Bosnia and back, the write-up

Gotta cook some food now, will continue in a bit!

Day 12

Walking around Mostar in the morning it the damage of the war was still plainly evident. There were some ruined buildings too dangerous to even approach



And even some buildings with clear RPG hits and bullet holes that were still lived in:



We headed out of Mostar and crossed the border into Croatia heading just north of Dubrovnic. Out in the middle of nowhere we came accross this house that was built exactly like a ship! We had a nose around and could see a swimming pool in the front part, but it looked rather abandoned. I have no idea what the story is behind it, but someone clearly had a vision but sadly couldn't complete it.



Croatia is very pretty but actually a lot more barren than I was expecting. It is largely rocky with scrubby gorse bushes, rather like bits of Spain. We had to miss Dubrovnic due to being behind schedule, so we opted for the motorway to Split. It is a newly built thing with tolls on it, and very swish. After making up time, we turned off the motorway at the peak of some mountains it was busy climbing up. Here is a picture of the three orgers under the explicit instructions to look hard hahaha



Well at least the mountain in the background is nice . We then realised we had missed the turn-off to the coastal road, and decided to head back to it despite it getting late. This is the best decision we have ever made. The Croatian coastal road is a freshly resurface black tarmac road, which sweeps in and out of coves and bays round headlands through sleepy villiages and trendy marinas. There must be something like two hundred bends in a row. AS someone put, if we had three of these bends on an english road it would be called an amazing road! The sun was setting ahead of us, so I donned my shades, opened the visor, and just rode this road for ages with Stu. The heat of the 32 degree motorway was fading into a pleasent warmth, the sunset was bathing everything in a glorious red light and the road was so long and perfect I just thought I was having one of the best experiences of my life. It's like the great feeling you get on a perfect rare bend in the UK but going on and on for miles and miles. Utterly perfect.




We have some videos of this road, but are hoping to collate it all into one video diary so I will save them for later. I did make a google map of the best roads we had ridden. Check it out here and zoom into the Croatian road for the true volume of great bends.

We found a campsite for the night and headed out to a restaurant for a meal. After ordeing 6 "Zagreb" steaks, we noticed that the only waiter in the place leapt into a van and tore off. Then 15 minutes later he returned and ran into the back with a plastic bag. Then 15 minutes later our food arrived . Oh well! Back at the campsite, we erected our tents but largely without pegs as the ground seemed to consist of a fine sprinkling of earth coving a heavy sprinkling of concrete .

Day 13

We left our campsite and rode the rest of the coastal road; still every bit as good as the day before. We then turned off and climbed through the mountains to get to Slovenia. As soon as we had passed the peak of the mountains we were surrounded by a much different climate, much more alpine, like the black forest.



The roads were brilliant again, and we even hit a section which had clearly been used as a hill climb as there were red and white striped kerbs and advertising on the hairpin walls!



Totally brilliant set of roads winding up and down the hills, but there were a few dodgy patches of dirt and holes that caused a few brown trouser moments for Phil and Andy (I already had brown trousers owing to not bringing enough pants).
We had a lovely pizza in a small villiage and made our way to the Slovenian border, back into the EU!

Slovenia was actually quite modern, I guess being the only former Yugoslavian country to be in the EU. It is very pretty and still quite cheap. Bit like Black forest, Switzerland and Italy only cheaper and less discovered. I would totally recommend it. We made our way (allowing for some closed off motorways) to lake Bled, Slovenia's number one tourist destination. For good reason, this mountain lake is stunning, boasting a castle and a church on an island as well as a swimmable lake.



We camped at the camp site there amongst a lot of other western tourists. The prices were back in Euros and were near normal prices, so Lake Bled is certainly back in Western Europe really which is a shame. We could have done with a lot more time there, it is a very nice place, but time was not on our side and we had to spend the night and get going again.

