When we arrived in Zagreb a few days ago… Almir (one of the fellows who rented us the motorcycles) told us that it’s very safe here in Croatia. He said they didn’t need to provide any locks for the motorcycles, and that we would have no issues whatsoever. It was very comforting to hear that…especially since we don’t really want to buy him two new motorcycles!
Today would turn out to be quite a long day on the bikes. It started with a beautiful ride through the Vintgar Gorge…so we took our time and tried to get some nice photos along the way. The problem with photographing, a gorge or mountains when you’re literally on top of them… is that you cannot have enough of a wide angle lens to really capture it all. 🤪
We even tried flying the drone a few times, but unfortunately drones cannot look up (mountains)…only level or down. 😫
Most of the morning and early afternoon… The riding was lots of switchbacks either climbing or descending through mountain passes.
🐑 traffic🤪
It was really beautiful, but slow going. To add to that… We were trying to follow the route that Almir had recommended to us… But it got us lost many times and occasionally put us on to some loose gravel roads. After nearly taking a digger on my bike…we eventually found our way out of the mountains and headed towards Motovun.
We had planned a stop at a castle that was built into the side of a mountain and cave entrance…but the day was going on so long that we decided to skip it.
About 15 miles before arriving in Motovun we could see it in the distance sitting pretty atop a beautiful hill. It reminded us of the hill towns in Tuscany that we visited in May when we walked the Via Francigena with our friend Carsten. We didn’t arrive there until after 6 o’clock. Then…we couldn’t find the damn road that went the last hundred meters up into the city.
I was stopped near a turn, and an older fellow hanging out of a second story window, was trying to communicate with me. We didn’t understand each other, but I eventually got across that we were trying to get to Villa Marija. He pointed up a stone path and said it was in that direction. Unfortunately…there was a gate at the bottom of the path…so I used my fingers to show him a walking motion…and he nodded. Yes! 🤣
We found a place to park the bikes for the night and unloaded our gear and walked up the hill to Villa Marija…stopping to catch our breath every few minutes 😳 until we finally reached the B&B.
At Villa Maria…Loraina…the owner…showed us to our room. A set of doors in the room opened out to a beautiful balcony with views of the vineyards in the valley going on for miles. What a beautiful spot!
Loraina even brought us each a glass of local white wine called Malvasia.
It was dry…just the way we like it…and quite good. After what turned out to be a long day…it was so nice to enjoy it on our balcony together.
We took a nice walk all the way around the city on the perimeter fortified walls. What an amazing place! Dinner was outdoors at a very nice restaurant just up the hill from our B & B.
Photo bombed!
We had a hell of a laugh with those guys after we realized what they had done! 😂
Tomorrow…we will tour the remainder of the Istrian peninsula here in Croatia. Looks like another long ride but can’t wait!
