The Adriatic Coast (day 109 - 118)

Day 109 - 118 (29th - 8th Dec)
11,600 miles
Kotor - Dubrovnik - Split - Bled - Vienna

I woke up to very heavy rain outside, and just listened for a bit before starting the process of clearing out of my accommodation. The bike was up 4 flights of steps from the apartment I'd been staying in so I suited up to carry the gear through the rain and decided now was a good time to clear out the emulsion of leaked engine oil from the container in the spare tyre where I'd also kept some nicknacks, and a broken glass jar from the bear attack over a month before. Once I'd finished wiping and cleaning everything from the red-gooey oil gloop and washed my hands, I'd slipped past checkout of 10am but the rain had also given up so the procrastination paid off. I set off along the southern edge of the angels wing (Bay of Kotor) past the homes which butt up against the shore, and have little parking bays for their boats alongside the cars - a handy feature of a very small tidal range, and got the ferry across the inlet from the Adriatic Sea. The weather had calmed significantly and blue was trying to break through the grey/white blanket laying over me. After an hour I got to the border to leave Montenegro and sailed through very much as a formality. The short ride through no-mans land took me to the entrance of Croatia, and after waiting in turn to present my passport and bike documents, I was stopped by Customs and asked about cigarettes and alcohol. At his request I opened the panniers and he was disappointed to see they weren't packed with packets of tabacco, he asked again, I told him I didn't smoke, then he waved me on - back into the EU, with 20 days to get out again.

I had ridden through Albania and Montenegro without vehicle insurance, which I had known at the time but was okay with. Many insurance companies provide 'Green Card' insurance to cover a small set of countries outside the EU under third party cover, and because of that the borders of the Balkans tend not to ask EU travellers because more often than not they're covered. I wasn't because it wasn't offered by my company (BikeSure), but I figured international insurance drama was so complicated that any issue would be resolved in cash anyway. I'm not the biggest insurance fan, its an enforced hedge against risk that I cause a problem and I prefer to cash in on my common sense and awareness a little more to keep me out of these situations in the first place anyway. The biggest risk was someone at a border asking and causing a scene but it didn't happen so the world kept turning.

An hour later I was in Dubrovnik, I wanted to sit and have a coffee before continuing with the 3 hours to Split, and found a little cafe by the city wall of Old Town, to watch the now exposed sun out over the ocean. I hadn't ridden very far and still had the bulk of the journey to go, but felt really at peace just sitting in the hubbub of the cafe in the sunshine, and decided I didn't want to ride any further. I drove past Dubrovnik in 2013 when I was short on time, thinking that it was an easy destination to fly back to in the future. After 11 years I hadn't been back, and didn't want to just ride past again, and I was still a bit bruised/achy and sore from hitting the road a couple of days ago, it was sunny, calm and welcoming to sit there in the sunshine so I spent an hour scouring the internet for accommodation in the city and found an apartment for 3 nights to hold up and actually see the city after all. I contacted my hostel in Split I was due to arrive at that evening, and explained I had booked it in error (although, it wasn't an error at the time, but that wasn't the point) and could I shift the booking forward 3 days - they rearranged it and I was set, somewhere to sleep and a few days to see the city with no negative consequence.

The host of my apartment suggested it was worth going to the viewing point over the city to catch sunset so I nipped up there by bike, and although I was a few minutes late to see it go down, I caught the aftermath of rich oranges and purples/blues as the islands and islets in the bay took in the last light of the day. The next morning I got up and went for a run around the city to explore and was dismayed with how hard it felt having lost pretty much all of the fitness I'd built up for June. It was the 30th Nov though and I was photographing palm trees and blue skies in front of the ocean in the warmth, a very unseasonable alternative to the grey cold of the UK at the time, so not all was lost. After walking around the Old Town for a little that afternoon I got some food and saw the first night of the winter festive markets held in the Old Town on worn smooth cobblestones illuminated by fairy lights, with families and friends wrapped up against the weather as a throng of schoolkids were arranged on the steps of the cathedral to deliver their recital.

I spent some time the next day going to the exhibits and walking along the city wall, had a coffee at a secret little cafe on the rocks of 'Kings Landing' (as Dubrovnik was used for multiple scenes during filming for Game of Thrones, and its clear to see why), then had an early dinner at a cafe with a view before heading back for an early night of packing and prepping to leave in the morning.