Day 14

It was at this point that Stu's front tyre really wasn't having anymore of it. We had been poking it for the last week, thinking it wasn't going to last. It was looking worse and worse and so we decided to get him a new one. This proved quite hard. After a quick consultation with a brother in England with the internet, we were presented with the number of a motorcycle tyre place in Austria, 30 mins north of where we were. I rang them and in my best German attempted to order a tyre for the following day. (Well, this was done yesterday, so today was the following day). Stu and PJ departed early to do the detour to Austria. In the meantime the rest of the gang headed west towards Italy. Now we kind of had a hunch that you had to pay to use motorways in Switzerland, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria etc (ok ok we knew!) but we had never been challenged nor seen any place to buy vignettes. However PJ and Stu crossed into Austria at a large toll tunnel where they were stopped and forced to buy Austrian vignettes because they were on the motorway. By an astounding piece of deduction, the border guard worked out that they must have also been on the Slovenian motorway, so there was another 35 Euros each for a Slovenian motorway vignette! All for a 2 hour detour to get a new tyre fitted (which went fine thankfully). If anyone wants a Slovenian motorway vignette they can buy PJs half price, it is valid for 6 months .

In the meantime, we had made our way into some truly phenomenal roads in the Italian dolomites. The roads began with an SS road following the motorway which was perched high up on concrete pillars whilst we enjoyed sweeping bends underneath it down the valley. We then wound our way into the dolomites through some mountain passes as marked on the previous googlemaps link in the previous post. These roads were phenominal! Great surface, loads of crazy bends and beautiful scenery. I had an absolutely great time again; we also did more recording which should be available on the DVD when we release it (£12.99 from amazon ).



We visited many mountain villages with stonking views and solid good roads for miles and miles and miles.





When it was getting dark, PJ and Stu were still 1 hour behind us, so we were tasked with finding a campsite. Unfortunately we had wandered into the poshest region in the whole of the Italian dolomites! If you have been to Gstaad in Switzerland, it was like that. BMWs everywhere, ladies in mink and so on. The only campsite for miles around was 19 Euros each! Anyway, we booked in and finally had a nice shower in the card-access showerblock. Here is a shot of my SV with the dolomites in the background. You can see the many stickers that now adorned it from the various places we had visited .




We set up the tents next to a Mercedes of posh camping people, and made our way to the nearest restaurant. Ahead of us was a family who went into the restaurant hand in hand, father with jumper draped over shoulders, kids in neat little matching clothes. Then we went in. 6 unshaven smelly men (you can shower but then only have dirty clothes to get back into!) who swaggered in and attempted to order some red wine in poor Italian accents. Our attempts must have impressed the waitress, as before long we had 6 lovely pizzas, a bottle of excellent Italian wine and guns and roses on the stereo! The rest of the night is a blur I'm afraid.

Day 15

The Stelvio pass. We set off from the campsite along yet more gorgeous Italian mountain roads, having the time of our lives. As we wound our way towards the Swiss border, we started the ascent to the "Passo Del Stelvio". The roads became steeper and steeper, incorporating some amazingly tight hairpins. they literally swiveled straight back onto themselves, so going right round them meant swinging out to the other side of the road and still dropping the bike in and turning on a sixpence. Dragging rear brake, high revs and riding the clutch was the only way to do them, I finally saw why you have to practice U-turns on your DAS! The scenery turned more and more mountainous and soon glaciers were appearing.



As the tree line disappeared the temperature plummetted and we all got significantly colder as the climb continued. Hairpin after hairpin, it never seemed to end! Shortley after we were greeted with the following sight:



The road winding all the way up to the Stelvio pass. Lots of bikers going up it, so we chased a few Porsches up there, frightening ourselves on jsut about every bend! The view from the top was breathtaking though:




We have of course more videos of it, but that will have to wait . Once at the top we bought a sticker, bought a bratwurst, and sat on the wall to contemplate the climb. It wasn't the best biking road per say, as the bends were so tight, but it was an incredible experience, and well worth it.




