daniela and Nadia, henceforth known as D&N for a brew.

(Stari Grad on a still morning)

Hvar Town turned out to be a pretty busy little tourist spot…I think my impression of it may have been unfairly soured when I walked into one cafe with my Croatian greeting and request for coffee at the ready only to be greeted by “yeah, whaddya want?” from the waitress… I went next door where they were at least smiling. Hvar Town was full of backpackers wearing improbably skimpy clothes lugging improbably huge backpacks… Met a German touring cyclist here too…I had seen him on the road and waved a couple of times but with his huge load I think he was suffering too much to notice a road bike scooting by … 50kg I think he said “I am camping you see”… yes, with a very heavy tent  I imagine… he followed up with “but now I go to the the 5-star resort on the hill”. Worn out I guess…. ;-)

(not so scary after all…)

So after charging up with coffee I headed east to explore while the girls headed off to find a boat for the day… I was tempted to join them but thought I should ration my excellent company for the time being rather than spoil them, lol, so instead I went back towards Stari Grad then Vrboska and Jelsa for a beer and ice-cream lunch before exploring the quiet mountain roads further east.

East of Jelsa the roads are narrow and quiet as they wind their way around beautiful mountain scenery blessed with wildflowers, olive trees and ancient stone terraces… (oh how poetic…). A bike really is the only way to explore. I ended up in a tiny little place on the north coast called Vela Stiniva… a stunning hairpinned descent, tiny road, through a limestone gorge brought me to this place… a crescent of shingle in front of a bay of the usual crystal clear and impossibly blue water with a little quay and a bar,, hardly a soul in the place, lovely… after a quick dip I dozed in the shade for a couple of hours at the bar (while the owner and his buddy letched through binoculars  at a woman swimming off the cliffs) before mustering my energy for the return journey to Stari Grad…

It was on the ride back that I had my only “dickhead in a car” experience for the whole trip.. Big BMW 4×4 (typically…) pulling an enormous caravan with German plates… came hammering past way too fast for a little mountain road with a blast of the horn that said “out of my vay schwitzenden cycling person”. All I could do was stick my finger up and think of the war and how he was probably a big sweaty wurst of a man…
In the little network of roads west of Jelsa I managed to get lost…. “nudist camp? I don’t remember a nudist camp…” as I headed down one tiny wooded road… I turned round pretty quick and found out what the locals do with their old cars… they chuck ‘em over a handy hedge in the same way as I do with a banana skin…

So a very lazy 125km of exploring some fabulous little roads. My companions for dinner the previous night were unable to make it for dinner… beer related incident I think… so picked a place with a smiling waitress and sat in the evening sun with spaghetti and beer….
Another observation.. nothing to do with loo seats but rather stripey tee shirts,..on sale everywhere… but nobody ever wearing them. Very odd.  Perhaps the local equivalent of fetish wear so they only come out after dark…

Trogir to Hvar..

Right then… I think I was in Trogir when we last caught up…. <scrolls down to check… oh yes, I had tired legs that evening>

From Trogir then on the 11th June I was all set to cycle the 30km or so back into Split to catch a ferry to Hvar and wasn’t really that excited about it – not particularly pretty roads and I came that way from Omiš… the night before had been a late one with beer and pizza so when Marin, my host, goes “why don’t you just take the boat?” my response was “there’s a boat?” followed by “ Oh cool….”. So I totally cheated and slung my bike on the stern rail of the little local passenger ferry that left Trogir for Split at 11am. It dropped me right on the waterfront in Split (another improbably elegant waterfront of white stone and terracotta) just a stone’s throw (or a pedal stroke even…) from the Jadrolinija ferry terminal at about 12.30pm. With 2 hours to kill before the next boat to Hvar I did what any self respecting local would do and retired to the cool shade of the nearest bar…. I had already eaten a sort of lunch in the form of a bag of figs courtesy of a chap on the boat from Trogir so all that was needed was liquid refreshment…

