Island Hopping

As stated in the previous post, we were traveling over the islands of Ugljan and Pasman towards Split. They were a nice change of scenery. We could see the Dinarian Alps accentuating the mainland's coast, with the Velebit the most impressive of sights. To my fascination, if there were clouds, they mostly seemed to hover above those mountains. Certainly the wind is moving at those heights, so I suppose I'm not actually seeing the exact same cloud all the time. I'm probably seeing some interesting interplay between the mountains' influence on the winds, and the moisture swept along to higher and colder regions in our atmosphere, but to my delight I understand nothing of it (yet?). Along that line of thought: I've promised myself to start learning about the flora and fauna in my own country, it is embarassing how little of the nature around me I can call by name.

Nearer to us there are the round, smoothly undulating hills that form the islands. While the Dinarides look relatively devoid of greenery, the hills around us are filled with it. The sea is crystal clear everywhere we look.

Our route takes us over a single relatively busy road, but most of the time we descend into small villages, with narrow rocky beaches next to the road. Those beaches are filled with people, each with their own cushions or yoga-mat (to make the stones more comfortable to lie on). The sunworshippers themselves are distributed as chocolate sprinkles thrown at a buttered piece of toast (as my partner quite accurately put it). Since cycling together with someone seems to reduce my desire to make pictures, this description will have to make do for the reader.

It seems like the tourism is becoming a bit different. Instead of the more expensive resorts and campings aimed at the western European tourists (evident from the number plates), it appears to be that we're among the Croatians on holiday themselves (along with Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Slovakians, Slovenians, and Serbians). Even though the beaches and promenades are still quite busy, it all feels a little bit less crowded, which does wonders for our enjoyment of the place.

Heading to Split

We took another ferry from Pasman to Biograd, and cycled along the coast. We had some coffees, and took a break while we had a view of lake Vrana with its incredibly blue water. The remainder of that day we cycled partly along the busy D8. There were low green trees everywhere, occasionally interrupted by tiny plantations of mostly olive trees and fig trees. These appeared to be small gardens owned by people, like little community gardens you would find in the Netherlands, but removed rather far from any nearby villages or cities for Dutch standards (our guess would be somewhat confirmed by a man in Split that we talked to). Each little garden would be separated from the next one by low walls consisting of manually stacked rocks (of which there are plenty here). With the occasional view of a hill here and there peeking over the trees we arrived in Vodice.

In Vodice we did nothing for a day. It was yet another coastal town filled with people on holiday, much like described before. We stayed two days at a small camping near the beach, you can pictures our stay as if we would be camping in somebody's backyard with ten other people. We took a walk through the tiny old city center, and the remainder of the day was spent doing various chores.

From Vodice we set off on our final two days to Split. Thick and relatively high walls of stacked rocks formed the sides of the path that led us out of Vodice, still traveling along the Eurovelo 8 route, until we came to a bridge over the river Krka. From the banks near the bridge we could see the city of Sibenik in the distance, it would be our next intermediate destination. We were quite impressed by a particular view of the oldest parts of the city. Buildings were scattered on the slopes of two particular hills that were in our view (the city being much larger than those two hills, ofcourse), each of the hills capped by a fortress. We thought ourselves to be the well educated travelers when we thought we recognised the hallmarks of the old Venetian empire's architecture, but were proven wrong by wikipedia when we learned that Sibenik was founded by the Croatians.

We traveled along the coast until we came to Grebastica. Yet another coastal town, more people scattered like chocolate sprinkles. The difference being that a flank of one of the hills that forms the bay in which the village resides seems to have been on fire. Mostly blackened trees among some remaining green straggelers, and some of the charred branches still holding on to their reddish-brown leaves. After a break we would head up that hill, and be amongst the foothills of mountains. For me personally it has been a while since I rolled through the beginnings of a mountainous landscape, making me quite happy. And I've never seen it with this particular flora and types of rocks.

We would climb a bit further, along relatively carfree roads, until we came to the highest point on our road to split. There we found a place to camp on a hill, overlooking the adriatic sea and the island Vis in the distance. We were notified through a family groupchat that the perseids were predicted to visit the northern hemisphere. So we were quite lucky with our clear skies and a new moon that night. We both saw several falling stars that night, and for the first time in our lives, we were able to see the milkyway in the night sky. Not terribly vividly, but that leaves one with something to be excited for in the future.

A last descent together

We chose our campingsite such that the next day we could mostly roll downhill back towards the coast. We said goodbye to the foothills with their stone-walled little fig, grape and olive groves, and finally made our final descent together to the people-strewn rocky beaches near Seget Vranjica. We took a last break in the shade amongst, as we found out later, quite a collection of dog shit. Comes with the territory if you unknowingly sit down next to a dog park. We settled for a slightly less manured area and had our lunch: a collection of unknown kinds of bread we found at the bakery (my favourite so far is the burek, my cycling parner's favourite is, I suppose, slowly becoming the "hot dog": a sausage baked inside of a bread roll). Over the boulevard we would travel to Trogir, where we would take the boat to Split. It was a nice and slow ride, with a fantastic view of the various bays and islands around Split.

For a while I've ended these posts with our plans for the future. While my future plans are slowly taking shape, our current shared plans were fixed from the start: my girlfriend will be heading home in a couple of days. It'll probably take a day or ten before I write another post, as we're going to enjoy Split for a couple of days and afterwards it'll take a while before I have something of interest to mention.