Modern Vespa

29/06: Lakes on a Plain

I'm just back from a holiday in Slovenia and Croatia with my boyfriend. I like to write quite lengthy, day-by-day accounts of these trips, so if that's not your thing, please skip! Otherwise, read on for the first of many instalments

The plan for the start of the trip was to take the Eurotunnel around 10AM, arriving in France in time for lunch. However, a routine pre-holiday service had thrown up a broken part deep within my Integra. It would be fixed under warranty, but the part would not arrive until 8AM on the morning of departure, and fitting it was a 3-hour job. So at the time Howard and I should have been boarding our train we were instead heading for Chiswick to reclaim my steed. The Honda shop knocked £100 off the bill to cover the expense of amending our bookings, but it still meant an extra twenty miles of South Circular at the start of a day's riding that was always going to be long, and a departure nearly five hours later than planned.

We decided to aim for the hotel we'd booked, the Hotel des Lacs at Celles-sur-Plaine in Alsace, and stop early if we really couldn't make it. We arrived in Calais at 16:15 local time, and hit the autoroute.

It was a long, hard slog, with a brief supper of service station sandwiches rather than my envisaged leisurely meal at the hotel's award-winning restaurant. At last, after dark, we left the motorway and travelled through darkened villages, then along a winding road through the misty forest. Mountains and lakes were intermittently visible through the fog; Howard disappeared around a bend ahead and I was alone in this eerily timeless place, apart from a pair of glowing eyes glimpsed up a track branching off the main road.

Howard found the village and I found the hotel, as is our usual procedure. It was a quarter to eleven, long after the ETA I had supplied, and the building was shuttered and dark. Trying not to panic, I looked up the hotel's phone number and spoke to the proprietress. She was warmly welcoming, and within minutes had come down, let us in, opened the garage for our bikes, and shown us to a well-appointed double room where we were able to enjoy a bath! before turning in.

We were late, we were tired, but we were back on track.

445 miles

It would have been nice to linger by the lakes, where a tourist map displayed evocative names like 'Plain of Sugar' and 'Rock of the Squirrel', and I had to pause my exploratory stroll to let a stream of US Army jeeps pass, but the road called. We moved on just before eleven, fortified by a hotel breakfast of bread and jam and an encounter with the hotel cat, a lakewater-eyed animal the colour and cat-relative size of a St Bernard.

The atmosphere was different as soon as we crossed the border into Germany. German motorways are busier, and while French service stations offer towels with Smurfs characters on, German ones sell porn magazines and miniatures of Jagermeister.

Having claimed that I was good for a couple of hours, I was alarmed to see my petrol gauge drop to the last bar and start flashing. Service areas, which seem to occur every 10km or so on French motorways, were rarer here, and the next one we reached was closed. Signs said it was 52km to the next, and I definitely wasn't going to make it, so we took the Karlsruhe exit. We found a petrol station fairly soon, and I suggested this might be a suitable point for a lunch break.

We had sausage and chips at a hot dog stand done up like an Alpine chalet, then navigated back out of the town, passing into Austria by a bridge alongside an enormous dam.

As we sped down the outside lane of the autobahn (soon I will run out of local translations for 'motorway'), we spotted a long skidmark with a bike on its side at the end of it. We pulled over on to the hard shoulder and I broke out my emergency!German, which is like my normal German but with 50% less grammar, to ask the motorcyclist if he was OK and whether there was anything we could do. He seemed remarkably unruffled, waved away offers of help, asked us where we were headed and wished us a good holiday.

After hours of unrelieved motorway, the scenery changed. Still motorway, but at least now it was motorway with mountains in the distance. We rolled into Salzburg, historic city of Mozart's birth, and checked in to our hotel (the Meininger, to which Howard insisted on referring as the 'My Ninja') in the grotty modern bit.

387 miles

Nice report Alice...I always enjoy reading about your adventures and seeing the photos.

After two days of slogging, Day Three actually felt like a holiday, with more leisurely, pleasurable riding. I had planned this part of the route so that it made sense for us to reacquaint ourselves with the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse, a beautiful biking road previously visited in 2008.