Bit of local info… bicycles get pretty heavily charged on the Jadrolinija boats…considering they don’t take up any room that would be otherwise be used for something else (i.e they just get shoved into whatever space is available at the side of the car deck) it seems pretty steep to have to pay about 40% more than a passenger fare for the bike only…i.e person + bike is roughly 2.4 times the passenger fare… I bought an onward ticket from Hvar to Korcula and was rather taken aback at the price… 77Kn for me and 121Kn for the bike… Ok it is still only a total of about £25 but still…it’s the principle :-)
Anyway, on the quayside I got chatting to 3 American guys (well, one guy, 2 gals but you know what I mean)  who had been on a study field trip in Sarejevo for a few weeks and were heading to Hvar for some chill time. Nice guys.
On the ferry I spotted two girls… obviously cyclists despite attempts to disguise the fact… baggy shorts over lycra, flip flops instead of SPDs and so on but the sculpted legs, odd tan lines and Descente jerseys were the giveaway…took me a while to decide I was going to engage with ‘em… they looked kind of mean in their wrap-around shades, set jaws and in the case of one…  a wicked set of dreads…. But as it happened they were nice as pie – Canadians you see, lol… and sisters no less making their way from Trieste to Dubrovnik on their bikes. To cut a short story even shorter we agreed to meet the following morning for coffee in Hvar Town as our plans for the island were different… they were off to the beach on some outlying islands and I planned to explore the island on my bike.

I found a room in Stari Grad, where the ferry comes in, right off the boat, 150Kn a night in a new apartment owned by a local lady . Nice room too, terrace, kingsize bed… Result.  Stari Grad was nice, very mellow feel to it…completely unlike Hvar Town which I will mention in a minute. It was in Stari Grad that I really noticed the trend for new bathrooms in this part of the world to feature toilet lids/seats with a photo-printed marine theme… in Trogir the loo featured a rather happy looking Humpback Whale, here in Stari Grad my loo was of a tropical, sun-blessed flavour with dolphins frolicking gaily…Tacky anywhere else but here just a case of “oh look at that… how pretty..”. I await with interest to find a toilet featuring a Great White Shark… memories of childhood nightmares when, at the impressionable age of 7, I was taken to see Jaws at the cinema by a clearly unsympathetic father… bath time held a special fear for me that year… anyway, I digress.. Met the guys from Sarejevo for a very pleasant dinner interrupted by a local religious parade of some sort… it was a public holiday today apparently, no idea what for… Croatian Scientology day or something, effigies of Tom Cruise on a cross and stuff perhaps…

I rode a grand total of 4km today :-)

got some catching up to do…

oh heck I have some catching up to do on here, I have been away from free/convenient web connection for a while…. I will take care of it over the weekend I think with pictures etc etc .

I just rolled back into Dubrovnik this morning… my odometer went past 1100km for the trip as I trundled raced across the big suspension bridge. It has been a heap of fun since leaving Split… I will bore you with details in the next few days just to complete my ‘journal’. A few days ago on the boat from Split to Hvar I met a couple of girls, sisters in fact, from Vancouver on touring bikes… they were riding from Trieste to Dubrovnik so we hooked up on and off for a few days, they have been brilliant company and I will miss ‘em I think.  We are meeting for an end of journey night out this evening….

The riding since leaving Trogir has been fabulous… first class riding, superb scenery (read that as you will), excellent swimming, beer, icecream and all that kind of stuff as well as some pretty chilled out boat journeys. I am tired now though. It was hot ride from Mali Ston this morning and all the late nights and miles are catching up with me so sleep is on the menu for the afternoon…  really could do without having to fly home tomorrow… :-(

hasta luego!

a roadie day out… Krka and stuff

The last couple of days have been really rather warm… hot enough that even the locals are complaining… the heat has a particularly soporific effect on the locals… particularly the males (this will not come as a suprise to any women reading this….). A side effect of the heat is the adoption of a peculiarly laid back way of walking in flip flops… I’ll call it the Hrvatska Schlep for now. I am well on my way to mastering it… particularly this evening after almost 180km on the bike… a most sweaty affair :-)

I took just one pannier with my camera gear, pump and snacks to make a day trip from Trogir to Krka National Park (read about it here…).. my outbound journey took me inland from Trogir across the mountains with the return following the coastline back from Šibenik. It was a great day….

