Blog
Overview
- Part 1: on my own to Harwich
UK
Holland
Belgium
France
Luxembourg
Germany
Switzerland
Italy
Slovenia
Croatia
Bosnia
Montenegro
Albania
North Macedonia
Kosovo
Serbia
BulgariaFor the map of each day, click the place name on the right.
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Clare College, Cambridge, 26 June 2025
A fair wind helps me along the first 150km (only 4850ish to go).
There is a rather nice mutual agreement between Clare College Cambridge and Oriel College Oxford. They are sibling colleges and both turn 700 in 2026. Part of the sisterliness is that fellows from one can stay at the other.
Old Hunstanton, 27 June 2025
When Ali and I set off on our round the world bike ride, we managed to leave the tent behind on day 1. This time I leave my hat and - crucially - my reading glasses at Simon’s. He puts them out, so that I can collect them as I set off today. He also includes a portion of last nights dinner, which sorts lunch for today - thank you, Simon!
If you ever need to go from Cambridge to Ely, avoid the A10. It lures me with fabulous cycle path, which then just mysteriously disappear and one is left with heavy traffic. Not just cars, but the new form of cars: SUVs and, as if SUVs weren’t ridiculous enough for people who don’t own a single ‘sports utility’, they now have an even bigger offspring: the pick-up truck. These are principally used to pick up a latte from the Costa drive through. But hey, 2 tonnes of vehicle is what some people need for that. Sorry, I digress. From Ely onwards there is far less A10, and instead delightful villages with great bakeries and coffee shops (yes, you can pick up a flat white with a bike).
Old Hunstanton, 28 June 2025
Norfolk with Rob, Steve and Andy
This is an annual get-together, courtesey of Rob Horner, who somehow manages to coordinate us random lot to come every year from various corners of the country to various corners of the country and cycle, walk and chat. It is always a fabulously fun weekend. When I hear that this year would coincide roughly with my departure and happen to be in Norfolk, we simply put the two together. Norfolk is nearly on the way to Istanbul after all.
Rob booked us into a lovely Barn on the edge of Hunstanton Hall. Trouble is, there are quite a few nice building surrounding this Hall and I don’t know which one. So I just set up my camping chair and wait in the sun. A car with a family rolls up and I ask, if this might be the building we stay in for the weekend. In the most polite British manner they point out to me that this is their home, and no, this would not be where we are staying, but would I like a cup of tea? What could be a greater gesture of looking after your fellow human (after a long bike ride in particular) than a cup of tea. It speaks ‘you are among friends’ like little else. After tea and a friendly chat with Dave about cycling and the virtues of steel frames, I try another building. One clue would be the presence of a key safe, and I find one behind a little wooden gate leading into a picturesque cottage with a lovely front garden. Again, I make myself comfortable, and again, the most polite voice calls over and points out that this, too, was not the place. Third time lucky: the barn.
Part 2 - with Max from Harwich to Küsnacht
Harwich, 29 June 2025
In Harwich Max is joining me. He had to stay behind for a very important gig on Friday and takes the train to Harwich with Ali’s bike on board.
Antwerp, 29 June 2025
On the ferry we meet some other cyclists, including Jack the tennis instructor from Edinburgh who is heading for Eindhoven. We tuck in behind him on his tri bars and that makes the first 50km rather swift. That is good, because there is a bit of a headwind. When we reach the first ferry we have to wait quite a while for it. Just when we are about to cross some of the others from the Harwich ferry catch up with us. It feels decidedly like “Race across the world”, even though we have totally different destinations and motivations (and really are in no rush at all).
Jack is lovely company and happy to keep the speed manageable for us. When we part, the average speed does definitely drop.
Turns out most food places are shut on a Monday. Just when we thought there would be no food for miles, in the middle of nowhere, a “cherry café” appears as if by magic. The sell the most juicy cherries, smoothies, coffee and cake - heaven.
Before we know it, we are within striking distance of Antwerp and all plans to find a camp site are out of the window. It is 36 degrees now and an air conditioned room does seem less like a luxury, but a necessity.
Ghent, 1 July 2025
The main reason we opted for a hotel was the air-conditioning. Even in the night temperatures didn’t drop below 24°C. Unfortunately the air conditioning didn’t work. All the more reason for a cracking breakfast. Not the overpriced hotel variety, but the joy of supermarket self sufficiency. Yogourt, berries, crossaints, oats – a true feast.
We take it deliberately easy today. It is too hot for big miles. First we amble through Antwerp, discover parks and lakes, stop for a coffee in a market square. All very leasurely.
The route to Ghent is only 60km and mostly along a railway line. Not the most exciting, but still varied enough not to get boring. 15km from Ghent we catch up with a group of about 20 scouts on their way to Brugge and on to nothern France for two weeks of camping. They are cheerful and we can draft behind them for some easy miles.
Ghent is super pretty and busseling with tourists. We part the bikes in one of these underground bike garages under a bridge and explore by foot. Waffles, ice-cream, beer - all is good when it is this hot.
The camp site in Ghent is right next to the rowing lake and also has a swimming beach. If that wasn’t perfect enough, they fire up a pizza oven in the evening. Bliss!
Bruge, 2 July 2025
Since setting off I have slept in a college, a barn, an overnight ferry, a budget hotel, a tent and now a chapel. Variety is good.
Lille, 3 July 2025
On the way from Lille and just 3km before our camp site we encountered some unexpected and full-on pave. Cobble stones so big and so rounded, one can barely control the steering. Exciting though and not very long.
Felleries, 4 July 2025
We always said that we would be flexible about our plans and here we go. Having spent a great day in Lille with a lot more Tour de France entertainment than we expected, we decide not to wait another two days to see the riders zip past us for 30 seconds on stage one. Instead we cancel our rest day and keep going. Max is keen to touch on Luxembourg, to increase the country count, so we set off broadly south east.
The roads are great and now also a lot quieter. So quiet indeed, the main business in the very quiet towns are funeral businesses. The next most popular are flower shops, but again, mainly for funerals.
Our fellow cyclist of today was Warre, another Belgian scout heading to France to camp. He sets a good pace for us despite his creaking bottom bracket.
Did I say the roads are quiet? That changes in Limont-Fontaine, where a pimped Porsche shoots past us with a roaring engine. Shortly after another rally car screeches past. Turns out these were just little practice bursts for what is to come. We are cycling with increasing numbers of spectators past various road closure signs towards a banner across the street. Over the past week we must have ignored about a dozen road closure signs. They invariably turn out to be little more than a small hole in the ground, a traffic cone or an unfotunately parked works vehicle and it is easy to cycle around it. This one is different. The officials are adamant that we must not cycle on. This is the start of the race and even the road to the right is a no-no, because it would cross the race course. Seeing one car after another screeching off the start in 20 second intervals, even I must admit, this is not safe and this is the end of the road. Fortunately the detour actually takes us down some lovely roads and the peace and quiet is restored.
A few more people I need to mention from today. When we reach the camp site in Felleries, there is nobody. We just wheel our bikes onto the site and decide to check out that ‘authentic’ looking café on the corner. Outside is a pizza vending machine - that’s right, swipe your card and within 3 minutes a pizza arrives through a slot. So we are told. The café chef convinces us to go for his Croque instead. When we arrive he is having his head shorn to 2mm by Max, a lovable and slightly drunk local, who takes a shine to us and we converse enthusiastically with little common language. He insists on buing us beer and introduces us to Fabien, his wife (she has a ring, he doesn’t). Amazing how quickly one gets friendly with people here.
The next person I must mention is Jan. Jan is from Dusseldorf in Germany and cycles 300km per day (!!) to get to Paris. Right now he is lying on the grass waiting for his girlfriend to arrive in their VW T5 so that they can eat pasta (presumably a lot). Tomorrow he has only 200km left to reach Paris. What a guy.
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Revin, Ardennes, 5 July 2025
We are now into proper hills, which makes cycling so much more interesting (and a bit more work).
The roads are now super quiet. We don’t see cars for miles. A good section of today was on a former train track. Dead straight and level, with super smooth surface. Could have happily stayed on there for a lot longer, but it goes North-East and we need South-East. And hill are more interesting, as I said.
One thing we haven’t yet worked out is the opening times. No café displays opening times, just a sign on a string saying ‘Ferme’. When we arrived in the Netherlands, on Monay, we learned that Monday was the day for cafés to be shut. One day later, in southern Netherlands, it is Mondays AND Tuesday. By the time we are in Belgium, the custom has shifted to Wednesday. Now it is Saturday morning, 10:30 and we sit at a table outside another café with a ‘Ferme’ sign in a sleepy village (inhabitants at current count: 2 cats). We got used to it by now. An elderly man drives up, sees the sign and drives off again. So does an old woman. They two must still be working out the opeing hours. But no, the woman comes back shortly after, very animated with the key and tells us that “Madame” is on her way. In the meantime, she opens the café and sits down with a bag of potatoes, which the man who now returned as well, might peel with her some time later in the day. Now “Madame” arrives and the coffee machine is started. We just had a nice snack and are ready to move on, but it is obvious, this whole turn up was for our benefit and we better order a capuchino. When I see her produce the squirty cream bottle I change my order to an espresso. While I sip that I cannot but admire the relaxed and convivial vibe of this place.
Yesterday we saw the pizza vending machine, today a bread vending machine. I hope the cafés and bakeries can survive. They add so much charm to a place (more that this machine).
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Revin, 6 July 2025
In Revin we take our first rest day (after we cancelled the rest in Lille). It rains non stop. Perfect use of a rest day.
Florenville, Belgium, 7 July 2025
After sitting out a day of non-stop rain in Revin, we are super lucky with the rain today. Despite the forecast, we cycle along the river Meuse in the dry. To get out of Revin we go through a tunnel built for boats with a cycle path on the side. How anyone justified building this tunnel is beyond me. It cuts off a beautiful 2km loop of the river.
When we reach our original destination Douzy, it starts to rain and we find shelter in the church, after the local restaurant tells us that we cannot have drinks only. After sitting out the rain for about an hour, we decide to go further than originally planned and almost get to Florentville in the dry. Almost. On the last 5 km we get drenched, but find a bar with the Tour live on TV.
Another hour later and the rain has stopped, so that we can roll down to a campsite by the river Semois. The receptionist is hilarious. She finds us a last minute deal for a cabin that is cheaper than a tent site. “I don’t make the prices”. Later she gives me a free ice-cream. I think she doesn’t care much for her boss. I love it. And having a cabin was quite helpful. In the morning the most enormous thunder storm hammers down on us. That would not have been fun in a tent.
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Nenning, Germany, 8 July 2025
Sometimes Garmin’s popularity map may divide popular opinion. Today Garmin thinks the best way for us to set off is up an unpaved 20% gradient on a muddy and slippery path through the forest. That may have shaved a few hundred meters off our journey and also assisted a fast warm up. Other than that - Garmin, what were you thinking?
The forecast today is for showers, and showers we get. One moment it is glorious sunshine, then a few drops - you now have 60 seconds to find shelter before the heavens open. We manage that reasonably well, with front porches, bus shelters and the marquees of cafés (obviously closed - it is Tuesday after all).
At midday we arrive at another low-key boarder. Luxembourg cannot even the bothered to spell out its name. The sign just says ‘L’ and proceeds to spell out the all important speed restrictions instead.
Luxembourg city is - as I expected - luxurious. We have lunch in a manicured park, wheel our bikes past Rolex, Patek-Philippe and other watch shops, and marvel at the gorge that cuts through the middle of the city to provide and excuse for some exquisite bridges and for Garmin to suggest to go down there and up again - no, thank you - the bridges are just fine.
From here it only takes two hours and we are out of the country, crossing the Mosel into Germany, where the campsite only accepts cash: 22.80. Luckily I somehow still have 22.40 in spare change. “You can put the missing 40 cents in the letterbox when you have been to the cashpoint” - delightful contrast to the day before. Welcome to Germany.
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Roth, Germany, 9 July 2025
After 5km along the river Mosel, we hit some juicy hills. Either up or down, no more flat. That takes it pretty much out of us and after 2 hours and not even 40km, we start to look for cafés to have a stop. We tend to judge villages by the size of their church. If the church is big, then there is half a chance they have some sort of shop, and quarter of a chance that it is open. As we turn for a particularly promising church we meet Theresa, who tells us that there is nothing here. She is on a bike from Brussels, heading to Barcelona. She just finished her degree in medical technology, so she is in a similar place to Max, who is celebrating the end of school. Theresa asks if she can draft behind us - ever so polite. That made me thing, I should ask, too, rather than just thanking people after sitting on their (often e-) wheel.
Our search for a café turns into another 5 hours cycling with Theresa all the way to Sarreguemines station (yes, Theresa treats herself to the odd train, but she is lovely, so that is allowed). We finally get our drink stop at a bar. After 100km instead of coffee it becomes beer. I think that is fair.
