Split – Makarska – Slano – Dubrovnik: 341 km

Croatia just doesn’t let down. Turn after turn, road after road the views get better, cute villages and beautiful old towns scattered along the route. It’s unreal. Some of the climbs are tough but I’ve been getting used to that. After long days of climbing, the ocean is always near and the days often turn into a relaxing evening watching the sunset on the beach. Today is one of those days. Makarska is a beautiful tiny town right on the Adriatic coast. The kind of town with one supermarket, a bakery and two restaurants, and an abandoned seaside resort. I guess mass tourism never really won here.

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The next day I set out for the peninsula of Pelješac, but I will not get there. I wake up early because I’m planning to take a ferry from Ploče. I’ve checked the timetable and the last 15 kilometres I have to pace to get there in time. Once there, sweaty and out of breath, I’m told the next ferry leaves in about three hours. Confused I check the departure times online again. “No, we decided to start earlier with the off-season schedule this year”, the woman behind the counter explains. “Have lunch, drink a coffee and come back”, she advises. I’m not feeling her advice. Ploče is not a very welcoming city. Actually, it’s a place that just doesn’t feel comfortable at all. Perhaps it’s the neglected concrete, what seems like communist, architecture. Or the heavy harbour industry that is fighting the city for room.

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Annoyed I decide to push on. Where exactly, I have no idea. Luckily, it’s just past noon so I have time to get… well, anywhere. Before long, I enter Bosnia and Herzegovina, and about an hour later I’ve cycled their complete coastline and enter Croatia again. While checking my map my eye falls on a little place along a bay called Slano. The planned 60 kilometres turn into 130. The last 30 I complete fuelled by the annoyance and irritation I feel towards the ferry operator. But Slano, and the beautiful campsite I stay at that night, are the best rewards after a day like this. The is bay filled with the bluest water that changes colour now the sun is setting behind the surrounding mountains. At the campsite I meet two German cyclists. We have pizza at a local restaurant and share stories over wine back at the camp. In the end, a pretty good day.

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The next day is a short one. Without any problems I arrive in Dubrovnik. I know that Abhi and Parkishit, the friends I met in Zadar and saw again in Split, are here too. I arrive in the early afternoon, give them a call, and before I know it, we’re cliff diving at the edge of town. Dubrovnik reminds me of Split. Same orange tiled roofs on top of the broken-white houses, impressively old architecture and churches, and here too, the polished marble streets again. The Game of Throne references are more prevailing though, Dubrovnik after all, was the stage of King’s Landing. Fortunately, also here the season is ending, together with COVID that means that the streets are actually walkable and the city doesn’t have the appearance of a clogged-up festival passage. That also means that I’m the only one in a ten-dorm hostel. I stay a couple of days, meet up with the guys and get lost in Durvonik’s alleys and history.