Adriatic Rollercoaster extreme (4SC250B)
With almost 300 kilometers and three countries, we have quite a program ahead of us today, but in return we have plenty of beautiful motorcycle routes with many different roads and landscapes from the Austrian mountains to the Mediterranean landscape of Istria. The plan for our first day is to cross Slovenia completely and ride to Motovun in the center of Croatia's beautiful Istrian peninsula. After our morning briefing, we leave Klagenfurt heading south and make our way towards the Loibl Pass. Although this is not a very high pass, it is very nice to ride and therefore an ideal start to our tour. We make our first stop on the pass and, barely an hour from our starting hotel, we have already crossed the border into Slovenia. Slovenia may only be a small country, but it has a lot to offer. With its hilly landscapes and long valleys, Slovenia is known as an outdoor paradise for hikers and climbers, but the many small side roads are also perfect for exploring this unknown country on our motorcycles. Our destination today is Motovun, a small town built in the Middle Ages, which is situated on a hill and offers a beautiful 360-degree view of the surrounding landscape.
We arrived safely in Istria yesterday and everyone is already looking forward to the opportunity to explore more of Croatia today. Croatia is a very popular travel destination in Europe and many vacationers from Austria and Germany come here to swim and hike, especially in summer. With its many small, little-used side roads and the fantastic Mediterranean landscape, Croatia is also a perfect destination for exploring by motorcycle. As we already got very close to the Mediterranean yesterday, we naturally want to see it today too, which is why the two largest of Croatia's more than 1000 islands with the melodious names “Cres” and “Krk” are our destination today. To get to them, we take the ferry twice and can enjoy the view of the Adriatic Sea from there.
Today we leave the beautiful Istrian peninsula and head to the Croatian mainland. Our destination today is the famous Plitvicka National Park. With its unique lake landscape, the park is one of Croatia's main attractions and is visited by a million people every year. To get there, we follow the beautiful Croatian coastline with its offshore islands for most of the day. As a special highlight today, we have the pleasure of driving parts of the legendary Jadranska Magistrala, one of the most beautiful coastal roads in the world, before heading inland.
As an exception, we leave our motorcycles behind this morning and set off on foot to explore the area. After all, we arrived in Plitvička Jezera yesterday and are just a few minutes away from Plitvice Lakes National Park. This was founded in 1949 and is therefore not only the oldest national park in south-eastern Europe, but was also one of the first natural monuments in the world to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979. After our visit there, it is also clear to us why the park with its unique lake landscape is visited by a million people every year. Of course, we don't want to do without our motorcycles completely today and so we set off towards Bosnia-Herzegovina in the afternoon. This small country in the Balkans is still a blank spot on the map, even for most Europeans, so we take the opportunity to make a detour there. Before we head for the border, we make a short detour to an abandoned airfield, which was built in the former Yugoslavia but has lain dormant since its collapse in 1992. The border between Croatia and Bosnia is still a “real” border crossing with passport controls etc., which is quite unusual in Europe these days, but everyone made it to Bosnia without any problems. Small roads with hardly any traffic and a wonderful hilly landscape await us there, which is perfect for our motorcycle tour.
We had a great time in Croatia and so it's hard to say goodbye this morning, but it's time to leave this wonderful country on the Adriatic and start our journey back north. Our destination today is Novo Mesto, the birthplace of Melania Trump in the south-eastern part of Slovenia and until then we still have many exciting kilometers of road ahead of us, because today we are exploring the northern part of Croatia on mostly very narrow, little-used side roads that bring us closer to the landscape in this part of Croatia. However, the highlight of the day was not just the driving, but our lunch stop. For this, we chose a 12th century castle on a hill near the town of Karlovac with a fantastic 360 degree view. We then decided to take the short route to Novo Mesto, as we wanted to have a little more time to explore this cute little town at our leisure.
Heute ist bereits unser letzter Fahrtag auf dieser Tour und wie immer verging die Zeit viel zu schnell. Aber wenigstens hatten wir heute, auf unserem Weg zurück nach Klagenfurt, noch einen tollen Tag. Wie es sich für ein Land wie Slowenien gehört, waren wir auch heute hauptsächlich auf kleinen, kurvenreichen Nebenstraßen unterwegs und konnten so noch so einiges von slowenischen Landschaft sehen. Wegen eines Radrennens waren heute viele Straßen in Slowenien gesperrt und wir waren gezwungen den ein oder anderen Umweg zu nehmen, aber schlussendlich sind wir doch in den Bergen angekommen und fuhren über den Paulitschsattel zurück nach Österreich. Danke an alle für eine super Tour und die tolle Gruppe. Hoffentlich sieht man sich bald auf der nächsten Tour. Daniel