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 Zadar to Rogoznico

October 16, 2008 • Comments Croatia

We wake up at 7am, leave our little camp and head off to split.

How hard it is to leave Zadar,  and find the right road, avoiding motorways.  Eventually we are on the road again. We find it very hard to cycle and after one kilometre, we wonder how we will be able to cycle 140km…

Eventually we get back on the E65, and quickly as we warm up, the knee pains vanish… In fact, we have never cycled so fast, a mid speed of 25.km/h… It seems that all the hard work of the previous days is paying off.

At one, we have already done half of it..60km. The lanscape is impressive, and on our left hand side we can see the big balkan chain, on our right hand side the sea, populated with some dark islands emerging.

Suddenly a truck overtakes us and horns loudly.. They stop a bit later, and we recognise the two french men who are waiting for us with a glass of orange juice.. They are complaining about the fact that not much is happening in October at night. Indeed, not the right time to go if you are a party  animal.  We are too tired for that after our long days of cycling.

We stop later on at primosten.. It is the typical croatian town by the sea, built up on the peninsula.. It's so popular with tourism that it is a little bit like a living museum.

After 120 km, a pint of cold beer is irresistible.

Not such a good idea.. as we still have 7kms to do… So hard to cycle again after this beer. But we still do it, go through two passes and eventually we are in Rogoznico, where after a 20 minute search, we find a little beach to sleep on.  After a fanstastic dinner cooked by Adrien, Pasta Carbonara with our Camping Stove, we fall asleep…