The pass is always popular, and on this visit we saw a procession of elderly scooters with sidecars, a VW camper convention, and some bubble cars. Yet it wasn't too busy to give us a clear run to the restaurant at the halfway point, along smooth, grippy tarmac with friendly curves and stunning mountain views.

At the restaurant I had sausage and chips, again, and a bottle of local soft drink Almdudler (with a catchy name like that, I can't understand why it hasn't achieved the worldwide saturation of Coke). I later discovered that my arms had got quite sunburned over lunch, no doubt because I was 3000 metres closer to the sun than usual.

Afterwards we ascended to the highest point attainable by motor vehicle, the Biker's Nest. I found this bit less enjoyable, as it's steep, tight, and paved with flat cobbles rather than tarmacked. I hung out for half an hour, buying souvenir ACHTUNG MURMELTIERE stickers and claiming some territory for MV while Howard went back for another, full-throttle go at the pass.

Late in the afternoon we crossed into Slovenia by the Wurzenpass, a short but sweet road whose 18% gradients turned out far less scary than I had envisaged. This was much more exciting than entering the country by motorway and tunnel; that route wouldn't have featured a tank at the side of the road, for one thing.

Through a deserted border control at the bottom, and we were in a country entirely new to us. Signs wished us welcome - <i>Dobro dosli</i> - but everything was strange: the language, the brands of shops and petrol stations, the shapes and colours of the road signs. We have been so often to France, and enough times to Italy and Germany, that we consider ourselves veterans of European travel, yet here so much was unknown.

We left the national park for a short stretch of motorway, passed through lovely but touristy Bled, and made our way to the village where we would be staying: Srednja vas v Bohinju, a name so alien I could only vaguely remember it by thinking of Sredni Vashtar. Google Maps is a great demystifier, but it hadn't told me our destination was up a steep hill and along a cracked single-track road. By the time we'd reached the end of the village without spotting our apartment I was panicking a little, but Howard worked out where it should be, we ascended by a hairpin hairier than any we had encountered on the day's two mountain passes, and were shown by the owners to the chalet-style flat which would be our base for the next three nights.

Our plan was to self-cater, but we were later than intended and the supermarkets were closed. So we headed down the hill to one of the village's two restaurants, where we were fed a huge mixed grill washed down by liqueurs with fruit at the bottom of the glass. We walked back in the dark, and I saw my first ever fireflies flickering and darting above the bushes.

237 miles

Don't stop now!!

Looking forward to the writeup and pictures, that's for sharing!

Almdudler is really very good!

Looks like a great trip so far! Post a picture of an Almdudler bottle!

Aww, I didn't take one

We woke at eleven on the morning after our mileage marathon, to a bright day with mountains in the distance and a hummingbird hawk moth in the window-box. We strolled through the village, remarking upon churches and garden gnomes along the way, to shop for supplies at the small supermarket. Most of the brands and many of the items on display were baffling, but after a lot of smiling and pointing we equipped ourselves with bread, salami and local cheese, which we brought home and ate.

Howard refused to go anywhere during the hottest part of the day, which left me fizzing with impatience until three, when we set off for nearby Lake Bohinj and it promptly started to rain. Luckily for Howard, it was only a shower.

We rode around the rim of the lake and up a hill to the end of the road, where a waterfall was promised. (The Slovenian for waterfall, by the way, is 'slap'.) Signs warned of a twenty-minute walk, and you had to pay to get in, but the falls, and the views on the way, were worth it.

Then, finally, we parked by the lake and I had a swim, which was what I'd really been looking forward to all along.

It was early evening, and beginning to be chilly at the end of a long, hot day, so we had the beach almost to ourselves. The water was a litle cold, but clear and pure. I could see no other swimmers; apart from a couple of kayaks and a passing pleasure boat, the lake, with its fringe of mountains and lid of empty sky, was all mine.

We arrived back at the apartment to find that the dessert fairies had paid a visit, and had deposited two helpings of pastry layered with apples on the kitchen worktop.

20 miles

your'e not afraid of aligators??,,nice pics tho

Love it Alice!

Thanks Doug!