I set off under cloudy skies at about 9am this morning, pretty warm and humid though. The road climbs pretty much straight away for about 12km, the first 6 or 7 being the steepest along a series of switchbacks up the mountainside. I passed a bunch of girls in their early twenties I guess on bikes struggling up the climb… I figured they must have been on an activity holiday.. I went past very quickly not just because I am a good climber and a show off (lol) but also it might have been a bit obvious if I’d kind of hung around… they weren’t wearing very much at all you see… this is no bad thing of course from my perspective, being a typical male, and I could not help wondering a few km further on just what effect the rather sudden and relatively chilly rainstorm was having…. The thing I could not figure out was what a bunch of girls was doing grovelling up that climb on their own.. then all became clear when I reached the top and met a bunch of young blokes on bikes sitting on a wall eating and drinking waiting for their respective other halves I guess. So much for being supportive, lol!

It took about 2 1/2hours of riding across a pretty empty mountain landscape to reach the pretty little town of Skradin. There was one ugly bit of new highway to deal with near Šibenik but it was only for a few km… which reminds me, just as an aside, if you’re reading this and bringing a bike out here a tail light for the road tunnels here and in BiH particularly where they are not lit might be useful… in my case I just went through as quick as I could and kept my ears open for heavy stuff coming from behind.

I don’t know if it was general fatigue or an inadequate breakfast but my legs just felt empty all the way to Skradin… it hurt. Still, a really good Čevapi and copious quantities of coffee on the waterfront in Skradin seemed to sort my legs out.. just as well really, it is a stiff climb back out of the valley! Now, I still don’t have a card reader that will work with SDHC cards so instead I’m going to borrow some pics from the public domain to show you places till I get home. Here is Skradin from the road down… it is very pretty, very friendly, very quiet and popular with fat germans with yachts… or at least it was today.

and here is a pic of the falls in the park… very nice

From the park I had to backtrack to Šibenik… but at least this way the ugly bit of highway was downhill so over much quicker.. legs feeling good now too.

The coastal road from Šibenik was fabulous, not much climbing, light winds and a good surface. Lovely views as it wound its way around the tortuous coastline. Some very pretty little islands with towns on that look like they are growing from the sea.. the tiny tidal range in the Adriatic means folk build their houses about 3 inches above sea level. Krapanj is a good example… I had lovely views from a road bridge about 20km from Šibenik…

I stopped a bit further on in Primošten.. another story book kind of place growing from a spit of land in the ocean… it was baking hot there, I wanted beer but thought maybe not a good idea so instead opted for filling my bottles with iced water and a large coffee to keep me going… riding big distances on tour with none of the energy/electrolyte drinks available at home really makes you appreciate how well they work.. I fuel my riding here with a mix of dried fruit, iced tea, salted pretzels, fig rolls and jaffa cakes.. doesn’t half make you fart.. or maybe that is the copious quantities of cherries I have been buying at the market… dunno.. anyway, I digress… Primošten is really pretty, here I passed two Aussie cyclotourists (we didn’t speak, they were carrying big aussie flags on their bikes…) I felt quite smug, the amount of gear they were carrying was phenomenal… even when I’m camping and kitted for wilderness I take maybe a third of what they had on each bike… perhaps they brought their own beer from home… I know from first hand experience how proud each state is of it’s local brew…. and maybe they worried that all you could get in Croatia was Budweiser, haha. If that was truly the case I think I’d bring my own too…. anyway, a pic of the place…

So, on from Primošten.. I was in roadie heaven.. good road, good views, good legs and a quick bike… it was hot out there though. I didn’t stop again until I arrived back in Trogir. That was 161km of riding… then after some food I rode the 16km round trip to my favourite swimming spot at Slatine… the harbour wall is particularly good for diving off and being straight into deep water only the fish to bother with the sight of lycra bibshorts…

interlude…

I am having an interlude today, you know like when you used to go the movies as a kid all the action would stop and a pretty girl would come round with cold icecream… well I am having one of those today except the icecream ain’t icecream, it’s Karlovačko… but equally as cold…

I had great plans for a round trip to Krka national park on my bike today, figure about 160km, but a very late night last night plus some folk to say goodbye to this morning meant I decided to stick around here in Trogir… an easy thing to do, especially when it is 32 degs in the shade.. Sum total of the days activity then has been a morning down at the cafe by the yacht harbour talking to a chap from Luxembourg here to buy a boat and spend the next 6 months mooching round the Med. An afternoon dozing in the shade with music and then about 5pm a spin around Čiovo island on my bike just to keep my legs happy, with a stop at the village of Slatine so I could strip off and dive off the harbour wall into deep green water.  A hard life.

