0 miles traveled
Our last post left us beaten and tired in Ravno, Bosnia. So we took a rest day.
Our hotel is an old railroad station from the Ciro Railroad that we have been following.
A section of the old track preserved under the sidewalk. This hotel was amazing for being in the middle of nowhere.
For the first night there was only one other set of guests. They were Swiss cyclists. They had a better set-up on their bikes for the rough roads. They have mountain bikes and "BOB" trailers with suspension. They came from Croatia where we are heading, so they gave us lots of tips.
Requisite small town church shot...
Contemplative Julie...
In the afternoon of our off day, I went to check on our bikes (locked behind the hotel) to do some routine maintenance. It turns out I had a flat front tire from yesterday's rough ride. I installed a new tube and patched the old one for a spare.
Julie was not impressed with my use of this old stone sink to check for the leak on the tube. I was impressed.
If you look closely you can see the bubbles coming out of the leak.
Day 19 Ravno, Bosnia to Vjetrenica Caves and back to Ravno, Bosnia..
7.6 miles by bike
Our original plan leaving Ravno was to cycle southwest to see some amazing caves and then head west into Croatia. We learned from talking to some local loud mouths in Ravno, that the crossing we planned to use was closed to tourists. It is a small border crossing only for locals.
As a result, we left our bags at the hotel and rode to the caves on empty bikes. Then we backtracked to the hotel and headed slightly northwest to an international border crossing. This also changed where we will stay in Croatia. I had picked a campground near the "local" border crossing. Since we have to head northwest, we just found another campground.
See map below for happy and sad border crossing options. We are lucky we talked to these guys before going. It is downhill to the border and we would have had to turn around and ride uphill back.
The caves are at 50 degrees all year round with a huge wind. The wind comes through chimneys and shoots through the cave and out the entrance.
There are no cameras allowed inside the caves. Below are some stock photos from Google. They were amazing. The whole complex is about 14 miles long. Although, tourists can only venture in a small part of that.
Day 19 (part 2) Ravno, Bosnia to Prapratno, Croatia
24 miles by bike
After the caves, we returned to our hotel, loaded up the bikes and headed for Croatia.
On the map below you can see the caves marked to the south of our hotel and the route we took that is more west/northwest.
This is on the way back to the hotel after the caves, notice no bags on the bikes. Julie is checking out some of the hills in our future.
Bosnian countryside... (sorry for the thumb in the picture)
Today was another tough day of riding, hot and hilly. I kept promising Julie that soon we would come over a hill and see the Adriatic Sea. Below is our first look, cloudy but scenic.
"Car" camping in Croatia.
Day 20 Prapatno, Croatia
0 miles traveled
The campground had a pay phone... so we stayed a day.
There was also a nice beach at the campground...but mostly the pay phone hooked us.
Day 21 Prapatno, Croatia to Polace, Croatia (Mljet Island)
15 miles by ferry, 15 miles by taxi
The dotted line in the map below is a ferry ride, followed by a taxi. Our original plan was to take two ferries, but we found out we missed the only running of the second ferry for that day.
Waiting for the ferry to Mljet Island with our campground in the background
On the ferry...
When we got to Mljet Island we decided to take a taxi (some guy with a van) to where we were staying instead of biking. The island has one road that is too narrow to bike on. Julie took this photo of empty wine bottles in the back of this guys "taxi."
Boat in need of love...
This is the bay of Polace, Croatia. It is an odd little town. Our hotel is our worst accomodations of the trip, including all the campgrounds. It is absolutely gross and overpriced. The town seems to cater to wealthy yachters that come in for the night. The yachters come in the afternoon and have a few drinks and then a fancy dinner. They stay on the boats so there is an odd combination of really fancy, expensive restaurants and shitty hotel rooms.
Days 22 & 23 Polace to Mljet National Park
20 miles by bike (10 per day).
Polace is on Mljet Island, which has a national park, including an island that is in the middle of a lake that is in the middle of Mljet Island!
The island on a lake in the middle of Mljet Island...houses an old monastery.
There is a great path around the lake to bike or walk. There is a ferry to the island that costs money, but half way around the lake we saw this sign. The owner of the little restaurant on the island has his own free ferry. You stand on the shore and wave the flag and he sends one of his sons over to get you.
There is our ferry returning to the island.
Since we got a free ride, we patronized the restaurant that provides the ferry. Julie ordered a "fruit cup." It came with 3 scoops of ice cream on top of some fruit.
Mini chapel...
Inside the chapel, people leave prayers.
Some sort of construction barge with a sense of humor.
The island has some great spots to jump in the lake. This was our favorite, nobody around.
Day 24 Polace, Croatia to Kupari, Croatia
47 miles by ferry
Jules found a little starfish while waiting for our ferry out of Polace.
We arrived in Kupari, which is south of Dubrovnik. We saw a campround there on the map and the website made it look decent. It turned out to be a glorified trailer park off a highway. Our second strike out on accomodations in Croatia - afer so much good luck in Hungary, Serbia and Bosnia. The good news is the campground is a short walk to the beach and to ferries that go to amazing places.