The curious incident of the boy on the carriageway
There was one episode from today that is a bit disconcerting. We cycle on a path along a busy multi-lane road. A boy of about 8 years ambles along the road and almost gets in the way of an oncoming cyclist, who shakes her head scornfully. I think ‘what a stupid boy’. He walks way to close to the road. As we pass him I tell him to stay clear of the road, in German, Max tells him again, in English, and Theresa completes to local language set with French. He doesn’t respond to any of us and keeps walking in a peculiar way. We stop. Max says that boy is not OK. But what can we do? Call the police. This is Germany, calling the police is exactly what people do when something isn’t right. I said it as a joke at first, but Max was serious. He walks past us, completely unresponsive and keeps stepping on the curb of a busy four lane road. I do call the police. They pick up immediately and after I describe the boys behaviour and give our location, I see him walking right into the road and get back on my bike to stop him. The police on the phone tell me they have a car in the area and at that very moment I see blue lights coming on in front of me and a police car turning around to secure the boy. Response time: seconds. Amazing and fortuitous. The boy is having some serious difficulties and the two officers are take care of him in a way that looks very reassuring. Only thanks to Max’s instant understanding that this boy was suffering some serious mental condition, did we take action. My initial reaction was “well, there is nothing we can do”. Wrong. There was, and thank goodness we did.
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Lock 26 Canal de la Mame au Rhin, 10 July 2025
Just a lovely day of cycling. The sun is back, temperatures are up, and the cycle paths are as perfect as ever, if not better. We now keep overlapping with EuroVelo 5, a designated cycle route. In some places we have entire roads entirely dedicated to cyclists. In spite of this great offering the first 30km is not just car free, but pretty much cyclist free, too. Max and I keep placing little bets: how many cyclist will we meet in the next 5km? I say 3, he says 2. Max wins: none. Next, how many km until we see the first cyclist? I say 5, Max 7km. After just over 5km a cyclist is bemused how pleased I am to see him.
The second part of the day takes us mostly along canals. Normally I find that boring after a while, but this is varied and exciting. The path along the canal takes us across massive lakes on either side, with the canal being a good 50m elevated. Amazing engineering.
In a café we meet four Germans from Hamburg, who a cycling in very relaxed fashion. Few kilometres, many beers. A fun group.
Our camp spot is a bit of a treat today. A patch of grass on the corner of a lock gives us the sound of flowing water and every now and then a boat going through. Surrounded by steep forested banks and bathing in sunshine. Life is good.
St Piere, 11 July 2025
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Münstertal, Schwarzwald, 12 July 2025
Who lives in Merdingen?
Today’s route changed a few times, thanks to suggestions from my mother. My parents are huge fans of the Schwarzwald, and the Kaiserstuhl in particular - for wine related reasons. I can therefore not be accused of having forced Merdingen on the map and when we cross the town sign, I am not sure myself why this place name is so familiar. Then it clicks. For some inexplicable reason, the commentators of the Tour de France always desperately try to come up with alternative names to avoid too much duplication. So they often talk about the ‘Merdinger’, when what they meant was my fallen idol Jan Ulrich. That goes back to the last millennium, when he won the tour and battled (on fairer terms than we had hoped) with Lance Armstrong for years. Since then, a tragic fall and shenanigans while living on Majorca.
In our desperate search for anything that is open to eat or drink in Merdingen, we get talking to a lovely woman. She calls her son over, who speaks native English. Turns out, she met a man in Norfolk and her son now lives in equal parts in Norfolk, Berlin and mighty Merdingen, where, indeed, no bars, shops or other eateries are open on a Saturday. But Jan is back, they tell us. After his turbulent time on Majorca, he settled down in his home town again and teaches kid to ride race bikes. And you sometimes see him at the local Rewe supermarket. You have a Rewe. “Ah, yes, just 2km that way”. We are saved. Rewe is open and sells everything. It even has a roast chicken van. We order “Einmal zwei halbe Hahn” and sit outside the supermarket in the hope that Jan might walk past. He doesn’t. Still, Merdingen turned out to be more of an experience that I expected.
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Frick, Switzerland, 13 July 2025
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Küsnacht, Switzerland, 14 July 2025
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Family reunion in Küsnacht
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Walensee, 17 July 2025
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Klosters, 18 July 2025
The route from Walensee to Klosters is quite familiar to us. 18 years ago we briefly lived in this region, and our route took us right past our old home. It is a stunning location, right among the mountains. When the weather was bad in the valley, just jump in the car, drive up the mountain and find yourself above the clouds. Fabulous. No need for that today. The weather is glorious and it is hard to remember that the time here was a bit difficult for both of us. Raising a 3 year old Anna and a 6 month old Max among a foreign culture and language was a massive challenge. This was definitely our parenting peak in terms of effort, which we now comfortably contrast with our parenting trough - send a 2 line WhatsApp to the kids to see if they are OK and open a beer. It makes us laugh how easy life has become.
Tech review: those lovely light TPU inner tubes have failed me in amusing style today. I try to go downhill at ‘moderate’ speeds and on the steeper sections the 140kg that are me and my bike take quite a lot of braking. So much, that the rims get hot. So hot that the glue section on the inner tube simply melted. Perhaps they were too cheap - will keep testing. There are plenty more downhills to come.
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Chaflur, 19 July 2025
I have written not very much lately and that has two reasons: we had such a lovely time with the children and the Graham’s (and I shall write more about that later, but sometimes it is more important to have a good time, than to write about it), and two: I got slightly distracted writing scripts to better show our route. That’s now working (I hope) and offers opportunities the tinker lots more, such as adding pictures to the map and much more. Suggestions welcome, but bear in mind, development work on a mobile phone has its limitations. Try the map out here.
We are incredibly lucky with the weather. Yes, there is a lot of rain. Even outright thunderstorms today, with thunder echoing from one side of the valley to the other for seemingly ages. For some very lucky reason, this always happens towards the end of the day, when shelter is near, like in Revin with the church, or the chapel in France, or the Graham’s house in Küsnacht, or now, the Graham’s house again (!!) - this time in the beautiful, yet wet, Engadine.
The ride here is stunning. There are two ways to get into this valley and we managed to take them both. Ali the smart way: a train through the Vereina tunnel to Levin, me over the Flüelapass. The whole day has been a good test of our brakes. Both up and downhill often in excess of 10%. I am pleased to say, that I have no further melted inner tubes to report.
The Flüelapass is a highlight for me. Proper climbing to 2383m. I love cycling up hills and the longer and steadier the better. This one is great in terms of scenery, road surface, gradient (rarely over 10%) and traffic. Traffic can be more of an issue on the way down, when bikes are nearly as fast. Within the first few hundred meters of downhill a handful of Porsche and Aston Martins have already overtaken me at great speed, when fortune strikes in the form of a massive queue before a building site with temporary traffic lights - these roads are in such great condition for a reason. I manage to roll past the entire queue to to front and sneak past the traffic light just before (or perhaps a tiny bit after) it turns red. The single track work section goes on for a good 400m before I reach the light for the uphill traffic, which is shorty about to turn green. This gives me a car free run all the way down the mountain - it is so much safer when being able to use the full lane in the switchbacks, rather then sticking to the edge to allow cars to pass. A terrific downhill run.
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Glurns, South Tirol, 20 July 2025
Happy bike maintenance day.
- Tighten spokes and straighten wheels. Ali’s rear wheel has some spokes that are almost loose (naughty Mavic!).
- File down the left bearing cup of my bottom bracket. It was rubbing and now it feels amazingly smooth.
- Replace Ali’s brake pads. She is more cautious on downhills than me and the rubber was pretty much gone.
- Overall clean from yesterday’s rain and mud and a good chain clean and lube.
Despite the slow start we manage three countries in one day. Start in Switzerland at Ruthie and Angus’ in Chaflur, within minutes we are in Austria, for a lovely climb into Nauders, were we often went skiing with the Children. Right now they serve a new clientele: mountain bikers. Bikes on bubbles go up the lift and come racing down the runs. It looks good fun, but not for us. Straight on to Italy, were prices are back to normal, except it is Sunday, to little chance to take advantage. Shops are shut.
At lunch an elderly man in his late 80s approaches us about our bikes. He used to ride himself to Milan, to Paris, to Munich - “everywhere”. He also invented and organised the “Dreiländerrennen”, which takes riders through Switzerland, Austria and Italy. His wife is getting impatient with him, while he enthuses about bikes (and has a gentle dig at all these e-bikers). Lovely man.
Inner tube update: cheap TPU inner tubes are a waste of money. The second one has failed at the seams, due to heat from braking, exactly like the last one. And braking we did a lot. After climbing the Norbertshöhe it is all downhill for the rest of the day on a fantastically smooth, dedicated cycle path that goes straight down the valley at 10% or more for much of it. There are speed limits for cyclists for a reason. Luckily my inner tube gives up precisely in front of a camp site outside Glurns, the ‘Jewel of South Tirol’. We call it a day and settle for great Tirol food, wine and Gelato.
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Meran, 21 July 2025
The downhill out of the Alps continues. Today at a much friendlier gentle gradient which is balanced out by a slight headwind. Makes me think: what wind speeds are equivalent to different gradients at a given power output - find myself rather fascinated by estimating that, at risk of paying too little attention to the scenery with all its apple orchards.
Weather forecasts have gotten amazingly good. All the more remarkable when they get it so wrong. Instead of sunshine followed by thunderstorms from 5pm, we get the exact inverse: pouring rain and sunshine from 5pm. At least we could dry off this way, but not until we got properly wet in Meran’s bath (top recommendation from my dear mother). This is not just a swimming pool, it is a cascade of relaxation. First there are the water fountains, followed by jets, followed by a circular channel that gently drifts you around. Then the oh-so-German Kneip sequence of cold and hot baths and walkways. In between it all, people just lying on various cushioned deck chairs. Not relaxed enough yet? Try the acoustically insulated rest room, and then another series of rooms for resting on level 1, or for the more discerning rester, try the loungers on level 2. On this level Ali and I discover the resting cinema, complete with massive bean bag cushions and slow moving footage of the South Tirol mountains in glorious evening light on the big screen. By now the sun has come out and we amble (ever so relaxed) through the Meran town centre with classy shops along beautiful arcades.
![Mera[i]n](thumbs/20250721_132724_Me-rain-o.jpg)
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Tangent: German’s and their water - a police enquiry
With an even split of 25 years in Germany and 25 years in Britain, and having spent all those 50 years criticising one country or the other for how they simply do things ‘wrong’, I am slowly beginning to appreciate how cultures can be different without being necessarily wrong - isn’t that incredibly mature of me? However… there are a few things that bewilder me even more with the passage of time. One of those is the relationship to water. In Britain, you can ask for tap water in any restaurant or bar and they will give it to you for free. That seems fair enough. It is just water and costs next to nothing. Ali told me this lovely story of an outraged citizen at a town hall meeting demanding to know why we should pay utility companies for water at all, given that it is given to us by god. The water company’s spokes person’s response: ‘you are welcome to have it for free, so long as you are prepared to pick it up from where god put it’.
In Germany, by contrast, things are very different. How different only became apparent to me after embarrassing myself (and particularly my children) nearly every time I return to Germany and ask for some tap water in a restaurant. “We cannot give you that - it is not good to drink” - Trigger warning! Phil cannot compute. I drank German tap water for 25 years and you tell me it isn’t good? General Rippers ‘purity of essence’ in Dr Strangelove comes to mind.
For the sake of the children I stopped trying to argue the case with every German waiter. I now see the hilarious side of it. When we cycled through Germany two years ago, we asked at a farm for some tap water to fill our bike bottles. The lovely lady walked us to the back of the farm building where towers of bottled water were stacked high in crates. “Still or sparkling?” - if you do not find this comically funny, you are probably German, and not ready for this episode:
Today we come to a lake with a drinking fountain and some seats in the shade. Next to it on the path a woman stands next to a police car. “Done for speeding?” I ask her. No, she stopped the police for an important enquiry. Is the water from this fountain safe to drink. I tell her husband that we have drunk from these fountains for ages and the water is excellent (maybe even better than German tap water). “I don’t trust it” he tells me. Luckily, a few minutes later, after sincere enquiry with headquarters, the Police give the all clear: the water is safe to drink. Phew.
Later today, we settle in a bar in Meran, and I spot the menu explicitly offering tap water for 1.20 - a fair charge for getting it right to my table in a nice glass. Except, instead I have a free sip from my bike bottle instead. Fountain water personally collected very close to where god himself put it. Delicious!
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Trento, 22 July 2025
A lot of our travel down the valley leaving the Alps is along rivers or train tracks. The train tracks are brand new, with the overhead power lines not yet completed. The side of the tracks are painted white and I muse with Ali whether this is to avoid thermal expansion in the heat. This reminds me of an excellent Veritasium (YouTube) episode about why there are no expansion strips in train tracks and I tell Ali all about how exciting the process is to weld train tracks together. If you are in the least bit nerdy, I urge you to watch the above video. Within minutes of me pontificating about the process, we meet this group of people working on the track, and would you believe it, they are in the middle of welding the track. Have a close look at the glowing hot melted metal on the track. So cool!
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Novaledo, 23 July 2025
We live up to our ambition to take it easy when it gets hard. Sounds easy? It is not. The temptation is always to go a little further, get tired, get grumpy. So I consider it a mark of genuine wisdom that we took a big break by the side of Lake Caldonazzo early in the day. After one steep climb and looming heavy clouds and the onset of more rain, we even considered camping there, but they are all set up for camper vans, which isn’t so nice with our tiny tent. Instead we wait for the sun to come back, go for a swim, I do an extra spin around Levico, and we are ready to roll on - rested and much happier. We are rewarded with another excellent wild camping spot with running water, tree cover and €50 cheaper than that lake side place.
