A few thousand kilometres and 8 countries later
So what have we been up to? We have gone awol on our blog since around Bonn, Germany, which should be about 2 months now? Oops? …
Since then we have been quite busy just being on holiday and relaxing, very hard work ;) To give more detail we have travelled from Bonn to Munich via the Rhein, Main, Tauber and Altmühl rivers, and crossed the Danube. We stayed in Unterschleißheim for 2 weeks with Fabian’s family and then another week in Mitterskirchen with other family members of his.
We then continued over the Alps and Dolomites to Venice, where we stayed for a few days before continuing on to Trieste. This is a photo album from through the Alps and Dolomites, we just have too many photos to post on here!
We then cycled through Slovenia for a grand total of around 30kms and 3 hours, woohoo! We really enjoyed it as it was dead quiet and the landscape was very scenic. Afterwards came Croatia to Rijeka, where we just passed through on to Krk island.
After Krk we took a ferry to Rab, arriving quite late at night. We spent only one day on each island, and upon arrival to the mainland we were greeted with a few hours of stormy, windy weather. This might sound unpleasant, but really, it was very enjoyable as that day we climbed from 0m to 1414m in only 23kms. It was challenging, but made easier by the absence of the 35+ degree rain-less weather that we’d been experiencing since Germany. We crossed the Velebit mountain range and cycled inland Croatia towards Sinj and then Knin. We had some interesting experiences with meeting locals and sleeping in their gardens, and can definitely say we enjoyed that part of Croatia.
We then crossed into Bosnia and Herzegovina to Mostar, and were in BiH for a total of 4 days, and cycled the Ćiro trail to Dubrovnik, which was also very nice. Along the Ćiro we met three Malaysian girls who we seemed to meet many times again afterwards all the way to Shkodër! We enjoyed quite a few evenings together, as well as meals.
To Ulcinj along the Montenegrin coast it was! Or rather, one could say up and down the Montenegrin coast... Those roads were steep! After that we cycled about 20 or 30kms inland to cross the Montenegrin/Albanian border by Shkodër. We cycled lazily to Lezhë after Shkodër through small back roads, and then along to Durrës. In Durrës we met another cycle tourer called Jim who we really enjoyed meeting and cycling with. He writes a blog post for everyday he cycles, maybe we should learn from him...We cycled together until Lushnjë where we parted ways, his to Vlorë and ours to Berat.
The day after that we backtracked and went to Fier and had an interesting and humorous experience with the local police (all good I promise) and carried onto Vlorë and then over a very challenging mountain pass to Himarë.
In Himarë we met a Brazilian solo cycle tourer, and spent the night with her. We then carried on being physically challenged until Sarandë, where we stopped for one night. After a day of rest in Sarane we took a bus over to Gjirokaster, and spent a night there. We spent another night in Sarandë and carried on with our grand journey south to Ksamil, Butrint and soon Greece!
There hasn’t been much action on the Climate Ambassador front, but we are sure there will be more to come, and if not; we are waiting in anticipation for COP23 in November in Bonn! We will be writing more blog posts updating in more detail about our experiences through Germany to Albania, as there are a few exciting stories to tell, and photos to share. We were recently gifted a small bluetooth keyboard to attach to our phones so we can write more blog posts and updates! Exciting things to come! As always, thanks for reading, and see you next time
P.S. If there are any readers living or who know some super cool places in the Balkans, Greece or Italy, feel free to send us a message with suggestions!