East to the Slavs…

From Venice we trained/ferried across to Muggia and rode over to hit Slovenia’s 41 km coastline ‘Path of Friendship and Wellness’, a lovely, well set out bicycle path which takes you through abandoned rail tunnels, the backs of little gardens, along the waterfront and through various construction sites.

The Friendship and Wellness Path...

My favourite part of traveling through this area was the well meaning, but misguided tourist information brochures. Everything is in superlatives, corny and with bad English to boot. According to these brochures, Istrian Pennisula (the Pennisula which is home to Slovenia’s coastline and part of Croatia’s) cuisine, sights, beaches, cities and so on, are all amongst the very best in the world. “The tourist would be amazed at all that the stunning Istrian Pennisula has to give and offer the tourist for the very best holiday where they will eat, laugh, love, be excited and see the best beauty in the world.” As for the cuisine, I have one thing to say – enough with the salt already! I was amazed at how they consistently over salted everything I ate. I couldn’t quite figure if it was just all a bad coincidence?

Me, hot and dying.... so, so hot...

Unfortunately Slovenia took the award for worst campsite on the entire trip. For a pricey 22 Euros, we were perched on the edge of a road, with all of about a foot to fit in our guy ropes. Not to mention surrounded by loud east Europeans in close proximity. The quiet scenic swiss campgrounds were soon a distant memory. Otherwise Slovenia was lovely – well the 41 kms we saw of it.


Having little knowledge of the Balkan states, the apparent differences between Slovenia and Croatia were interesting. I picked up a book ‘After Yugoslavia’, while I was there, written by a woman who traveled through these counties when they were unified as Yugoslavia, and then again in about 2004. She had some interesting insights into the area.

Slovenia, the more prosperous of the two (as evidenced by our construction site riding) is a member of the EU. Croatia wishes they were, but given their history of harbouring war criminals, doesn’t look to change any time soon. Zoe Bran, the author, interviewed various people, from varying ethnicities, nationalities, and religions, and looked at what happened with Bosnia, and the factions involved. It’s worth the read if you’re over that way.

Croatians also seemed moodier. Smiles are rare and politeness definitely not endemic. A friend who lived there for a year described it as a type of arrogance. And it’s just hard to get past this and the fact that the place is ridiculously expensive – in the league of the more expensive western European countries. One can’t help but conclude that Croatians have a vastly over inflated idea of their country’s travel value.
I've never seen a country with so much political graffiti.... not that this is a great example

Admittedly we were in peak season on the coast, and perhaps I was a little out of sorts given the roaring heat and humidity which don’t make for great cycling, or perhaps it was the mini discos every self respecting campsite has, which go until about 4am ( I kid you not, and yes, they are loud), or the total lack of concept of quiet after 11pm. I don’t think I actually had one good sleep in Eastern Europe. And Croatia isn’t really set up for cycle touring, despite the tourist brochures boasting of the “fantastic network of cycle ways perfect for every cyclist which will delight”, which really constituted of sporadic signage taking one through rutted dirt roads, and leaving us more than once stranded at the intersection of multiple back roads, with no indication whatsoever of which way to go. Our cycle map wasn’t much help as one couldn’t really tell the difference between major roads which appeared on the map and tiny little dirt roads which didn’t.

Croatian cycle path signage...

Me on one such dirt road.... this one significantly shadier than most (as in tree cover) ... and probably lost.

The scenery wasn’t bad though – the water lovely and sparkling blue, with striking rocky beaches, although hard to see under the hoardes of naked sunbathers. It might sound appealing to some, but trust me, it’s not – I’ve seen enough naked old people to last me the rest of my lifetime. There are few attractive naturalists.


We also had some fabulously relaxing days lying on our newly acquired lilo and using our snorkel set – admittedly not great streamlined additions for our panniers, but we weren’t clocking up great distances in that heat anyway. It was so hot we rode in our togs (bathing suits for all you north Americans) all the time, so we could fall into the ocean at periods to revive. And there were some lovely little spots along the way, we particularly loved Rovinj. And I can’t stress how never before have I lusted after 1.5 litre bottles of ice cold coke like I did then. Oh nothing has ever been that good.

Rovinj... for a 180 degree view check out lancepilbrow.com

Details, details – ok so we rode from Muggia in Italy, along Slovenia’s coastline, and then around the Istrian Pennisula down to Pula, where, after recuperating for four days and puttering around, we took the ferry to Zadar (with much bitterness over the ferry company charging us the same amount to take our bikes as for us) and across to Italy.

Pula has this incredible amphitheater - up there with the top six in the world, including the Colosseum in Rome. One thing it has over the Roman one though - you can pretty much see the whole thing from the outside for free, thanks to that it is built into a hill.

The overnight ferry was quite the experience, jammed to the gills with noisy east Europeans we opted to sleep out on the deck, an option which proved trickier and trickier as the night went on with rain (ok, just find an overhanging ledge) and gale force winds (seriously – I could hardly walk and was in mortal fear of losing my sleeping bag and mat), and then finally ongoing lightening storms. Half way through the night I gave in and found a doorway inside to sleep in. Can anyone tell me what your chances are of getting hit by lightening on the deck of a boat? Bruce?

I think this was Piran... which had quite the stately town square.

Me looking rather happy - clearly not thinking about Croatian prices...

Taken one of the scariest nights of my life - tent, open area, lightening storm right above. It lasted about an hour too! Seriously it was so bad campers all around were getting in their cars. Would a thermarest insulate you from lightening?

Oh I must say that I did love one campground cover band, not that they were that great, but they were fantastically cheesy, called themselves “Masterband”, and knew “Masterband wishes you and your loved one a very special and romantic night” in seven different languages. Priceless and so very eastern european.