No alligators - more concerned about broken glass!

The plan for today was to do the Vrič Pass along with some of the First World War Italian front. With a whole day at our disposal, we set off at a leisurely pace through pretty Alpine scenes of forests, cow pastures and the hay racks for which, it turns out, this region is famous.

Then the road we were following suddenly turned to gravel. Now, riding on gravel gives me the absolute heebie-jeebies; I hate the noise, and I hate the feeling, especially since with a large, tall bike I know I won't be able to save it if it does start to go. Rather than turn back, we decided to press on and see if it got any better. We passed a burned and abandoned village, razed by the Nazis, and crossed a little bridge. Eventually we emerged onto tarmac, and thence to bigger, faster roads.

Having experienced what passed for an unremarkable A road in Slovenia, I was nervous about the mountains ahead, and more so when the skies darkened in the direction we were making for. Thunder rolled close by, and we stopped in a layby to don waterproofs and make a plan. My suggestion was to press on and see what the weather did, stopping for lunch before the pass if it hadn't cleared up yet.

We did just that, parking outside a bar and negotiating in German with the proprietor for cheese and ham toasties. A friendly Austrian biker dropped by our table to compare notes, the sun came out, and the road dried. Vrič was on!

From my online research, I knew that the hairpin bends on the north side of the pass were cobbled. I was somewhat apprehensive, but they proved to be no problem in the dry. I had also learned that there were 48 hairpins and that signs helpfully numbered each one off. Working out what percentage of the bends I'd done was a fun game, and after 24 we found ourselves at the top of the pass, where we could admire the view, take photos, and in my case buy a sticker for bragging rights.

The sky was threatening again, but the descent was all tarmac and went quickly, so that Bend 48 brought a sense of triumph. When the 49 sign appeared I felt betrayed, but that really was the last one. The sun appeared again, and we rode down into heat and humidity. We spent the rest of the afternoon on smooth, fast roads, the good bits helpfully highlighted by signs forbidding us to fall off, and rode back to our village past Lake Bohinj again.

It was a higher-mileage day than I'd expected, but they were good miles overall. I spent my evening writing postcards and watching the mountains fade to black against the sky.

127 miles

Lovely!

Thanks for sharing with us!

Once I'd walked down to the post office to dispatch the Slovenian batch of postcards, it was time to leave our apartment in the mountains and move on to the town of Logatec, near the capital city. We had all day to do it, so elected to stay off the major routes and explore a little.

Inevitably, this meant another road that turned to gravel with no warning. If I must do gravel at all I prefer to do it in a straight line, at a steady pace, so the bends, ascents and descents we encountered were disconcerting to say the least. Round one corner we were surprised to come across a group of very young soldiers with very big guns, who gave us startled looks through their camo facepaint but let us pass.

After a particularly tough uphill bit I shuddered to a halt. We paused for refreshments, and for me to wipe a large, dead insect off my glasses. This was well-timed, as the only other vehicle we saw, a red car going the other way, passed while we were parked at the side of the road rather than meeting us head on. The driver stopped to ask if we were OK; I said that we were, but how long was the road like this?

"Another ten kilometres," came the reply. Oh. Goody.

We emerged unscathed, but with bikes and clothes so covered in white dust that we might as well both have fallen off, and stopped for ice cream in a little town with lovely murals on the walls of the post office. The roads climbed and fell, went from single carriageway to single track and back, and eventually delivered us via Vrhnika, where we had lunch, to Logatec.

Our hotel, the Gostice Jersin, was advertised as biker-friendly, but wait - what's that other symbol under the motorcycle?? Google Translate says: We arrived with some trepidation, but it was a perfectly acceptable hotel with a dry and roomy garage for the bikes.

The evening felt a little anticlimactic; we'd arrived a bit early to eat, a bit late to ride off somewhere else, and the town wasn't exactly brimming with sights and amenities. But it did have an enormous supermarket, and foreign supermarkets are one of my chief holiday delights, so we took the oppotunity to stock up on drinks and snacks before repairing to a pizzeria opposite the railway station.

