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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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).
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| 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.
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| 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!).
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| 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)
Puffer
