The Second Grand Tour Part 2: Rolling Down Illyria.

One of the few good spots we found on Slovenia's Coastline.

As said in the last post, we were a little disappointed with Slovenia's coast. For this reason we decided to head straight to Croatia the next day, as our original plan would have kept us in Slovenia for another night.

It wasn't a long ride to the boarder and the crossing was pretty easy. Before we knew it we were heading towards the Dalmatian coast and the sea again, this time hoping to actually touch the water. The view of the Adriatic on the Croatian coastal road has to be seen to be believed. Water and islands on your right, Mountains and seaside towns littered with orange roofs on your left, it really is quite the experience.

This was pretty much the entirety of the Croatian coastal road, not bad eh?

We stopped for lunch and a quick dip (finally) in the sea at a town called Crikvenica, which was nice but not quite as far down as we wanted to be. We reached the town of Senj that evening and found an apartment for the night before going on a little wander.

A few shots of Senj.

A lot of Dalmatia used to belong to the Venetian's at the height of the republic's power as it was a useful trade corridor between the east and west. Because of this, the main towns and cities of the Croatian coast have these beautiful Renaissance-era old towns at their centre. Senj had one such old town with a castle overlooking the bay. It was a nice starting point on what was to become welcome stops on our journey down the coast.

The next morning the weather turned. The coastal road was beautiful but not that easy to navigate on a fully-loaded bike, so we decided it was best to avoid it until the weather cleared. This may or may not have been a bad decision. The road to the motorway took us over a mountain just as the rain was coming in, which was exciting to say the least. After what seemed like forever climbing slippery and steep slopes, we finally found the motorway, just as the weather cleared for an easy ride through the Croatian mainland. Not as exciting as the coast but the landscape is still pretty breathtaking here, as desert hills and low shrub land stretch on as far as the eye can see.

We made it back to the coast before the afternoon was spent and hopped across a few island bridges to the tourist town of Vir. We were staying with a kind Hungarian man who Vanda knew through friends of ours and for the next day we stayed with him, exploring the islands around Zadar and Nin (the former being the local capital and the latter an ancient fort town. During this time we managed to get a bit of rest and relaxation by the sea, thinking this would be our only chilled out part of the trip (we were wrong).

Nin, Swans in the sea and Zadar...everyone was as surprised as you are about the swans

After saying our goodbyes in the mid-morning we left very refreshed for our next stop on the coast, Trogir. On the way we decided to stop at a sandy beach that Vanda had been to five years ago on a small island named Murter. Turns out that the tiny sandy beach is not that much of a secret as people lined it like sardines in a tin. We had a quick swim and left, somewhat disenchanted. This ride wasn't all doom and gloom though. The road leading into Trogir features a mountain decent where you can see the old town, a fortified island between two bigger islands, below. It looked pretty awesome from a distance. It was also alright close-up too, but at this point we got used to the fact that old towns were mostly filled with expensive Restaurants. So we decided to eat dinner and stay just outside Trogir. Our plan was to head to the bottom of Dalmatia and then up into Bosnia and Herzegovina to the old town of Mostar. So we figured it would be better to stay in one more place in Croatia before we did this to make the journey easier.

Thar she blows, fully packed and about to leave Trogir.

We settled on the tourist town of Makarska. Now for all intents and purposes it is just that, a tourist town, but with a reasonably priced Hostel, an abundance of coastal restaurants serving local food and a 5km beach we kind of had to take advantage of the time we had to spare. So we stayed there for three days (Not exciting to talk about I grant you, but even Motorcycing adventurers need a break!).

Saying hi to Hostel dog, Makarska, beautiful wife and beach, saying bye to Hostel dog

While here, we cleaned all of our clothes, made some adjustments to our equipment and worked out the next leg of our journey. Little did we know that what was to come next would be the best part of the whole trip.

But you'll have to find out next time on 'The Adventures of Puffer and Sauce'(tm)

I will post the final part of this adventure tomorrow, stay tuned kids!