I had always assumed I would be able to understand a pizza menu in pretty much any country, but I was baffled by Slovenian. We ordered what was obviously the house special on the grounds that it would probably suit us both. There was one unrecognisable topping - horse radish, perhaps? - but it was tasty and filling.

We had been puzzled over the last few days by the many roadside signs offering 'malice', often at certain times, e.g. MALICE 10 - 12. Howard took this opportunity to ask a waitress what it meant, and we learned it was Slovenian for 'brunch'. I can see 'going out for a spot of malice' becoming a tradition.

69 miles

Our two days in Logatec were more about tourism than touring, although, conveniently, there were some nice roads between us and the sites we visited.

Postojna Cave was an unashamed tourist trap, with stalls selling semiprecious stones and cuddly olms. I succumbed, inevitably, to a small wooden husky, who would come home safely cocooned in my clean socks.

We bought tickets, and at the appointed hour boarded a tiny train which whisked us to the heart of the caverns. I thought this was a bit namby-pamby until we were told that we now had a 25-minute walk past the main attractions and back to the 'station' in a a high-ceilinged rock cathedral. The train itself, rattling through narrow apertures and under low roofs, was pretty hair-raising too.

No pictures of the caves, as I knew they wouldn't come out, but we saw many impressive stalactite and stalagmite formations. I pointed out the propensity of the human brain to see familiar objects in random formations, like the Man in the Moon. I thought the stalagmites looked like meerkats; Howard thought they looked like willies. The pride of the caves, and their official symbol, is equally obviously an ice cream cone - even the guide admitted it.

We admired some olms, very pink and slippery-looking in their tank, then the train reclaimed us. Afterwards we rode through a brief summer shower to the border with Croatia, then turned around and came back. Time was getting on by the time we'd showered and changed, and the restaurant I had selected for dinner was closed. In the course of our search for an alternative we found a nice little cafe serving cake and ice cream. So we had cake for dinner, because we could.

90 miles

i had to look up olm - i thought it was going to be some kind of awful troglodyte but it is a happy blind amphibian

Still loving the report! Thanks!

They are very happy-looking, aren't they

About halfway through now!

We headed back towards Postojna, then past it on to pleasant country roads, bound for Predjama Castle. This is striking in appearance, backing as it does into a system of caves, some of which have been incorporated into the household as dog kennels, cellars and torture chambers. There are four floors, making a complete tour quite the workout.

After enduring an expensive and not very nice hot dog at Postojna the previous day, I'd taken the opportunity to visit a bakery back in Logatec and purchased two burek: flaky pastry tubes encasing meat, cheese and spinach. (The bakery lady kept up a torrent of Slovenian at me long after it must have been clear that I had run out at "hello", but at least she was friendly.) We brought these out and sat beside a centuries-old lime tree to have lunch. Here we were joined by an exceptionally incompetent ginger cat, who chose renowned cat-disliker Howard rather than me, the easy mark, to stare at while mewing piteously. Some burek may possibly have come its way all the same.

None of the cats in eastern Europe seem to know how to wash their feet, incidentally.

We had booked on a tour of the caves beneath the castle, and made our way to the start point for 1PM. The tour guide asked every member of the expedition where they were from and if they understood English. When it was our turn, I said that we were from England, so English would be fine.

"That's good," said our guide, "because I read on the Daily Mail website last week that lots of people in England, their first language is not English!" Later, she would take advantage of having native speakers at her disposal to ask us for a more adult alternative to 'poops' for describing bat guano.

I've been in caves before, but always thoroughly sanitised for the general public and bright with artificial light. Here, we carried our own light sources in the form of torches with clunky battery packs, and at one point scaled a set of steep and narrow steel stairs which terrified me. We picked our way across uneven floors, over mud, and through gaps, pausing to admire rock formations and the signatures of 16th century explorers.

The highlight of the caves, though, was BATS. Early on, our guide shone her torch on a small shrouded shape dangling from the ceiling (Howard was shocked, since in the UK it's illegal to shine torches at bats, but these ones didn't seem bothered), and later we would witness dozens of them clustered to the roof, while others put on a flying display. One, near the exit, was so low down that we could gather round and admire its dear little horseshoe nose.