The bad news is I almost had to intervene in a domestic dispute at the camp site next to ours. The couple was yelling and fighting late into the night.
Our set up for 3 days below:
Julie's "go to" camp dinner, pasta with mushrooms and zucchini.
Day 26 Kupari, Croatia to Dubrovnik, Croatia.
14 miles (roundtrip) by ferry
We were eager to leave the trailer park and go see Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is famous for its "old town." If you are a loser, you may be aware that a lot of Game of Thrones was filmed here. So in addition to the normal tourist crowd there were a lot of dorks in jean shorts and Game of Thrones shirts crowding the streets.
Julie liked Dubrovnik. It was my personal nightmare...too many people and too many locals trying to sell me shit.
Franciscan monestary in the old town.
We took the ferry back to our campsite and decided to go see the beach within walking distance of our camp. My favorite part of bike touring is the amazing unplanned things we see and experience. It turns out that Kupari is somewhat infamous from the two Balkan wars. At one time it was a resort complex of 5 hotels for officers on the Yugoslav army. When the second of the Balkan wars broke out and Croatia was fighting for independence, the Yugoslav army (Serbs) bombed their own former resort. I assume they did not want anyone else to enjoy it. They even went floor by floor burning it with phosphorous. After that looters came to take away anything worthwhile. 20+ years later, skeletons of these 5 hotels still stand on an amazing beach. We tried to research why they have not been rebuilt. It turns out that it was a lengthy process to turn them over to private companies. But now Marriott owns some of the property and will begin rebuilding it.
I found all of this amazing and eerie to be sitting on a beach with these buildings overlooking us. Julie was not impressed and upset I made us leave old town Dubrovnik. Our trailer park campsite was a 2 minute walk from all of this.
Below are some pictures of the former military resort at Kupari, Croatia.
If you can zoom in on the picture below, some funny guy spray painted "all inclusive."
The 3 pictures below I borrowed from this article: http://www.thebohemianblog.com/2017/03/postcards-from-kupari-visiting-croatias-bay-of-abandoned-hotels.html
The site was really amazing and my pictures do not do it justice.
Back to my pictures...
I felt this is an appropriate response to a swastika!
Day 27 Kupari, Croatia to Cavtat, Croatia
15 miles (roundtrip) by ferry
Jules did some research and hit a homerun on the town of Cavtat. We again left the trailer park, walked a short distance to the ferry and were on our way to Cavat, dubbed a "mini-Dubrovnik."
No shortage of churches, not sure what this hand and cross is doing...
Not a bad view from this bar...
Cavtat has lots of places that rent a beach chair for the day for around $5 and they have great places to jump off the rocks and in the water. We rented chairs near the bar above. Below is a shot of our perch. That is Jules above a sundial in the rock. This is a far cry from the trailerpark we woke up in!
That's me in our own little swimming hole.
This cat could be dead, I'm not sure. This was waiting for our ferry back to the trailer park. You can glimpse some of the monster yachts in the background.
The lady at the trailer park gave us a tip on a cheap laundry service down the road in an industrial area. It is more of a uniform/industrial laundry outfit. But they did all of our laundry for about $6.
...and folded it and wrapped it in plastic.
Day 28 Kupari, Croatia to Mlini, Croatia
1.5 miles by bike
Another reason we had preselected the campground in Kupari - it was close to our final destination, Mlini, Croatia.
We will spend our last 4 days relaxing in Mlini, Croatia and packing up to go home. Usually on a bike trip, I would visit a local bike shop to get some of their used bike boxes for the flight home. It turns out that Dubrovnik and the surrounding area do not have one single bike shop. It is not a bike friendly area. As a result, we have been on the lookout for cardboard since arriving at the trailer park.
Below I found some packing tape in a little hardware store on our short, 1.4 miles ride.
Julie was super excited to do some dumpster diving with me. She actually pointed out the furniture store on the way to our final hotel in Mlini. After checking in and sitting by the pool for awhile, we went back to check their garbage. After 4+ weeks on the road and 3 recent nights in a trailer park, Julie was pretty excited to dumpster dive for cardboard...on a Saturday night...when we could be in our nice hotel...or out for a drink.
But we got what we needed.
Break down the boxes...
...and strap them to our bikes. Jules was sufficiently embarrassed that I was going to bring these bikes and boxes back to our hotel!
As I write this post, the bikes are half boxed up.
This post is the last update of the trip. As mentioned above, we will spend 4 days relaxing and packing.
TRIP STATISTICS:
Total miles traveled: 816
Miles by bike: 438
Miles by taxi: 275
Miles by ferry: 91
Miles by van (Andras in Budapest): 12
Most miles in a day: 62
Highest speed: 29 mph (downhill between Novi Sad and Belgrade, Serbia)
Lowest speed: 2 mph (various parts of Ciro Trail in Bosnia)
Number of times crying: 3 (Matt 2, Julie 1)
Two maps of our travels:
