Greetings from Krk

Departed The Hotel Piran this morning at 08:00 and straight into a big climb to take us from the coast back into the mountains.  Spent the morning up in the mountains, beautiful scenery, great vistas of thick forest dotted with tiny villages. We got to the Croatian boarder, rather uninterested security guards checked our passports, the flags at the boarder bringing back uncomfortable memories of the conflict that raveged the Blakerns during the 1990s.

At the border

After a sharp descent we got to Buzet and stopped for coffee. A small rather uninteresting place with the only redeming feature being a cashpoint machine which allowed us to get some local currency.

We then got involved in the silliest climb I’ve ever done on a bike. Over 6k at an average 12 % gradient taking us up well over 1000 meters. All of us completely knackered and rather quiet.

Water stop half way up the crazy hill

As you can imagine the trip down the other side was entertaining, especially as it had started to rain pretty hard. As we swept round one of the hairpins with only an inadequate, communist era barrier separating us from the sheer drop and oblivion, we saw what looked like the remains of Chris’ bike, on the wrong side of the barrier, the front wheel making its few final turns. Jeremy and I leapt off our bikes and lent over the barrier, no sign of Chris. “Chris”, “Chris where are you” we screamed, the panic rising in our voices. Graham then arrives at the site of the emergency, he too peers over the barrier. “that’s ruined my holiday” he complained. At this point Chris burst out of the bushes “Only Joking” he says, “I thought you needed cheering up” We all rode off in silence!

... and a long way down

Today’s BREXIT arguments centre around the idea that Croatia has the sort of similar loose arrangement that we would have if we left the EU. Croatia has appalling roads, an extensive selection of ancient, damaged white goods by the side of the roads and lots of builders covering up the remaining bullet holes in shabby houses, do we want this for the UK? On the pro BREXIT side, few sensibly formed arguments today, as one of my old Bosses used to have printed on the back of his business cards, “The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinions”

Lunch in Opatija, excellent and much needed plate of pasta then the final 40 miles to Malinska in the rain and the excellent Vila Rova.

As soon as we got in some of the chaps went for a swin in the inviting outdoor pool. Now some things we can fix like mending Chris derailleur after his bike fell over at lunch, others have proved more challenging like trying to get a volunteer to rescue Graham’s glasses from the bottom of pool. Graham started dinner in his shades, looking exactly like a drug dealer. Harley, who is a nice man and became concerned that the hotel staff were actually starting to believe he was a drug dealer, eventually consented to go fishing for them.

They went down to the pool and Harley stripped down to his shorts and dived in. He couldn’t dive deep enough with his shorts on so stripped off completely and tried again. Whilst this was going on, Graham went off to get the receptionist to turn the pool lights on. He and the voluptuous Svetlana returned to the pool; Harley had already recovered the glasses. With the crisis averted, , Svetlana stood at the end of the pool and instructed him to get out as “I have to get back to reception”, “I’ll get out in a minute” says Harley. “No, you have to get out now” came the response. Harley was last seen running away from the receptionist hands clutching his crown jewels. He hasn’t come down to dinner yet...

Today’s stats 90 miles / 146 KM and 10,000 feet of climbing phew!

Keep you posted

GPX file of today's route  Piran to Krk