Now I have to admit here that we didn't all make it up the pass totally without incident. As Matt was following Philbut, he watched him swing rather wide on the exit to one of the hairpins, which resulted in a resounding "CLANG" which echoed down the mountain. Phill had clipped the outside wall with his pannier! In true Phill style, there was barely a wobble as he continued to storm up the pass



The road down the other side was equally impressive. As we entered Switzerland the road to Davos turned out to be totally glorious! I think it had been on Top Gear as the best road ever or something. It was a mix of hairpains and sweeping bends through ravines, over rivers and through forests. Sadly I have no photos of it as I was enjoying it so much! Here is a piccy of the road back down the mountain in Switzerland:



These roads were so great that despite many internal voices telling us to take it easy with the luggage on and unknown roads, all care went out of the window and we just pinned it and had the time of our lives. Almost got no chicken strips left and that is with full luggage! Matt's Ducati 600SS had a bit of a fit after a while as he lost braking thanks to his single front disc just fading to nothing. We did think he was rather fast round some of the bends , it was just he couldn't stop and as he put it "tip in or fly off the edge" .

After Davos and the amazing road, the heavens opened again sadly and we had the smiles wiped firmly off our faces. Soaking wet we got to Hinwil near Zurich where we met up with Andy's mate. Luckily we were allowed to stay in his house, so we got dried off and went out for a meal. After the meal (20 different types of cordon blue!), we went to a huge pirate ship bar! It was a biker gang called the Hinwil Pirates that made it, and it is like being inside a galleon once inside. Really impressive. They also had a cover band doing ZZ top and various other classics, so we grabbed a load of beers and had a thoroughly good time!



I have many photos of this night, but there is a lot of gurning and arsing around inside a huge pirate ship so I will spare you that!

Day 16

In the pouring rain we set off for Luxemburg. After not buying a Swiss motorway vignette (stingy, us?! Europeans don't have to pay to use our motorways do they!) we exited Switzerland safely into France (or Germany by mistake for me). We made it to Luxemburg mainly by boring motorway, eating up the miles as we had no time. We made it to PJ's friend Feona's house, and we were allowed to camp in a tiny grass section of her allotment hehe.



Sadly there was a price to pay. They were redoing their house and so had a whole shed of wood that needed getting rid of and did we mind awefully burning it for them? Hehehehehehehe we didn't mind!

Day 17

Just more motorway miles to Belgium to stay at my parents house where PJ made an **** of himself with the largest of my Dad's collection of shell cases.



Parents were there this time and welcomed us with crates of beer and a slap-up meal. Thank you!
Only thing of note that happened on this day was Matt's chain jumped off his sprocket. It had been stretching somewhat cronic so he had been adjusting it every day. But it had just had too much and leapt off at about 5 mph luckily. No damage was done, the chain was reattached and adjusted again and we managed to limp home.

Day 18

Everyone left to get the ferry back home. Not sure how we got 18 days out of a two week holiday, but who cares! When we got to the ferry terminal the computers had crashed, causing a slight delay. Three cars back in the other lane was an English bloke yelling his head off effing and blinding at everyone. He had a watch with and England flag on, and England wallet, England back patch, his car sticker said "This is Anfield" and his number plate was as follows:




After so many great experiences and friendly people this guy just made us feel utterly rotten about returning to England. Driving a German car too we noticed ironically! Anyway, met two other loverly English blokes, so proves you can't ever ever generalise!



All in all, the trip was incredible. Totally exhausting, full of excitement and danger and some truly excellent roads. I would do it again in a heartbeat, I would recommend it to anyone with a heart of adventure. The SV perfomred admirably. I had a painful bum but after 3500 miles I think everyone else did. Having no fairing was tough work, but my neck turned into a bull's neck, and if you stop moaning for a while you notice that you really don't have it that bad at all, as you tear off into the sunset riding those beautiful roads again and again.

Nick

[dizzyblonde]

This is spectacular

Love it. Great read and pics!

Fantastic, well done all of you. Has been a brilliant read and some truly superb photo`s.

[dizzyblonde]

Matt just said he'd find it massively amusing to go up this on his YPVS...but er maybe not so much on the way down!!

[Balky001]

I went through France, Germany, Austria Liechtenstein and Swizerland last year in the car (and family!), I have some good photos but yours really are superb, great write up too. Thanks