I’ll go to Krka tomorrow… :-)

Good deed for the day was fixing little 6 year old Luka’s bike… him and his buddies spend all afternoon and evening riding bikes and kicking balls round and round the pretty little square in front of the place I am staying… reminds me of my own childhood. If I ever have kids that is what they’re going to have… bikes and balls and wooden stuff….

Mostar to Omiš… and on to Trogir

You are going to have to do without pics for a bit until I can lay my hands on a new card reader… so I shall do my best to make my prose sufficiently colourful in the meantime….

I left Mostar at about 8.30am on Saturday morning having been out early in the hunt for a decent breakfast. Weather was cool with a high overcast luckily… it is a stiff climb out of the valley. I had no idea which road to take out of town, all I knew is I wanted to cross the border back into Croatia at Imotski, but based on the few folk I asked for directions (only old folk up early on a Saturday… so I guess that makes me something of an old duffer right…?) Imotski is beyond the range of the local folks radar…. Široki Brijeg (pronounce shir-oki brie-yeg) however was on their mental map, and on my paper one, and in the right direction (west) so I decided I was going there first… (and the few folk I spoke to previously about the road to Imotski were co0nvinced it was well over 100km away… it wasn’t, just 70km..)

The riding through rural BiH was lovely, a mellow pastoral sort of landscape once through the barren limestone hills with quiet, well surfaced roads. The area seems noticeably more damaged and under reconstruction/new construction than rural Croatia… The next big climb came after about 50km, this one was about 10km long at a grade of 10-12%. I had wondered if I was being sensible bringing only a compact chainset with 34×25 bottom gear but it has not been a problem, the grades are pretty low everywhere. I stopped for coffee, and shelter from a passing rain shower at the top in a strange sort of nowhere place called Vranič… not a lot there… a new cafe, a couple of new houses and bugger all else bar some piles of building materials. Pink is a popular colour for new builds in BiH…

From Vranič the road crossed a large plain with a few farms and villages before things started getting a bit ugly and industrial in the border regions with Croatia. The border crossing was painless, the girl on customs duty seemed interested to have a look inside my panniers but thought better of it when I started faffing with the straps, just as well, the bag of fig rolls I brought from Mostar to munch on had disintegrated to a crumby pulpy mess and I could not possibly have offered her one in that state. From the border a long descent to the town of Imotski… just in time for an early lunch except not one of the cafes I stopped in had any food so ‘lunch’ was a coffee, bottle of orange juice and handfuls of fig roll crumbs… but it was OK, the small village at the bottom of the descent after Imotski had a fruit stall with bananas and oranges and so on. Being a saturday the kids were not in school and failed miserably to hide their amusement at the sight of this cyclist… :-)

This part of Croatia is lovely, very lush and heavily farmed with orange trees all over the place. The cloud had lifted to merely a haze over the sun so the next 10km or so of climbing was hot work.The road took me to a high plateau rich in wildflowers around the limestone outcrops… here I had a raging wind at my back and flew across the plateau at around 45km/hr before reaching an area of thick, fragrant pine forest near the tiny crossroads town of Cista Provo. From here the road descended in hairpins down the side of the limestone escarpment to the hot valley at Šestanovac… I was feeling it in my legs by the time I got here… coca cola and ice has never tasted so good… more dumbfounded looks from the locals at the cafe…I had a sort of plan to finish my day somewhere along the coast near Split, I had not made firm plans as I was taking small roads and had no real idea of distances either. I did however want to ride the road that winds around the Cetine gorge so headed off that way… the scenery was lovely as the road climbed it’s way around the upper reaches of the gorge.. the wind was not so lovely, a fresh force 6-7 right into my face… but I was loving just being there. While in the heart of the mountains the road turned a sharp left through a gap in the cliff and all of a sudden I was perched in a gale of wind about 3000 feet above the ocean with the mountainside plummeting straight down to the water below me… breathtaking, literally… The ‘drug’ rush from the adrenalin and endorphins as that happened was incredible, I love it when I’m fit.. I could not help yelling out loud into the wind. I cannot describe the feeling when something like that happens after hours of hard effort… the last time I experienced a high that high was at the point of cresting the road over Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador… the moment when you find yourself in the most incredible situation after hours of hard riding… nothing compares, it really doesn’t. Anyway, no point in me going on about it.. short of you shooting up on something illegal I can’t really share it…. an idea for the future perhaps, subscription only…