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Bassano del Grappa, 24 July 2025
We have made it through the Alps and treat ourselves to a rest day in Bassano.
Time to talk about the weather. While Britain appears to suffer a drought with impending hosepipe ban, we get our fair share of wet, and in the most fortuitous way. The last night in the Alps is a non-stop downpour. The tent can firmly be confirmed to be water proof. It may also have helped that we found a tree under which to pitch, just next to a water fountain and a table with a roof (have a good look for the tent in the photo below). It doesn’t get much better (in these weather conditions).
We set off with a tease of sunshine and most of our cycling is indeed in the dry, but as soon as we sit down under cover for lunch, the thunder rolls up again and the heavens open. Lunch ends up a little longer - as they say in Cornwall: “if you don,t like the weather, wait”. The strategy works. We get to Bassano in the sun, but not without a bit of a roadblock. By now we must have ignored a dozen signs claiming that the road is closed. This time I cannot argue. A landslide has ended the path with insurmountable rocks. We really do have to backtrack and it takes us a bit of time to find the path that avoids the motorway.
In Bassano we find the sweetest place to stay in the very heart of this ancient town and checking in for our rest day, which—exactly as in Revin and in Küsnacht—is an all day rain affair. Perfect for sitting in bars (the Muller Thurgau is fab), cafés (cappuccino €1.90!) or shopping (disconcertingly I find a t-thirt that fits me in size XS - who would have thought that cycling can lose you that much weight).
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Sarmede, 26 July 2025
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Lake Cavazzo, 27 July 2025
A Sunday morning cycling through the Treviso region, the heartland of Italian cycling and home to the magnificent Pinarello bikes, is something to behold. We were a bit concerned that everything is shut up. Not so. The cafés are open and teeming with men (yes, sadly mostly men) of all ages in Lycra alongside stunningly beautiful (and expensive) road bikes. After a companionable espresso they set off in small groups or large. We are surprised that in such a religious region they would all go cycling, but then, cycling is part of the religion around here. Any shop, whether it sells cars or kitchenware, will display a fancy road bike in their window. What could turn heads better than some shapely carbon with two big round deep section rimmed wheels? It is lovely to be in an area where cycling is such a big deal. Cars are considerate, cyclists greet each other with anything from a flick of the wrist, to all out cheering and bell ringing (the greeting of a fellow tourer coming towards us - I need a bigger bell).
The café culture is great, too. A real mix of young and old, all companionable and kind with each other. The bar man in Spilimbergo comes over to tell us that he needs to shut for lunch. He has angina and needed an hour off his feet, but “please, just stay here and sit at the table and have your food”. Next we stopped at a sweet little café in Vivargo. Again, people of all ages companionably together, a boy on his mother’s lap looks longingly when I pull our Haribos out. I offer him a handful. His mother says ‘one’. I let him pick one twice and he is tickled with joy. Even more joy when an old women in her wheelchair rolls up “Ciao a tutti”. Everyone is visibly delighted at her arrival. The bar girl does a dance twist for joy and immediately fetches her the usual Aperol - the fluorescent orange drink shining from tables all over the region around here.
In bar Terrezza, right by Flagogna beach, we met German parents from Saxony with their son and his Italian girlfriend. The bar lady only speaks Italian, so I give our order in German to the boy, who passes it to his girlfriend who processes it to Italian for the bar lady. Works a treat. Some steps lead down from the bar terrace right to the river and we all go for a dip. The river is too fast to swim against it, but luckily it is also mostly shallow, so that you are quickly back on your feet. So refreshing.
You may think that is enough bars for a day, but we had failed to buy food when the shops were still open. Our only hope: a pizza place in Trasaghis. The pizza is great (at €7.50!), but what really makes the place is another colourful mix of people. The two old friends outside having lively debates, the family beside us, the charming bar girls and the veteran, who pulled a table right in front of the TV, showing the last km of this year’s Tour de France and passionately relaying every move to the people around him. He is clearly revered. A woman comes to fan him with a pizza box, the bar girls respectfully work around him. For all we know, he may have been a Tour rider himself in the 1960s.
A great day for cycling and cafés - a perfect combination.
Each evening Ali asks me for the stats of the day (km, rolling time, average speed). I could go to the Garmin Connect app and look them up, but what self-respecting nerd would do that. Instead I do what I love so much: write javascript to do it for me. That is a massive tangent.
Tangent: how I process .gpx files
Before setting off I had carefully prepared a script that allowed me to paste the activity number assigned after upload by Garmin into my markdown text like so:
%activity/19551737607
This gets expanded to a embedded link to the Garmin view of the activity, with the map and some stats, like so:
The snag is that you are reliant on Garmin and joining routes is a massive pain. Sometimes a day is broken into more than one activity, or you want to see more than one day at once. A total fiddle with fit files: export the .fit files, merge them with a separate script, then delete (!!) the original activities (because Garmin cannot cope with anyone doing more than one thing at any one time), then upload the new joined activity and update the activity numbers. No thank you.
GPX is your friend. I now just download the .gpx data (no need to make the activity public either). These are well structured text files and can be joined with no trouble, especially if you love vim (as you should).
The other advantage is that with leaflet.js and gpx extensions I can now present these files on a pretty map myself, add photos and with a bit more of my own js produce the stats, which Ali is so patiently waiting for, while I keep playing around with the code.
Tangent within a tangent: I made a point not bringing a laptop. Developing code on a phone is a bit different. There are none of the brilliant inspection tools available in the Chrome browser on a computer. If something doesn’t work, one has to search painfully for where the missing semicolon is, or the variable out of scope. Except: I now begin to embrace ChatGPT and it is a whole new way of working for me. Do not debug, just chuck the entire script at the prompt and ask “what’s wrong?”. Brilliant for the most part. I have also been thrown off course a bit, by suggestions for the use of functions that - it later turns out - ChatGPT had made up. They do not exist and therefore - surprise - also don’t work. Still, a fun way of working.
Some of the stats were easy, others surprisingly difficult. For example the ‘rolling time’ requires careful stepping the latitude, longitude and time values. When time skips but location doesn’t, that is a break and needs excluding.
And I am very pleased with the simplicity of the new map and stats page. If you want tweaks, please say. End of tangent.
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Tarvisio, 28 July 2025
The FVG1 is a well developed cycle path on a disused railway line. As a result the gradient is a steady 1-2% up all day, which still add up to over 800m ascent for today. Despite this gentle slope, we were the only tourers all day going in this direction, while we were greeted by well over 100 coming the other way, downhill towards Venice. All of them, without exception covered head to toe in rain coats, over trousers, capes and ponchos. Yes, there was a bit of rain again, but not so much that one would need to wrap up like that. I wear t-shirts and flip-flops. Most of them looked like semi-organised groups and perhaps some overzealous organiser warned them about the 52 “long, cold and humid tunnels” (quote ChatGPT). In fact the tunnels are great. Well lit and signed with lengths marked at the entrance (from 68m to 950m). What may have kept the oncoming cyclists cold is that they don’t do any work. Not only are they rolling down the hill, their bikes are all e-bikes.
Just for the avoidance of doubt: I think e-bikes are fantastic. They enable people to cycle, who would not have dreamt to do so before. They have the potential to take millions of cars off the road and make cities more pleasant, safe and get people to their destination faster. Since leaving Oxford, the relative share of e-bikes to (what are the others called by contrast?) pedal-bikes has gone from about 20%, mostly young families with cargo bikes, to 50% in the Netherlands to near 100% in the Alps of Switzerland and Italy. The only exception are racing bikes, and nostalgic types like us. Many people are astonished when they realise that we ride ‘without motors’. And there I was thinking that is normal. Not any more.
Having been so positive about e-bikes, allow me two little snags [my page, I can do what I want]: 1) a bike that drives without pedalling is not an e-bike, it’s a motor bike and should be licensed like one. 2) people who haven’t learned to ride a bike properly, should handle e-bikes with great caution. We bumped into many (well, nearly), who were going faster than they ever would without ‘e’ and didn’t seem altogether in control. That aside, they are the future and I hope to get up to speed with that in about 20 years time.
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Bled, 29 July 2025
Arriving in a new and unknown country is exciting. The expectation can be that everything changes the moment we cross the border. And every first sign of difference gets extrapolated into ‘national differences’. Our first such experience is the café by the side of the path, just a few hundred meters after crossing the Slovenian border. In Italy there were surprisingly few roadside cafés, which is strange, given what a captive audience the troops heading down to Venice are. This café seems more entrepreneurial - no staff, just a sign saying ‘self service’. That is trusting. We look through the drinks and snacks, when a man walks up from behind asking “tea or coffee?” - OK, so ‘self service’ as opposed to European style ‘table service’, rather than ‘help yourself’ (We have only just learned not to walk up to the bar to order and simply sit at a table and service magically appears). The question is a welcome change though. It is such a British thing to ask someone ‘tea or coffee?’. So far we always had to explain what we mean by ‘tea’ and especially that we seriously intend to pour cold milk into it. The man seems in the know. Except when one tea and one coffee arrive, it is impossible to tell them apart - not a good sign. The other thing that has changed compared to 2km back in Italy: the price seems to have doubled. As I said, do not extrapolate from a sample of one. The next place did excellent coffee, only the prices really are roughly double those of Italy.
If you are as rowing obsessed as Ali and me (fair chance, how else would we know you?) I don’t need to introduce Lake Bled, the iconic rowing lake. This was a must-go destination along our route.
The ride here is absolutely wonderful. After two days of steady climbing, we are rewarded with rolling downhills along rivers through pine forests with regular glimpses of stunning steep and rocky mountains. With the exception of some very short and steep sections, we just roll into Bled expecting the glistening lake to stretch out before us.
The weather has other ideas. Yet again, the gentle drizzle with lighter looking horizons promising an end to all the wet has not cleared, but got harder. Do not be fooled by the photos. Taking photos in the rain is neither fun nor photogenic, so there aren’t many. Even a place like Bled can feel a bit miserable in the wet. We find a campsite that charges us €56 for a camp spot. In France we paid 15! The site is spaced for a camper van and our tiny tent is almost lost in it. Throughout the day Dutch trailers roll up in an arms race of who has the biggest tent. For hours they hammer pegs into the ground to erect yet another wing to their palace. That style of camping is so different to what we do. People sitting in their contraptions all day for days. I don’t get it. Never mind.
I probably sense a bit of a humour failure about weather, prices and pitches - that can only mean one thing: we need food. Food makes everything better. Even the weather. Just a loaf of bread later and the sun shines again. Time to take advantage of were we are. We can now claim to have rowed on the lake Bled (slowly), swam in lake Bled, walked and cycled around lake Bled.
Bled is far busier than I expected. It is bustling with tourists, especially Germans and Dutch. We may need to head a bit more inland to get to know Slovenia properly.
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Zalŏse, 30 July 2025
We earmarked the steps of the finish line of the rowing race course as the ideal suntrap to have breakfast in the morning. And the spot does not disappoint. For full entertainment, a groups of scullers emerge out of the sunshine, rowing down the race course and spinning on the finish line right before us. The finish line on lake Bled is only a few meters from the beach, so they better spin where we sit. The photos look idyllic - and it was. Fortunately, photos don’t record sound. Where ever we find a ‘quiet’ spot, a leaf blower or other power tool will soon appear. Enjoy the photos and picture them without sound.
With an early arrival in Bled yesterday and a late departure today, this isn’t exactly a rest day, but more a ‘rest 24 hours’. We manage to pack a good amount into this rest: proper laundry of our kit (Ali doesn’t trust my hand washing skills), some bike maintenance, stocking up on food and a hike up the steep slopes above the lake for more fantastic views.
On our way out we stop for a last lunch by the lake. Our usual bread, butter & spread routine. I had so much Nutella and honey lately, I just check if there is a shop with something a little more interesting, when I hear a familiar voice calling “Philipp?”. It is Marten, my dear old friend from the good old Hamburg days (those date back to the last millennium, but are still a particularly fond time of my life). Marten already knew that I was on my way to Istanbul. He is on a stop over on his way to Croatia with his lovely wife and daughter. Marten’s son (also Max) is already 20 and now working in his events business, so that Marten can get a holiday - thank you, Max. And Thank You Marten for spotting me and great to see you after all these years.
There are a few questions we get asked a lot, such as ‘when will you get to Istanbul’ or ‘how will you get back’. I don’t know, but will give answers here when I can - how is that for an exciting hook to make you come back? But there are questions I can answer, like ‘where do you sleep?’. We have a tent. A tiny tent, as Max and Ali will attest. Being small and green, it can go pretty much anywhere, and over time we have developed a keen eye for good spots to pitch up. Sometimes it can add a few kilometres at the end of a day to find the spot that is just right. And when we do, it is bliss. Quiet, surrounded by nature and - perhaps my favourite - free! In reality there is often a bit of a snag. Slugs, mosquitoes, noisy dogs, or a niggling concern that someone could turn up and tell you to go away. That never happened with exception of on night in Antibes many years ago (a story for another time). While wild camping is my favourite and first choice, there are those travelling with me who think a shower is a good idea every now and then. For that there are camp sites or - as a special treat - a proper bed in a proper hotel. I had a ‘feature request’ on this and now labelled our stopping places on the map with little tent (⛺️) and bed (🛌) symbols, to mark where we treated ourselves to a proper bed. By the way, the place name above each day’s note is a link to the route for that day. Click Zalŏse and see exactly where we are and where the photos were taken (I love tinkering with the code for this map, so please suggest more features).
