Derby to Dubrovnik*

Our rather indirect route to Greece Our bikes are packed away in boxes, and a (large) taxi has been booked for tomorrow to take us to Preveza airport. We are nearing the end of our trip, and will soon be back in Derby. It feels quite surreal as we are currently sat on the beach, with the temperature being 29 degrees, and we've just had some pretty good ice cream. The weather in Derby looks less good for tomorrow, and it doesn't have quite the same gelato on offer. A bike box held together with sellotape and hope  A pretty good place for an airport! We are, however, very much looking forward to seeing friends and family; particularly our nephew, born the day after we left! Eating something other than pesto pasta ( pasto ) is also a very exciting prospect, and after being too hot for a couple of weeks, we will try and appreciate the cooler temperatures and even rain.  Whenever Rhys and I have a fun trip with friends, we always ask: "what were ...

We hadn't originally planned on spending much time in Bosnia, and it wasn't somewhere we'd read much about, beyond hearing its name on the news growing up. We did only spend two days there, but feel like it's deserving of its own blog entry... An unexpectedly beautiful detour into Bosnia  After leaving Slovenia we first headed towards Trieste,  where we had a lovely afternoon with Rhys' mum and friends, who just happened to be on a fortuitously timed cruise around the Adriatic. A leisurely afternoon off the bike drinking coffee with Carolyn felt very enjoyable. The unscrupulous characters you encounter in Trieste We then travelled down through Croatia, mainly on the islands, as we'd been told by multiple sources that cycling down the mainland coastal road was quite unpleasant. (Spoiler alert- they weren't wrong). We had a blast through the quiet istria region of northern Croatia, making the most of more old Austro-hungarian train lines th...

Throughout our trip, the temperature has been ratcheting up as we've progressed. We expected this as we went further south, but the extent has taken both of us by surprise. The first few days cycling across England were a little on the chilly side, and we had to layer up with nearly all of our clothes, as we ate lunch in various parks, heading eastwards to Harwich. The first day in the Netherlands was windy, and we've had to cycle in the rain a couple of times since reaching mainland Europe. Otherwise our two month trip has been warm! We thought it was warm in the early days of following the Rhine, and we were told by WS hosts that it was unusually warm for the time of year. However, we never had to worry about cycling in the heat of the day; the breeze generated whilst cycling was always cooling enough. Sunny weather in France, but not too hot for cycling When we reached Trieste, we thought that was hot! But again, particularly with hindsight, it all seemed managea...

Dipping into Bosnia and Herzegovina for a couple of days (more on this next blog!) Having a career break, and doing something exciting was something we'd both wanted to do for a while. Life seems to go so quickly, and a break from our usual 9-5 routines, and only having limited adventures at the weekend, was something we were really craving. We've now cycled for 53 days, and have slept in 51 different places. Over this time our lives have taken on a new rhythm, and although every day is different, we've developed new routines. These have changed somewhat depending on where we are, but we thought we'd do a short post on what a normal day may look like, complete with the less exciting parts! Our next blog post will be a return to the usual update of where we've been travelling; about our time in the Balkans. Morning: a good day starts with porridge Our days typically begin about 7, though  this will depend strongly on where we're staying. Recently we...

Sunrise at Krn - one of our favourite moments from Slovenia We'd been a little nervous about crossing the Alps. After weeks following the relatively flat Rhine we had become accustomed to spinning away, with only headwinds to contend with. The hills of Bavaria were rolling and fun and perhaps gave us a little reassurance, but we still weren't sure about our ability to do an alpine pass on a fully-loaded touring bike.  After a quick glance of our routemap, it may look like we didn't know which direction we were heading in (and this would be somewhat true); we were cycling in the direction of the Alps but not entirely sure of which pass to take, instead, taking time to enjoy almost every lake we passed.  We could have been more direct, but have loved the different stages of our ride so far! After some deliberation and long discussions with our WS hosts, we finally decided on the Brenner pass, which would take us from Austria to Italy. Brenner pass is o...