It had been a packed few hours, but tourism time was not yet over. The previous day, we'd spotted signs for the Military History Park in Pivka, and today we planned to check it out. As well as an exhibition chronicling the military history of the region from Roman times onwards, they have two large halls and an outdoor area filled with tanks and other armoured hardware, plus a Gazelle helicopter and Thunderjet fighter-bomber.

The jewel of their collection, however, is a midget spy submarine, and we happily signed up to tour it in the company of a very personable young man. This was the stuff of Thunderball: it would sneak along the Italian coast before disgorging six spies, either riding sea scooters or clutching mines. We had the ever-popular sit in the driver's seat, then at our guide's request Howard sat on the loo to demonstrate how cramped it must have been for the 2-metre-tall captain who commanded the vessel at one time.

This was our last night in Logatec, and indeed in Slovenia. We dined at the hotel, where I had a glass of &euro;0.8 Slovenian white wine and half an inch of pear schapps which made my mouth feel as though I wouldn't need to clean my teeth that night, or possibly ever again.

64 miles

More commonly known as the axolotyl.

Nice reports, Alice.

Here is one who appears in the Nintendo DS game Animal Crossing. His name is Dr Shrunk.

We took a scenic, sweeping route to the Croatian border, past roadside signs warning of bears, and stopped for lunch at a restaurant with a view across miles of lake, forest and mountain. Here I talked to a Slovenian biker, taking care to compliment him on the beauty of his country and everyone's excellent English. He credited American films with the latter, "And Lady Di, of course."

Soon afterwards we reached the frontier and passed through. Nobody checked our passports, which meant we had now crossed five borders unchallenged. We found ourselves in a national park, the tarmac cracked and patchworked but the views spectacular. In a village we mislaid the main road and went round and round a mountain for a while before emerging at the bottom.

Stopping for petrol, it dawned on us that we had no money. Used to the Euro, we had both somehow missed the fact that Croatia has its own currency. Petrol could be paid for by card, but a coffee stop was out of the question. We remedied this as soon as we passed through a town sizeable enough to have a cashpoint.

Stalls at the side of the road offered cheese and honey for sale. The Croatian for cheese is 'sir', which meant that some of the signs were advertising 'Sir Cheese'. A black squirrel ran across the road in front of my bike, and we entered the Plitvice Lakes National Park, where we would be staying.

The Guest House Marija was small and clean. Marija, the owner, showed us to our room and brought glasses of homemade elderberry juice, most welcome after a long, hot ride. Later, she popped back to offer her garage for the bikes, since thunderstorms were on the way. We did as she suggested, thinking the offer kind but unnecessary. Twenty minutes later it started pouring with rain, the power went out, and the yard was covered by six inches of water.

When things eased off a bit we put on our biking waterproofs for the walk to nearby wigwam-themed restaurant the Wapitou, where we ate pasta and pancakes while watching other, less lucky bikers, who had yet to find their guest house or, even worse, campsite, plough through the rain.

204 miles

One could live lifetimes and never see that phrase again

We set off into a misty, dripping world, which cleared to sudden sunshine as we came out of the forest and alongside a vast lake. Wayside sights included unexpected tanks, guarding the entrance to a military establishment, and a very big dog followed faithfully by a very small puppy.

We had strong, cheap coffee at a truck stop, received our first Croatian coins in change and were delighted to discover that they had mustelids on. (Wikipedia: the currency is the kuna, taking its name from the marten pelts formerly used as money. <i>Kune</i> are divided into 100 lipa, which is a lime/linden leaf.)

Our destination was Split. Bikers and non-bikers alike rave about the Croatian coastline, and I was very much looking forward to being beside the seaside. We'd planned to take a minor road and peek at Bosnia, but when this yet again turned to gravel I rebelled and we turned back. The roads grew larger and busier as we travelled south, the air hotter. Eventually the dual carriageway disgorged us into Split in the company of all the traffic that had taken the motorway instead, and after some trial and error we found our hotel.

This was a bargain-bucket Best Western with a blissfully air-conditioned room and a shower you could adjust to squirt cold water at your bum, if that was what you wanted. Showered and changed, we sallied forth.