From there it was a glorious tailwind romp northwest along the coast to the pretty little village of Omiš.. which is where I decided to call it a day after 145km and about 5 1/2hrs riding, 6hrs on the road. Really pretty little place in a stunning location at the mouth of the Cetine gorge. I asked around a few places advertising rooms but the friendly ones were full, and the miserable ones were empty but could not be bothered to put up just one person for one night… miserable buggers… I did find a place though, a bit posh and pricey but I had a great view and a terrific breakfast, fit for a hungry cyclist, on the roof terrace :-) By 4pm I had an ice cold beer, fresh baked bread, pasta and chatty company in the form of a local engineering student (Split University)

So Sunday morning then it was just 50km along the coast to the lovely little town of Trogir, which is where I am now… Got here about 11am, it was a slightly ugly ride around the outskirts of Split but unavoidable and I wasn’t sure if I really should have been on the motorway for a few km but being sunday it was quiet and nobody seemed to mind…. ;-) I did duck off as soon as possible for the coastal strip of villages west of the city.. On arrival here I found (hard to miss really, a dirty great sign saying “Hostel Trogir” on the wall…) a place to stay just inside the old town on the island but it was a bit early to move in so I dumped my gear and cycled along the rather grand (in a white stone and terracotta flavour) looking waterfront to a pizza place… for pizza of course.. and cold beer (there is a pattern developing here do ya think..?). Much of the rest of the afternoon was spent kicking back in the amusing company of a couple of gloriously hungover Zagreb girls… wedding party last night apparently, lol! …

pics….

at last, I have borrowed a half decent laptop while I rest my legs and let dinner go down out of the heat… I cycled out to Blagaj this morning, quite pretty little spot at the source of the Buna river … or at least the point where it emerges from the base of a huge limestone cliff. Judging by the stares of the local kids I do not think they see so many cyclists, at least not those of the skinny tyre twit flavour…… although in the Muslim house of course I had to cover up my legs with a loaned orange sarong… an interesting look….

Actually while I am on.. some local info… mainly because I have just finished stuffing my face with one… the local “fast food” is a thing called a čevapi… it is a chunky pita bread stuffed with rolls (sausages I guess..) of minced beef and lamb… fried and dripping with oil, which of course soaks into the bread, with some chopped onion and sometimes cheese as well… heavy for a hot climate but tastes great… Here on the street in Mostar around 2.50KM (Konvertible Marks) seems about average… I have been trying not to accumulate much in the way of KM since I am only in Bosnia for a few days. Croatian Kuna are accepted in a few places but Euro are pretty commonly accepted… but slightly annoyingly change is not always in Euro…
Tonight (Friday) is interesting… from my previous travels throughout the moslem world I associate Fridays in islamic areas with traditional reserve… and there are a lot of mosques in town yet the streets below the minarets are awash with alcohol and women… lol!
anyway, those pics…

 

Mostar

Today was just fab, it turned out to be 155km to Mostar.. the road was stunning as it wound its way northwest along the coast from Dubrovnik before turning north inland to climb up to Mostar. I had good legs today, which combined with a terrific surface and a hefty dose of endorphins from cycling in such a beautiful place saw me get here in just 5hrs 15mins…it was quite warm though, about 30 degs so I was starting to droop a little by the end. Cycling here is so easy, the surfaces are good and the tap water is drinkable pretty much everywhere… Locals are quite happy to fill bottles in roadside cafes and bars for free. Crossing the border in Bosnia-Herzegovina was a breeze… cars and trucks were being stopped but I was waved straight through with no checks… so clearly if you are into a spot of contraband a bicycle is the way to go….
Loving riding the Salsa, I only squeezed in about 150km on it at home since building it so today was first proper test with a load on. Fantastic. For sure my legs are a little tired tonight but i fell pretty fresh in general. I was a bit worried about the Brooks saddle not having had time to break it in but it has armchair type comfort already which is lucky…
So, Mostar then… well you are going to have wait for pics sadly, I am using a crappy PC that has had Vista shoehorned into it… and it is flakey as a flakey thing and refuses to work with my card reader. Why cant everyone use Macs? lol..

