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 Dubrovnik to Kotor

October 22, 2008 • Comments Montenegro

We wake with all our cats…

And head off to Kotor, happy to discover another country.

Leaving Dubrovnik on the E65 is scary, buses pass so close to us, the road is very narrow, and we can see the deep on our right hand side.. If we stay in the middle, they horn at us, if we are on the right side they just don't notice you..

Fortunately, it is better as we pass the border.. We only have to deal with an annoying Croatian Custom Officer who has no idea of how to treat visitors like most of his country mates…

We can see the beautiful mountains of Montenegro… Connor has another mechanical problem with the gear system that we try to fix on the road unsuccesfully…

We can still pedal so we reach the first little town where we can buy an hamburger for 1 Euro..!

We find some abandoned car, and it is tempting to dream about restoring them to continue our journey…

The road to Kotor is so beautiful and easy (all flat) , the biggest fjord of southern Europe..

We reached Kotor by night, like Split and Dubrovnik Kotor was a venitian possession and has the same type of structure with its medieval walls. But the landscape around is worth seeing, the sea is like a huge lake with two tiny Island, one with a Mosquee the other an Orthodox church.

As we stop for our traditional beer in a Bar Intra-muros.

We meet two young French Men..

They just come back from Serbia, that they have crossed with one horse carrying their luggage.. They told about how welcoming are the Serbians, the dangers of the mountains where you can face hords of wild dogs, landmines, wolves and bears… But they haven't met any of that… We go to eat in the cheapest place of Kotor with them, and stay for the night intramuros in the house of Marco for 30Euros… It is off season.