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Podgrad, 31 July 2025
The oh-so-expensive therm-a-rest sleeping mat has now completely failed. With Max some of the inner glue points at the foot end popped rather dramatically in the night. Ever since we used that end as the head end and the bulge acts as pillow. All the more alarming therefore when two more of the connections burst right under Ali’s head in the middle of the night. Luckily we come through Ljubljana today, which is bound to have a decent outdoor shop for help.
The ride to Ljubljana starts with beautiful scenery along the river Sava. Had Kranj not come so early in the day, this is where we could happily stop for a while, but we are on a mission to Ljubljana. The last few kilometres into town are a helpful reminder of what less good cycle paths are like, and also how we have been spared all-out billboard advertising on an industrial scale. As we turn in the old town all is transformed. As with Bled, the place is bustling with tourists, and not wanting to stand out, we find a café by the river and two cool beers on this sunny and hot day. Right, back to our mission. Google Maps, where is the nearest outdoor shop. The result doesn’t seem to make sense. I sit right next to it? In the middle of this tourist hot-spot? Sure enough, right behind the fountain, behind an unassuming door is possibly one of the best outdoor stores I have ever seen. Not the fashion variety, with fleeces and coats, but proper ‘gear’. The salesperson not only speaks great English, but is incredibly knowledgable and experienced herself. “Ah, yes, Therm-a-rest, they do that. And don’t expect any warranty”. She has the perfect replacement. Different brand, same colour, thickness and insulation, but at a significantly lower price. I’ll keep you posted on the warranty claim, but for now, I pass a dim verdict on Therm-a-rest. 24 years ago I had a similar issue where a bubble formed in the middle due to delamination. Not critical then, but imagine being in a remote place and losing the means to sleep. Insufficient reliability.
It is too early to comment on Slovenian characters. We have met too few among all the tourists. A striking feature appears to be that the greeting is not to be mistaken as an expression of joy. First contact is often terse, but quickly becomes much warmer. Take for example the chap in the bike shop where we want to buy padded cycling gloves for Ali, a new chain and some handlebar tape. He speaks good English, so I greet him with the customary “How are you?” to which his shrug and facial expression suggests that the world was about to end anyway and no response was therefore needed. When I ask him about gloves and handlebar tape he sinks even deeper into despair. “I don’t have that” - and he disappears in the back, only to appear back with one role of tape. That is perfect. I only need one. One side has torn, the other is perfectly fine. “But it is only one, you can have it for free” - I tell him that he is a good man, and this time he beams with a warm and friendly smile and sends me cheerfully on my way - with a chain as well. The gloves we find in another bike shop with another tongue tight owner. When we pay for gloves and some electrolyte tablets, Ali tells him where we have cycled from. He laughs “Tadej would not have needed so many electrolyte tablets. He would have done that in three days”. Again, terse start, cheerful departure. Small sample - lovely people.
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Blanca, 1 August 2025
With campsites charging a ridiculous €60 for a tent space, we are living the joys of ‘wild’ camping a lot lately. We had some great spots already. Abandoned buildings, river side meadows and a lot of spaces near train tracks. So many, we pretty much know the night schedule for goods trains now. Last night we hit a jackpot. Next to a public tennis court, by the river and not too far from our beloved train track. It even had a water tap and a roofed area, where we could lay out our mats without a tent. The nights are definitely warm enough for that. The site is so ideal, I get quite excited, and Ali quite concerned that somehow someone will find us and send us away.
The light fades and we are just about to drift off when we see a car coming past, slowing down, indicating, turning in, diving right towards us. They must have seen us. The car stops. We remain frozen. It is amazing how the imagination goes wild. Are they calling for reinforcement to remove us? I tell Ali that with 99% probability they could not care less about us being here. But why are they here? The car is still just standing there. A door opens. A woman gets out. That seems like a relief. They are not here for us. The back door of the van is swung up. The inside is lit with fairy lights. What sort of business is this? Then another person gets out of the van. Also female. A child? We spin a crazy number of theories, but it seems safe enough to sleep and I am off. Sound enough to miss car number two and three arriving and sound enough to miss Ali nudging me when two men come walking up to our spot, chatting and using ‘our’ tap.
When I wake up, the world looks very peaceful. Three cars parked up. When they wake up, the first van are two girls from France, Alice and Lea. They are on their way to Bosnia, via Croatia - just like us. Right now, they are having their morning coffee and cigarette. When I tell them how concerned we were about them arriving, they laugh. Same with the other two cars. Austrians on their way home via Italy. We are all doing the same thing: dodging the horrendous camp site fees. Isn’t it funny, how the most obvious and most likely explanation does not seem self-evident late at night? So hard to imagine that other could be so very similar to ourselves. And yet so reassuring.
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Detour (literally): the joy of climbing
Breath, deep and rhythmical - good. Legs, fluid, full of juice - good. Heart rate 148, in the zone - good. Cadence 85 - just right. Gradient 8% and steady. This is perfect. Half way up a 15km climb and I am in my happy place. Everything feels so good. The road is smooth and the trees provide shelter from the sun. I cannot think of many better things than a long steady climb. It removes all negative thoughts and replaces them with the pure joy of being. When Yuval Harari reflects on the role of humans in relation to AI, he makes an observation I deeply share: humans have bodies. So much of our focus is on the mind or (worse) the intellect, as if the body is just there to deliver our brain to meetings. Human bodies are amazing and the source of so much joy. Being on a bike and away from work does bring that home very strongly. Cycling up a hill is, of course, not for everyone. Ali, wisely, cut out the unnecessary detour via Velika Preska and boards a train that takes her straight from Litija to Radeče, for the astounding price of €3.50. Perhaps I should pay more attention to my brain.
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Maksimir Park, Zagreb, 2 August 2025
Before you know it, we have reached the end of Slovenia. Just a few days ago neither of us knew very much about this country at all and in so little time we have grown fond of it so much. It leaves behind a sense of kindness and gentleness. My initial astonishment with high prices in Bled have been put to a happy end with our final stay in Blanca, where a glass of wine is €1.40 (and good!). And after my first brown coffee disappointment, I have finally learned how to order a flat white in Solovenia. A charming waitress in Sevnica patiently hears me out when I explain in great and glorious detail the finer points of how a flat white differs from a cappuccino in its milk frothing. Then she says “Yes, we have a name for that. It is called coffee with milk”. And she produces the most beautiful ‘coffee with milk’ with crafty latte-art and ever so tasty. And that is what Slovenia was like. Not flashy, but everything seems good. Even in the most rural parts, where normally one expects some degree of depravation, everything seems good with the world. Yes, there are a small number of abandoned buildings, but they are far outnumbered by high quality, moderns and tastefully designed new builds. All the cars are relatively new and of ‘normal size’ (i.e. very few SUVs).
Now we are in Croatia, and first impressions are often so dangerous to extrapolate. The first experience of the Netherlands was that all cafés are closed on Monday (and a day later on Tuesdays, too). In Belgium we were angrily waved off the road by three motorists within 100m of crossing the border. The first thing we were told in Germany was “You must not put your bike there”. So do not give too much credence to the fact that the moment we crossed the border, those smooth cycle paths had disappeared and that cars passing us were not too happy about that either.
The arrival in Zagreb was also a little disappointing. Having left the land of Tadej, we now consider ourselves in the country of the Sinković brothers, and the Zagreb rowing lake is the obvious first stopping point for us. This must have been a proud design once, but now it just looks a bit neglected and sad. The water is full of see roses, but not in a nice way. The buildings are a bit run down. This is not the place to stay and we push on into town, perhaps a bit further than we had planned or is good for us on a hot day. Even curbs begin to bother me. (What are curbs good for anyway? I’d have them all banned - sounds like I either need to start a global movement, or get something to eat). To find food, we still need to get past the train station. Ali has the great idea to avoid numerous curbs, by going through the main entrance of the station and under all the tracks. Genius. We push our bikes past all the platforms. Left and right are more and more shops of the useless type: phone cases and the like. Any time now, we should get out the other side, but instead the passage way becomes more labyrinth like, branching into smaller and smaller offshoots with more obscure shops, all threatening to become dead ends. The only exit we see is a long flight of steps up. Then finally a sign with three people in a box - hurrah, there must be a lift out of here. At this point a security guard shouts after us “What are you doing? You cannot be here [with bikes]. You must leave.” Yes, we totally agree. So glad he is here to help. Only he is not. He points us to the stairs “you must leave”. He is adamant that we cannot use the lift. This is were my long held passion for health & safety comes to the rescue. I insist that it would be quite unsafe to take our bikes up those stairs and we ignore him and use the lift, which I confirm is rated for 13 people or 1000kg (safety first). Moving on. That man has a terrible job and wasn’t given it for his flexibility of thought. But wouldn’t it be nice if his job was to make sure everyone in that shopping labyrinth was OK? Being in a significant place like Zagreb, we need to find its significant centre. Here are lots of tourists, so it cannot be far. There they take tons of selfies in front of a fountain - perhaps that is significant. Then there are lots more shops - the sign of any capitals heart. Next, rows of eateries to lots of people. And finally nick-nag shops. Now we are talking. In Ljubljana I bought myself a Slovenia badge. Now I get my Croatia badge - quite the achievement. So far so good. We definitely have seen Zagreb, but were to rest. Check the map for green space and head uphill. This was a major fail. We end up at the cemetery. Next green space is Maksimir Park. And what a jackpot that turns out to be. Beautiful and well kept spaces full of people, families and lovers, strolling, playing, musing. The park is huge and becomes more like a wild forest with lakes and meadows. So pretty we ignore the rumbling thunder, which we have heard almost every day for the past two weeks and in rarely comes to any rain. Not this time. The heavens open. So far we had always been lucky with our rain timing. Either we were already under shelter or shelter was near. There is no shelter here.
Hastily we pull out our ground sheet and try to create some emergency cover by tying it to tree branches. By this point we are wet to the bone, so I don’t know exactly what this was to achieve, but this was not a time for careful thought. When the rain eases a bit, the sheet still provides no shelter yet and we abandon that mission. As the sun pokes out again it reveals the most beautiful meadow. Perfect to pitch up. I take my soaking hat off, ready to set up. Where are my sun glasses? They were on my hat. How is this possible? Perhaps they fell off in my frantic groundsheet campaign? I check the ground in that area. Nothing. I retrace my steps. No glasses to be seen. They are quite reflective, so they should be visible. I get back on my bike and cycle back out of the park, back to the last café we filled up our water bottles at. The staff there were super nice about filling up our bottles and are super nice now. She can tell I am concerned about my glasses and tells me that I still had them when she saw me. Amazingly attentive and great recall, but no glasses. I cycle back to Ali. It is amazing how attached I have got to these glasses since buying them just a few weeks ago in Medano in that friendly shop at massive discount. Earlier today we had chatted while cycling about what our favourite luxury items are that we carry with us (expect a list here any time soon). I had not even mentioned my glasses, but now I realise how dear they were to me. I can buy new ones. No problem. But that is not the point. They were already special glasses. The glasses I travelled with, with which we saw the alps and so many nice places. I decide not to give up hope. Something random could happen, such as a dog walker having picked them up and handing them back to me. Unlikely, I know. Do let go. When I finally get back to Ali she is waving at me, strangely cheerfully. In her hand… my glasses. How did you find them? “I stood on them, while having another look around that tree where we tried to attach the sheet.” Amazing. I am most disproportionately happy. Something random could happen, and it did.
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Ivanić-Grad, 3 August 2025
We are rubbish at slowing down. One or other of us always has the itch to get going again. After a 6am start in that spirit, and a lovely sunrise, I have to admit defeat to the weather. Before it is even seven, the rain sets in and forces a return to the tent until 9:30 - unheard, but nice.
To reward ourselves for such a slow start we head back to the café that filled up our bottles last night and was so kind about my glasses. A slow breakfast is what is now needed. Not possible - they only do drinks. However, we can go to the bakery at the corner and eat what ever we like at our table. That is even better, given that we always have our butter and spreads to hand. The bakery does everything. Croissants, bread rolls, you name it. I ask for a loaf of bread. Ah, no, that is not possible. It is Sunday - we are not allowed to bake bread. Seriously? Croissant yes, but our daily bread do not give us? What a funny interpretation of the holy law.
Having been a bit down on cycling into Zagreb, cycling out is actually a lot worse. Somewhat dilapidated industrial areas interspersed with depressing amounts of fly tipping. Not good. The road further out does not get much better. Ali, ever so polite, describes it as a ‘bit boring’. I leave it at that. When we meet Hrvoje, the entertainment value reaches a new high. He is a keen cyclist with an e-bike and has a comprehensive list of places he cycled to on his facebook page. He takes us through them one by one “Zagreb, by bike”, “Gratz, by bike”, “This street (pointing at the street we stand on), by bike”… We eat our bread rolls and listen while the list goes on for an impressive amount of time.
After a few more miles on the ‘boring’ road, we take a brave move off-course and get rewarded with lovely woodlands and quiet paths that take us to Ivanić-Grad, a place name so cool, I just have to see it. Not only does it have a proper town centre (something strangely void of all places so far), there are people, cafés and green spaces. And great food. I try Istarske Šurlice, a thick type of pasta with delicious goulash. Food good, all good.
