About The Adrien and Martin Joly Blog

Brothers Adrien and Martin follow in the footsteps of many travelers who crossed the Balkans from antiquity to modern times. But they do it by bicycle! Starting on October 6, they have given themselves one month to cycle the nearly 2,100-kilometre distance between Venice and Istanbul. In their blog, they reflect on and document their journey as they travel through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey.
Their blog in French is at http://balkansavelo.unblog.fr/

From Rab to Zadar 13/10/08

October 14, 2008 • Comments Croatia

Despite a long night of drinking, we feel in a good form. We wake up 7,00, have a cold shower in front of our germans friends and leave for Zadar..

We realise that we are not in Rab Town but in the North of the Island Lopar, so we have to cross the Island.. Which is great as it is so nice and not too hilly… We stop at one point where we can see the whole bay on the West of Lopar..So, Adrien decides to pose, as if he was an Grand tourer of the late 18e.

Soon we arrive at Minsjak where we can cross to go back to the continent. A big hill is waiting for us on the continent, to join the coast road the E65.

The lanscape is absolutely magical, and we cycle pretty well with a mid speed of 25km/hours.

We can soon take another ferry to cross again and go to Pag.

We have to wait two hours in this village where everything is closed as we are off season.

Nevermind, we have our camping stove ! we can cook something in 15 minutes and eat…

In front of a a big german Man and his mercedes who told me that he was apprehensive that there won t be any food in the ferry..

20 minutes cross and we are on Pag, which looks like the moon… Imagine a big pile of white stones surrounded by see… We have one pass to cross and we are on the top… We cycle until Pag and feel quite tired… Hard to thing, we could go to Zadar, when we have already done about 70km.. It is already night, but we don t want to sleep in a field. We feel exhausted… We are going to do it.

My knees are hurting, I keep repeating to myself “determination”. We cycle like mad, mid speed of 25km, it is so hard… At the end, we can hardly feel our legs.. Suddenly Zadar is like Byzance, we think about everything we could get there a hot shower, restaurant, a bed… a Beer !

It is cold, dark night, we go through a few passes and eventually, after few hours of hardship we can see ZADAR, this medieval town by the sea…. We go straight to the Hostel, tomorrow we will take it easy and take the time to explore the city…140km, not bad for us.