Day 26 - Dubrovnik to Bar

By Sunday evening Tom and Juli from Zelenkovac had caught up with me in Dubrovnik and they stayed with me in Toni’s dorm. I woke at eight to see low, dark clouds and trees flagellating in a stiff wind. A yawning Juli confirmed that there had been a storm in the night.


Though I wanted to crack on with the journey, I thought it would be a very bad idea to set out onto the coastal road only to get caught in a serious storm half way up a bare headland. I had a slow breakfast, waiting for a development. After an hour, sunlight broke through the dark ceiling and saying a final farewell to Juli and Tom I started my climb up to the main road. This was a tough and appropriate baptism for the week.

As I cycled through the first ten miles the heat of the sun drew the wetness from the ground into the lower air and it began to get very humid. This effect was multiplied as the road led away from the coast and the breeze into a still, verdant valley which would take me to the Montenegrin border. I could feel the heavy moisture in my lungs. It was like a sauna and came with the same feeling of discomfort then fresh release. Once I crossed the border and rolled back down to the seashore, I felt as if I had sweated out the weekend and was ready for the next few days.

Week 6 was always going to be the hardest. I had planned for long distances taking me back into the Balkan mountains and through to the bay at Thessaloniki. To balance the mountain challenge I had hoped the two days of coastal roads at the start of the week would give me a good flat warm up. How wrong I was. In section, the coastal road was like a reading of my average heart rate for the day. It leapt up headlands and dropped into coves without pause.

The only relief was the Bay of Kotor. This was the gem of the day’s brilliant scenery and the enclosed waters held too many pretty villages, slender, colourful launches and staggering rock formations to mention or photograph. I enjoyed the trip around its shore so much that I did not mind the extra two hours it added to my day.

Leaving the bay via a long, dark, downhill tunnel I stopped for lunch at a petrol station. As I sat in the window there appeared two familiar faces. I neglected to mention the two Frenchmen I had met at the roadside between Mostar and the Dalmatian coast. They are making their way from Lyons to Istanbul and by a happy accident they stopped on the road at the same place and same time as me. Their bright attitude gave me a good little boost to enter the last third of the day.

From the other side of Budva the climbs became ever more serious. The incline immediately out of the town was just impolite, especially after lunch. Two more climbs took me above the billionaires’ paradise of Sveti Stefan. I took some water looking down on its exclusive walls and thread-thin entrance road. Dropping back down to sea level and the town of Petrovac, I knew I had just one climb left, and I could see it before me. Late in the day, it seemed enormous, disappearing round one sweeping corner then ducking in and out of the rock face to a top I could not see. I recalled the staring discipline of the Strasbourg to Basel leg, fixing my eyes on the apex of every corner until I had rounded it. Halfway up I allowed myself a look over the shoulder back at the Montenegrin coastline, backlit by the setting sun in a clear, marmalade sky. The day’s work was well worth this.

From the top, it was quick down to Bar and I soon saw my host Ilya waving frantically from the side of the road. I was delighted that he had come down to meet me and I walked beaming along the shore to his house. He fed me well and I went exhausted to bed.

Distance covered 95 miles