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Lonja, 4 August 2025
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Prijedor, 5 August 2025
Today is Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and the Day of Croatian Defenders. Exactly 30 years ago Croatian forces liberated the town of Knin, effectively ending the Republic of Serbian Krajina and marking the end of the war. Croatian flags are flying from most windows and the café in Jasenovak is filled with men in army outfits. The last 30 years have not been kind to the appearance of many of them. They look severely overweight. Not the big-belly type, but the overhanging variety. One of them has his wife and two young children with him. She looks a million dollars and could easily stand in for the young Catherine Zeta Jones. He may have bench pressed small cars a few years ago. What must have been a power walk then, now looks more like a waddling toddler with some pride remaining. He sums up how I feel about this part of Croatia.
We witness the gathering of more and more men in uniforms, only a stones through from the Bosnian border. 30 minutes later we cross from Hrvatska Dubico into Kozarka Dubico. Not without a proper and very serious passport check. The contrast cold not be starker. Hrvatska Dubico is a single street with single file buildings in various states of disrepair lining the road closely, so much like the many miles we have cycled along. The Bosnian side, on the other hand, is buzzing. A proper pedestrian high street with branded shops and commerce. Who would have thought I could find that so uplifting.
The scenery also changes instantaneously. We are back in hills with lovely views.
I will write more about North East Croatia when I have a better perspective. It was quite an experience.
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Banja Luka, 6 August 2025
Garmin is great for navigation using its ‘popularity map’. The more people report their rides to Garmin, the more it learns which routes to recommend. That system breaks down around here. Cycling is not popular. A bit like HAL in 2001, as memory is not available, it reverts back to its routes in car navigation and insists we use the main road to Banja Luka, whereas we try to get away from the traffic and onto the back roads and their sweet villages. In Kozarac, one such village, we stop at a cross road to make sure Garmin doesn’t sweep us back onto the main road. A car tries to take the turn. We must be in his way. He gets out of his car, walks over to us and says “have coffee with me”. His car, engine still running, is left at an odd angle by the crossing, while he guides us through the road side café, greeting every other person cheerfully as we proceed. “We go to the balcony”, up a spiralling staircase, more greetings, then the introductions to a table of five, which is quickly rearranged to make room for us.
The group consists of an Austrian couple, a man from Chicago and another Bosnian man. “This is the worlds biggest small town” they tell us with happy pride. “All nationalities are here from Norwegians to Australians”. Many of them came right after the war to rebuild what was an entirely flattened town. And many of them stayed. That would explain why half the number plates around here are German or Austrian - that could not have all been tourists.
The was was devastating for this area. Kozarac was one of the earliest towns to be ethnically cleansed in May 1992 “when the World looked on just like now in Gaza”. Today people gather to mark the end of the Trnopolje concentration camp made possible by Guardian journalist Ed Vulliany drew attention to it. The camp is just a few kilometres up the road. The man on the left in our photo is a survivor of that camp, but we chose not to talk about that.
The hospitality is breathtaking and reminds me of cycling through Turkey, Syria and Jordan all those years ago. People invite you from the side of the road. Isn’t that wonderful? We have to get used to accepting such kindness again, which can be strangely difficult. The gut reaction is to say ‘very kind, but sorry. We are important busy people who have to cycle to Banja Luka, you know’. No, no, no. We have lots of time and would be delighted to spend it with you. This morning was much richer for it.
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The Balkans are complicated. That is part of why we are here. I want to better understand the people and the various groups. The wars here always puzzled me, which didn’t stop me volunteering to be deployed here, back in 1994. That’s right, I was young and foolish enough to ‘volunteer’ to go to war. I was signalman on a minesweeper and one of the boats in our flotilla was due to head down to the Adriatic. Their signalman wasn’t keen, so I put myself forward and was all good to go, when he changed his mind and went after all. I remember being quite annoyed. Silly 19 year olds, wanting action at all cost, without even understanding the conflict at hand.
Even today I am not sure how the dividing lines are drawn (far less why). That came out quite clearly when I try to find my ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina badge’ in Banja Luka (I started collecting little flag pins from tourist shops to stick on my front bag). None of the flags they sell look like the national flag. They are all red, blue and white. Even the flags flying off the buildings are red, blue, white. Where is that funny blue, yellow diagonal design with the stars across? Nowhere to be found. I check out a football supporters booth, where a girl and two boys with perfect English help me out. Their shop is also in red, blue and white striped items. “Do you have anything with the Bosnian flag on?” - “Oh, no, you won’t find that around here. Banja Luka is part of the Serbian sector”. Right. I had not expected that. Here I am, right inside ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina’ and yet people in this town, their football club, their town hall, they all identify as Serbian. That also explains all the Putin images on the red, blue and white badges I saw earlier. Lot’s more to learn for me. The badge will have to wait until Mostar. I definitely have not earned my Serbian badge yet.
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‘Rest day’ Banja Luka, 7 August 2025
This is a rest day. That is meant to mean, leave the bikes and spend two nights in the same place. Hasn’t worked. Not for lack of a good place to stay. The hotel we found is amazing. Right by the river opposite the castle. And Banja Luka is a great place to stop as well. Lots going on and so ‘authentic’. Boy, I sound like the worst kind of tourist, but it is true. The markets, the stands, the cafés - they are all in full use by local people. The other thing for local people: the annual Banja Luka Music Festival. We saw them setting up right inside the castle and test the sound system with AC/DC - it is amazing!
Unfortunately, the twin fortune of a central hotel and a great sound system is a pretty sure guarantee for a non-night of sleep. And we do need our sleep. That is what rest days are for. So it is back on our bikes for a mini-transfer. I checked out a very nearby alternative, but the path there was so steep, I had to walk down to save my inner tubes from melting from all the breaking. But I met some sweet piglets and got great views. Instead we go along the river to the nearest campsite, which is an absolute winner. The kind I like - basically just a field, right by the river. And this field has a fridge. I am sorted.
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Jajce, 8 August 2025
Today was simply gorgeous - literally gorgeous. Our new companion, the river Vrbas (yes we are running out of vowels), has done a sterling job of cutting a deep gorge through the rocks, just so that cyclists could more conveniently travel south through Bosnia. As a result you have to put up with a few more scenery photos. I just cannot get enough of it - there are about 100 more photos of ‘road with tunnel entrance’ or ‘road with rocks’ or ‘road with river’. Message me, if you are keen. It is all incredibly pretty.
The Vrbas, having done the heavy lifting, is now a rather gentle river, compared to our previous ones, like the massive Sava. It comes towards us at such a gentle gradient, that for much of today I feel like going slightly downhill. Don’t ask me about the physics of that and Ali assures me that this is definitely a false perception.
We see very few bike travellers around here and it is a delight to bump into Annie and Levin from Bremen, who don’t even have bikes, they follow the age-old and half forgotten art of hitch-hiking. They master this art and managed to do Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia in one day. Today they got a lift with the post van, which took them around all the mountain villages. Now they look for cardboard - a key working material for hitch-hikers - since all the destinations on their boards have now been reached, with exception of Sarajevo. We learn a lot from them, which I am glad we didn’t know before, such as ‘wild camping is illegal in Slovenia and carries a €600 fine’. That explains the campsite cartel’s prices. Or ‘there are still land mines and wild boars in the woods here’. Haven’t we been lucky!
Beside the Vrbas and us, there is not much space in the valley for anything else much. Barely a lorry, of which there have been plenty. They have been largely considerate. It’s BMWs that are more of a problem. This is a claim I am happy to make, backed by statistically robust numbers now. With no space for houses, shops or towns, we find that reaching Jajce is like a sudden transformation back to Muslim style and dress. They also fly the Bosnia and Herzegovina flag.
Time to return to my Balkan Badge quest, because this is also a total tourist town, complete with castle wall, and the Vrbas making a rather uncharacteristic spectacle of itself: massive waterfalls, which today feature as part of an international diving show. Behind the spectators in burka admiring the super fit divers spiralling down along the falls, that is where my interest lies. Naff shops selling fridge magnets and other souvenirs. And sure enough, a lovely man who used to live in Dortmund and still speaks flawless German hands me my coveted Balkan badge for Bosnia. Mission accomplished.
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Vrse, 9 August 2025
As we rolled out of Jajce yesterday, Ali spots another bike. Not big news, you might think, but around here bikes are genuinely rare. We may have seen five cyclists, since entering Bosnia and Herzegovina. They were mostly farmers rolling gently along an off-road path. This bike is different. It has bags. We are not the only people biking around here. How reassuring.
Sure enough, that evening this very bike rolls up on the same camp site we are on, which is only a moderate coincidence, because it is the only campsite around and the valley is still too narrow to find a ‘wild’ pitch. How exciting - someone like us. We play a game whether we can guess his nationality. We fail, and it wasn’t easy: Konstantin is Russian, who won a scholarship to go to school in Ipswich and now works in the Netherlands. He is equally pleased, having cycled on his own for some time. More questions to ask and experiences to exchange than we have time for. This is his fourth time he came to the Balkans to cycle. He cannot get enough of it. And he goes right off the beaten track, so we discuss navigation tools. I had numerous emphatic app recommendations and in the end I use nothing but the Garmin app that goes directly with my bike computer. Konstantin and many others swear by Komoot. My only experience with Komoot so far is a cyclist standing by the side of the road, back in South Tirol, and as we cycle past he shouts with expressive German at his phone “Scheiss Komoot”. Since then resisted the urge to get the app.
But Konstantin can see a path on the other side of the river, which doesn’t even exist on my map. Getting off that busy road would be amazing, so we give it a go, and it opens a whole new world to us. A world of gravel, bumps, mud and shrubs. Sounds rubbish? It was wonderful. Slow, tricky, but wonderful. From noisy, fast traffic at the end of yesterday, we are now in the deepest greenery. To our left still the bubbling Vrbas, further away the madness of the main road, just audible enough to remind us how nice it is not to be ‘there’.
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Riblji, 10 August 2025
Sundays are always a worry for us. We live shop-to-mouth. Carrying more than a day’s food would be very heavy, likely to go off in the heat and also take more forward planning than I am capable of. So shopping for food every day it is. But on Sundays that can be a problem, as we learned last Sunday in Zagreb, where you could buy lots of stuff, but no bread.
In Prozor I can confidentially tell that we are back in a Christian Sector. Firstly, there Croatian flags flying on the houses. Second, there is a Church with a congregation busting out of the doors, while the Lords prayer resonates across the square. And third, the shops are shut. All of them. Only cafés and bars are open (and as well visited as the Church). I ask a local family where I may buy food. “Tankstelle” - of course, petrol stations are too important to be shut on Sunday. Only catch, their food is barely food. Crisps and chocolate bars. Not quite enough to ride a bike on. It may have to be a day of eating in restaurants - the hardship, I know. But rescue comes on the outskirts of Jablanica.
In passing I see something that could almost be a bakery. Must have been a mirage - I am hallucinating with my craving for bread. I turn around, just to double check. I can even smell freshly baked bread. On Sunday? It cannot be. I walk in. A full display of rolls, loafs and even some home made flapjacks. The lady behind the counter is amused by my excitement for bread. “How come you are allowed to bake bread on a Sunday?” - “That is the only thing we are allowed. No other food can be sold. Only bread.” Different country, inverse interpretation of the gospel on bread. In Zagreb it was exactly the other way around: anything but bread. Need to make a mental note to spend the next Sunday on the Bosnian/Croatian border region and we will want for nothing.
Today was hot. Even going downhill, which can provide a bit of a breeze, we get hit by walls of hot. And further downhill, walls of even hotter. So we turn off frequently for a bit of shade and water. Or perhaps a beer when the place is nice, like it was in Konoba Vidova. The waiters here are always incredibly accommodating. We have a lot of ‘special needs’ - water bottles, WiFi, phone charging, and we can spend a lot of time without ordering all that much. With the latter we fit right into local custom. Like most places we are treated to 80s classics (Tina Turner, ABBA and all the other bangers from bands we never heard since, or—to my surprise—never made it to the UK in the first place, but cause me major nostalgia). I have become a dab hand at breaking into the WiFi around here. Within very few attempts I can guess the WiFi password almost everywhere (it is usually 12345678 or if that fails the more secure 1234567890). Our host not only tolerates us, but brings us extra cold spring water - free of charge. After one hour of loitering around on beers and one desert the bill comes to 10 Mark (€5). On leaving he asks where we are going. Ali explains that we are on our way to Istanbul. He runs back to the till and pulls the 10 Mark out. “Have it back. You should not have to pay if you do that”. He is too sweet. 10 Mark was too little anyway. That’s just what people around here are like. Lovely.
Today’s photo haul is another landscape bonanza. It is just all to pretty. We have swapped our river Vrbas, which we had grown so fond of, with the Neretva, which is managed into reservoirs and makes for an amazing partner of the rocky gorges. I am concerned the photos cannot give justice to the magnificence of it all, whereas Ali is concerned that the photos make it all look way too good. So as a disclaimer, there is an under-representation of unphotogenic scenes and the photos fail to convey heat, traffic and steepness. Please factor those in, before jumping to to the conclusion that Bosnia might be stunningly beautiful.
