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!
What a stunning bridge! WOW! Glad that you are enjoying time away from the rat race.
hey, nice to hear from you. Yeah, freedom is great :-) I just got back from a side trip to Blagaj on my bike… I dont think they see many cyclists round here judging by the open mouth stares everywhere I go…..
hope all is well back there!
cheerio
M
We are doing a similar trip in May … love your blog and all the valuable info … and humour! Is the coast road safe? It looks like there are not any shoulders. What sections are the best from Dubrovnik to Split and which should be avoided? Our other option is bussing back to Split with the bikes although I hear that bikes are not always welcome on public transportation in Croatia.
Any info you can provide will be most appreciated!
hey, thanks for the nice words! I’ll do my best to be helpful.. I only rode parts of the coast road – the stretch from Dubrovnik heading west until the turn for Mostar – as I recall that was a nice ride with some climbing (and a tailwind..:-), and then the short bit from Omis to Split – in between I was on the inland roads. The coastal road is busy, it carries all the tourist buses and so on but having said that at no time did I feel in danger, it’s a wide road with a good surface and most drivers gave me room. The inland roads are wonderful, just empty of traffic with fabulous scenery, villages, variety and so on.
It’s not clear if you’re riding inland roads between dubrovnik and split and then backtracking or are you island hopping with bikes and then trying to get back to your start point? If the former then get a ferry between Split and Dubrovnik to get back.. if the latter then if you have time I’d try and ride some inland routes if you can.
I have no idea if it’s hard to put bikes on buses in Croatia so best I don’t comment on that at all.
Good luck and have a great trip.
cheero!