We woke up this morning with the sun basking on the small town of Lovran. Today would be a typical riding day for us… Somewhere between 250 and 300 km. After a quick breakfast at the hotel… The first hotel we stayed at by the way… We had the bikes loaded up and were on our way.
The view from our room this morning
As we headed north towards Opatija, we could see clouds in the distance that were threatening rain..but thought we might be able to avert it. It turned out we couldn’t. 😫. We stopped in a small town and ducked into the bus station to put our rain gear on. At first, it was only a light rain, but soon turned into a downpour.
Fortunately, it didn’t last very long…but just long enough for the rain to find its way under our rain suit in a few places.
We stopped for lunch in Karlobag and spread our wet clothes over the motorcycles while they sat in the warm sun.
We found a great little Italian place outdoors, and had probably our best meals so far. Denise had a seafood risotto and I had seafood over pasta. Both were absolutely delicious and a perfect lunch for a rainy morning.
By the time lunch was over the sky had cleared and we were on our way again. We entered the Paklenica National Park and were treated with some of the best riding we’ve had yet.
The road followed the rocky coast winding in and out of inlets with nothing but twisties ahead. The views were breathtaking.
We stopped at a tall bridge to take some photos and noticed that they were bungee jumping off the middle of the bridge. Denise went over to check it out while I wandered down a path to get some pictures.
I bumped into one of the ladies who had just jumped and was walking back up to the bridge. Her boyfriend/husband met her partway up, and I congratulated her on being so daring….wow!
We pulled into the city of Zadar around 6 PM. Earlier we had made a reservation for a room in the old city center. We used the GPS to get us close to it…but then had to park the bikes…since the center of the city is pedestrian only. Denise stayed with the bikes and I went off looking for our room. It was so poorly marked that it literally took me 45 minutes and after asking several people if they could help me with the directions.
So now… I finally find the location and the front door but it’s locked. I knock on the door, and this Australian lady comes to open the door for me and is totally flustered because she booked this place for three nights and can’t find the manager named Ivan.
She filled me in on the gory details, but then I said I have to go because my wife is waiting by our motorcycles. By then the cops had already stopped to ask Denise how long we would be parked there. Fortunately…they let us stay a little longer. See…in Croatia…you can park a motorcycle or scooter almost anywhere for free as long as it isn’t blocking someone’s driveway or otherwise.
Now this is hilarious…so the Australian lady is helping me communicate with Ivan via text and WhatsApp, since he wasn’t responding to mine. He gives her the code for the front door that I can use, and then tells her that we are in room four. We walk up to room four together and we can’t open the lock box that has the key.
So I start looking around and open a door that looks like a closet…and there’s a man standing in there! I said hey…do you know how to open this door? Without saying a word…he steps out…spins the lock on the lock box…pops it open and unlocks the door for me and goes back into his little closet space and closes the door. I was delighted that our room was open but then I pulled the door open again and said…are you, Ivan? and he says yes! 😱
WTF…he was literally there all the time and only communicating by text and like he was hiding from us. I told Denise it was like finding the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain! What a crazy situation. Denise and I saw Ivan a while later while we were in town, and he turned away like he was trying to avoid us. You can’t make this shit up!
Dinner was a bottle of wine and a fish platter for two…followed by a climb of the church tower in the center of Zadar… and a walk around the old city. Well… At least we burned off a little bit of our dinner!😂
View from the tower
Tomorrow we continue our ride down the coast to the city of Trogir just outside of Split. We’re really hoping to find better accommodations there!🤞