Riding up the coastline was incredible, with sweeping roads and corners giving way to big views out over the Adriatic for an hour or two, then it changed a little and became less stunning for a stretch as the road tucked in from the coastine until I approached Mali Ston, another recommendation from my host at the apartment. It was very much out of season now, there weren't many people around but this region was predominately a muscle and oyster farming area, with a little harbour sheltering the fishing boats from the swell of the sea. I found an oyster bar 20 meters from the harbour and had two rounds of oysters for lunch, as I watched the lady fetch them fresh from the basket they were kept in, straight out of the sea. I had a few options of accompaniment and decided the best was either freshly squeezed lemon or a little drop of tabasco, and sunshine, and sea.

The rest of the afternoon ride up to Split was amazing, and slow because I kept stopping to take photographs and look at the scenery, between enjoying the riding itself on the sweeping empty coastline road. Split was a much more modern and bigger city than I had realised, but despite that as I arrived outside the hostel and was working out where to park the bike someone approached me from the street and asked if I had been in Istanbul 3 weeks ago. He had been staying at the same hostel and recognised my bike and damaged numberplate, he wasn't staying at the hostel he was a local from Croatia and was just coincidentally walking past as I arrived - so bizarre! I parked up and checked in the hostel, then spent the evening working out what to do on my day in Split tomorrow, and ended up watching Die Hard with the staff in an otherwise very quiet place.

Before coming to Croatia I had seen photographs of the spring at Cetina near the border with Bosnia which is known as the Eye of the World. It's a 115 meter deep turquoise spring, one of three in the region that look like a giant eye from the sky and its something I had wanted to visit as part of this trip. I left my luggage at the hostel and took the two hour ride through Croatian countryside and was the only visitor there when I arrived. The temperature away from the sea had dropped to 8°C and the water was cooler still, but it was a peaceful place to sit and have lunch, playing with the drone to get the full impact of the place from the sky. I got back to the hostel and went for a run to see some of the city and Old Town before sunset, and found myself wishing I had another day or two to see more of another very pretty coastal city. After a shower and going out for some mexican food, learning a little about the world and perspective of the Urainian girl working there, I headed back to the hostel and spent a few hours getting to know the guests that had arrived, a guy from Belgium travelling in his Defender 110 with a hitch-hiker from Canada he'd picked up a few days before and had been travelling with him, a kiwi girl doing a lap of Europe and a Finnish chap cycling to Albania from the Arctic Circle.

I intended to get to Bled the next day which was a big ride from Split (388 miles/620km), made longer by the fact I wanted to take the road that contoured the coast the whole way up to Rijeka, visit the Soça River in Slovenia and go over the mountains at the top to Bled, through Italy. I was up, loaded and riding at 08:00 to make the most of the day light which ended at 16:15 ish. Riding up the Adriatic Coast was another specific thing I had been looking forward to doing as part of this trip, and it did not disappoint. It was 4 hours of sweeping bends and empty roads almost all the way up, with islands and barren landscape all around - absolutely gorgeous. The riding was fairly tricky in places, partly because the roads were demanding (and there were multiple signs warning motorcyclists of this) but also by the wind which was extremely fierce. The bike, all the luggage and me on top add up to about 440kg ish, but despite this I was blown sideways multiple times whenever the gullies of the mountains to my right stopped protecting me and channelled the air down to the sea. I was able to stay between the lines the whole time but was riding with the bike and quite an angle to achieve that on occasion, and had one heart stopping moment when I was blown hard toward an oncoming lorry which did wonders for warming me up from the adrenalin of the near miss.

I had a hearty lunch and coffee at a little cafe in Senj then rode on until Rijeka and left the Adriatic for the last time. Doing a little time check at that point I figured I had time to visit the Soça River before dark, another thing I had been wanting to see for a few years so rode toward the border with Italy to Nova Gorica at the bottom of the valley. The temperature had dropped from 12°C I'd had along the coast to 6°C now I was away from the moderating effect of the sea, and begun climbing into the mountains.

Although it was grey and overcast most of the day, the river was still as vibrantly turquoise and stunning as I'd hoped it would be. I rode up the valley alongside the river for an hour to Napoleon's Bridge and would rate it as some of the best riding roads I've been on for a long time. I can't say it's the best of the trip because there have been so many incredible places to ride, but this was notable and had such a picturesque backdrop of the waters below. As I left Napoleon's Bridge the sun was starting to set and the temperatures had dropped further - I was conscious that the route to Bled took me higher into the mountains and my rear tyre was past it's best now (read: illegal, and well beyond much practical off-road/snow use).