Puffer

The Second Grand Tour Part 1: To The Water.

Didn't take many pictures in Hungary, so here is a poppy field, ooh, ahh

The Summer has officially begun.

The sun is shining, the breeze is blowing and Londoners are explaining to bartenders that it is hot outside, remarking that it's lucky that they are working in a dark bar, possibly for under the living wage and for longer hours than is technically legal, because at least they don't have to sit outside and have BBQ's with their friends, god forbid.

Ask not for whom the cloud rains, it rains for thee

Here in central Europe, the weather will now be a consistent mix of sun, apocalyptic rain, then sun again, then 'seriously guys I see the horseman, the end is nigh' thunderstorms and finally back to sun. The summer hit us quite quickly after the excitement of getting married and all, and we realised it would go just as fast if we didn't hurry up and get exploring. We have an amazing opportunity this year to take time into our own hands and have real adventures before we head back to London to begin the next stage of our lives together. So Two days before we actually set out, we worked out where we could go for a two week period before we returned to the UK to finalise our affairs and celebrate our wedding with the Brits. We considered Italy, a bit of Eastern Europe and finally a trip to the Baltic sea and Scandinavia (which on second thoughts would take a really bloody long time, plus it was the summer and hot. So there was only one thing for it; we would ride to the Former Jugoslavia and travel down the Adriatic coast. It turns out that Croatia has a pretty nifty sea road that would keep the sea at our right hand side as we rode down to Herzegovina. So on Friday 2nd June, we decided to wake up early and pack our bags for the long ride across Hungary.

We super weren't ready so instead we left on Saturday 3rd. Now Hungary has a network of convenient Highways across the whole country, linking important cities and international routes. That being said Eastern Hungary's flat steppe landscape is really bloody boring after the first two hours. Budapest was exciting as always, our GPS suggested that it would be advisable to go through the city centre. Now you may not know this, but there are a lot of impatient Hungarian drivers, and driving through a city is the worst. We were nearly knocked off and flattened on multiple occasions, the most exciting of which was when a lady decided that there were two many people in her lane and instead she'd try her chances at not slowing down and flying into oncoming traffic, during this performance the part of oncoming traffic was played by us.

Nevertheless we made it past the city and across the Western half of the country to the Balaton (a giant lake, locally referred to as the 'Hungarian Sea'). We found a small town by the name of Zalakaros on the south end of the Balaton and stayed there for our night in Hungary. It may not be news to anyone but me, but Europe is ram-packed with apartment rooms available to people touring on the roads. These are basically cheap hotel rooms in people's houses with parking spaces or garages, perfect for riding a motorcycle. At this point I'd like to thank the ageing German camping community for this, it definitely made our trip easier.

The Istrian Coast in Slovenia

The next day we crossed into Slovenia and the landscape changed dramatically. Where there were fields, there were now mountains, where the green was deep, it was now light, and there are amazing vistas as you roll across the gorges and through hills. The road bent and twisted in pleasing curves as well. Slovenia is a Motorcycling dream. We stopped for lunch in Ljubljana (a pronunciation that I'm not sure is possible to get right). And explored the city a little. It is an amazing green city, with no cars in its centre, beautiful streets lined with trees and huge Habsburg buildings dominating the skyline. Sadly we didn't have a choice but to carry all our stuff with us, which was really heavy and hot in the midday sun. We left for the Slovenian coast after Lunch and enjoyed more of the highways that this tiny republic had to offer. The coast was a bit disappointing. The small old towns were nice but access to the sea was not really a thing, there was a small crowded beach, but it was packed and right next to a massive industrial shipping yard.

Ljubljana, heavy bags, cobbled hills and delicious overpriced refreshments

Not really summer holiday vibes.

We spent the night in a coastal town called Portorož and decided to leave the country for Croatia the next morning. And this is where I will leave you in this part, stay tuned for the Dalmatian coast in part 2, which I'll post tomorrow!

Puffer