Mostar is beautiful, a laid back, medieval town with a strong Turkish influence… the eastern half, where I am staying in the old town is Moslem, the western side of the river is Christian,. Still a lot of war damage in evidence. I got here about 3pm so went straight out and rehydrated myself with a couple of “pivo Sarejevskos”… Sarejevsko beer… very good… while waiting for a huge plate of mixed meats, salad, fries and pita breads to be prepared.. which was served by the spitting image of Simon Cowell… but nicer personality. My afternoon has since consisted of a mooch around the cobbled streets and a very pleasant few hours lounging by the river underneath the beautiful bridge, or Stari Most. The town is divided by the deep green waters of the Neretva river…. it is apparently 22metres deep under the bridge… (jumping off the 20 metre high span seems a favourite pastime). There is actually a very good bit of history on the bridge on Wikipedia here.
Found a great little place to stay, it works out about 10 euro a night.. I only realised after checking in that I have a mosque right outside my window… maybe that is why it is such good value, the 5am wake-up call is not optional…. I will stay 2 days, tomorrow I want to make the 40km round trip to a Dervish Monastery near here before heading west to Imotski . I am the only guest here tonight so no company after the last few nights of fun…

anyway, pics of mostar as soon as I can in a new post, in the meantime though I did manage to extract some snaps of the road out of Dubrovnik from my camera before the whole stupid vista thing went tits up… and it still does not work even after a reboot. Microsoft rubbish, bah!

oh buggerance…

I have to laugh really, I did not come equipped for days of cold weather and continuous heavy rain… the Adriatic coast is supposed to be beautiful at this time of year right? My Aussie friend took a trip to Mostar and came back yesterday, the weather in the mountains was horrendous so quite happy I stuck around here…. and as always whatever choice one makes in a situation like this there is always some good fun (and a few drinks) to be had…. I met two super American girls yesterday morning on top of the walls of the old town… in the rain… so that took care of a couple of hours of interesting conversation and then a night out last night at a performance of the Dubrovnik Symphony orchestra in the arched vaults of the Dominican Monastery… beautiful music and a beautiful setting. Apparently it was the French Horn solo that did it for Michelle… not sure if that was because it was French specifically or whether any flavour of horn would have the had the same effect, hehe.
The weather last night was quite spectacular, a huge storm cell swept in off the sea at dusk. The purple sky rent with great streaks of lightning made the most stunning contrast with the glistening white stone of the great buildings of the old town, the polished marble streets were ankle deep in rushing water…. much squelching was apparent as we climbed the stairs to the performance in waterlogged clothes…. :-)

As for today… no idea, the rain is torrential once again and the appeal of hours riding in such wet with the associated spray and grime is not quite sufficient incentive to get me out of bed…. But I have good company here so it does not really matter :-)

Anyway, here is a photo, not mine I must add, taken from the place I am staying while I was messing about in town…

terracotta tops….

a few roof-top views of the old town. Love it, especially in the rain when the colours are saturated.

Tell you about Mostar soon..

Best laid plans and all that…

thank heaven for beer. I never managed to leave Dubrovnik today, the prospect of a day on the bike in pouring rain, gale force winds and thunder was not sufficiently attractive to outweigh the alternative of a mooch around the bars of the old town… I am on holiday after all. Town takes on a lovely atmosphere in the rain – the glistening wet white stone contrasting with leaden skies and saturated terracotta. I am feeling a little the worse for wear this evening, though before getting settled in a bar with an Aussie friend I did do something constructive in the form of a visit to the War Photo gallery (http://www.warphotoltd.com/)… quite moving and recommended if you are in town. One thing that did bother me though is that exhibitions like this only tell one tiny part of the reality. One part of the gallery was given over to a very graphic story on the violence in Colombia… based on the exhibit anyone would think that Colombia as a country was an awful, lawless place… the reality is very different. Certainly Putamayo province in the south is still ravaged and many people are suffering… but based on my first hand experience Colombia as a whole is emerging as a proud, friendly and beautiful nation with violence now confined to small pockets …
Still, regardless of that it is heartbreaking what people are capable of doing to each other… so instead of getting depressed all over again about that I shall get depressed about the weather forecast for the next few days.. which is pissing wet and windy.  Brilliant… There is a bright side to my extended sojourn however in the form of 5 charming girls for company….