I tentatively rode up into Italy as it begun to snow lightly, with piles of snow from days gone by still surviving at the roadside. The route re-entered Slovenia and took me to the hostel where I could unpack and warm up, very grateful for the modified handguards I'd made in Georgia to keep the worst of the driving wind from my hands and give the heated grips a chance to stop my fingers falling off.

The hostel was relatively quiet, with a total capacity of 52, and there being 4 of us there - Jess & Anton, coincidentally both from Brisbane but travelling separately, and Rosemary from the UK. We spent bit of time chatting and exchanging plans for the next day then went to bed. After sorting myself out and getting some breakfast I headed to a neighbouring town, Ukanc, by bus the following day and walked up to see the waterfall (Slap Savica) then round Bohinj Lake which was very peaceful and picturesque, before catching the bus back after dark and visiting the christmas markets by the shores of Lake Bled for some goulash (inspired by Rosemary's suggestion). I did a bit of research on where I could get a replacement rear tyre en-route to Vienna when I figured it wasn't going to get me home safely, and I was reluctant to fit the 50/50 off-road tyre I was carrying to just put 2,000 motorway miles on it. I found a company who had the one I wanted a few hours away but closed at 11:00 on Saturday so I would need to leave early to get there.

I had one more day left in Bled so got up and ran two laps of the lake in the morning which was beautiful with the backdrop of snow capped mountains in the distance, then spent a few hours washing clothes and sorting admin at the hostel before going to explore Bled Castle as the sun was starting to set. I managed to get a particularly good photograph of the lake and church on the island in the soft blue light of dusk, realising that the auto focus on my camera was never actually as good as manually focusing on the objects I wanted (lesson learned).

Whilst I was in Slovenia I realised that I had been bitten by bugs at the hostel in Croatia. I had two areas of localised bites which I'd dismissed as mosquito's but realised that they were definitely not mossies and that the hostel in Croatia knew about it. They had two rooms, and one was closed for "out of season maintenance" which I had been told included steam cleaning the beds and frames to kill "anything that might be living there" - at the time I thought nothing of that comment but it was a lot more telling retrospetively. After looking into it a little, steam cleaning and heat is one of the best ways to kill bed bugs - so they had knowingly let guests stay in the hostel which had bugs - brilliant. Everything I have is very compartmentalised for travelling anyway, so it was easy for me to make sure I washed everything at high heat that had any chance of carrying bugs or eggs, and discovered that the critters don't actually like travelling on people, they prefer getting off their victim before they wake up and living in the warm stable environment of bedding and clothes. After blitzing all my clothes and sleeping bag liner with a high heat wash, the last thing I needed to wash was my sleeping bag itself as I had actually used it on the first night in Croatia which had been cold, but it was overdue a wash anyway as it had lost its lofty fluffyness of down warmth. I knew I was going home in 2 weeks and seeing friends between now and then so needed to make sure I didn't have any freeloaders with me as I travelled. I would just monitor if I had any more bites and wash everything that could have them but so far it seemed I was only bitten in Croatia and had spent 2 nights in Slovenia without any evidence they were around still so was optimistic I could sort it, but it was still annoying.

With an early start to get to the tyre shop the next morning I packed up and sorted everything to be prepped for the morning. I was able to get up and be rolling before 08:00 and was grateful the afternoon snow in Bled hadn't settled overnight. As I started off it was -2°C but dropped to -4°C as I rode over the mountains into Austria, with 3 thermal layers on my top and thermal leggings under my shorts to keep as much of the warmth in as I could. I got to the tyre shop at 10:30 and spotted the one I wanted out and waiting for my arrival by the counter. The price to have it fitted was €42 extra so I said I'd do it myself and was planning to take it away and change in the next few days until I figured it was ridiculous to carry and fit later. It was cold but dry so I asked whether I could dispose of my old tyre there if I changed it at the petrol station across the road and the guy said I could, and that I could just to it in the car park so I changed it there and used their airline to inflate and reseat the new tyre - job done and old TKC80 disposed of. I had managed 8,734 miles on it from Trones in Norway to Tbilisi in Georgia and back up to the borders of Slovenia and Austria near Graz - pretty good going, but I would suggest the 'legal life' of the tyre was closer to 8,000 miles and the off-road life was maybe 7,000 miles.

I set off north towards Vienna with the new Metzeler Tourance on my rear which would see me safely home, and made a stop at the Zotter Chocolate factory to see if it was as good as I remembered it being 11 years later. The tour was good, the company focuses on environmental production, fairtrade cocoa and very tasty products, and I gorged on far too much at the unlimited tasters throughout. Suitably topped up with sugar I carried on to Vienna making a stop at an outdooor shop to pick up some down wash and tennis balls to sort my sleeping bag before everything closed on Saturday night for the remainder of the weekend.