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Mostar, 11 August 2025
Mostar is one of these famous locations we are both keen to see. And we arrive at the outskirts with tremendous speed coming downhill out of the Neretva river gorge with an unexpectedly fast tail wind. Numerous relatively short tunnels line the way. The noise cars produce as they roar up from behind is unnerving, which makes us go even faster. The last of these tunnels is a landscape transformation. Suddenly we are back in a wide valley and things look a lot dryer, almost middle eastern. The wind produces little sand storms, which I am keen to avoid blowing onto our precious chain and gears.
The outskirts of Mostar are traffic grid lock and the road is barely wide enough to get our bikes past the line of lorries until we finally find something akin to a bike path.
The heat is intense (~35°C) and it is a blessing that some of the roads in Mostar are lined with massive old trees, some of which as so established the roads have to accommodate them.
Where the tarmac ends and the cobbles begin is unmistakably ‘tourist town’. Stall after stall with what I can only describe as ‘stuff’. Some of it stands out though, Like the bullet shapes pens and little jets and missiles, lovingly engraved ‘Mostar’. Our Dutch friend, Ton, had warned us a few days ago that Mostar feels a little edgy. But, missiles aside, we find everyone to be friendly - on both sides of the bridge. The south seems mostly Christian, subtlety reinforced with the enormous ‘Millennium Cross’ towering on the hill above the town, the north is Muslim - they have wind turbines on their hill.
The bridge itself is absolutely beautiful. Not just because of its heart wrenching history. It is such a delicate arch. Unbelievable and impressive that it withstood over 60 shells before it collapsed. The engineering of the bridge fascinates me and I shall spare you the great and glorious detail. We learned a lot we didn’t know. One of the ‘stuff’ stalls right after the bridge also offered a video about the bridge on a TV in the back of their shop. It shows a black and white footage from probably 100 years ago of crowds not dissimilar to today. Then it cuts to the war footage, the bridge covered in netting and soldiers running hunched across is, before shell after shell hit it. Admittedly the that footage is shown in slow motion and repeat, but it makes your stomach curl. The images of the eventual collapse are well known, and yet so painful to watch. Sitting with us during this video presentation is Zejna, who speaks good English and is happy to deal with our countless questions, especially about her take on tensions today. She is moderate in her views, but when we ask about Christians marrying Muslims, no that would not happen, parents would not approve. “Do you have any Christian friends?” She wouldn’t mind so much, it is just they don’t mingle.
I promised to spare you the engineering of the rebuilding of the bridge, despite having gone through a detailed exhibition on it. Just to say, the 1088 stone blocks were hand chiselled into shape and linked with molten led. The imperfect shape of the bridge was maintained, which I think is delightful. With today’s tools for stress and strain analysis, it could have been built differently, but that is not the point.
The cobbles over the bridge are so polished from people walking over it, they shine.
Do you remember these two? Annie and Levin, whom we met at our lunch stop three days ago and who hitch-hiked to Sarajevo are now also in Mostar. We met at the bridge and went for pizza - jumbo-pizza. Back in my student days, I revised with Peter and Roman a lot, and we would get distracted from out engineering calculations, and instead worked out, with some precision, which pizza was the best value cm2/€. The conclusion, if in doubt, go big. This lifetime skills paid off.
The jumbo pizza is genuinely JUMBO. Annie describes my eyes at the arrival of the pizza as almost bulging with excitement. We are having such a lovely evening together and it turns out Annie is not from Bremen, but from Stade. Even more northern, even more likeable. I hope we meet again - perhaps in Montenegro, perhaps in Oxford.
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Nevesinje, 13 August 2025
Yesterday was a proper rest day. No cycling, not even bike maintenance. Just enjoying having a room (with working A/C!) a shop with food on our doorstep and the incredibly beautiful Mostar down the road. So we cool down in the Neretva river, which has this amazing emerald green colour here, sit around in cafés (our speciality) and amble like all the other tourists over the shiny cobble stones among all the stalls.
Today is a very different story. We are back in business, and how to better kick off after a rest day than with 1000m climbing in relentless heat? The scenery is transformed since we came through that last tunnel before Mostar. Forested hills have given way to far more barren slopes. The geology reminds me of Jordan and the West Bank. It is the inverse of what I think of as normal (as a northern German): the world is flat and sometimes pointy and rocky mountains stick out. Here, most the world is is also flat but high up. Then, massive valleys have been carved. The high up areas are green and wooded. The slopes are barren and the valleys busy with towns and farming.
We are now working our way up to the tree line and before we get there, the sun beats down on us so much, that we get through our water much faster than normal. Every kilometre we stop for a little drink. By stop 15 it is time for our ‘big break’ – that means folding chairs out, chopping board, bread, spreads and water – the water is alarmingly low. How about we wave our bottle at the occasionally passing cars? Perhaps someone has spare water to help us out? We are in the middle of nowhere. No houses for ages and the next village is miles away. Waving our bottle is popular. All the cars we wave our bottle at, wave back with great cheer, but little water. We need some signal that we are a bit desperate, rather than friendly. How about we wave the bottle upside down? Amazing change. The first car stops. Two young Italian girls on holiday brought a thermal flask with the most glorious cold water. “We can go half and half”. That is so incredibly kind of them. I carefully decant about 150ml from their flask, when we hear another car in reverse, coming back to us, up the hill, on a fast road. Quite a daring operation. They are two Bosnian men with a boy in the back. They must have interpreted our predicament spot on and produce a 1.5l bottle of water. We feel that is too much generosity, and they show us that they have plenty more bottles in the car. Sensible people. Another act of the ‘kindness of strangers’, which makes this trip such a nourishing experience. And water is such a strange substance. One moment we had tones of it roll past us in Mostar, now every millilitre is so precious.
Having this water is a game changer. Yes, we are still going uphill, and it is still hot, but the trees are beginning to provide some shelter and with water, we need not fear, we can keep going and the next café will come.
At this point I should probably praise the true hero of this whole undertaking. Not a big deal for me to cycle up these hills. I happen to love it. But who would possibly want to do this with me? Ali is the most incredible travel companion. She grinds up these hills, feet hurting, legs aching, and after a bit of a sit down, she is ready for more. We got to know each other so well when we cycled around the world those 24 years ago. Everything that made us compatible then is still there now. I am nearly as frustrating as I was then, but Ali can cope. And all the little tasks and things that need doing are unspoken team play. Ali, who happens to think that clothes need more washing than I do, is chief of laundry, whereas I can shine with bike maintenance, tent buildings or anything ‘physical’. We can always agree on when to ‘rough’ it and when to allow ourselves to have a good time, when to push on and when to have a break. Ali is amazing to travel with. Thank you. I love you.
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* * *
Avtovac, 14 August 2025
We check into a hostel, so that we have WiFi when Max gets his A-level results. We even have a balcony with a forward view of today’s rolling hills. No we did not splash out. The room is €20 (+€5 for a second person). From our balcony we also have a good view of the local petrol station. A Golf Mk I pulls up. I like that car. Look there goes another. How exciting. This was popular among my friends when we first got cars and you rarely see them these days. Schalli, Alex, Marc - they all drove Golf I (before all ‘upgrading’ to Mercedes W123 - my all time favourite). It was a bit like a fan club. Only the fan club here is still going 30 years later and it is bigger. Another one passes, and another. What is going on? Over half the cars are Golf Mk I. ChatGPT to the rescue and sure enough, the Golf Mk I was manufactured in Vogošća, just outside Sarajevo, and it is still going strong.
Hero of today is… Max. He got his grades and his place to study engineering at Manchester. As an engineer myself, I could not be more pleased. What most impressed me is how he turned from a highly efficient effort minimiser (not a bad fundamental skill for an engineer) into a highly efficient and diligent reviser for exams. Well done, Max. You have earned this big time.
Having boasted what an experienced team we are at this bike business, today I feel we made a schoolboy error. One that taps into my most primal fear: fear of famine. Glowing with excitement over Max’ news, we set off without getting bread from the bakery across the road. Bad mistake. This is the last source of food for 50km. Our ‘big break’ break at 11 subsequently consists of four slices from the end of the old loaf. Just about enough to keep me on the right side of the edge of a mood abyss.
We are now firmly back in an area with a strong Serbian flavour to it, and that includes masculinity. Ali is attracting attention from men aged 16 to 66. One lad sat himself right next to her, so that his mates could take a photo. When I come around the corner, I express my disapproval. I have been told that I can come across a bit stronger than I realise. Having sweat run down my tank top alongside my somewhat unkempt appearance probably doesn’t help to instil the impression of a mild mannered and broadly reasonable human being. It helped on this occasion. Other men display their affection for Ali more gentlemanly and help her lift her bike over a curb - they have nothing to fear.
One of the (many) things I love about Bosnia is the currency. That comes as a surprise. Earlier I had moaned that Germany is so behind with cash payments. Not only is cash the default payment method here, they are not part of the €. Well, officially. In practice everyone takes €, but I much prefer the local currency, the BAM, or as they call it Mark. Not only is that the name of the currency I grew up with (D-Mark), it has the same rate (2 Mark = 1€), and the best bit, it hasn’t suffered inflation. Things cost the same Marks they used to in the ‘good old days’. Beer? 2 Mark. Yes, please. Pizza? 7 Mark. Dankeschön. Scoop of ice cream? 1 Mark. This is how spending money is fun. Neither the exchange rate, nor the name are coincidence. Bosnia has long had strong links with Germany, as we still see with all the German number plates on the road. The DM was a common currency before the €. When the € was introduced, the ‘Mark’ was seen as a politically neutral currency (Source: Orlando whom we met in Mostar). Nice.
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Bajovo Polje, Montenegro, 15 August 2025
Today we cross into a new country. Montenegro is special, because 24 years ago we had to sail from Dubrovnik to Greece via Italy because Montenegro still wasn’t considered safe. The excitement of crossing the border is further heightened, when a friendly man pulls us off the road early into the climb out of Bosnia. “You cannot go this way. This road is only for locals. You must you back and use the official border crossing.” In case this comes to court, I should stress, Ali was all for turning around. I am wired differently. A border crossing for locals? Brilliant. What could be better. Very little.
The road is free of traffic (not that many locals after all) and the scenery is breathtaking (or is that the gradient?). Just when I think how adventurous this all is and how ‘out there’ we are to make it through such tough terrain, where only the hardest geezers could possibly make it, a girl in pink tracksuits comes ambling along the road. You’re just never as hard or remote as you think.
That ‘illegal’ border crossing is delightfully low-key. A barrier by the side of the road. No signs, for example to express ‘This is a local border for local people’. I check on the map. Yes, indeed, this is the border. The barrier is open, so we pass. Montenegro, here we come. The contrast between to two sides of the ridge we have just crosses could not be starker. One side barren land, the other a sheer endless downhill through dark green dense mixed forests, through tunnels and around tight switchbacks. My brakes are working hard and every kilometre or so I need to stop to cool my rims down - they are burning.
The views get ever more breathtaking. This time it must be the views. The valley in the far distance is covered in fluffy clouds. The photos cannot give the scale of the views justice. Luckily there is also Lake Piva to set things off a bit more. Water always works well in photos, gradients don’t. Today has a lot of gradient. Luckily there has finally been some rain and the temperatures have dropped from over 32°C to a pleasant 26°C. The humidity is high, though and we take regular drinks breaks.
Having learned from the past two days, we are a bit more ‘on it’ with water and food. This area also has long stretches with seemingly no habitation. The only campsite for miles turns out to be a family farm, where granddad mans the honey sales stand by the road. We don’t want to camp. We just need somewhere to sit, rest and eat. He doesn’t speak English and somehow we convey our needs with hand signals. Not long after his 12 year old grandson come running up and presents himself with a proud smile “I speak English - would you like a drink?”. Marvellous. Not only that, he just picked some delicious pairs and his dad sets out a plate of pears for us. They have beer, but on this occasion, his grandma’s blackcurrant juice is even more appealing. What was meant to be a bare-bone bread meal becomes a lovely occasion of great food, including granddad’s honey. Great start, Montenegro. Such a shame it is too early in the day to stop. More hills to climb.
On the last hill we meet Leone, from Italy. He didn’t need to say that he was Italian - it comes across. Leone rides a bright blue Pinarello Paris, wears funky multicolour socks and his cycling hat says ‘bang’. He loves to stop for a chat, in spite of going twice our speed. He is heading to Niksic, but is now inspired to go to Istanbul (so he charmingly calls back to us as he whizzes off).
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Camp Cuc, Donje Selo, 16 August 2025
Today we learn all about road building. Lesson number one: you do not need any traffic cones or temporary lights (listen up UK!). In fact you don’t need any signage of traffic measures. Take down the surface, cars will naturally slow down (except BMW) and carefully manoeuvre around each other. It was actually quite impressive how well that worked. Sometimes the gravel on the right is a bit too rough? No problem, cycle on the left. Cars are understanding (and do the same).
Lesson #2: types of downhill. We are now like Eskimos with their types of snow. Every downhill is different. We had a fair selection today descending the 2000m we had climbed over the last days. There is the magnificent sweeping down a multi lane road with an open valley for miles to the side - no breaking required - the wind takes care of that.
Then there is the effortless gliding around the turns of a gentle back road. Again, no braking required. The gradient takes care of just the right speed.
