The first one is carved on a tree near the coast of North Carolina where one of the first European settlements mysteriously disappeared, and the second one is a now-independent EU country formerly part of Yugoslavia. Close, but shouldn't be confused.
Several years ago, before that whole COVID thing, we had the good luck of doing a bike tour in New Zealand and getting to know a very kind woman who guided the tour, Sue Clark, an adopted "Kiwi." She mentioned that we might want to think about a bike tour of Croatia which she guided from time to time. Great! we thought. And so we signed up for 2020. Then 2021. Then 2022. The first two got pandemic'd out, and then just before the third try, my right hip got whacked and replaced.
We finally came on the tour this year, and to our delight, Sue was the head guide, with two pleasantly lunatic New Zealand guys helping her.
We spent a lot of time on our bikes prior to the trip trying to improve our conditioning, then sweated the details of packing the bikes and all the other stuff needed for the almost three weeks of the trip.
How does a bike tour work? Great question! There are lots of different ways. There are luxurious ones,
with equally luxurious costs and accommodations (despite what the picture shows, I think they even push the bikes up the hills). And there are less luxurious ones
Our trip was in a nice place in the middle, thanks to Kiwi Style Bike Tours, a compact company in New Zealand that organizes challenging bike tours, largely in Europe. They limit the number of 'guests' to twelve, and provided three guides. The accommodations they picked were at the perfect level.
The rest of the group, including the guides, were all New Zealanders and that meant a lot of fun.
Several guides and guests had known each other for years, and a number had raced at the top levels of the sport. Some of Kiwi Style's other tours include famous climbing stages of the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta de Espana. Like I said, challenging. Luckily, our tour was only rated three out of five "mountains." So what could possibly go wrong? Right?
OK, The Wall of Istria, for starters. The Istrian Peninsula is a lobe of Croatia projecting into the Adriatic Sea, straight across from Venice, Italy.
Croatia has been traded around more times than a share of Amazon stock, having been claimed at some point by the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Italy, France, Nazi Germany, Yugoslavia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and a guy named Harold in Cincinnati, whose claim never really went anywhere.
At present, the countryside of the Istrian Peninsula looks a lot like Tuscany and other parts of Italy, and Italian is the most common language heard there other than Croatian.
The Wall of Istria (not to be confused with The Great Wall of somewhere else) is a section of road included in one of the rides during the four days we spent in Istria. The 'Wall' itself is about four miles long, starting with a fairly steep section, and then it gets serious. The last two miles are at an average inclination of 17%, with parts exceeding 18%, and that's steep enough to be hard to walk up. Paula wisely played the Mother of a Dozen Grandchildren card and rode to the top in the van.
Yeah, but other than that and a few other tough sections, the countryside was beautiful.
In one hilltop village where we stayed, one of the 'streets' was appropriately named Narrow Street.
Luckily, this was near the beginning of the trip, before the great meals made our passage through such places problematic.
There are more than a thousand islands on the coast of Croatia, some forty-nine of which are populated. In fact, Croatia includes about half of the entire eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea, blocking Bosnia-Herzegovina from it, hence the meme:
Several memorable rides hugged the coastline, where every inside curve seemed to hide a tiny village and its harbor.
The trip included beautiful ferry rides to harbors on various islands,
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followed by rides along their length. Several nights were spent in lovely towns on the water,
and many lunch stops were spent checking out the local cuisine.
One of the more memorable days was spent climbing up through the national park that began near the coast and included the third tallest peak in Croatia, reached by the highest paved road in the country. The climb began at sea level in a harbor, and ended a few feet short of six thousand feet.
To her every-lovin' credit, Paula persisted, despite sections up to 15% inclination.
At not even the halfway point, the one-lane road narrowed even more than usual. Paula stopped on the very edge to let several cars pass, lost her balance, and fell down a steep hill full of sharp rocks, sustaining bruises, a large hematoma on an elbow and probably a cracked rib. To her credit, or as a sign of 'no brain = no pain,' she persisted, thankful that nothing worse had happened.
The last three kilometers were nothing short of brutal; the climb has even been included several times in a professional bike race, the aptly named Tour of Croatia.
As Paula climbed the last stretch up to the top, the rest of the party cheered her on. She made it!
Our last several days were spent in Dubrovnik, the Old City portion of which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Ironically, in part because of their bombardment and partial destruction of the Old City during the 1990-1995 war, the Serbians lost significant advantage in the final borders settlement.
The hour-long walk along the walls was, of course, fueled by gelato. Duh.
And then pack the bikes, catch the flights, groan when our last flight was cancelled, spend the night in an expensive cheap hotel, schlep our stuff from JFK to LaGuardia and arrive home to find all was well. What a trip - it seems almost like a dream now.
We hope your hills aren't too steep, and that your gelato is at least half as good.
Dave & Paula