One of the main things I was in Vienna for, was schnitzel. When I lived here in 2013, I had found an amazing restaurant which had been producing schnitzel bigger than the plate it is served on, since 1905. I have the restaurant recipe book at home and have tried to make them but they're nowhere near as good so the only solution was to come back and have them in Vienna again. After checking-in at the hostel and getting changed I realised I was a 3 minute walk from the old corner apartment I had lived in, so went to take a photo of the front door and window from the street. It was a pleasant surprise how close my hostel was to the apartment, and strange that I hadn't noticed when booking - the thing that triggered my memory of it was that the name of the nearest underground station where I used to live was local to the hostel too - Keplerplatz.

After the trip down memory lane I set off to the restaurant hopeful to get a spot at some point over the next couple of days, already aware of how busy they are, and that I wasn't able to make an online booking before I had come to the capital. Figlmüller had two branches, my favourite was the little one tucked away in a side alley, with the bigger one on a main road round the corner. The smaller branch at Wollzeile was a flat no and the other at Backerstraße had a 3 hour queue of folk keen for the same thing on a Saturday night. I went back to Wollzeile and managed to negotiate a booking for the next day at lunch so knew I would get some tomorrow at least, then discovered they had a third place making similar food under licence right next to the bigger restaurant. I joined the 30 minute queue as I needed to do something for dinner anyway, as one of the waiters made a call for anyone willing to sit outside in the cold could eat sooner. A girl ahead of me in the queue took the option so I wondered if there was another opportunity for me to do the same and went up to the waiter to ask but was told no. Noticing she had sat down alone, and chancing my luck spurred on by the cold and my lack of interest in queuing, I asked the girl whether I could join her to skip the queue and she was happy to let me so I sat down and met Gülay, from Istanbul.

We both got the same choice of schnitzel and potato salad (which is much much better than it sounds, I promise) and a glass of wine whilst spending a chilly hour or so chatting thanks to Gülay's English, otherwise relying on Google Translate to demistify the rest. After dinner we went to a coffee house to get some warmth, and dessert (kaiserschmarrn was incredible !) and had a really fun and random evening just getting to know each other a little. She was heading to Budapest early the next morning so we head back to our respective hostels on the same underground and said farewell, after an unpredictable but good evening!

I had a few things I wanted to do the next day, I needed to wash and dry my down sleeping bag to revitalise it and complete the purge of potential bugs from Croatia, but needed to repair a tear in it first. I was also close to having run 1000km in 2024 and wanted to get that done whilst I was in Vienna. With it being a Sunday and all the shops in Austria shut, I tried the hostel reception for needle and thread but failed so found a boutique hotel down the road and chanced my luck at reception, which paid off. I borrowed the needle and thread on the promise to return them, stitched up the sleeping bag, put it in to wash at the hostel with the special down wash from the previous night then got changed and went for a run whilst catching up on the phone to Jax. I got back in time to transfer the sleeping bag to the commercial drier down the street and return the needle and thread to the boutique hotel with a very grateful thank you. Annoyingly I was running short of time to get to my 12:30 second sitting of schnitzel so took the soggy sleeping bag back to the hostel and hopped on the metro to Figlmüller.

The secound round was better than the first (excluding the company which was much better at night!) and I was very glad to have stuck to my plan of having it twice in two days. I went back to the hostel and spent 3 hours feeding the drier which was a tedious lesson in the cost of getting sleeping bags properly cleaned (i.e. pay a company to do it, its expensive and slow to do it at a laundrette) but ultimately left my sleeping bag revitalised and fluffy and bug free. I went back into town and had a wander around Vienna in the dark, just taking in the grandeur of the buildings and the festive lights and cosy buzz of the place at Christmas. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed living here and how pretty it was as a city, with a rich variety of buildings and influences in culture creating a very asthetic and impressive place to be. I got to St Peters Church at Rosemary's recommendation and bought a ticket to see the string quartet recital of various famous composers which was an incredible experience in such an ornate church to sit and listen to musicians at the top of their game. I wanted to go explore some of the christmas markets but time had slipped away and they closed so I satisfied myself with wandering around the illuminated Hofberg, Rathausplatz and Natural History Museum with the intention to see the markets properly the next day. I went back to the hostel, extended my stay one more night with a renewed love for the city and not ready to leave it, then head to bed aware that my day of travel up to Berlin to visit Dan and Wiebke would have to be an early start, but it was worth it to spend another day in Vienna.

NB: photos to follow!