The Platonic Day

Zoastrug – Slano, Croatia

Not that kind of platonic. As usual, your mind is in the gutter. Like I would tell you about that side of things anyway . . .

No. I’m talking about the platonic form of a day spent bicycle touring. 

Turns out that bike touring in Croatia is pretty much the most perfect  form – the platonic form – of the activity. So I thought it might be a good time to do a bit of a day in the life type post . . .

We wake up about 7 a.m. 

After a few minutes of adjusting, and maybe figuring out where we are today, we stir a bit. But before anyone leaves the tent, we deflate and put away the mattress and the pillows, we stuff the sleeping bag into its stuff sack, and make sure that the rest of the items that have made their way into the tent are placed outside for later putting away.

Next, Diana makes her way to the bathroom and I start preparing breakfast. This is generally easier said than done – because even in Croatia, with all its perfection, there are no tables or chairs at the campsites. The upshot is that I usually put stuff away as best I can, and then I head out to find some good public space in which to spread out our stuff, boil some water, and make coffee and tea and oatmeal. 

This morning that place was down on the beach, across the street from the campground. The wall along the edge of the beach made for a nice “countertop” on which to cook. 

It’s true that we probably look kind of homeless at this point . . .

There’s the cook stove, our one pot, our two metal mugs, our two bowls, our two eating spoons and our one larger stirring spoon, the coffee grounds, the tea bags, the oatmeal, the nuts and raisins we put in the oatmeal, the apple we also put in the oatmeal along with the “cutting board” (a thin sheet of plastic that pretty much does the trick), an absconded roll of paper towels, our salt shaker, and our little lunch box sized “refrigerator” (a zippered lunch box that we bought at a Chinese goods store; it’s lined with that reflective metal stuff that is supposed to hold in the cold) with our cream and butter. Oh, don’t forget our small wooden butter knife – also purchased at the Chinese store. And sugar – we have a small bag of sugar with a little screw top that we found a few countries back. Pretty handy. Finally, Diana’s yogurt. She tries to have yogurt most mornings – although there are times that she has trouble finding something that meets her rigorous cultured dairy standards . . .

All this stuff is spread out over about a ten foot stretch of real estate. Anyone who walks by can survey basically everything that we own. I keep waiting for someone to say that we are being unsightly or something . . . But so far there have been no complaints. On the contrary, people generally seem to think it’s kind of cute. In France people would walk by and say things like: “Bon Appetit!”

And then we eat. Afterwards, we wash up the dishes with our one scrubby and a tiny thing of soap – and then we pack up whatever is left of the tent and camping gear. We’re generally done with breakfast, packed and on the road by 8:30 or 9. 

Of course, this morning was not quite normal. We ended up having breakfast with our new friends Steffen and Regina, nurses from Bremen, Germany. They were camping in their camper van right next to us last night. Steffen wanted to tell us about some campsites that they liked in Montenegro, so we joined them at the cafe they were having coffee at on the beach. 

Next we set our route for the day on Google Maps (Diana has usually identified the campground or hotel that we are hoping to make it to the night before). Then one last trip to the bathroom, drink our fill, and re-fill the water bottles . . .

And we’re off . . .

I feel like the biking portion of things is pretty well covered, so won’t go into too much detail on that right now . . .

Round about 10:30 I start getting hungry and find some kind of snack (pain au chocolate is a favorite – but that seems to be in the rear view mirror now – so it’s whatever I can find . . .). Hopefully by noon we find a grocery store or bakery, or, like today, both. 

Now, in Latin America we were eating more empanadas and tacos (there were no bakeries – or at least not any good ones – and even the grocery stores had nothing but Wonder Bread) and in Spain and France we were making sandwiches every day. We would buy a baguette and sausage and cheese, maybe a tomato and an avocado. We have butter in the “fridge,”

and mustard. And I’ll typically buy a beer that I’ll have upon arriving at the campground – but that serves to keep the ‘fridge at least somewhat cool during the heat of the day . . .

Lately we’ve been having more pizza (in Italy) and Croatian baked goods (yesterday was a hot dog baked into some bread type thing;

today some kind of really good phyllo dough meat pie).

Or, I should say, that’s what I’ve been having. Diana has been piecing together lunch out of bread and butter, and burrata and jam, or something like that . . . (I’m never actually sure how she manages to power her way through a whole day . . .). 

We pretty much eat wherever we can find a place. Today that meant in a fruit stand along the highway that happened to be available because it wasn’t open. 

There are usually a few other random stops thrown in. Like a few picture opportunities. (Diana can become irritated if there are too many of these stops (cuts into her swimming time later in the day) – unless, of course, we are in a place with surpassing beauty, like Croatia – and then she’s the one taking the pictures.)

This morning we had two significant stops before lunch. 

First, an amazing overlook of these six fresh-water lakes – because that’s the kind of thing that Croatia seems to have around every corner . . . We took some pictures – but we also met some Dutch tourists who were driving around in a tour bus,

and we bought some fig jam from a Croatian lady who made the jam herself. (Diana loves fig jam, and we both love homemade stuff like this . . .)