Or there are the exciting steeper ones, where careful judgement is required how much of the speed one can afford to take into the next turn. A real thrill. Or the even steeper ones, where not braking is not an option. We had a couple of those in today’s portfolio. One coming down the tight hairpin turns from Ostrog Monastery. Sure enough, my old friend ‘the overheated rim’ returns and melts my front inner tube. I still use those cheap TPUs, just because I have so many and this was the first failure in weeks. But with the heat and yet another thrilling downhill, the new replacement meets the same fate, less than an hour later. Braking before turns is therefore an even more delicate balance between not making the turn because of braking too little, or because of a blown inner tube as a result of braking. (I hear you: ‘buy proper inner tubes’ - I will!)
The final downhill of today was also my favourite: barmy warm evening air pulling on the t-shirt, while the bike just floats down near straight roads through fields and towns, past bars or cattle - no effort - just time to look around and enjoy the scenes unfold. Priceless. Here is a selection of pictures from today’s downhills.
Those shoes have been rubbish and only Ali could have put up with them for so long. The gave her pins and needles, they are heavy - they are just wrong and have been replaces with some simple sandals.
Ali is adamant that we needed to see Ostrog Monastery - one of the ‘top 10 things to see’ (according to the internet). For peace and quiet the monks must have elected to build the Monastery right into the rock, inaccessibly high up in the mountain. That didn’t work out. Long before we reach the turn off to the last kilometres of hairpin turns, the traffic comes to a complete standstill. I am sure (with 90% confidence) that the cause is two oversized and over-egod cars facing each other in one of the narrow part of the road and play chicken who reverses first. We use this opportunity to stop, have a drink and strategies how we will do the steep last part of the climb (having already climbed a fair height). Seeing all those cars, Ali has one of her brain waves: I could give one of them my bags. Right at that point an Italian car comes to a stop right next to us. Remember the Italians who sorted us out with water? Well, we are lucky again. Bea and Giacomo are also on their way to the monastery and happy to take Ali’s bags. All the bags go in their car. The traffic jam eases (sure enough, the first car to emerge on the other lane is a massive black Range Rover - I win). Ali sets off free of all that weight. When we reach the bottom turn it gets even better. Bea and Giacomo are having a snack and suggest that Ali might as well leave her bike down here and get a lift with them.
That works a treat. I get a fine climb and meet Ali, Bea and Giacomo at the top. While I wait for them I witness more of the Christian message in action. Everywhere around the monastery people are spread out on blankets, presumably while other family members stand in the seemingly endless queue to get inside. I find a 2m2 spare patch and begin to unfold my chair. A woman lying on the ground gesticulates angrily that this is her land, as indicated by the handbag placed in the middle. Have these people not heard of space hogging etiquette and use an appropriately wet towel? Luckily Ali arrives before this settler behaviour escalates.
For the first time we had warnings on our map “Route may be affected by Severe fire”. That is indeed alarming and we were lucky to be far from the severe fires. But we pass these still smouldering patches. Last week it was 41°C here all week. Not good.
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Koplik, 17 August 2025
Someone once suggested to spend Sundays in border regions to take advantage of the different shop opening rules - wait - that was me, last Sunday. What good advice and we have followed it. Even in the capital of Montenegro (who knows it? go on…), Podgorica, all the shops are shut. The twist here is that cafés sell both bread and cake, petrol stations have butter. Better though to climb a couple of hills to Albania and have the full supermarket treatment. Nailed it.
The border crossing is the most serious looking, yet. Queues of cars and lorries are slowly processed at the exit and the entry booths of each country. We just met Ramsay, a charming Canadian, living in California and Catalonia and many other places where cycling is good. When we cycled through the last town he noticed us by my “long femur and our laughter”. Doesn’t take him long to catch up with us. He is concerned that having dipped into the EU on this ride may mess with his Visa conditions for Spain. We are a bit concerned that the absence of an entry stamp to our passports may raise eyebrows (we entered ‘illegally’ through the mountains). These worries are unfounded. For some reason they do not even look at our passports and just wave us through. Cyclist are not taken seriously, I fear. Actually, that’s fine with me.
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Lezhë, 18 August 2025
Monday must be a day for weddings in Albania. We hear horns and cheering on the road behind us for some time, before it grows louder and a whole caravan of cheering, honking and slow diving cars make their way past us. The bride leading the way, followed by car after car of well-wishers. They move only slightly faster than us, which is great. It calms the entire fast road right down for us. By the time we reach Shkodër, we catch up with them and now they know us and it gets even more cheerful.
Fortunato, our lovely campsite host told us that Shkodër is the city of cycling. He is quite right. In Bosnia we saw barely a bike. In Shkodër bikes are everywhere. Going with the traffic, against it or sideways - it doesn’t matter. Everything is extremely relaxed and self organising. Many of the bikes are ridden by elderly people at a speed so slow, it makes me struggle to keep my balance.
We have two lanes going our direction, but only one is in use. The other is for randomly stopping cars and otherwise serves as extra bike lane. Being in a ‘cycling city’ is good for us. I have given up on those TPU inner tubes and revert back to good old butyl. The shop is principally for motorbikes, but another bike shop assures me that this is where I get the best quality products.
A lady behind the tiny counter serves four people concurrently. Each asks for one part, she disappears for a while, returns with the item, puts it on the desk and then the next get his part collected until she starts again with the first man. Somewhere during the rounds I slot in with my inner tube request ‘700x28mm please’. Little later she returns with what looks like an ice cream wrapper. I prepare for lengthy explanations for what I actually need. Nope. There it says on the shiny wrapper: 700x28mm 40mm valve. Sorted. The next hot downhill can come.
The car choice for any self-respecting Albanian young male is the Mercedes S class in black with tinted glasses and preferably in the AMG version. These cars are everywhere. If it is not the Mercedes, Audi is also acceptable. Should the penis problem be more profound, the remedy comes at a price: the Maybach. I have seen more of these here than in all my years in Oxford. I live on the humble side of Oxford, to be fair.
The presence of all these so-called super cars would not irk me half as much, if it wasn’t in such stark contrast to the rest of the region. Merc or mule - that is not a healthy wealth distribution.
The difficult thing with my Balkan Badges is not cycling the countries, but finding the badge shop. Albania doesn’t (yet) have the super tourist gathering points of Slovenia (Bled) or Bosnia (Mostar) where such useful objects are common trade. I really had to search up and down Lezhë, before I found this gem of a shop. Even with the shop identified, try to find the required Albania badge (it is in the first photo somewhere).
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Dom, 19 August 2025
In the spirit of openness, I am full of prejudice, lazy thinking and assumptions about people. Albanians not excluded. The association is one of gang violence. Just like when we entered Syria all those years ago, there is some expectation that the relentless media and populist political rhetoric is borne out by an ounce of truth.
So when a car full of Albanian’s overtakes me, pulls over, gets out and waves me off the road, I do wonder where this might be going. He walks to the boot and opens it. Out comes a semi-automatic gun and the request to show me what’s inside my bags. Not quite: out come grapes. Astrit explains, with a full-on Chelsea accent, that he has just been picking grapes on his dad’s field. “Here have some, they are delicious. And have some figs, too. You’ll need it on a bike.” Astrit has indeed lived in Chelsea and returned here for quality of life. Cannot blame him. Probably less gang violence and paranoid people here, too.
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Bless my mother. She has the most phenomenal capacity to remember dates. Turns out (unbeknown to Ali and me) that we have been together for 25 years today. Silver anniversary. It was the Saturday of Oxford Royal Regatta. One year later, we where on our big bike adventure and on our anniversary day we had hit the Pyrenees. For some reason Ali did not feel like going for a drink that evening. And for our 25th anniversary? Same, same. Happy anniversary.
There are two things that are impossible to capture in photographs. Firstly, the gradient of roads. They always look flat, or at least a lot flatter than they feel on the bike. Second, road surface quality. It doesn’t matter how battered a road is, take a photo and it looks at least ‘OK’. What are you whining about, I hear you say. Try it yourself. Take a photo of the worst road you know and be astounded how ‘OK’ it looks. I therefore don’t even bother showing photos of the roads in a plea for pity, but believe me when I say, today we met some bad ones. What adds to the jeopardy is that a perfectly good road suddenly ends and for 100 meters or so one has to play island hopping and manoeuvre a path between wheel stopping holes and rim crunching lumps of stone—all while oncoming traffic is playing the same game across the full width of the road. This is most effective with the late 1980s Mercedes models, fully laden with five men, suspension a bit soft for that extra sideways swerve and a massive cloud of dust trailing behind. Then, before you know it, a perfectly good tarmac surface returns as if nothing had happened. Nobody knows for how long. If you are affected by any of the above, or you care the least bit about road surface quality, I will be sure to keep you posted.
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Debar, 20 August 2025
After a noticeable absence of cyclists, and touring cyclists in particular, we suddenly get our fair share. We cycle hundreds of meters above the valley with its busy main road running along its middle. Up here everything so so much more pretty and quiet. The road surface is also surprisingly good. It come with surprise and excitement that we spot a pedalling dot down there. Poor sod, among all that traffic and with still a lot of climing ahead to get out of this valley (another great thing about our high route). Surely we will this person when we stop in Bulqizë, just over the ridge, where they can come off that road. Strangely, we never do, but when travelling in the same direction at similar speed not that unlikely. Then there is Christoph from Poland who comes towards us and is happy to stop and chat. He is wrapped up to the nines. Long sleeves, neck scarf, bandanna under his helmet and a trailer behind him. You can tell that he travels on his own - he does big days with little stopping and has a lot to tell us. Not long and he will be with his parents in Slovenia.
To complete the cycling tourer bonanza, just when we merge back onto the road from a longer meal stop, just at that very moment and with uncanny precision we line up side by side with Marin, who is also delightfully chatty, but in a bit of a hurry. He is doing the Transcontinental race and is a behind after his rear axle broke. This also explains why we saw more touring cyclists, and also why we so rarely bump into them at stops. They are all in a rush.
A few days ago we were overtaken by two tourers on tri-bars, who didn’t even greet us. Racing 4000km would explain that. Part of me even admires such feats of endurance. Why, I ask though, ruin the opportunity to see all these lovely places and meet all these lovely people, while keeping your head down, sleep depriving yourself and being in a permanent rush? Each to their own. I feel we got our speed, stopping frequency and appreciation time bang on.
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A night to remember
I had comments that this blog sounds so pleasant and positive. Ali also expressed that I do not give enough coverage to all that is hard, miserable and difficult. So here we go:
What keeps us awake at night? Lots of things. So far we had dogs, cockerels, donkeys, jackals, snoring (from a nearby building!), domestic disputes, call to prayer (at 5:15a.m.), heavy rain, goods trains, strimmers or just heat. Now we can add a new one.
The first campsite we find in North Macedonia is in Debar, called ‘Camping K’, turns out to be nothing but an empty back garden in a less pleasant suburban street. Debar has a great lake. Let’s try that. With a bit of random serendipity, or what we like to claim as our ‘sixth sense for sites’, we end up on a little car park right by the lake. At the end of the car park is a sign “lake view camping”. We can see the lake view. Where is the camping? A patch of grass, no more than 3x8 meters would be great to pitch a tent. What is missing is showers, toilets and, well, anyone to ‘run’ the place. An elderly man waves from a balcony “camping?”. We say ‘yes’, expecting that he might come down, but no. We get ready to jump in the lake after another long day with lots of heat and uphill. A family walks up and explains that this is their site. Indeed, there are no toilets, but the bar next to us has some which we can use. And who needs a shower, when you have a whole lake. The mother is lovely - another of those fit and beautiful women who for some reason is married to a vastly overweight man. She makes us Turkish coffee, gives us biscuits and even a cucumber. By the evening the family is gone. She had explained how to turn one of the flood lights for the car park off. Unfortunately there are two more and beam right onto our tent. With tables and sheets that I find lying around, I build a barricade for our tent to shelter it from the light. It works. By nine it is dark, we are tired and so we go to sleep with the gentle noise of children coming from the bar next door. That will die down soon and all we hear is the gentle waves from the lake. Until… boom, boom, boom. The base drum. By midnight the bar had turned into a night club, playing heavy beats. The architecture of the club consists of two slabs of concrete (a floor and a ceiling) with one side facing the bank and three sides open to the elements. One of those sides is us.
By one a.m. I get up to investigate. The sound system is as big as you’d expect. Two towers backed up by eight more substantial boxes at a volume that make conversation impossible. I signal my request to the bouncer: point at watch, point at speaker, wave hand across neck to mean ‘stop’. He smiles and holds two fingers up (the friendly way round). OK, 2am. We can hack that. By 2:30 I see them again. A small guy on probably a lot of coke looks like he wants to fight me on the issue, but would you believe it, they actually turn the music off for us. Great. We get some precious sleep and can extend our list of things that keep us awake at night by night clubs in firm first place.
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Gostivar, 21 August 2025
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Skopje, 22 August 2025
Very occasionally we treat ourselves to a proper bed. Today is such a day. The rooms are amazingly large, the beds super comfortable, the showers have good pressure (very important). When we get quoted the price it feels too good to be true. Then they add ‘and that includes breakfast’. That really is too good to be true. Do not get your hopes up. A good breakfast for me consists of half a kilo of yogurt, with muesli, fruit, bread with butter and jam, a croissant (or two) and several cups of coffee. That is not what they mean by breakfast. Here breakfast is a coffee and one pre-wrapped croissant. It is quite possible that one could ask for more, but given the price of it all, I fear that might be taking advantage. Instead we have our second breakfast, with half a kilo of yogurt etc. - all from the shop and all also dirt cheap.
