Our time in Croatia is up, and as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. We enjoyed every minute of our Croatian experience, bora winds and all, and would have to say it’s been our favourite cycle destination of the trip so far. While it’s no doubt due to in part to the fact that we’ve slowed down, the warmer weather, abundance of fresh, healthy food and availability of cheap accommodation has been just what the doctor ordered, and we feel ready to take on whatever Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania can throw at us.

So without further ado, here’s the good, the bad and the interesting from our time in Croatia.

The good

• The food. Much of the food we ate was grown or made locally. Markets are everywhere, road side stalls are a plenty, and every supermarket has a deli. We fell in love with biska (mistletoe grappa), overdosed on Paski Sir (a oily sheep or goat cheese made on Pag Island), breakfasted on burek, ate kilos and kilos of unbelievably fresh veges (and have pledged to try and grow swiss chard back home), and cooked everything in local olive oil. Its been without a shadow of doubt our food highlight of the trip so far.
• The ocean. It really is hard to beat the crystal clear, turquois perfection that is the entire Croatian coast. It’s left us thinking that maybe sand and surf are a little over-rated (blasphemy, we know), and that white pebbled beaches and rocky alcoves are the way to go. Along with being irresistible for swimming, the water was teeming with fish, and small fishing boats and mussel pots line the picturesc shores, with the end results landing on the tables of local restaurants.
• The weather. October and November are supposed to be the more wetter months for Croatia. For a change, the weather gods threw some good luck our way. Of the 23 days we were in Croatia, we had full sun for at least 18 of those days, and only cycled in the rain once. The worst of the summer heat had gone, making it cool enough for cycling to be pleasant, but still warm enough to have a swim in the middle of the day.
• The cheap apartments. We stayed in private accommodation (little one bedroom or studio apartments) for all but one night while we were in Croatia. The most we ever paid was 40 euros and our cheapest was 23 euros – which makes it only ever so slightly more expensive than camping was in Germany and Austria. Considering the apartments came with private bathrooms, fully equipped kitchens, in many cases a balcony or lounge room, and all were spotlessly clean, we were a bit blown away. (The downside of course is that our time in apartments has considerably softened us, and we may get a rude shock when we start camping again in the mountains of Montenegro!).
• The people and their stories. From the lady who wouldn’t take any money for her mandarins when we told her we couldn’t carry a large bag of them, to the goat herder who wouldn’t let us leave without having a full conversation with us without a word of English, and the restaurant owner who talked to us for over two hours about life in Croatia. For us, the Croatian people were like the glue that held together all the other amazing parts of this glorious country and left us smiling at the end of every day.
• The blissfully quiet roads. Off the highways, the roads we cycled along were unbelievably quiet, particularly on the islands. Often, we could go half an hour without having a car pass us. At one point on Cres Matt was tempted to lie down in the middle of the road and take a nap, just to drive the point home about just how quiet the roads were. Even in the mainland, where cars were more frequent, a relatively engine free road was only ever a short turn away

The bad

• 80s pop music blaring out of every cafe speaker, leaving us with annoying ear worms for hours after. Why????
• The relatively expensive camping. The only time we camped in Croatia it cost us 23 euros. Considering we don’t use electricity, and you can find apartments for similar prices, it’s a bit hard to understand how they can justify charging that much. While not all campgrounds were that expensive, everyone we looked up was well over 10 euros, and more designed for campervans than light camping. The upside was it gave us an awesome excuse to stay in apartments the entire time!
• There aren’t really any bike paths in Croatia suitable for touring. We found maps pointing to rail trails or bike paths on occassion, but travelling along them was usually painfully slow either because the surface was so rocky, or because the path included sets of stairs or other obstacles. For cycle touring, it basically means you are stuck with travelling on the road. Thankfully, it was the off season and most of the roads were blissfully quiet, but we can imagine it could get a little unpleasent in peak times.

The interesting

• What jeans are to Australians, the Adidas tracksuit seems to Croatians. Some were matching and blingged up (think tight black with gold stripes, or pink leppoard print), while others were the good old fashioned daggy sets you’d wear at home on the couch. Either way, they were everywhere – on the street, in the cafe, in the supermarket and having lunch with a bottle of wine at the restaurant.
• Grappa (or rakija) is everywhere here. While that is not in itself unusual, the interesting thing for us was how it is drunk. Restaurants will offer it at the end of the meal, often on the house to “help you sleep”, or you can have it at the start of the meal to get your appitite going, and accommodation providers will offer it as a welcome drink. We tried some herbed rakija in a store in Split, and asked the lady how it is best drunk. She was a little confused, so we asked her “is it best after dinner, with a particular type of food, or with some cheese?”. She looked a little taken back, and informed us that you would have it when you first wake up (to get the circulation going), but of course you may also have it after lunch or after dinner. We took her word for it. At up to 45% alcohol content, a shot or two of that every morning would certainly make an interesting start to the day, but not one that we think would be condusive to cycling particularly far.
• The tourism season here is at its peak in July and August. Apparently it laggs a little into September, but by October there is barely a tourist to be found, particularly outside the big tourist mekkas like Split or Zadar. Things are still open, but restaurant waiters look like they are in a coma, beaches are completely empty and you can have your pick of any of the hundreds of thousands of private accommodation rooms that litter the coastline. For us, it is a little hard to understand why the cut off is so severe. While often prone to a little more rain, October is still warm enough to swim, the sun is beautifully warming and not too hot, prices are considerably cheaper, and there are no crowds to contend with at any of the main tourist sites. Good for us, but not ideal for a country that is so reliant on tourism.