Split becomes more of a holiday town the closer you get to the sea. We walked through Diocletian's Palace, now perhaps the most historic and tasteful shopping mall ever, to the harbour, where gleaming boats bobbed among floating litter. Couples of all ages, families, dog-walkers and roller-bladers passed by as we sat at a waterfront bar eating sausage and chips.

Wandering afterwards, wanting to see stuff but at a slight loss, we happened upon a tourist road train about to make its last journey of the day up to Marjan hill and its park. We bumped over speed humps and got caught in traffic jams, then climbed slowly in the evening light to a beautiful forest before returning to a darker, cooler Split.

During our train ride the families had gone home and the nightclub and pub crawl crowd had appeared. We retired to our hotel and, aided by a friendly member of staff, continued our respective explorations of local beer and schnapps variants.

185 miles

The Croatian coast road is fabled among bikers, and I was the one who had insisted we make it part of our adventure. When we set off from Split, though, I felt I must have made a terrible mistake. The route crawled among morning traffic through one built-up area after another, and it was hot.

I enjoy just rolling through towns checking out the scenery, but I knew Howard would be hating it. At lunchtime we took a side road down to a seaside village, where we had lunch and, in my case, a quick swim. Afterwards the road climbed with the cliffs, becoming faster, cooler, emptier and generally more Howard-friendly.

I became intrigued by roadside stalls selling brightly-coloured liquids in bottles alongside strings of garlic, red and green chillies, and watermelons kept fresh by spray from hosepipes. We stopped in a layby and investigated one. The glowing bottles were fruit juices, and we bought a bottle of bright, sweet mandarin along with four fresh figs for a total cost of around £3. I asked if I could take a photo, and the stallholder insisted Howard had to be in it. He hates being photographed, but, as you can see, put on a brave face.

Looking at the map before our trip, we had noticed that the road passed through Bosnia for a few miles. We were concerned, not because we thought we'd be in any danger but because neither of us had insurance or breakdown cover for that country. It was an uneventful few miles, luckily, and, once again, nobody checked our passports. Shortly after we reentered Croatia, I happened to be looking down at my dashboard and noticed the odometer had ticked over to 10,000 miles.

Dubrovnik is another big town, with lots of steep, narrow streets stacked above each other. Eventually we found our road and a brand new apartment, completed that very week, whose owners were delighted to have us christen it. We bought supplies from the supermarket and ate them on our balcony, admiring our view of beach below and mountain above until it was too dark to see more than the lights of aeroplanes overhead and cars on the high coast road.

145 miles

When hotels.com said our apartment was 200 metres from the beach, I didn't realise it meant vertically as well as horizontally. I soon found the series of stone staircases that led down to the shore, went swimming three times in one day and still didn't feel it was quite enough.

I was amazed by the number and variety of fish on display, simply cruising around in the shallows unperturbed by swimmers. I saw shoals of striped and spotted fish, pale catfish travelling purposefully along the bottom, one small flat thing pretending to be a stone, and a sand-coloured octopus the size of my hand which oozed under a rock when it saw me see it. Prescription goggles: not just for making sure you select the right changing-room for your sex any more.

When Howard, who had been lurking in the air-conditioned apartment trying to find Tour de France coverage on TV, deemed it cool enough to go out, we rode to the border with Montenegro. This was the furthest point we reached, and everything looked extra strange and foreign: the slim, dark cypress trees, the wild lavender at the roadside, the police convoys flashing past. We stopped before the border and debated whether to pop in, but since neither of us had insurance or breakdown cover for the country, it seemed an unnecessary act of foolhardiness. Another time!

Returning to Dubrovnik, we took a stroll through the Old Town. This is still inhabited by both humans and cats; the main routes were all postcard and ice cream shops, but we saw washing-lines down alleyways.

I wanted to fit in one last swim before supper and bed. In the dark, the beach was deserted, but the water was so calm and shallow I wasn't afraid to go in. I swam under the stars and aeroplanes, to the sounds of a classical concert at one of the beachfront restaurants. It was so pleasant I wondered why everyone didn't do it, hoping the answer wasn't 'big sharks'.