Then, later, Diana noticed that one of the other “fresh & local” type stands was selling fresh fruit juice. So we stopped and purchased two jars: strawberry and peach. (Note that when we first started on this trip Dr. Liu forbade me from drinking stuff like this in Mexico – which made sense because, I guess, pathogens or something can breed in there . . . But as the trip has gone along that concern has kind of gone by the wayside . . .). 

Kind of a fun purchase. The woman selling the stuff originally wanted $10 for the two of them. Way too rich for our blood, so we were just going to get one. But that prompted the woman to bring the price down – so we ended up at $7. Still highway robbery – but she seemed like a sweet lady and we wanted to try them both anyway . . . And it’s always fun to feel like you got a “deal.”

The afternoon is usually more about putting our heads down to finish the ride. It’s getting hot, and by 3 or 4 we are both wanting to be done. 

Today was, of course, not quite a normal day in this regard. Turned out that we had to make another adjustment in our routing. We had been planning to go over this big bridge onto this peninsula that juts out into the Adriatic. Looked pretty cool. 

But over lunch Diana realized that it was shorter to skip the bridge and the peninsula. And potentially more interesting – go through a short piece of Bosnia and Herzegovina instead. 

Sorry – we need to take a minute on a diversion into history and stuff for a second. Bosnia and Herzegovina have this little access to the Adriatic because, in the 1600s, the Dubrovnik city state was afraid of the Venetian city state. They decided to give a small piece of land – about 6 miles wide – to the Ottoman Empire, and, in exchange, the Ottomans would protect the Dubrovnik folks from the Venetians. That land ended up passing down through the various iterations of Yugoslavia as part of the Bosnian state. It would kind of cut Croatia in two except that the Croatians built a big bridge out onto this peninsula that juts out into the Adriatic right there – effectively connecting the two parts of the country.

Anyway, when we finished lunch we still weren’t sure what we were going to do. But when we reached the bridge – and the decision point – we realized that bikes are not allowed on the bridge in the first place. Upshot being that we had no choice but to go through Bosnia and Herzegovina if we wanted to keep moving forward . . .

Turned out to be a pretty cool route. Our eighteenth country. A new sticker – although not a very exciting one; the new sticker has no graphics, just the letters BiH – I guess standing for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also, we had to pass through the border twice: once going in, and once coming out. With two border crossings we ended up with four new passport stamps – one leaving Croatia, one entering B & H, one entering Croatia, one leaving B & H. After all the non-border crossings we’ve had in the EU it was kind of fun . . . (Because, remember, B & H is not in the EU. They’ve applied, but their application is in some kind of pending category . . .)

All this for a six mile trip through B & H . . .

We typically arrive at our campground (we’ve pretty much been camping almost exclusively for the past few weeks – with the exception of Florence and the ferries) around 4-4:30 or so. Check in, put up our tent, and then Diana rushes off to take a swim. 

Once again, our platonic form of a day was a bit spoiled because this is the most social campground we’ve ever been to. Within fifteen minutes of arrival this old German guy – Johan – decided to take us under his wing. He showed me that the campground has a nice lounge type area where you can sit down and eat, a refrigerator, and even a big grill – with wood all ready to go. (I was pretty proud of myself – because I gleaned all of this with my limited German (Johan does not speak English). But then, as I’ve said before, I think my sign language/telepathic language skills are pretty impressive, really . . .)

Once we learned that we had all of these facilities available to us, we decided that we would do a grocery store run and make dinner. (Forgot to mention that there were several herb collecting stops today: mint, sage, rosemary, thyme, and fennel. What we really wanted was to use the herbs to grill lamb . . .) Diana was eager enough to swim that she entrusted me with the shopping – which is a pretty big deal because of my propensity to screw up the cream and the yogurt . . .

Sadly, the grocery store was not very impressive. I asked if they had lamb, and they just laughed at me. 

But I did meet a new friend there. Franz. He’s from Austria and on a big four week bike tour covering much of the ground that we have in front of us. I ended up inviting him for dinner. First time we’ve entertained on the whole trip . . .

We ended up having grilled chicken, grilled vegetables, and grilled potatoes and onions. Kind of weird to have to tell your guest to bring their own plate and fork – and we served out of tinfoil, but it was a good meal nonetheless.

And then, during dinner, we met another biking couple: Joanna and Basile from France. They are young architecture students so they like to bike through cities and survey the buildings. 

Half way through dinner we almost got in trouble though. Marianna, our camp host, did not recognize Franz. I think she thought he was trying to camp for free. 

“Where are you staying?” she demanded. 

We explained that he was our dinner guest, but I felt like maybe I was supposed to ask permission before inviting him. Kind of felt like I was back in high school. Was afraid I was going to get detention or something. In the end it was fine. Marianna is just a little high strung . . .

And then, off to the tent . . . Where we plan our next day (Diana taking the lead) and write the blog . . . And then fade off for the night.

So that’s a day in our lives . . .

It helps to be in Croatia, where the temperatures are pretty much perfect, there is never a cloud in the sky, everything is clean and orderly, there are campgrounds every few miles, and the riding and the views are incredible. 

Tomorrow we ride through Dubrovnik before we likely wind up in Montenegro. 

Keep sending thoughts and suggestions . . .