Finding my Balkan Badge in Skopje wasn’t difficult. The centre is teeming with souvenir merchants. When I ask for a badge with the flag of North Macedonia I get a blunt response “We don’t do those”. But the stand is covered with them. “That is the flag of Macedonia”. Point taken. Underneath a 26m statue of Alexander the Great, one better not tread on national sentiments. Apologies to my Greek friends if I occasionally drop the ‘North’ now. No offence intended.
On the whole the traffic has been good to us. Where possible, we avoid fast main roads. That way we also get to see more towns, cafés and people. Sometimes fast traffic is unavoidable and I have been impressed how courteous especially lorry drivers are. In Albania we had few problems, because many roads are generously wide. In Macedonia they are narrower. On the downhill yesterday I got positively friendly with a truck stacked high with firewood. I average 50km/h, he goes good bit less, but with my frequent pauses, we met several times and I get waved through with increasing friendliness as he makes way for me to pass. The big exception are my special friends, the SUVs. One overtook another car, while that car was overtaking us. Absolute madness and quite dangerous. My response is to cycle quite wide into the lane, up to two thirds, especially when there is oncoming traffic. That leaves no ambiguity that ‘squeezing past us’ is not an option and that a proper lane change is required. Cars approaching too fast get treated to a bit of a wobble on my bike to give the impression that I cannot be relied on steering a straight line. Works a treat in both slowing them down and giving me a wide berth. If there is no oncoming traffic, I move aside and wave them through before they pass, making me appear generous and often earning me a thank you gesture - it is all about expectation management.
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Skopje, 23 August 2025
On our ‘rest’ day, I could not resist a little excursion to Kosovo, since it is just around the corner from Skopje. Admittedly, a bit of a tokenistic trip. My experience of Kosovo is as brief as it is positive. This is the first € country for some time and a coffee comes at the reassuringly simple price of €1. Not that I ever get to pay that. As I get up, a man at the neighbour table gestures that the coffee is on him. For no apparent reason people treat us with unprompted generosity and kindness. Unless my appearance has reached that of such a tramp that they take pity. The reality is that I run around with an embarrassing stack of €50 notes, all stylishly rolled up with a rubber band (Breaking Bad style). This is a result of my credit card playing up while we were in Switzerland. The HypoVereinsbank was no help at all. I suspect that the chip on the card is broken, because contactless still works fine, but no cash withdrawal. So I stacked up on € notes. Trouble is, Euros are accepted everywhere, but €50 notes are notoriously unpopular. I was really hoping to use them to get smaller change.
So just to break up one of the notes, I am pleased to have also found a shop in Kosovo who sells stickers, the next best thing to badges. That alone made the trip to €-land worthwhile. One sticker is the Kosovo flag, for which I just need to find a pin to attach it to my bag. The other is a Mercedes star. This goes on my steerer tube, thereby probably doubling the value of my bike and the street-cred goes up ten-fold. Now I can play with the big boys.
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A special shout out for Fortunato, who claimed when we first entered Albania that he had the best Trileçe in the country. That was also my first ever Trileçe and I loved it. After having sampled it all over the Balkans, I am delighted to announce that Fortunato wins first place not just for Albania, but the entire Balkans. The jury suspects that his wife may have deserve a special mention. First prize for presentation goes to Furra bakery in Skopje (see picture).
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Do not judge a shop by its entrance
Not all shops make a big song and dance about their presence. The main feature that advertises the presence of goods for sale is a fridge filled with beer and fizzy drinks next to a domestic looking door. Step through the door and you are greeted by a narrow isle of cans, electronics and cleaning products. Not much else, until you reach the end of the isle and there is a sharp turn to the right, with an altogether larger array of isles with vegetables, pasta and sources, shoes, tools and kitchen ware. At the end of these is fresh bread and another twist later more fridges appear unexpectedly with milk, yogurt and cheeses. A popper tardis. These shops have everything we could possibly want. Best of all, they dispense my favourite breakfast items loose. Cranberries, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, raisins - anything. You weigh your own bag on a scale with a 100 button interface, including two (?!) number pads. Once the four digit code for the product has been entered, press the yellow button on the right followed by the big button with a ‘2’ and a little sticker is printed with an improbably low price. Easy, once someone patiently explained it to me.
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Samoljica, Serbia, 24 August 2025
It is as if I am wearing Lederhosen. People everywhere call over to me in German. Children in the street, grown ups in cafés. All delighted that they can show off their German and utterly confident that I would be German and speak German back to them. And of course they are right, which makes the exchanges just delightful. Everyone has fond stories to the tell of their time in Germany or the person they knew who had been to Germany. Some learned German while in Germany, others watching cartoons. German is an incredibly common language here and Germany’s reputation is so good, I am taken aback and heart warmed. Some want their photo taken as if we were celebrities. İrkan from Turkey took one with me, but not Ali - that would be inappropriate. His wife, emboldened by his success, gets up and asks Ali for a joint selfie. Others insists to pay for our drinks. We genuinely struggled to spend our remaining Macedonian denars today, before reaching the Serbian border. The last town will be one of those lifetime highlights. We arrive after a hard stint in heat and headwind in a small bar, which is entirely covered in Albanian flags. They have been prominent all day. In fact, I fished one out of a bush, that had blown there and already used it to great effect when another Albanian wedding caravan passed us. The response to seeing me wave an Albanian flag back at them was, shall we say, audible.
Here, at the café, we have—as so often—all generations, but only male. There is the boy serving us drinks. Then the man who has stories from his time working in Cologne, without papers. He suffered bad cuts and shows us the scars. “I could not go to Hospital, because I had no papers”. Pretty rough. In three days he is going back to Germany for work again. This time to Hanover and this time with Visa and all. He’ll do the journey by can in only one day. His German is excellent and his manner full of warmth and enthusiasm. Finally there is the elderly man, with the kindest grin. He speaks no German at all, but communicates kindness with every gesture, which include a lot of encouragement for us to have more drinks - he’ll pay. Apparently he made his money in Switzerland.
As before, they are very keen on photos and as a backdrop they would like the map of Albania in their preferred borders. Needless to say, I have no skin in the nationalist tendencies of the region, but when I produce my little Albanian flag, like a magic trick from my bike bag, they erupt for joy. Albania and Albanians have taken a large place in my heart.
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Surdulica, 25 August 2025
We hit a cold snap this morning. An unprecedented temperature low of 19.7°C means we wear long sleeves as we set off. The road continues dead straight alongside the motorway and we face a relentless headwind. But the gardens have roses, Ali likes roses and the mood is therefore good.
Recently food shopping got a little more difficult. The things we expect to find in any supermarket are no longer there. For some time oats, muesli and granola have become rare. The last oats we found in a pharmacy - that’s how healthy they are. Now we discovered that butter is not a given. A charming assistant in the supermarket warned us that what we just picked up is nothing like butter and not recommended as far as she is concerned. What kind honesty. We trust her.
On a particularly steep section into one of the few major towns we see the silhouette of a bike with bags being pushed up near the top. Could be a local farmer, but the bags look too neat, so I sprint to the top (such is the excitement of the prospect of meeting other cyclists). Indeed, not only a cyclist, but rarer still, a Brit. Brian is from Pembrokeshire and has also been travelling for a long time, as you can tell from his deep tan, but with somewhat fewer perks than us. He sleeps with a tarp and a hammock. A 30W solar panel strapped across the front panniers provides all the electricity he needs, which cannot be much, because he goes without any internet. I am most impressed. He has maps on his phone, which he downloaded in advance. The other thing Brian does without is money. When I suggest we stop for a drink, he declares “I have no cash”. Turns out he is at a bit of a loose end. Having fallen out with his family, struggling for work, even having attempted to get into the French Foreign Legion and now staying out of the EU for Visa restrictions - a casualty of Brexit. In hindsight, I wish I had given him more money and hope his onwards travels go well. We, by comparison, have it so easy.
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Tran, Bulgaria, 26 August 2025
While Ali reads up on ‘what to do when a bear attacks you’, I can write up our day (but will make sure to check with her later).
So far all our camp spots have been well away from any homes and onlookers. Last night that proved difficult. Right after our last town comes a beautiful and narrow valley. Lovely for cycling, less good for tents. Only few flat patches and these are either rocky or full of fly-tipped waste. Not so nice. We almost settle for the rocky type, when a new idea occurs to us. Something we haven’t done before on this trip. Daring and potentially rewarding: ask a local if it is OK to pitch our tent in their garden. We push our bikes up a steep driveway. We are prepared. I pulled out a picture of our tent, so that we can immediately show what a tiny tent it is. And we have ChatGPT on the ready for translation. With all this in hand, I press the door bell. Nothing. Surely, someone must be here. There is a car next to the house. We cautiously look around. A man in his 60s emerges from a field, having just tended his plants. He wears a floppy hat and a friendly wide smile. Yet again, it is German (rather than ChatGPT) that bails us out. He has a daughter in Passau and understands what we are asking. “Warte” - he walks off at a gentle pace to a neighbouring building. After a few minutes he returns. “Natürlich”. He points at the larger garden of his neighbour, whom he just spoke to. That is a massive relief. Soft, level grass, with proper permission is a good deal better than roughing it on the rocky patch by the road. Once we set up our tent the lady comes to visit, with a cucumber as a gift. Little does she know how much they have already gifted us. A good night sleep.
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Today I crossed my 17th border. They have all been special in their own way. From the non-affair of the intra-EU borders, to the ones who just waved us through (Albania), or the ones we bypassed (Montenegro), or the proper checks, like the UK, where the border guard asks us which of our bike bags we would like to open for her to look at. My favourite one must be the Serbia-Bulgaria border. Firstly, it is properly pretty at the end of an avenue of birch trees. Second, it is interesting. A lengthy note on the Serbian side explains that ‘just because we accept Kosovo passports, doesn’t make Kosovo a country’ (but much better worded). The security check consists of the question whether we have cigarettes or alcohol. He doesn’t see the need to validate our ‘nope’ and waves us through. 50m later comes the Bulgarian barrier. Except, there is nobody in the booth. We look around. Nobody. The barrier is for cars I suppose. Let’s just wheel our bikes around it. That prompts a response. A woman in uniform who is having a smoke and a chat with her friends a little further down the road comes up to us and politely asks us to follow her back behind the barrier. She asks where we are going. The answer ‘Istanbul’ amuses her. She hands our passports back and makes a joke of opening the barrier, so that this time we do not need to go around it. She’ll now have plenty of time for another cigarettes and a chat before the next ‘customer’ arrives.
Oh, and if you wonder, in the presence of a bear, do not lie down but stare it down (to show it who’s boss). So glad I travel with Ali.
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Sofia, 27 August 2025
After our temperature shock of 19.7°C, two days ago, we notice that all the locals received their winter fire wood delivery yesterday. Massive loads of logs landed in every front garden - sometimes neatly stacked, sometimes just a heap. Not a day too soon. When we wake up in Tran this morning the new record low is 12°C. But it is that beautiful, crisp, clear cool that comes with the smell of mountains and forest. We are still high in the hills. It is perfectly quiet. No wind, no traffic, just a few Nepalese workers assembling with their brooms in the town square.
We have treated ourselves to a hotel. The kind of hotels we stay in better not be ranked with stars. Our preferred metric is ‘number of coat hangers’. Coat hangers matter, because hotels are a great opportunity to wash clothes and coat hangers are the limiting factor. One coat hanger is poor, but we have lucked out: four coat hangers. That means almost a full set of laundry. Four coat hangers make up for a lack of pretty much everything else, including any hotel staff. In the morning there is nobody at the reception. We take our bikes from the reception room, leave what we think is a fair price in cash on the desk and wheel off.
The ride from Tran to Sofia is among the most rural and remote cycling we have done. The fields are much larger than we have seen for a long time and the views reach incredibly far into the land and on to cascading layers of fainter and fainter blue mountain ranges in the distance. Otherwise there is precious little. Almost no traffic on the high quality rural toll (?!) road. No villages either, just miles and miles of beautiful road. The one or two villages we pass are fundamentally different from the ones of the past weeks. The houses are well kept and the gardens are neat. But there are no cafés, shops or other places were people would meet. Luckily we find a fountain for water.
That rural feel comes to a sudden end with the descent into Sofia. The traffic is like a culture shock. Loud, smelly, aggressive. The outskirts of Sofia are not fun to cycle. That changes when we reach a park with perfect cycle paths and we get right to the centre with ease from here. Ali is a great one for reading up about places, whereas I just wing it. Allegedly the number 2 best thing to do in Sofia is to go on a day trip to Skopje. Having just come from Skopje, I beg to disagree. Skip Skopje and spend more time in Sofia. It is amazing. Not for any particular attractions, of which there are many, but for the general vibe of the place. So many young people in public spaces - where have they all been these last few weeks? They give the city a buzzing feel. Lots of outdoor bars, restaurants or just spaces with benches. There are people everywhere and this is just Wednesday.
The other reason I am excited about Sofia is that we lucked out again on accommodation. We got rooms at a discount price ‘because they have not been decorated’. What that means is that we get full on socialist nostalgia decor. I love it. The balcony overlooks the city. Apparently the building design was intended for the coast and they mistakenly put it here. I take it. Best of all: seven coat hangers. Off the chart!
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