52 miles

It was now time to start heading towards home. I had a final swim then we checked out of our apartment, with promises to return, and retraced our route along the coast road. Back in Bosnia, we stopped for a coffee just to say we'd done it. On the other side of the border we revisited the roadside fruit juice man, returned our empty bottle and bought another. I also purchased a large jar of olives, which would turn out to be the nicest I've ever had.

At Split we turned inland, away from the holiday route and into the countryside. After a coffee break we climbed steeply to a gorgeous stretch of high, straight road, where a friendly lorry-driver flashed his headlights to warn us of the police speed trap ahead. We dropped down towards the coast again, overtaking caravans in the dappled pine woods, and eventually reached Privlaka, a small village practically in the sea, along smaller and smaller roads which, improbably, led us to a four-star hotel a literal stone's throw (from the upper storeys, with a good arm, not that I tried) from the sea.

I had picked this one strategically: I was changed and in the deliciously warm water approximately ten minutes after checking in, working up an appetite for the tuna steak and potato croquettes I ate on the terrace as the sun set.

255 miles

The sky was blue, with a band of white cloud lying over the mountains like a duvet. We called in at a post office so I could discharge my final postcard obligations, then headed for a coastal route that ran parallel with the long island of Krk.

This stretch was described as 'scenic', and boy was it. Cliffs to the right, while on the left the view dropped away to blue sea and the brown, rugged island across the water. Howard took off and was soon out of sight around the curves, and there was little other traffic, leaving me free to cruise along while drinking in the view.

We stopped in Karlobag for pizza and in Senj, an old fortified town with cannon pointing out to sea, for 'Dalmatian' ice cream - not spotty, but flavoured with almonds, mandarin and lavender, all products of the region. The road climbed higher, past a blue and white striped lighthouse. Howard went ahead again and I didn't see him for so long I became convinced I'd lost my way somewhere, especially when I saw another stripey tower ahead and feared I'd doubled back.

Reunited, we stopped at a Lidl for supplies; our hotel was in the countryside and we weren't sure if they'd feed us, having been caught out that way before. Brands I knew from Lidl back home rubbed shoulders with strange producs like grapefruit shandy, and there were two coin slots in the trolley.

On the way to Porec, I spotted the tiny side road signed for the hamlet of Filipini. Half a kilometre up it we found a sort of chalet in the woods, with customers dining outside (so our fears were unfounded). The landlady welcomed us in a mixture of Croatian, English, German and Italian, and we were permitted to park our bikes in front of the small patio outside our room. The suite also boasted a toilet sanitised for our protection and an ancient, creaky wardrobe, which we locked for fear of vampires.

228 miles

"What would you like for breakfast?" asked the landlady in mostly-German. "Bread? Jam? Ham? Cheese? Eggs?" I froze with option paralysis, and she brought us all the above named (the eggs were scrambled, and delicious) as well as some ripe figs. And a plate of tomatoes, but I forgave her.

Once packed, we had three hours to get ourselves to Koper, back in Slovenia, and board the Motorail, or autoslaaptrein, which would whizz us overnight to 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. We stayed off the motorway, taking back roads past roundabouts planted with lavender, and I remembered my desire to buy a string of garlic from one of the roadside stands. At the first one I tried, the stallholder just shrugged and said "Nicht verstehen" when I pointed at the garlic while holding out my wallet, so we concluded he must not want my money and moved on to a more amenable salesperson. (My top box, and the rest of its contents, recovered from the garlic in due course.)

We hit a long queue before the border and filtered through as best we could, hampered by a group of Czech bikers who weren't very good at it. Finally, ten border crossings into our holiday, we had our passports checked - although the customs official seemed only to be checking that it was indeed a passport, rather than examining my details.

By following signs for the station and then spotting a parked bike, we found our way to the right platform and were told to remove any luggage we wanted on voyage before riding the bikes on to the train. It was only when Howard ducked that I realised the roof of the vehicle compartment was so low I would have to crouch right down behind my windscreen. I stopped to rearrange myself and simply could not get going again, bottling it utterly. The staff were very nice and one of them radioed another to send Howard back up. He parked my bike for me while I reviled myself for being so rubbish, then we watched until both were safely strapped down.