Dubrovnik

well it is a lovely spot for sure but overrun with tourists… particularly those of a herd mentality… you know – tour groups and cruise ships… I watched an enormous ship come in this morning and begin disgorging boatloads of wrinkled & chunky Americans, weighed down with equally chunky gold.. appropriately the ship was called Costa Fortuna… and I bet it does too :-)

Happily I am staying at a groovy little hostel about 30 minutes walk from the old town, just up from a rather soporific (think coffee shops with outdoor sofas….) boulevard leading to the beach… I was up early this morning to be in the old part of town for 7am… hoping for some nice early sun… but it was cloudy. All the same the peace of an early Sunday morning amongst the ancient stonework, watching hundreds of swifts soaring above the seaward city walls was worth getting up early for. As for the rest of the day… I think I shall retire to the beach and do some planning for the next few days on my bike. I brought the Michelin map of Croatia and Bosnia with me, scale of 1:750,000 I think, but found a much better roadmap locally – 1:200,000 scale by Freytag & Berndt – it shows all the tiny backroads much more clearly. I have been thinking about my route to Mostar, there looked to be rather an interesting little road across the mountains starting east of here, a little way towards Montenegro… I asked my host what he thought and he said “no no you cannot go that way, bad people, they will shoot you… better you go the main road towards Ploče…“. Somehow I think he may be exaggerating slightly… local knowledge is always useful but based on experience in places like this with the remnants of ethnic tensions or simple local prejudices it probably needs to be taken with a pinch bucket of salt… Still, I can understand completely with the conflict being such a recent memory.

I sometimes think I must be one of the laziest cycle-tourists around… 2 days doing bugger all in Dubrovnik… I had an attack of conscience this morning when, kicking back with a coffee, a German couple rode by on rohloff-equipped machines, laden down with everything bar the kitchen sink I think… they had more gear each than I managed with camping my way across the Himalayas… the impressive thing for me was the child trailer behind the guy… complete with toddler. Now that must really hurt in the mountains, lol! Talking of being impressed, I met a bunch of Finns on Friday night… now I always knew that Finland was mostly famous for just two things… mobile phones and the ability of the locals to consume large quantities of alcohol… but to have that expertise demonstrated first hand (the drinking kind) was quite humbling. I gave up…

Update: OK, it is evening now… and restlessness got the better of me, this afternoon I made the very pleasant 50km round trip east to the improbably pretty little town of Cavtat… the old part is rather picturesque (the hotels are round the headland out of sight )… little out of place there tho on my bike amongst the multi-million dollar superyachts moored up in front of the church… somehow I doubt they were there just for mass.. even though it is sunday.  Was great to give my legs a warm-up after a few days of idleness. Off to Mostar in the morning.

Pozdrav iz Hrvatske… I think

OK, so here I am in Dubrovnik at last after a bit of a comedy in departures this morning thanks to some twit setting off the fire-alarms… luckily the second time I went through security, having been forced to exit departures,  the same chap spotted me and my bag and exempted me from having my bag dissected a second time… he already knew about the suspicious bike pedals at the bottom… quite why my pedals were in my hand luggage to begin with is something I am not entirely certain of… possibly an attempt to reduce the weight of my bike bag… though I need not have bothered… it was accepted without question or even weighing :-)

Anyway, I am spending two days here before heading off towards Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dubrovnik is achingly beautiful so I am very much looking forward to some slow time in the old town before getting all sweaty (mmmm) on my bike.

Travelling by bike is always an interesting conversation point when meeting other travellers, especially when travelling very light… just this afternoon i was talking to a friendly Dutch girl and I showed her my tool and she said “oh my gosh, it is so tiny….˝ my multitool I might add….

By the way, did you know that keyboards here have a QWERTZ layout… verz annozing for instinctive tzpers like mzself. Still I am sure zou will figure it out.

cheerio for now!