Monday, 2013/09/02

I wake up early and sort out my things. Everything is already routine.

I really liked this campsite, except that there is no toilet paper on the toilets. Fortunately, I was prepared for this case. The toilets are squat toilets, which I personally find really quite pleasant.

I have overlooked that the office of the campsite opens from 9 am, but I'm only 15 minutes early, so I do not really have a problem.

Actually, I put in Split as destination for today on the sat nav, but I have doubts, no, I'm sure I will not be able to do that today. The windy roads along the coast will probably slow down too much, I think.

Therefore, I decide to ride as directly as possible to the Croatian border, even if I am briefly seduced to make a detour through Trieste, to visit it again with the bike. Together with Brigitte I have been to Trieste when the bike was brand new and there are some nice pictures and memories in my mind.

But I decide to do some distance instead. The first border crossing that deserves this name is coming up. I also have to change money for Croatia. I decide to change 100 euros to kuna. Of course, the "last bureau de change" in front of the border is an obvious choice. There is parked a motorcycle in front whose driver is already in the booth. I change 100 Euro into Croatian Kuna.

The motorbiker surprisingly speaks to me in German. I parked my motorcycle in a way that he realized my German license plate when he comes out of the booth. He asks me where I'm going, whether south along the coast, maybe Albania? I agree with both. And he proposes to drive together for a while.

I ask him if he's doing camping too. He says no. He is almost fifty years old and needs some comfort for his back. I laugh and tell that I am already over fifty years old and have camped the last 3 nights.

The Italian riding lesson begins. Without F., I would probably never have come this far, because my riding style is kind of civilized German. This includes that you do not overtake when there are solid middle lines and passing by all the other vehicles in traffic jams in front of traffic lights. I also have to get used to overtaking in many situations that are simply unthinkable in Germany. The repertoire of Italian and German motorcyclists is very different, but this has it's reason in a different relationship between two and four-wheel vehicles in southern countries. In traffic in southern countries motorbikers are simply much more present and accepted. Many car drivers also are riding two-wheelers or have ridden them before and therefore they are much more tolerant in dealing with the two-wheelers going in front of a row of waiting cars. When overtaking a car with your bike, the car drivers give you some space to pass by, sometimes even driving far to the right side of the road, so that (despite oncoming traffic) the motorcyclist are able to overtake in a kind of middle lane. As motorbiker from Germany you are not used to such behaviour from Germany.

So we rush along the coast together for the first few kilometers. On a windy bay, we stop and share the pannini of my companion and my butter cookies and take some Expresso in a cafe. We talk a little bit, get to know each other a bit and decide that we continue until about noon and then have dinner together.

After after a refueling stop at a gas station, we stop at a nice restaurant directly at the coast and have some delicious octopus risotto.

Together we decide for Split as final destination for today. Since it will be late until we arrive, we decide to look for a room in the evening and so the race along the Croatian coastal road starts. It's the day of the biggest mileage (at least if you do not count the days with highway rides), almost 500 kilometers of winding coastal road.

However, we arrive late in Split. It is already after 7 pm. We ride directly to the center. There we turn off the motorcycles and look for a room. My Italian rider is just asking at a kiosk, as we get addressed by an elderly lady, who has no foreign language skills at all, but shows us a room very close in a 2 bedroom apartment with bathroom. Perfect for our purpose. In our room are two single beds. The other room is inhabited by a German couple, who had already been on the bike in Albania before, as we find out next morning.

Parking our motorcycles in the designated place near the apartment is a challenge. The one-way regulations in Split are difficult to understand and we do not find the right way in several attempts. At least a motorbiker, whom I ask, leads us in the right direction. I show him the street of the appartment's location and he leads us another round through the one-way streets and stops nearby an archway through which we have to ride. On our search we passed by a police car five times, which was currently picking up a small accident, once we were doing it in a one-way street in the opposite direction of the traffic. They probably wondered a bit about that many big motorcycles passing by. For us it was a bit stressful, but now it is a funny anecdote.

The room costs 20 euros per person per night and is completely ok. Clean, linen provided and just 5 minutes walk from the center.

After making ourselves presentable, we go to the center for dinner. Split is very nice, nice places, nice streets. We eat well, make a lot of jokes, have a Google plus hangout with Brigitte (as in many restaurants and hotels throughout the trip, getting Wi-Fi is not a problem, just ask the waiters to choose the right one and enter the password). Then we stroll through the city center.

Finally it takes us to a trendy bar. We have a lot of fun and laugh a lot. Its getting late. Only at half past one we are back in the room. Slightly overdone, sleeping is not as easy and relaxing as it might be, but the day was really beautiful and eventful.