Our sleeper compartment was small but comfortable. We dumped the luggage then headed to a supermarket for more supplies, particularly of the liquid variety, since it was a hot day and we didn't fancy paying train prices for refreshments. (Bringing your own alcohol is forbidden but we may possibly have transgressed, and telltale ringpull sounds from the neighbouring compartment told us we weren't alone.)

As we waited for the off, our charming Dutch steward popped in to show us how the wash basin worked and offer us a plastic glass of champagne. At last we were moving, the air conditioning kicked in, and we sat back to enjoy the view.

It was peculiar, whizzing back in the space of a few hours past places we'd been over the course of a week. We saw fields, mountains and stations, raced cars on the motorway, and waved to a group of bikers waiting at a level crossing. We shot through tunnels and sat through mysterious stops and changes of direction. It rained; it stopped raining; we were brought our 'airline style meal' and a coffee. Night fell and we climbed rapidly into the Austrian mountains, towards the moon.

When it was too dark to make out anything more, we summoned the steward to activate our beds and I ascended to the top bunk while Howard took the lower.

41 miles (plus lots by rail)

Was the train very expensive? Last time I looked at one of these I suffered a hearty dose of sticker shock.

It is a bit, but then take into account 2-3 days' travel by road, with food, petrol and overnight stops...

It's LOTS cheaper if you take a place in a 6-berth cabin rather than a sleeper, but I didn't fancy that. (http://www.railsavers.com/ also do special offers.)

Our steward restored our sleeper to its former configuration and brought us breakfast of bread rolls with jam and paté. Unsure of the procedure once the train stopped at our destination, we found ourselves turfed off it in short order and standing in a confused huddle with the rest of the passengers. Then a railway worker handed everyone a hi-viz waistcoat (she laughed because I was already wearing one, but still had to put the regulation railway version on top) and we walked along the line to reclaim our vehicles.

I successfully rode my bike off the train by the simple expedient of not wearing my helmet, which gave me several extra inches of clearance. It was very odd riding along a station platform in a line of cars and bikes, but the system seemed to work. We returned our hi-viz, loaded the bikes, and set off.

We had blithely assumed that having navigated across eastern Europe, finding our way back to Calais would be a doddle. In fact we got lost exiting the station and lost again in 'sHertogenbosch, ending up on a country road which, while charming, was clearly not about to turn into a motorway.

Once pointed in the right direction by the lead driver of a classic car rally, we made rapid progress across Holland and Belgium. We arrived in ample time to make the Chunnel crossing we'd booked, and rolled off the train in Folkstone to late-afternoon sun. Howard and I parted at the M20/M26 junction, and the holiday was officially over.

Until the Motorail piqued my interest, Slovenia wasn't somewhere I'd considered as a holiday destination, although I'd heard good things about Croatia. But it was a wonderful trip, filled with great roads, amazing scenery and starchy food. Howard's appetite was so whetted he has talked about a future trip to Romania. That seems a little ambitious to me, but we'll see. And next time, I will ride my own bike both on and off the train...

274 miles
Trip total: 2823

A lovely report, thank you Alice.

Our bucket-list of must-do places to ride through has just increased...

Oh, that damn list - mine is always growing Definitely recommend the Motorail for speed and convenience.

[I thought the stalagmites looked like meerkats; Howard thought they looked like willies]. Best quote ever! Wonderful narration through your journey!

Thank you!

Very nice day by day layout of your adventure.
Sounds like a great trip.
I would love to do a long ride myself, work gets in the way of that.
Any light house pictures? Just wondered.

Thanks for the report

Tony

Alas no - we didn't stop near any of the lighthouses. Glad you enjoyed the writeup!

Want a more compact and convenient report? I wrote it up for South East Biker, available online at http://issuu.com/magazineproduction/docs/seb_30_dec-jan_14_ezine/1?e=1127854/5721944 and on paper from various distributors

I really enjoy your style of writing, hope to read many more. The pictures are what really set it apart.